Recently, I had the great pleasure of meeting and speaking with Ed Harder. Ed is the founder of Spark Road AI, a company that bridges technology, business strategy, and the very real human challenges entrepreneurs face every day. With a background that spans multiple disciplines, Ed brings a rare perspective to the rapidly changing world of AI, visibility, and small-business growth.
His work focuses on helping business owners reclaim time, strengthen trust, and ensure they are indeed found in an era where customer decisions are increasingly driven by AI, not just search engines.
In this conversation, Ed shares how his entrepreneurial background shaped his approach to AI, why many businesses are becoming invisible without realizing it, and how practical AI systems can restore time, trust, and peace of mind for business owners.
“Listen in” below.
Carol: Welcome Ed. It is truly great to have you here.
Ed: Thanks for having me.
Carol: Ed, I have found that your character and genuine desire to help others, coupled with your varied background and intelligence, are what truly separates you from your competition. I’d love to dive right in so our readers can get to know you firsthand. Sound good?
Ed: Yes, and thank you Carol.
Carol: Before Spark Road AI existed, who or what shaped your early understanding of entrepreneurship and the emotional realities of running a small business?
Ed: Entrepreneurship has always been in my blood. As a couple-week-old baby, I lived in the front window of a woman’s clothing store that my grandmother started at the age of 50. I grew up with my mom and grandma running that store.
Unfortunately, my uncle passed away at a very young age. At his funeral, I was probably six or seven years old, and a lady asked me to go get her a cup of coffee. I went and poured the coffee, brought it back to her, and she gave me a quarter. I immediately started selling coffee to other people at the funeral as a way to make money. Probably not the best entrepreneurial start, but from there it was in my blood.
Spark Road AI is not anywhere near the first business I’ve started. I ran a decorative concrete business for several years and have done e-commerce for a number of years. Spark Road AI is really taking everything I’ve learned from my grandmother, mother, and all the other businesses I’ve run, and mixing AI into it to really help the struggles that most small business owners go through.
Carol: That’s a great share Ed. I understand you’ve also worked across finance, technology, systems, and human behavior. How did this experience come together to form the foundation of Spark Road AI?
Ed: Even in the finance world, I worked with independent financial advisors—small business owners. I’ve seen firsthand how I struggled and then watched those same struggles with them. As AI started to come on the scene the last three years, it really opened my eyes to how this tool can be used to greatly assist small business owners.
I don’t know if we’re at a place where we’re fully leveling the field with large businesses yet, but the leverage when AI is put in place correctly is enormous for a small business owner. You can automate a lot of the day-to-day things that you really have to do but don’t want to be doing. They don’t feel like “why you started a business,” but AI kind of has your back in those areas when it’s set up and structured correctly.
There are two paths. You could take the path that I took and spend four, five, six hours a day learning everything there is about AI, but for most small business owners, you don’t have that luxury. You have to run your business. The reality is most small business owners are much better off implementing a system put out by somebody else that will work for them day one. Think of it like a car. I can go out and drive my car. I don’t have to know how all of the stuff under the hood works. That’s the same with AI.
Carol: For those hearing about Spark Road AI for the first time, how would you describe what it is and what problem you originally set out to solve?
Ed: The main thing with Spark Road AI is helping small business owners handle customer outreach. The easiest way to explain it is to think of a customer service representative or a receptionist. If it’s a small shop and they’re missing phone calls during the day, or nobody is answering at night, those are business opportunities that are going away. If I need my garage door fixed and the first guy I call doesn’t answer, I’m calling the next one on the list.
We can train AI to know everything about pretty much any business. From a basic chatbot that answers questions and sends a booking link, to a fully automated system on a website that can take appointments and forward hot leads. When you mix voice in, you can have 24/7 coverage with a voice agent. It’s not about AI replacing a human, but having that backup so you aren’t missing opportunities.
Carol: Ed, can you share what that looks like for a business owner? Is there an initial consultation?
Ed: Most of the systems are built within a couple of days. The first thing we do is start to study your website and all the information we can find. That gives us the background information we need to get the system up and running. Then there is testing and refining that goes on with the owner. Usually, a system is up and running within two to three days, and then we will fine-tune it consistently.
The great part about having AI answer your phones or chatbots is we get a record of every question your customers have. Over time, we develop patterns. If everyone is asking a specific question, maybe your website isn’t very clear about it. We’ll provide those suggestions back to the business owner to improve their business.
Carol: Excellent. Continuing, it seems the real threat isn’t AI itself, but the threat of becoming invisible to AI. What do business owners need to understand about this shift, and how is it already affecting buying decisions?
Ed: There is a massive shift in how people search. Google dominated for a long time, but now somewhere around 60% of all Google searches are not resulting in clicks any longer. At the top of most searches, you’re seeing the AI summary or answer. People are getting the information they want right there without clicking through websites.
Also, a lot of the suggestions and validation are coming from social media. People are searching on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok instead of Google. If you aren’t being referenced in those places or you don’t have a social footprint, AI is never going to recommend you because it can’t see you. Businesses that relied on just paying their way onto the front page of Google are slowly becoming invisible because people aren’t even getting to that list anymore.
Carol: Ed, will you share the differences between SEO, AEO, and GEO?
Ed: There’s a lot of overlap between SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). The biggest difference is how AI reads a website compared to how a human reads a website. There are things called “schema” that should be attached to every website page—snippets of code the AI reads. If your website is missing schema or has the wrong schema, you’re not even in the playing field to be recommended by AI.
AI is looking for trust signals, just like SEO, but AI reads way faster. Trust signals and citations become really important for AEO. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is a newer term, sometimes called Google Optimization. If you look at it from the lens of what Google is looking for to trust your website, it’s not much different than SEO or AEO.
Carol: What’s the likelihood, if I’m paying somebody right now to do my website, that it’s going to be accurately done?
Ed: It’s all over the place. You can go to schema.org and validate your schema, but the biggest misconception is that the checker only looks to see if some schema exists and if it has errors. It is not checking to see if your page has the correct type of schema. There are over 140 different types.
For example, a blog post might have “website schema” but be missing “article schema,” so AI just sees a webpage and moves on. Another big one is “voice schema,” which is how Alexa, Siri, and Google get their information. Only about 0.3% of pages have voice schema. Adding that quickly makes your page stand out. A lot of websites, especially DIY ones or flashy React-built pages, are often invisible to AI because the schema isn’t set up correctly.
Carol: Do business owners expect AI to save them time yet end up feeling overwhelmed or disappointed? Why do you think AI so often becomes more work instead of less?
Ed: Most people are doing it backwards. They see an AI tool and try to implement it, rather than starting with the problem and working backwards to the solution.
If I buy a jackhammer and take it out into my yard, that doesn’t mean I am going to have perfectly broken-up concrete. I could hurt myself or damage things because there is a learning curve. It’s the same with AI tools. People try to use an AI writer, but they have to learn how to train it in their voice, understand its hallucination rate, and check its accuracy. If you partner with a company to implement it for you, that’s their responsibility. Just picking random software tools off the shelf has a high failure rate because of the learning curve involved.
Carol: I understand what “hallucinate” means when speaking of AI, but do share for those who may not?
Ed: AI hallucination is interesting. AI really wants to make you happy. It is programmed to provide you with an answer that satisfies you. In the process of doing that, if it doesn’t know the answer or if you didn’t give it enough context, it can make things up to fill in the blanks.
A practical example: If you ask AI, “I’m hungry, what are the best restaurants near me?” It might give you McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A because they are highly rated. If you get mad because you wanted a steak dinner, that’s a context issue. If you had asked, “I’m looking for a nice sit-down restaurant that serves steak,” the answer would be completely different. The best way to avoid hallucinations is to talk to AI like a human and provide clear context.
Carol: Where do you see visibility and credibility going over the next five years?
