Latest / Women Disrupting Tech / How Burnout Fueled Kuhu Singh to Build a Bridge Between AI and Therapy with Amber | Ep. 117

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How Burnout Fueled Kuhu Singh to Build a Bridge Between AI and Therapy with Amber | Ep. 117 · Women Disrupting Tech

0:10
Welcome to Women Disrupting Tech.
0:13
My name is dear Kanupkas, and on this podcast, I give the women
0:16
who work in tech the platform they need to inspire and empower
0:20
each other. Join me on a journey into the
0:23
world of entrepreneurship, funding biases, and role models
0:28
to discover the strategies for success in the tech industry.
0:32
In other words, how women can disrupt tech.
0:36
Are you ready to listen? Hey, welcome back to Women
0:45
Disrupting Tech, and thank you for tuning in to episode 117.
0:51
What happens when the path you're on no longer feels right?
0:56
For Ku Singh, working in marketing gave her skills but no
0:59
meaning. Remote work, broader
1:03
flexibility, but no connection. It left her burned out and
1:08
searching for something more. That search letter to create
1:14
amber and therapy like AI companion built to make mental
1:19
health support more accessible and culturally sensitive.
1:24
In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, Kuhu shares the
1:27
lessons from her journey. How growth turns into
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responsibility when people all of a sudden depend on your
1:34
product. How resilience comes from
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treating doubt as background noise and why meaning is more
1:42
powerful than happiness. Her journey is 1 of
1:46
stubbornness, wisdom, and clarity, and I can promise you,
1:50
it's one worth listening to. So when you're ready to listen
1:54
and learn how burnout fueled cool thing to build a bridge
1:58
between AI and therapy with Ember, please welcome to women
2:02
disrupting tech Ku Singh. Hey, good morning guru.
2:08
Good to have you. Please tell us how you got into
2:12
your current role or current position as founder of Amber.
2:16
Hi, Turkey, and thank you for having me on the podcast.
2:19
I'm really excited to have this conversation with you.
2:22
Good question. How I got into this position is
2:26
pretty funny because I used to work in marketing for tech
2:30
companies. That's what I did for three
2:33
years and then I was really burnt out with because I used to
2:39
work for AUS based startup in Boston and it was remote so my
2:44
hours were really, really, really messed up.
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So naturally and it was also work from home.
2:49
So there were no boundaries, nothing being created and all of
2:52
that. So I got really burnt out and
2:55
then I came up with this idea of having an AI based workplace
3:00
well-being solution. Long story short, that didn't
3:04
really work out because I saw a bigger problem which was why not
3:09
make it for general access where because mental health problems
3:13
are for everyone, not just for employees.
3:16
And it was AB2B platform. So that was also very hard to
3:19
market just, you know, as a solo founder.
3:22
So I was like, I'm just going to open it up.
3:24
And at that point of time, AI was super on hype, which is 2024
3:29
and you had all these awesome tools that you can use even as a
3:34
non-technical founder, which at that point I was, I was like,
3:37
why don't I just go ahead and make a mental well-being
3:41
platform for everyone who can use it just, you know, for their
3:45
well-being. So that's really how I came up
3:48
with the idea of pivoting from, you know, a previous product,
3:52
which is more generalized to a more, sorry, more focused
3:56
product to a more generalized product.
3:59
Yeah, that's how I really, but being a founder wasn't really
4:04
the the goal. The goal was really to just have
4:08
solved that problem that I really found was important,
4:12
which was accessibility of mental health.
4:15
I was just trying to solve that problem.
4:17
And really, honestly, being the founder just is like a byproduct
4:22
of it. It just happened.
4:24
OK, so why is that accessibility important to you?
4:29
I think I come from, I come from India and back in India, back in
4:35
home where I was born and brought up, mental health is
4:38
really a big stigma. People usually say, you know,
4:41
it's nothing, doesn't, doesn't really exist and all of that.
4:44
We're still opening up to it in metropolitan cities.
4:47
But even though my parents were pretty educated, we also lived
4:50
in the metro. It was just that I was in high
4:54
school and I told them, I don't know, I'm not feeling OK.
4:57
So I felt that from when I was a teenager where I could not
5:02
access mental heavy mental health and really, you know, a
5:05
therapist or any of that. So I went to a lot of platforms
5:09
which were like community driven platforms, like I think it was 7
5:13
cups or something and I was talking to people on that trying
5:17
to feel better. It don't really help.
5:19
My parents didn't understand. Then when I came to college to
5:23
uni in the Netherlands, I had different set of problems and I
5:26
really needed someone to talk to.
5:27
At that point of time I just didn't have the money to be able
5:30
to afford therapy because it's about 100 to, you know, $200 or
5:35
even EUR because you don't really get insurance, doesn't
5:39
pay off a therapist, it pays off psychiatric help.
5:44
I don't think I needed psychiatric help at that point
5:46
of time. I only needed someone to talk to
5:48
and help me with my problems. So I just couldn't really find
5:53
anyone to talk to for a long time.
5:55
When I was able to find someone, the first therapist I met wasn't
6:00
really a good match and I think he did more damage than good to
6:03
me. So it was just really not really
6:06
working out. By the time last year, I was
6:09
going through a really rough batch.
6:11
That's also when the the idea of Amber came on where I was like,
6:16
I really need someone to talk to, can I please talk to
6:19
someone? And I really built something
6:21
that I wanted which I could talk to.
6:24
And then it was really helpful to me.
6:26
So I just opened it up to the public, sort of.
6:30
OK, so I'm going to ask a really ignorant question here.
6:34
So tell me the difference between talking to a therapist
6:40
and talking to friends about this.
6:44
What what what is the the sort of emotional load that makes
6:48
this different? Yeah, I think when we talk to
6:53
friends, this is at least from my own observation and also
6:57
from, you know, my friends who talk to me about their feelings,
6:59
is they don't, they don't tend to be that understanding because
7:03
they have their own set of problems.
7:05
They're not a clean slate. I'm not saying that therapists
7:08
are always a clean slate, but they don't know you.
7:11
They don't have expectations. You're not going to hurt your
7:14
therapist if you say something, but you may hurt your friend.
7:18
You, for example, have a problem with them or you're going
7:20
through something, you know, hard.
7:22
You just need someone to understand your problem and
7:26
really work through it. It's not just about talking but
7:29
also working through your problems.
7:31
So I think that's what a therapist really brings in is, I
7:35
would say sort of a clinical perspective to your life and
7:38
really help you, you know, reframe your thoughts or get out
7:44
of a tough situation. Yeah, it's much more systematic
7:49
and much more solution oriented. Whereas a friend would be
7:53
conversation like hey I'm having this problem and either they
7:58
whine with you, whine is the wrong word here, but they grieve
8:03
with you, or they start immediately solutionizing the
8:11
whole thing. And sometimes you just don't
8:13
need a. You don't need a solution for
8:15
everything. You just need to rewire what
8:18
you're thinking and how you're thinking and explore it further.
8:21
Yeah, Yeah. So it's different from scenting
8:25
in the sense that it's at the end of the day there needs to be
8:30
sort of progress on that particular problem.
8:34
Yeah, yeah. You need to really unpack
8:37
things. And you're not going to talk
8:39
about your childhood trauma, for example, with your friends.
8:42
I mean, you can, but you're probably going to make fun of
8:44
it. That's how I I deal with things.
8:46
I make fun of things. And when I used to go to my
8:48
therapist and make fun of things, he was like, I'm not
8:51
going to laugh with you. We're going to unpack this.
8:53
I was like, oh man, what have I done?
8:55
Maybe I should have made fun of it.
8:57
How was that for you to to to talk to a therapist?
9:02
Because I know you do. Yeah, it was really eye opening
9:07
to be honest. A lot of problems I had and I
9:11
was pretty. I was very self aware client.
9:14
She said that to me on my face. You know things, you know, you
9:17
know things about yourself. You still do them.
9:20
And it really, I think it changed me as a person.
9:23
I am not the same person I was six months ago when I started
9:28
therapy. It really, really changed me to
9:31
my core. I'm not.
9:32
I cannot give people as much as I used to give because it's not
9:36
good for me. So I've started putting myself
9:39
1st and that would be the last thing I used to do earlier.
9:42
So it really changed me. It was different.
9:44
It was like having someone who you don't know but really
9:48
understands you, and other than you know, your partner or your
9:52
friends, it's really important to have this one person who
9:57
really, really believes in you and is able to help you through
10:01
anything. So that bond that you make with
10:03
your therapist is, I think that's unmatched, which is why
10:07
when she went on a sabbatical, I think in November, I didn't look
10:11
for another one. I cannot do this.
10:13
I cannot do this again because she really got me and I cannot
10:16
start unpacking things with someone new.
10:20
So yeah, it was a different experience.
10:22
OK. So also on the, on the mental
10:28
health front a bit a longer time ago you worked for, you used to
10:32
work for an marketing company and you had a burnout.
10:38
How did that burnout, maybe for lack of a better word, help you
10:45
reframe your your future and look, look, look for other roles
10:52
to to play? Yeah, I think it really just
10:55
opened my eyes. And I mean, I was pretty young
10:59
at that point, but I was thinking if this is going to be
11:02
it, if I'm just going to keep working and just feeling like,
11:05
you know, crap the the other day, you know, at the end of the
11:08
day and it's 9:00 PM and I just don't have anything to do.
11:11
I don't have a social life I don't have.
11:14
And I wasn't even passionate towards what I was doing because
11:18
my burnout was really just trumping all the passion I had
11:21
towards the jobs. I would really physically go in
11:23
exhausted. And it was just not something
11:26
that I was willing to do to myself.
11:28
It was just not sustainable. So it really made me think, And
11:32
that's also why, you know, having my own startup is that no
11:38
matter what happens to my startup, I, you know, I'm so
11:43
passionate towards it that I'm still going to keep working on
11:46
it without feeling like, you know, physically tired.
11:50
But other than that, it was also important to find things to do
11:54
outside of your work. Have an identity which doesn't
11:58
really have anything to do with your work.
12:01
I think it's. Different.
12:03
Why is that important to to have that balance?
12:07
At some point of time, you're going to.
12:10
You're going to get rid of you're going to be too old to be
12:14
on that job or you're just going to get bored or something or the
12:17
other is going to happen. And I'm a very I think about my
12:21
mortality just too much. And if I'm like, if this is the
12:25
last day that I was going to be on earth and this is what I've
12:28
been doing, feeling tired, not feeling good, just, you know,
12:32
cursing my job. Why am I here?
12:34
What's it what's it going to what's good is going to do to
12:37
me? So that's how that's how I think
12:39
of things. And which is which which is why
12:41
it was important that every day that I live, I do at least one
12:45
thing special which is not truly related to my work.
12:49
So I, it doesn't mean that, you know, I need to get recognition
12:52
at work or, you know, be able to push out a new feature or
12:56
whatever. It's more in my personal life.
12:58
What special thing can I do today that if I die tomorrow,
13:02
I'm still going to be like, yeah, at least I, you know, I
13:04
went on a walk with my dog and she played so much and it made
13:08
me really happy. So anything outside of your
13:11
work, it's really important to have an identity which doesn't
13:14
surround your work. I think this is also for people
13:17
who get laid off. It's a different story.
13:20
But if you, you know, spend your life dedicated to your work and
13:25
you're laid off, then you just have like, a big identity
13:29
crisis. Like, what am I supposed to do?
13:32
And it's not just about the job, but it's also that you've spent
13:36
hours and hours at end at that job.
13:38
And they just, you know, they had problems, so they laid you
13:41
off and now you just don't know what to what to do, where to go.
13:46
So that's not a good feeling to have.
