Dolphin AI

Building the modern CX insights copilot connecting customer experience with product.

Co-Founder

Post Accelerator Network

Antler

Antler is an early-stage venture capital firm. I'm part of the 7th cohort in the UK. Working with exceptional people to build a new product and pitch for investment.

Entrepreneur at Antler

HARKALIVE

HARKALIVE is an online platform for dance & movement classes.
* I lost my work due to the pandemic, so I built a startup and bootstrapped it from 0 to $100k in ARR.

* Built two products: 
1. harkalive.com -> a DTC subscription platform to join online live classes and on-demand content. I grew it organically to 200+ customers from 20 countries.
2. https://harka.live -> a two-sided marketplace connecting independent instructors with an international audience. I designed the platform based on my own experience and customer feedback.

* Owned the vision and roadmap working with a team of co-founders and an external team of engineers and designers.

This was my first experience building digital products. I learned most skills during the job, and immersed myself in the tech industry becoming obsessed with customer feedback and growth opportunities.

Co-Founder & CEO

Upstage Creative Ltd.

* Managed the entire operations of the company from client meetings to event delivery.

* Produced 300+  events in UK and Europe and 10 theatre productions working in venues such as The Royal Albert Hall, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, V&A Museum, and more. 

* Assembled and led cross-functional teams of specialized professionals toward a shared vision and product.

- Some of my daily activities included: event management, stakeholder liaison, B2B & B2C sales, content marketing, budget management and experience design, customer relationship management, budget and quote preparations and stage design.

I believe the role of a Producer in events, is the equivalent to the role of a Product Manager in tech. Producers are the glue between all other teams internally, and externally with customers and suppliers. Each one of these stakeholders speaks a different "language" and has a different interest. 
It is key for producers, as PMs, to empower the team to achieve a successful outcome by creating the event experience - the "product" - customers want, and love.

Founder & Production Director

Israeli Dance Institute

* Developed and managed 8 educational programs (in-person & online).

* Organised 12 international seminars creating an immersive experience for leading dance creators and their audiences.

* Produced and curated all content for the organization's projects. 

* Put together a team to build an online product combining dance, culture and education as a "digital tour" in response to the pandemic.

Development Manager

Borogove Productions

- Managed all productions and built the strategy across Creative Production, Marketing and Product. I had full ownership of the budget including pre-during-post projects.

- 2018-2019: produced two live shows achieving over 95% capacity, financial and critical success with a focus on ROI. (Based on the industry average, only 1 in 10 productions generate a return. Our products received awards as well as a return on investment.)

Awards: 
Becoming Shades -> "Best Sound Design" by Sam West - Off West End Awards
Becoming Shades -> "Innovation Award" Expanding the Scope in Performance in Theatre - Vault Festival

Co-Founder & General Manager/Producer

- Production services for 250+ projects including technical, creative and content management, public speaking and teaching.

- International teacher and choreographer working in Europe, Latin America, USA, Middle East. 

- Created a live stream of content during the pandemic attracting viewers from 45+ countries and reaching 500k minutes viewed of content. 

- Event Management and Planning, Program Management, Technical Production, Stage Direction and Choreography, Public Speaking, General Management, Mentoring and Business Development.

Production Manager, Teacher, Choreographer

Szpiezak Productions Ltd.

Szpiezak Productions is a newly formed theatrical and performing arts production company based in London run by entrepreneur Ilai Szpiezak.

Theatre producing is a high risk business. At Szpiezak Productions we are determined to developing relationships with both experienced and new theatre supporters. To find out more about commercial theatre investment, or for more information about our current productions contact: ilai@szpiezak-productions.com

General Inquiries: info@szpiezak-productions.com

Company Director - Producer

Ilaidance

An event entertainment company providing shows & bespoke productions for private and corporate functions.

Content Manager, Creative Producer

* Born in Argentina, with Polish roots, lived in Israel and based in London since 2011.

*Building Dolphin AI 🐬 with Charlie Day. Dolphin is the CX Insights Copilot to make sense of customer feedback at scale. Thinking with long-term vision + Acting with short-term urgency.

* In 2020 I lost all my work, so I moved into the startup world and founded HARKALIVE: an online platform for dance classes - built two products from scratch: a subscription platform & a two-sided marketplace.

* Pre-pandemic: 10+ years experience in the entertainment industry. Founder & Producer @Upstage: production company for events and theatre where I produced 300+ events and 10 theatre productions.

* Succeeded & failed, but always adapted fast.

* I like to compare the role of a Producer to the role of a Product Manager - a glue between different teams and stakeholders, internally and externally, obsessed with customer needs, and business impact.

* Random fact: I teach Israeli Folk Dancing and I'm an award-winning choreographer and instructor.

Let's have coffee or Zoom-coffee!

🔥 Hot take: support is a founder’s job.
It’s one of my favorite parts of building a startup.
You get to learn what works and doesn’t.

And by doing so, you get closer to PMF. And that's your sole job as an early startup founder.

