289 Danny Tomsett - Digital Humans: Redefining Customer Engagement in the AI Era

What does it take to build a new tech category before the market is ready?In this episode of SaaS Fuel, host Jeff Mains dives deep with Danny Tomsett, founder and CEO of UneeQ, the global leader in emotionally intelligent AI-powered digital humans. From early breakthroughs to hard pivots, Danny shares how his team navigated the rollercoaster of creating frontier tech, scaling sustainably, and keeping vision and culture alive through it all.You'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of Nadia, a digital human project with IBM and the Australian Government, the challenge of market timing, and the power of narrowing focus for growth. If you’re building ahead of the curve, this is your playbook.Key Takeaways00:00 – The evolution of UneeQ’s business model02:01 – Building a new tech category with AI-powered digital humans06:27 – From digital games to emotionally intelligent avatars10:39 – How digital humans transform customer experience12:54 – Realism vs. relatability in AI avatars16:07 – Building trust with humanized tech16:31 – The hardest part of creating a new category21:49 – Biggest lessons learned on the journey23:46 – Keeping teams aligned through rapid innovation27:04 – SaaS founders: Scale faster with Champion Leadership28:14 – AI's real impact on jobs and customer service31:31 – Emotional intelligence and sales simulations34:28 – Outcome-based training with digital humans35:22 – Growing pains and moments that almost broke the company40:44 – Bootstrapping vs. raising capital in frontier tech45:32 – Advice for building ahead of the market48:00 – Product-market timing and finding the real problem53:40 – What’s next in AI-human interaction?Tweetable Quotes“We weren’t just ahead of the curve—we were ahead of the market. That hurts.” — Danny Tomsett“Emotionally intelligent digital humans aren’t the future. They’re already here—and they work.” — Danny Tomsett“If the market doesn’t get it yet, your job isn’t just to build—it’s to educate.” — Jeff Mains“Culture is your most scalable codebase.” — Danny Tomsett“The problem you’re solving might not be the one they care about yet.” — Danny Tomsett“Digital humans flip training from time-based to outcome-based. That’s real impact.” — Jeff MainsSaaS Leadership LessonsBuild for what’s real, not just what’s cool. Danny shares how hype distracted from traction and how focus created results.You can't time the market perfectly—but you can pivot. The original platform model gave way to niche training simulations with real adoption.Culture and systems scale better than code. When the team nearly burned out, Danny rebuilt the business on clarity and operational alignment.Emotion matters in tech. Especially in sales training and customer experience—digital humans that feel human drive engagement.Don't fall in love with the wrong problem. Sam Altman’s advice: go deeper to find the root need your product must solve.Being early is painful—but survivable. Category creation requires stamina, education, and constant storytelling to shape the market.Guest ResourcesEmail - [email protected] - http://www.uneeq.com/Episode SponsorSmall Fish, Big Pond – https://smallfishbigpond.com/ Use the promo code ‘SaaSFuel’Champion Leadership Group – https://championleadership.com/SaaS Fuel ResourcesWebsite - https://championleadership.com/Jeff Mains on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkmains/Twitter - https://twitter.com/jeffkmainsFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/thesaasguy/Instagram - https://instagram.com/jeffkmains