13:48
No, no, no, for sure, for sure. Did you learn anything good
13:54
though in the, in the as a marketing person in that tech
13:59
company that you worked for? Did you use use anything that
14:04
you actually use right now in your current startup?
14:09
A lot of things, I think especially working for AUS
14:13
startup, it really taught me great really going at it even
14:19
when things are not really working out.
14:21
I then, even though it's different kind of startup, like
14:25
it is B to CI used to do for B to B, it still gives you that
14:28
perspective of right messaging, how to reach out to customers,
14:33
how to just position yourself in a very crowded market, which
14:37
mental health is how to, you know, reach out, how to just, I
14:42
know a lot of things like, you know, bringing customers back,
14:46
even if they're like, you know, cancel my subscription, like no,
14:48
what can I do to bring them back?
14:50
How do I push the right messaging?
14:52
So all of those things have really stuck with me.
14:55
My previous jobs I had a lot of mentors who really taught me
14:59
really good things and I they'd really stuck with me even
15:03
through today. I use them and as and when we
15:06
grow, I see myself using my older skill set more than I am
15:11
using the newer skill set that I'm building, which has been
15:14
building Amber. But also, you know, marketing is
15:17
a big part of it of any company. If you build it, it's not going
15:20
to work out. You need to put it out.
15:22
And how am I going to put it out?
15:24
That's something that my previous job has really taught
15:27
me. Yeah, so you're a solo founder,
15:29
right? Yes, I'm a solo founder.
15:31
Yeah. Do you also, do you have a team
15:34
right now? No, it's it's just me.
15:37
OK, it's just you. OK, so how do you, because then
15:40
you had to sort of teach yourself or learn also the the
15:45
technical part, how did you approach that?
15:51
Because it sounds sort of difficult if you don't have a
15:55
marketing background. So, so that's question 1 is how
15:59
did you get the skill set? And two, how did you avoid?
16:03
Because this is a trap that I find myself jumping into a lot,
16:10
looking for, doing the things that I'm used to doing because
16:15
they, well, they're, they're the comfort zone for a reason.
16:19
Yeah, I think it's a very good question.
16:23
In my previous, the the startup that I, you know, pivoted from,
16:27
which was Espresso, I went ahead with this is really like
16:31
headstrong, but even as a non-technical founder, I can do
16:34
this. I was slapped on my face and I
16:37
realized I cannot do this as as if I do not if I don't have a
16:42
team. If you have a team, even then,
16:44
if you're in the technical market and you know, you're
16:47
building a product as technical as mine, which is, you know,
16:50
basically an AI well-being companion, you need to know how
16:54
the product works. Especially I think for me, it's
16:57
very important to know how my tech works.
17:00
And at that point of time, what I did was I also, I was still
17:03
very resourceful. So I outsourced what I was
17:07
doing. I hired A freelancer, I made the
17:10
product on Figma and all of that.
17:12
But there was still a big bridge that I could see because for any
17:16
change that I needed to push on the platform, anything my then
17:20
customers needed, I just couldn't do it because I didn't
17:23
know how to. I was too reluctant to learn how
17:25
to do that. So I, I just took a break three
17:29
months. I was like, I am just going to
17:32
learn how to code. Big ambition.
17:35
Very, very big ambition. But I, I, my mom calls me very
17:39
stubborn and I am stubborn. She used to say it in a bad way,
17:42
but I think I'm stubborn in a good way because I realized,
17:47
yeah, I'm persistent. I because I realized I really
17:50
cannot do this unless and until I know how my tech works.
17:53
And as a founder, even if you're non-technical, even if you're
17:58
technical, you need to know the core of your product.
18:01
And you cannot rely on the other person wholeheartedly that you
18:06
know what if that person goes on leave or your Technical Support
18:09
goes on leave, what are you going to do?
18:11
Because it is a startup, you're supposed to know how it really
18:14
works. And I was like 3 months and at
18:17
that time cursor did not come out.
