From IBM strategist to startup founder, Serena Lam is building Fuzzy AI to reshape B2B sales with hyper-personalized outreach. In this candid conversation, she shares her founder journey, lessons from building in AI, and where sales tech is heading next.

👉 Expect practical founder advice, the realities of building with limited resources, and insights into how design thinking and AI workflows are changing the game.

⏱️ Chapter Timestamps

0:00 – Intro & why Serena flew budget class from Singapore
4:33 – How IBM shaped Serena’s mindset as a founder
8:32 – First startups, painful failures & losing money early
13:02 – The hardest part: finding (and keeping) the right tech co-founder
17:48 – Inside Fuzzy AI: turning content & trust into 5x higher conversions
22:01 – Killing the “spam cannon” & making outreach human again
26:41 – Why Serena prototypes in Figma before writing a single line of code
31:38 – AI tools Serena swears by (Claude, Perplexity, Bolt & more)
35:54 – Which jobs AI will replace… and which remain uniquely human
40:30 – The future of sales: cultural nuance, agentic AI & trust-based buying

🔑 Key Takeaways

🎯 Startups succeed when founders go all-in — half measures don’t work.

🤖 AI isn’t just automation — it’s strategy amplification when applied right.

🛠️ Design thinking + scrappy prototyping can save you months of wasted work.

💡 The future of sales = humans handling trust + negotiation, AI doing the grind.

💡 Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe for more AI founder stories & weekly Digital Nexus tech breakdowns!

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

In this episode of Digital Nexus, we sit down with Sha-mayne Chan, Co-founder of Friyay and Wakey Wakey Sales, to unpack how AI is reshaping startups, SMEs, and big business in Australia.

We cover:

🚀 How startups can now build products without a tech co-founder
📱 The story behind Wakey Wakey, an AI SMS sales assistant helping small businesses scale
🏦 Why big corporates are finally moving past endless POCs and into real AI adoption
🛠️ The rise of agentic workflows vs. AI agents — and what that means for service design
💡 How founders can “build while flying” with today’s AI tools (Bolt, Cursor, Windsurf, Midjourney, etc.)
🧠 The ethical, cultural, and human challenges of AI adoption — from junior job pathways to mental health chatbots

00:00 Intro
05:30 Backgrounds & early career
08:30 Small business growth: SMS vs email; 'product‑a‑month'
12:30 The Wakey story
16:30 Enterprises: from POCs to compliant rollouts
19:30 Where the pain is: manual checks & team ops
23:30 Service design: account UX, cancel flows, blueprints
29:00 Risk, value, and choosing bets
34:00 Automation & shipping fast (prompts, traction)
37:30 Vibe coding tools → personal app; VC outlook
42:30 Wrap‑up + what’s next

Links:
Friyay - https://www.friyay.ai/
Sha-Maybe linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamaynechan/

Podcast - https://www.digitalnexuspodcast.com/

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

In Episode 32 of Digital Nexus, we go from the bush to the boardroom. Kev the Yowie returns as we unpack the latest in AI trends, Google’s Gemini V3, OpenAI’s new business features, and Perplexity’s research mode. We dive into AI adoption in Australia, explore how Perplexity outperforms in real-world research comparison tests, and showcase our entry into the world’s largest AI hackathon. Plus, we reveal how ambient agents and agentic workflows are quietly reshaping knowledge work and how businesses can futureproof their operations.

🛠 Built with Bolt
🚀 Sponsored by FEX Global
🎯 Stay till the end for a side-by-side showdown of ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity.

⏱️ Chapter Timestamps
00:00 – Kev the Yowie returns + Intro banter + AI work we've been up to
12:33 - Sike demo update
13:52 – AI adoption in Australia: Productivity Commission report
17:28 – AFR AI Awards + Aussie winners
18:11 – Andrej Karpathy’s GPT model breakdown
21:00 – Mary Meeker’s return with 340-page AI megareport
24:05 – AI World’s Fair & newsletter automation workflows
33:12 - Mistral Code
37:05 – More OpenAI news: Memory upgrades for free users
39:20 - ChatGPT connectors
46:20 - Bolt World's largest hackathon and discussion of our joint project
52:00 - Comparison Deep dive: Perplexity vs ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude

Show links:
Aus Gov releasing AI Adoption Tracker - https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/ai-adoption-tracker
Karpathy explainers on current state of LLMs - https://x.com/karpathy/status/1929597620969951434
AFR AI Summit Articles- https://www.afr.com/afrlive/ai-summit
Mary Meeker report - 340 page - https://www.bondcap.com/report/tai/
Mistral Code client - https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/04/mistral-releases-a-vibe-coding-client-mistral-code/
Anthropic AI writing it’s own blog articles with human oversight - https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/03/anthropics-ai-is-writing-its-own-blog-with-human-oversight/
Chat GPT updates for plus users - https://www.financialexpress.com/life/technology-openai-upgrades-chatgpt-for-free-and-plus-users-check-out-new-features-you-can-enjoy-3868505/
OpenAI introduces new business features - https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/04/chatgpt-introduces-meeting-recording-and-connectors-for-google-drive-box-and-more/

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus