John Machacek, Chief Innovation Officer for the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation, has worked with countless startups throughout our community over the years. He knows their ups, and their downs, but most of all, he knows the questions to ask them. Here are John Machacek’s 10 questions for Alex Warner, Founder & CEO, Work Odyssey.
1. Will you please tell me your Work Odyssey elevator pitch?
Work Odyssey believes people are not their resumes—and that careers deserve more than bullet points. Resumes are frustrating. They’re shallow, hard to write, and—dare I say it—a little demeaning. They reduce years of growth, skill, and hard-won experience into soundbites. I like to say that you might be able to build a time machine for Elon Musk, but if you are terrible at writing resumes, you are going to get passed over. And that’s insane. Let’s stop that nonsense.
What Work Odyssey is focused on is giving career professionals AI tools to tell their full story—from first job to final promotion— capturing the experiences, potential, and human depth that resumes never do.
Just as importantly, we also give employers the AI tools to finally see these stories—something that simply wasn’t possible until now. This isn’t a job board. It’s a smart career engine—like a personal AI sports agent for your career. We help people manage their work like a brand, with AI tools for daily tasks, smart work-journaling, opportunity discovery, strategic direction, and effective selfpromotion.
2. In a nutshell, how does the platform make the job descriptions or resumes interactive?
One of our key applications is what we call Interactive Job Descriptions, or IJDs, for employers and Living Bios for career professionals. These are dynamic, conversational tools that let both sides engage through a smart avatar—think more human-like AI, with interaction that feels natural.
For job seekers, IJDs let you “talk” to a job posting and get real answers to the questions you have on demand. That matters—national HR surveys show that 65% of applicants want more upfront info before applying. We make that possible. Our avatars can even conduct light screening interviews, asking insightful, context-aware questions of candidates.
Imagine sending a job email blast to many hundreds of potential candidates. One click takes them straight into an IJD that answers their questions and screens them on the spot and qualifies them fast, and for that matter, the candidates qualifying you. There is strong value there. Or let’s say you’re posting, not direct sourcing; you could advertise on a job board listing that all applicants get all their questions answered upfront! On demand. Driving more potential applicant traffic to your careers page because they know they can quickly find out about the job, so they click on your listing to do it instead of scrolling by
On the flip side, Living Bios are like AI-powered, dynamic LinkedIn profiles that talk back. Visitors can see a rich evolving view of someone’s career, and if the candidate allows, have a real-time conversation with an avatar that knows the person’s story. It stays “Living” through relevant data you give it as well as data pulled from our AI work journaling and our other applications, becoming a dynamic ongoing record, not a static profile you update twice a year.
3. As applicants engage with an application to better learn about the job and company, are there things that the employer has incorporated into the platform to aid in their initial screening and assessment from the applicant’s activities?
Yeah, so one of our flagship tools is an AI-powered evaluation system that helps hiring managers quickly spot strong candidates. It turns any job description into a personalized scoring system—a matching algorithm you control, even if you’re not technical. The AI reads applicant data for meaning and context, not just keywords like today’s tech does. It works really well with regular resumes, but it’s most powerful when candidates use our Context Enhanced Resume tech.
This is one of our key value propositions. The Context-Enhanced Resume is a complete replacement for the traditional resume. There’s no rigid format, no two-page rule, and no applicant and employer, powered by AI, we’re improving both speed and quality. Traditionally, those two were trade-offs: you could have one, but not the other. Now, you can get both. Our AI is designed to deliver faster hiring without sacrificing the quality of the talent, unlocking performance gains in talent acquisition that weren’t possible before.
We are also delivering this in turnkey solutions—Package A, B, and C—that don’t require large capital budgets or replacing existing HR systems. They’re designed to plug in easily and deliver immediate value without disruption, paying month to month or annually.
4. It sounds like the employer-side ROI is apparent, but what would you say is the best way, or ways, it will help the job seekers?
First off, I think it is a bit of an injustice that the job market rarely acknowledges how much time and effort it takes for job seekers to find and apply for roles. And it should be because their time is just as valuable as anyone else’s, and if they are out of work, it’s arguably more so. So, we’re building tools to change that. Firstly, job seekers can use our AI tools to instantly evaluate the company they are looking at and whether the job they are looking at matches them and their own goals. If it doesn’t, move on. If it does, our system helps you apply fast, with tools that turn your raw work experience into something compelling and context-rich to help land an interview
Beyond job hunting, we’re focused guessing what the employer wants. Candidates can fully explain what they did, why it mattered, and how it connects to the job—and yes, they can even make a spelling mistake or two. They can write as much as they want, and our AI helps them shape it, but they are in total control. They can start from scratch or build off an existing resume.
5. For employers, it’s like getting a personal career memoir, with AI surfacing the most relevant parts based on the scoring you define. For job seekers, it’s the first time they’ve ever been able to say everything that matters and know it’s actually being read with context.
For the employers, then, I imagine that your platform is not only helping them find better matches, but it is also saving them a bunch of time and work. Am I correct in that assumption?
100%. The costs to fill a job today are in the thousands to the many tens of thousands, depending on the role and experience. This doesn’t include the costs associated with the occasional new hire that doesn’t work out. One of the most important metrics for employers is time to fill. The longer a role stays open, the more expensive it becomes; not just in cost, but also in missed opportunities from a position unfilled. By enabling a deeper, context-rich exchange between on helping people tell their full story. Inspired by the idea of a “brag bag journaling”, which is a quick way to log your daily wins and accomplishments so you don’t forget them, our AI-powered journaling feature takes that idea and puts it on steroids, helping users track and organize progress, reflect on accomplishments, and build a dynamic record of their career over time. For example, a marketer might log notes on their weekly campaign performance, which, in turn, informs their living bio. A student could capture moments like acing a chemistry test—even if they don’t have formal work experience yet, they’re still building real skills, our tools are helping to capture and market those skills more effectively with everyday examples.