18:19
It was only Claude and Chachi PT and YouTube.
18:24
So I went on YouTube and I really took a lot of free, you
18:28
know, free courses which are really easy to learn on YouTube.
18:32
And one month I just learned the basics, just really basics.
18:38
I did, I did JavaScript, I did really, really basic stuff.
18:42
And I was like, yeah, I can, I think I can do this.
18:45
And then I, when I got a basic understanding and that was all I
18:49
needed a basic understanding of how to set the tech up, how to
18:54
find problems and how to solve them.
18:57
And then it was just like a really easy math equation that I
19:01
was solving for any problem. And then cursor came out.
19:04
It just made my life easier because what I was doing earlier
19:07
was going into cloud and talking and then going to YouTube and
19:11
then building. And what happened with, you
19:13
know, all these AI products is that they really enabled me to
19:18
build out my entire platform. Now we're at 700 ish users and I
19:23
have bugs coming in and I have problems coming in and I have
19:27
new feature requests and I can push them out in 2 days because
19:31
that's all I need. I just need to find a problem
19:34
solution, how to solve it. Make like a little bit of a mind
19:37
map in my head to see how is this going to work.
19:41
Find the problem, go to cursor, work with it and just push the
19:45
feature out. It breaks sometimes, but it
19:48
really makes me very empowered to solve my own problems because
19:54
otherwise where I was stuck, I think last year was just not
19:59
being able to understand my own tech.
20:02
No one wants to back a founder who cannot understand their own
20:06
tech. It's very hard.
20:08
It can get training. You would rather just take three
20:12
months, four months to learn. And I'm not saying you need to
20:15
be 100% proficient because who I was competing with is people
20:18
who've been coding for years and years and years.
20:22
Accept it. You're never going to be there
20:23
because they learn to go probably from when they were
20:27
1314 years of age and you're like, you know, in your early
20:31
20s or something. You're going to need too much of
20:34
experience to be as good as them.
20:36
But you need to realize you don't need to be as good as
20:39
them. You just need to understand and
20:42
solve as crappy as you can. But at least it's a solution
20:46
that's better than not having any technical grit and not
20:50
understanding anything and being totally OK with and just snobby
20:54
about it. I was just snobby that, you
20:55
know, I'm not going to learn how to code.
20:57
I can do it without technical founder.
21:00
I can do it without learning about my products.
21:03
And that was wrong. I shouldn't have done that.
21:06
OK so let me ask you one thing, why did you choose not to look
21:14
for a technical Co founder then? Because that's it was, it was my
21:20
choice. My first choice was to look for
21:23
a technical Co founder because a lot of, you know, VCs back then
21:28
were only backing people with technical Co founders and all of
21:33
that. And I was like, I don't know how
21:34
to do this. I might as well find a technical
21:36
Co founder. I think the landscape is very
21:39
hard, especially if you come from the bad kind of background
21:43
that I come from. Even though I worked at
21:45
startups, they were mid scale startups.
21:48
They weren't as early, you know, like they were not super early
21:52
stage. So you don't, I didn't know
21:54
people in the field where I should, where I was heading
21:58
because I was heading to just starting your company scene and
22:02
where I came from, especially for marketing.
22:05
I was at a different stage where I wouldn't know people who were
22:09
going to be a match for a technical Co founder.
22:12
The other thing was even on these matching platforms, I
22:16
honestly just found really, really weird people on the YC
22:19
matching platform. I've tried a lot of Co founder
22:21
matching platforms. I've sat on a lot of calls and
22:26
it just felt very uneasy for me that am I just supposed to make
22:29
make this XYZ person my Co founder?
22:32
I barely know the person. How am I supposed to work with
22:36
this person if I do not trust him or her?
22:40
And how am I supposed to just close my eyes and give my
22:43
platform to someone? And then there was the people
22:46
who were charging money for it. They're like you're going to
22:50
give us $10,000? It's a startup, you know, you're
22:53
supposed to work without money and then we're gonna get money
22:56
at some point of time, hopefully.