Take documentation, I’ve become a little addicted to writing support docs.
My slightly ADHD brain is obsessing on every tiny detail.

→ How we name buttons
→ The tone and character
→ Even the slug of each article
Because everything should have a reason for being there.

For users, your support is just part of your product.
They don’t think in “departments” or “teams”, for them, it's all the same product.

I’ve taken inspiration from products I love (Jam.dev, Linear, Tally)
and from people like Neal and Susana (👏 on Plain!) who know deeply about this area!

Sooo... We just shipped a new Help page (plus a new widget we literally coded on the plane to NY ✈️) 👉 Inspired by Tally.

Docs are in Help Scout.
Not the prettiest setup, but definitely super easy to put together.
Even if we end up having an AI-first support experience, docs are the basis of it.

And they show how powerful Pretty Prompt really is.
Would love your feedback 🙂
#StartupBuilding #CustomerExperience #FounderJourney #ProductDesign #PrettyPrompt

Ilai Szpiezak

Building Pretty Prompt | Ex-Producer turned Founder |🎗️

Wanna succeed? Surround yourself with people better than you. 
Here with Neal Travis 🌱 & Charlie Day 🙏
Pretty Prompt is very pretty.

📍Ignite London

Three organic comments on LinkedIn posts, mentioning Pretty Prompt 🤯...
One of them in the "LinkedIn Top Startups list in London" post.
Are we getting closer to PMF?

Widsom Wednesday ✨!
Insights from our chats with Charlie, while building Pretty Prompt:

- Storage, whether it is your database or frontend storage, is just caching.

- The billion-dollar problem to solve with AI Agents: Caching. Caching works differently in prompt design than in web design... 

- Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

- When building Chrome Extensions, you can't "just ship it". Similar to mobile apps, you need to go through a review process, which means what you ship today won't go into Production for 2-5 days. It's out of your hands.

📍Picture from Figma HQ New York. Thanks Noam for the shot!

Building a Chrome Extension? Make sure you get reviews and testimonials not only on the Chrome Web Store! 

Chrome Reviews are great for building trust with users when first installing your app. However, for discoverability and SEO (GEO), these don't index as well as Product Hunt or other sites.

See the example below:
- Perplexity found correctly what users say about Pretty Prompt.
- Top finds include "highly positive reviews", "significant time-saving", and "4.9 out of 5 rating". 🤩
- However, the actual words used in the reviews are missing. 

Good thing for us is that we've started to appear in other people’s LinkedIn posts (thank you Paul, Todd, Peter), articles (thank you SeedLegals) and Substacks.

My ask: if you love Pretty Prompt, leave us a review on Product Hunt 👉 Link in the comments.

(Oh, and Perplexity is late to the party... We passed 6,000 users and 50,000 prompts way long ago 😅).

Though we ship something new every day, there are features you build that shape your product in a whole new way:
I call these Product Bets.

It’s a guess. But it’s an opinionated guess.
Three things I consider when making these guesses:

1. Gut feeling. Yes, I said it.
Gut feeling is, in the end of the day, one of the most powerful factors when building products. 

It’s not just thin air. It’s a big part of what makes a great product leader.
It’s part of your Product Sense.

Product Sense comes from having a combination of taste, understanding, empathy, and creativity. 
(Probably a lot more skills also that I haven't learnt yet 😅).

It comes from your own experience and pain.
That’s why having great domain expertise helps while building a product in a niche area.

I say this as a founder who is obsessed with customer feedback… 
But I still believe decisions should be based on data AND gut.

2. User Feedback. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Feedback is gold. Use it wisely. 

It supports or cancels your own gut feeling.

3. Speed + cost. For us, cost comes in the form of time and focus.
Working on idea A means we cannot work on idea B or C.

There’s one more element, which is underrated: Naivety.
Some of the best product decisions also come from being naive.

Staying open to spot the signals in between is what helps make these decisions.

It’s like dancing. When I choreograph, I pay attention to how people move, the music, and everything in between.

Those signals tell me if it’s time to add a turn or add/remove a step in that particular beat.

We’ve got some very powerful bets coming soon 🤩.
Some inspired by people I’ve spoken with in the last few weeks… 👀 Tom, Eli, Noam, and more! Thank you 🙏 

Pretty Prompt Charlie Day

Your own Prompt Vault right inside ChatGPT 👀 ...
In 2 min, bring all your random prompts into Pretty Prompt
Love this so much 🫶

taplio

Ilai Szpiezak's Linkedin Analytics

Ilai Szpiezak

Performance ScoreIlai Szpiezak's LinkedIn Performance

Ilai Szpiezak's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Ilai Szpiezak's Linkedin Analytics

Ilai Szpiezak

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ilai Szpiezak's LinkedIn Performance

Ilai Szpiezak's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Ilai Szpiezak's Linkedin Analytics

Performance ScoreIlai Szpiezak's LinkedIn Performance

Ilai Szpiezak's Best Posts (last 30 days)