Written by Sarah Waschler
Ana has been a software pro for 13 years, starting her career at GoDaddy. Before her latest venture, she was a founder and CTO at Peerlogic where she built an AI platform to detect where the front desk of dental offices could improve their conversations with their patients. She is happy she’s found the next opportunities in the coming year using AI – how to make predictions on which companies will succeed for investment in Arizona, chasing new or churning customers down via text messaging and voice AI.
How did you hear about Venture Café Phoenix?
My friend and fellow CTO colleague Cory Berg let me know about it via LinkedIn
Have you had any memorable connections at Venture Café Phoenix? If so, please tell us how you met them, who they are and how they have impacted you and your organization?
There have been so many, but if I had to pick a few, I would have to say, I met my co-founder Vincent Serpico there. He originally offered me a job, but I was too entrepreneurial for that, hah! Other notable connections very recently include Minky Kernacs, Eric Miller, and Nick Suwyn. Minky helped to point me in the right direction with data ingestion to train our AI, and is a powerful female exec that I trust. Eric has great stories; apart from that he helped connect me with others in the community that have helped me to move forward in a big way. Nick gave me pivotal advice that changed how quickly I was able to launch my next company full time.
What inspires you?
Learning moments – whether they are my own aha’s, or others’.
Tell us a little more about your current role with your organization and how it has impacted the start-up ecosystem here in the greater Phoenix region.
As an AI services company, we’re driving impact of this AI boom with startups at Venture Cafe, and it has been so WIN/WIN. They are getting the chance to execute in AI, while letting us worry about the how.
Can you discuss your experience at Venture Café Phoenix and any impact the event has had on your organization?
The pizza afterwards at Il Bosco has connected me with great people that help make me better. My morale was low for a while when I was going through some fallout from my last venture, and the folks here helped me to reconnect and know that the experience makes me stronger and wiser for it. I am completely on the other side of it and I’m extremely grateful to the folks here for it.
Any final thoughs on Venture Café Phoenix?
I love Venture Cafe. All the founders continue to grow and share their learnings together. I feel like I’ve found my people, and I continue to learn something valuable every week. It’s unbelievable that it happens every week, and I’m happy that it’s so frequent.
Join the movement of innovators building the center of gravity here in the Valley. Join us every Thursday and meet people like Ana, 5-7 PM, free to attend, free parking, two free drinks.
Check out our upcoming programming and register here.