22:58
You have to be okay with the bad parts of starting a startup too.
23:03
You can't just think that I'm gonna give you my own money that
23:07
I would rather put in the company than have you with your
23:11
skill set. So it's hard navigating if you
23:15
do not know people because it's a game of trust.
23:18
You need to trust your Co founder.
23:20
You need to trust the person you're supposed to work with.
23:23
And for me it doesn't come easily.
23:25
And I think that's just, you know me.
23:28
So I really didn't find someone who I could make my Co founder.
23:33
I always say I'm open to it, but it's going to be a journey.
23:37
You know, you work with me and then we work together and then I
23:40
come to trust you. I think that's going to take a
23:42
while to that would trust someone.
23:46
But isn't that sort of the normal thing with trust?
23:52
It sort of comes as, as we say in Dutch, it comes by foot and
23:56
it goes by by horse. It does, but I've also seen a
24:01
lot of people who don't really know their Co founders and they
24:04
just start the company and then they the other person just
24:08
leaves because they didn't trust each other and hard parts came
24:13
and one of them just was like, Hey, bye.
24:15
I'm not going to do this because that happens.
24:17
You need to accept the reality that it's not going to be
24:20
rainbows and butterflies all the time when you're building a
24:23
startup. It's going to be hard.
24:24
And the other person that you have, I think I need to trust
24:28
the other person as much as I trust my boyfriend.
24:30
I've asked him many times, can you be my Co founder?
24:33
He said no, sadly because he has his own thing.
24:36
And I'm like, no, I'm not going to be your Co founder.
24:38
Go do your thing. But you know, I need to be able
24:40
to trust that person as much as you would trust your partner,
24:43
because this is as, you know, as hard as building a life.
24:48
So I would really equate it that you really need to be able to
24:52
trust. It's, it's really important.
24:55
And I just wasn't able to find it.
24:56
And the people that I that I really met with.
25:00
Understood that shift to to amber because you're building
25:06
amber. Maybe explain what Emperor is?
25:11
Yeah, it is an AI based mental health companion.
25:16
For marketing reasons right now it's being called an AI
25:19
therapist and that's a total different debate that I did not
25:22
get into. But essentially it's providing
25:25
therapy like conversations. So it is basically trained to
25:29
support you in your hard times, you're anxious, you're not
25:32
having a good day, anything you would like to talk about?
25:35
It's judgment free. We're very culturally aware in
25:40
the platform, so we support different cultures.
25:43
We've trained it on data that it's, you know, that you're
25:46
supposed to be more culturally sensitive.
25:48
You're supposed to support people, not just on the, you
25:51
know, so it's not like you would go to, you know, a Western
25:56
person's office, a therapist's office, and they won't
25:59
understand your cultural background.
26:01
That's something that Amber could truly do.
26:02
It really understands if I'm Indian, it really understands
26:05
all the things that really happened back in India or, you
26:08
know, my cultural background. So we also made it very
26:12
sensitive in that point. And it's basically you can talk
26:15
to it about anything and everything.
26:19
And it's just here to be your mental health companion as a
26:22
bridge with therapy. So we do not recommend that you
26:26
that you use it as a replacement because that's not nice.
26:29
You still need human to actually still need human support.
26:32
But for people who cannot afford it, for people who want to go to
26:36
a therapist's office, but they're still hesitant because
26:38
that's a whole another journey, you can use it as a supplement
26:43
to really work out your thoughts and figure out what you how
26:48
you're feeling and maybe feel a little better.
26:51
OK, so I want to double click on the cultural sensitivity.
26:56
How did you bake that into the platform?
26:59
Because to me, that sounds incredibly hard to do.
27:02
It is because we still get feedback from our, our customers
27:05
are really, really, really nice people.
27:07
They understand that it's, you know, one person building the
27:10
platform. So any time they're not happy
27:12
with the responses that they get back from, you know, the chat
27:17
bot, which essentially it is, they'd let me know that, hey,
27:21
you know, I had a religious conversation with your chat bot
27:24
and it truly didn't go well. I don't think it understood it.