All of it adds context and depth to their Living Bio profile, this flexible, ongoing record and story of your work life that is helping you not only find jobs but also promote yourself and help manage your career.
6. How are you beta testing, piloting, or rolling this out?
We’re currently beginning the beta and pilot phase, gathering valuable feedback from early testers, both local and remote. After some time in stealth, we’ve begun a soft launch to increase visibility, especially among small to mid-sized businesses. I’m also becoming more publicly active through interviews, social posts, and content to build awareness. The goal is to land first customers, generate early revenue then shift toward funding and scaling. We’ve assembled a small team focused on transforming our early prototypes into a robust, production-ready platform. Our first wave of customers will help us shape the products and ideally become champions for us as we grow.
7. With targeting the B2B SMB side first, am I correct then that your early job seeker users will start organically arriving because they are engaging with the job posting from the employers utilizing Work Odyssey?
Absolutely. That’s one of our core go-to-market strategies. When a company signs up with us and creates and posts a job, the first time a candidate applies, their resume is automatically evaluated by our system with our AI tools, giving a high-quality assessment instantly. But right after submission, the applicant lands on a page that explains who we are, what we do, and how we can help improve their chances of getting an interview if they sign up with us.
Once they sign up, they’re guided to an interactive view of their resume and introduced to the idea of a ContextEnhanced Resume that I mentioned previously. The system encourages them to write more about their career and life experiences and why they’re a great fit for the role, with AI assisting them in adding targeted, meaningful context. Once they submit the enhanced version, they’re re-evaluated, giving the employer an even deeper, clearer picture and giving the applicant a better shot at standing out and landing them an interview.
It’s a win-win. At this stage, job seekers want interviews; we increase their chances. Employers want well-qualified applicants; we help surface the best ones faster. It’s free for the applicant and introduces them to the rest of our tools naturally.
That said, we’ll still run direct marketing campaigns for job seekers. But this approach creates an organic growth loop that benefits both sides while putting Work Odyssey in front of exactly the right audience.
8. You founded the tech startup Pedigree Technologies over 20 years ago. How does your current experience of founding a new tech startup compare to your time back then?
Before Pedigree, I had already worked at two startups, helped launch a non-tech business, and spent time in big tech for a number of years. So, I wasn’t new to the tech industry at all. But Pedigree gave me 15+ years of founder-level experience, starting with a blank sheet of paper in my basement and growing into full-scale operations. I wore both the CEO and Chairman hats and touched everything from product development to fundraising to governance. You come out of that with hardearned wisdom and experience, both from your wins and the scars from your misses.
The biggest difference I see today is how much better the ecosystem is for startups. There’s more infrastructure, more support to get something off the ground and scale an organization. Things are light years ahead from when I started Pedigree. As an example, just in product development, I recently prototyped some software myself using AI, something that would’ve taken a whole team years ago. Now, I can move fast, iterate quickly, and wear multiple hats more effectively
What hasn’t changed is my love for working on cutting-edge tech. Breakthrough innovation can be harder to commercialize. You’re not improving the mousetrap; you’re eliminating the mice. With Pedigree, no one knew what IoT was yet. Now with AI, it’s the same pattern: huge buzz, but still a steep curve when it comes to helping people truly understand what’s possible besides the news stories they read. I’m lucky, though, research says the most consistently successful startups are often started by founders in their 40s and 50s. So, it looks grandpa is going to get out his Palm Pilot, hitch up the oxen, and once again take the old wagon into startup town.
9. If you could go back in time to talk to Alex from years ago, what kind of hindsight advice would you give yourself?
Buy Apple stock. Buy Bitcoin. Meet Elon before his success and ask him if he needs a cofounder for anything. But honestly? I’ve beenin tech for 25+ years, mostly in startups, and you learn a lot, and some of it is hard to transfer. I think I would travel back to simply reinforce that tenacity and resiliency really do matter more than anything. The road will change. You’ll get knocked around. Keep going. There is this famous scene from the movie The Matrix where Neo, the protagonist, watches a kid bend a spoon with his mind. Neo asks how he’s doing it, and the kid says, “Don’t try to bend the spoon—that’s impossible. Instead, try to realize the truth… There is no spoon. Then you’ll see that it’s not the spoon that bends, it’s only yourself.” To me, that’s entrepreneurship. You can’t control the market. You can’t force the market to buy your shiny new invention. But you can adapt and keep going. Those founders who can read the tea leaves and bend with the market are the ones who win.
10. To wrap up, what can we do as a community to help you and Work Odyssey succeed?
I appreciate you asking. Right now, the simplest way to help is if you are interested in what we are doing, reach out. The more the merrier, and if we come knocking, give us a hearing. Sometimes we are even known to bring Starbucks gift cards for everyone.
About John
John Machacek has been helping local startups with the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation since prior to his position with the GFMEDC. Before joining the team, Machacek was the VP of Finance & Operations at United Way of Cass-Clay and a business banker at U.S. Bank.
Work Odyssey
workodyssey.io
Linkedin | /work-odyssey