Ed: Visibility and credibility become everything, and I would add one more word: Authenticity. There’s a misconception that using AI makes you inauthentic. I don’t think that’s true. It’s like the movie industry using CGI. It doesn’t mean the story isn’t authentic. When AI is used correctly, it helps amplify my authentic story faster.
We are seeing a lot of “AI crap” being put out there, but people are getting good at identifying it. If I sit down, talk with AI, tell my story, and then use AI to help write and refine it, that is authentic. The people that understand how to make authentic content leveraging AI will soar to the forefront.
Carol: What do you hope Spark Road AI’s legacy will be as this evolves?
Ed: I don’t put a lot of thought into legacy, but I want to be seen as someone who helped a lot of people. I lived in that struggle for a large portion of my life. Sitting in a car crying about how to make business work for example. I want to help thousands of business owners so they aren’t stuck in that 12-hour workday and, in turn, let them actually be able to spend time with their families.
Carol: What would you say are some of the myths or misconceptions about your industry?
Ed: The big one is: “AI is going to take everybody’s job.” Jobs will change, but the people who understand how to leverage AI are going to be the ones taking the jobs, not necessarily the AI itself. It will make people more efficient.
The second myth, from a business owner’s standpoint, is: “AI is just going to do this all for me; I don’t have to do anything anymore.” That’s not true. There is still a learning curve, and you still need to manage the output. You are either learning that curve yourself or paying somebody else to help you.
Carol: Listening to all you have shared and taking into consideration the increasing evolution of AI, it seems advisable for a business owner to partner with an expert as soon as possible. This way the incorporation of AI into their business is really done well from the beginning.
Ed: Everyone has their expertise. I could break my arm and go grab a medical book on how to set fractures. I could read the book, but can I do it? No. I need to practice for years. We as humans are really bad at measuring lost opportunity cost.
I’ve gone down the road of “I can do that myself.” It takes me nine months to build a website that doesn’t function as well as one I could have paid for and had running in two weeks. During those nine months, I missed out on sales. YouTube has videos on everything, but the question is: Is it worth the time investment, and what are you missing because of it?
Carol: What’s the primary transformation you create for your clients?
Ed: I think the biggest transformation is peace of mind. Knowing that their customers are getting high-quality service. If a client was calling, the owner would want to answer every time, but they can’t.
When these tools are set up correctly, it’s a large weight off the owner’s back. The phone is getting answered when I can’t answer it; appointments are showing up on my calendar. I don’t ever recommend hiding that it is AI. I’m a fan of saying, “Hey, I’m Sandy, Ed’s AI assistant.” We want the AI to be such a valuable member of the team that the owner doesn’t have to worry about the tasks the AI is handling anymore.
Carol: Ed, what in your opinion, that has nothing to do with pricing or volume, makes you different from others in your field?
Ed: My past experiences play a large role. Having worked on the corporate side and spent time with small businesses shapes who I am. I have a natural curiosity and a military background which drives a high level of attention to detail. I always look at problems from different angles. Instead of defaulting to “that can’t be done,” I look for “how can I do this?” That curiosity leads to better outcomes in the systems we build.
Carol: What do you do instinctively, without thinking, that others consistently compliment you for?
Ed: I try to look at problems from different angles. A lot of people, especially in the corporate world, default to “we can’t do that” or “that can’t be done.” I’ve always done the exact opposite: “How can I do this?”
That mindset has served me well throughout my life. I love finding those side paths because they often lead to better experiences and better outcomes. As I’m learning AI skills, I watch how others do it and think, “That doesn’t seem efficient. How could I eliminate that step or make it faster?” That has led to a lot of really good outcomes in the systems we are building.
Carol: What emotional experience do you want others to have when they’re working with you?
Ed: I want them to be elated with the outcome. I want it to be better than they expected.
Carol: What recognition have you earned but never fully leveraged or showcased?
Ed: I have certificates sitting in a folder on my desktop. I struggle with tooting my own horn. Even in my military career, regarding awards I’ve gotten, I just don’t like writing about myself much.
Carol: What opinions, beliefs, or philosophies set you apart from others in your industry?
Ed: I believe working with business owners is a partnership. I don’t want to build one thing, hand it over, and then be out. I don’t think that sets the business up for success.
I also believe in systems that run in the background, not cookie-cutter templates that throw the same solution to every business. The system should adapt to the customization level needed for every single client. For example, if I’m writing blog posts leveraging AI for two different law firms, they shouldn’t get the same generic post. They should get their own version, voice-trained specifically for them. I think many people in the industry are using templates and forcing the business to fit the template, rather than adjusting the processes on the back end to fit the business.
Carol: Is there an area where you feel your credibility is under-recognized or undervalued?
Ed: Everywhere. And that’s probably my fault for not being great at doing it for myself. I’ll do things for clients that I know I should be doing for myself, but I haven’t done them because I’d rather spend my time working on them. At the end of the day, that doesn’t help me build my own credibility.
Carol: What friction points or invisible frustrations could be removed from your current client experience?
Ed: A lot of problems business owners have are invisible to them until they start to hurt. Going back to the phone calls example: A business owner might think, “I probably only miss one or two calls a day.” But when they start paying attention to the actual number, and you put the math to what that means in lost business, it becomes really painful, especially if they are paying for advertising. If you pay to get the phone to ring but don’t answer, it’s doubly expensive—you miss the business, and your advertising money just sent a customer to a competitor.
There is a saying: A 1% improvement a day will get you 365% better over the course of a year. But it works the opposite way, too. If you do 1% less every day, you’re significantly behind by the end of the year.
Carol: How do you personally ensure clients feel seen, understood, acknowledged, or valued?
Ed: It’s all about communication. How do you over-communicate without being a burden? You have to have regular touchpoints: monthly check-ins, a card on their birthday, or a “Hey, I saw this and thought of you” message. It’s simple: What would you do for your best friend? If you do that for your clients, you’re going to have a lot of best friends.
Carol: I am so enjoying your straightforward and open responses. I so agree with many of them, especially the communication and “what would you do for your best friend.” That human touch is so critical on many fronts including for recognition and credibility.
What do you feel would be possible if you finally had the credibility and recognition you deserve?
Ed: I’d be able to help more people. The more people know I exist, the more people I can help.
On a deeper level, I watched my mother and grandmother run that business. My mom worked all day until 8:00 at night. Life isn’t about working 24/7; it’s about working so you can go do other things and experience the world. I want to help business owners so they aren’t stuck in that 12-hour workday.
There is a Progressive commercial where Flo asks a business owner, “What do you do for fun?” and the owner says, “Payroll.” Flo asks, “Where do you go on vacation?” and the owner asks, “What’s a vacation?” It’s funny, but it’s a reality for so many. They are wearing so many hats. I want to help them take those hats off so they can actually live.
Carol: and your saying that to someone who hasn’t had a vacation in years, but we will leave that at that- I am saying lovingly of course Ed. Is there anything else you’d like to share that perhaps we haven’t covered or that you’d like to say that maybe the readers need to hear?
Ed: Don’t be afraid of AI. Pay the $20 to one of the services and start using it. Start with 10 minutes a day asking it questions. Get curious.
I like to break AI into “Thinking” and “Doing.” Most people default to the “Doing”—write this for me, do this for me. The really smart people leverage it for “Thinking.” Ask it: “My business is having this problem. How would you handle that? And before you answer, tell me what information you need from me to give the best answer.”
Using AI for basic tasks is like inviting Steve Jobs into your house and having him draw cartoons. You have the smartest business person in the world sitting across the table from you. Don’t just use it to draw cartoons. Use it to think.
To learn more about Ed Harder’s work and his approach to helping small businesses stay visible and responsive in an AI-driven marketplace, visit sparkroadai.com or connect with him directly at 262-262-6300.
To contact Ed directly: 262-262-6300
Ed@sparkroadai.com