27:26
So that's a point for me to go back and change the prompts.
27:30
So how all these AI chat bot work is basically a lot of
27:34
prompting, going back and forth and telling it what to do, how
27:37
to do it. So as much as I could think, I
27:41
put in the initial prompts like you're supposed to be culturally
27:44
sensitive, you're supposed to understand, you know, how
27:47
different cultures work and a lot of other things.
27:50
And then what happens is on the basis of user feedback I get, I
27:56
go back in and I change those prompts to make it even more
28:00
culturally sensitive. So two months ago, Amber was not
28:04
doing good with from our customers who were more from a
28:07
very religiously conservative background.
28:10
But now we've put in more prompts to sort of, you know,
28:14
help it understand better that, you know, this is what is need
28:17
needed by religious people who are a little more sensitive to
28:21
these conversations. So now it is able to handle it
28:25
much better than it used to two months ago.
28:29
That's how it usually goes. More feedback, more thinking and
28:33
really reading a lot of things on how different people sort of
28:37
react to different, you know, responses.
28:40
So that's a little bit of a nutshell of what how we go back
28:45
and forth with the prompts of the chat box.
28:48
Yeah. So you use user feedback a lot
28:51
also to improve how Amber operates.
28:55
So you positioned it as a sort of quote UN quote bridge between
29:03
therapy, real therapy and just needing a person to talk to, I
29:08
guess. Why is that space so powerful
29:13
and how did how did you come to the idea to to start feeling
29:17
that's particular space or niche?
29:21
Yeah, I think it's really because So we as good as therapy
29:27
really is, it's not all good. You know, you have my first
29:32
therapist wasn't the best. The person who diagnosed me with
29:35
ADHD wasn't the best. So these things happen because
29:39
even those people are human beings.
29:41
They come with their own preconceived notions, their own
29:43
biases, their own problems to the room.
29:46
And no matter how much they try to, you know, take it back and
29:51
not bring it in the room, it still comes out with you because
29:54
it is part of you. So sometimes it's just not the
29:58
right match. Some people are really wary of
30:00
therapy because it's a lot of unpacking.
30:02
You need to be ready for it. Like, you know, you're ready for
30:05
marriage. You need to be ready to go to
30:08
therapy or just you, you won't just go to a therapist's office.
30:11
And otherwise everyone would be taking therapy, right?
30:14
Because it's a good thing. But still people are hesitant to
30:16
go into a therapist's office. The other thing is it is
30:19
expensive. I think it's a hot take, but I
30:23
think therapy is for, you know, the, the privileged.
30:28
It's not for and there are free resources, of course, but those
30:32
free resources act like they're free resources.
30:34
They cannot be as good as, you know, if you're going to pay
30:38
someone who's really knowledgeable to help you out.
30:41
So I think all these gaps really exist, which is why a lot of
30:45
people use ChatGPT for their feelings.
30:48
So there is a market here. It's not.
30:50
It just wasn't that I was feeling so or, you know, that I
30:54
built this, which was true. It was also on my own personal
30:58
experiences that I was really passionate about it.
31:00
But there's also a market because I think there was a
31:03
recent study. I don't want to quote the
31:04
numbers because I'm not fully clear on them country call them,
31:09
but a lot of the population uses ChatGPT to talk to their
31:13
feelings. I have a lot of therapists in my
31:15
DM who are like, you know, my clients are using ChatGPT in
31:19
between their sessions to, you know, talk to it because so when
31:24
you go to therapy, you really bring out the major big
31:26
problems, not the smaller ones, not the, I was feeling anxious
31:30
because I had a fight with my neighbor.
31:32
You don't bring that up because you have bigger problems.
31:35
Like I'm getting divorced. So, you know, there's a bigger
31:38
problem and then there's a smaller problem.
31:40
And for the smaller problems in an hour where you're paying 150
31:44
to $200, you're, you sort of pick and choose between the
31:48
problems you really want to unpack.
