Hidden Gems: Meet Jon Cook of RebarHQ

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Cook.

Hi Jon, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started entrepreneurship in October 2013 by launching Keynote Content. We focus on helping advisors, practitioners, consultants, and founders to speak with conviction and scale their message in a smart, responsible way from the stage and screen. That includes message development, copywriting support, Signature Talk buildouts, and most recently, leveraging AI to amplify your message to the right audience. It’s been an incredibly fulfilling journey.

In February 2016, I recognized the future demand for AI. I’m blessed to say I took action, exploring many programs in the early years of AI innovation for communication and automation. Since ChatGPT was released to the public in the fall of 2022, it’s been a growing exercise in learning this new-to-us world. April 2025 was when I knew it was time to dive into AI implementation. AI’s adoption is causing such disruption – and I want to be someone who puts healthy, human-centric guardrails in place.

That realization led me to join with two other co-founders to create RebarHQ. We are a tech solutions firm that’s maniacally focused on driving meaningful outcomes for tech, business development, and highly regulated organizations and entities. Financial professionals, sales leaders, and forward-leaning founders trust us to help solve the right problems with AI that elevate every person’s capacity for human connection.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Entrepreneurship certainly hasn’t been a smooth road. As the saying goes, smooth seas never made skilled sailors. Learning the ins and outs of business ownership (and sometimes relearning the same lessons) brings plenty of bumps and bruises. Covid was an eye-opening experience for me, as it was for countless others, about the nature of truly serving others. Innovation, massive disruption due to AI, and reinventing myself over the past 12 years have left an indelible mark.

The greatest challenge, though, hasn’t been the lessons of business. It’s been the entrepreneurs who are no longer. The mental health crisis of entrepreneurship is greater than ever before. As a society, we are marinating in an ‘always on, never good enough, we’ll replace you tomorrow’ pressure cooker. Cortisol is pumping into our brains and bodies nonstop. You and I both intimately recognize this reality. If we’re being honest, though, we don’t truly admit the dangers of unchecked mental health toxicity until we get that call. Since 2020, I’ve lost at least two fellow entrepreneurs to suicide every year. In 2021 alone, seven different entrepreneurs called me to say they were contemplating it. Please, for the sake of your family, your future, your innate worthiness as a human being, don’t make such a hellacious decision! Call someone. Reach out. Call the National Suicide Hotline at 988 even if you have the slightest hint of that idea. Don’t make a permanent decision over a temporary challenge! Your life matters too much to throw it all away over business.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a tech solutions firm that’s maniacally focused on delivering the right outcomes for our clients using AI. What makes us different is that we’re not selling tech products – we’re selling outcomes. Approximately 95% of all AI initiatives are failing at the enterprise level worldwide – that’s from an August 2025 report by MIT. We help you be part of the 5% that’s succeeding with AI. Far too many AI agencies, tech providers, and especially AI ‘consultants’ sell based on billables or product promises. We specifically focus on giving our clients exactly what they need, period.

We’re in the process of building truly foundational tech on one core principle: You deserve to have full control over your company’s data. No one else deserves to control your data – you do. This tech we’re developing is designed for leaders to spin up, spin down, plug, unplug, and adapt to where we best believe the future of tech will be for the next few years. This eliminates that nagging question, “Will this tech software I’m purchasing become simply ‘shelfware’ in a matter of months?” The future is bright!

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Connect with our team at rebarhq.ai to leave the 95% of failing AI initiatives and join the 5% that are crushing it. I’m also on virtually every other platform @keynotecontent, including my YouTube channel at youtube.com/@keynotecontent. I regularly post videos about AI and financial advisors, including how to start implementing AI at a low-risk level for advisory firms.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rebarhq.ai
• Instagram: @keynotecontent
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keynotecontent
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@keynotecontent
• Other: https://www.keynotecontent.com

Image Credits
Shelly Au