31:50
And then you have an hour. Then, for example, my therapist
31:54
went on sabbatical. Then she just left me.
31:56
You know, that was sad. And then I was like, what am I
31:59
supposed to do? So all the smaller problems, you
32:02
don't really have anyone to talk to.
32:04
Your friends, as I already told, are not the best fit for, you
32:08
know, talking about your feelings.
32:12
ChatGPT, as I always say, it's not really good to talk talk to
32:15
it about your feelings because it is more enabling your
32:17
behavior than really helping you unpack them, which is really
32:21
essentially what you need in a therapy setting or in a setting
32:25
where you're supposed to, you know, be helped.
32:28
So that doesn't, you know, ChatGPT doesn't really help with
32:31
it because it's a very general tool.
32:34
You could ask it to make grocery lists.
32:35
You could ask it to Raku song or XYZ and it does everything so
32:41
it's not specially trained to help you or be there with you.
32:45
Is it? Is it also too much solution
32:48
oriented so not analyzing enough?
32:51
Is that what I'm hearing you say?
32:53
It is, it is more solution oriented because I, I think at
32:58
the core a lot of chat bots, all the chat bots, even mine can
33:01
sometimes be solution oriented. But because it is, you know,
33:06
based mostly on, you know, try and help the user more try and
33:11
you know, understand how you know, unpack things.
33:14
So it really steers away from the solution based approach.
33:20
Our chat GPD is especially chat GPD and for or which a lot of
33:25
public is using at the moment. It can be a little dangerous, I
33:29
would say is because it was really made to enable things.
33:33
It is really made to give you solutions and make you feel
33:37
better. So even if you say something
33:39
which isn't really, you know, good for you, it's still going
33:42
to make you, you know, still going to enable things to you.
33:46
And that's just because it's how it was made, because it really
33:49
wasn't made for your feelings. It's it's really, yeah, made to
33:55
provide solutions not necessary to Yeah, as we, as you said to
34:00
to deal with feelings. Yeah.
34:03
So can Amber be used to augment therapy?
34:09
So is that possible now or will that be possible in the future
34:14
that, for instance, your therapist will, if you have one,
34:18
plugs it in the data into his own platforms?
34:23
I think that's something that I've been thinking about, but I
34:27
don't think it can do it yet. What we're trying to do is find
34:31
therapists who can really just recommend Amber as, you know, a
34:35
supplement or like a prescription that you can talk
34:38
to it between sessions and, you know, you can practice your
34:40
exercise and all of that. But that's an ongoing process
34:44
because a lot of medical professionals are not really
34:47
open to the idea. I'm seeing more and more people
34:50
get open to it, but they're still very hesitant and rightly
34:54
so, because it's a very sensitive space to be in.
34:58
So I understand their hesitation, but I also think
35:02
it's about time to come to terms with reality that people are
35:07
using ChatGPT. Would you rather have them use
35:11
ChatGPT or would you work with people who are trying to make
35:15
it, you know, safer environment? And I'm just saying you need to
35:18
work with me. Please go and work with other
35:21
people who are making, you know, similar platforms because it is
35:25
the reality. It's happening and it's
35:26
happening fast, so you might as well.
35:30
Jump on the train. Jump on the train, yeah.
35:32
Yeah. So on that point there, because
35:34
there's indeed you're working with feelings and a lot of
35:39
highly personal data, how do you ensure that it's also not, we
35:49
dealt a bit with the inclusion part already, but how do you
35:52
deal with also the the safety part?
35:56
So how do you keep the data safe?
35:58
How do you ensure that the the advices that are given are also
36:04
safe? Yeah, I think we first of all,
36:08
we follow all the the privacy policy and the guidelines and we
36:11
make it very clear to the users that, you know, nothing like no
36:16
ones in the background selling the data or any of that.
36:20
So that doesn't really happen. Why would I do that?
36:22
So we make sure that privacy first.
36:26
So what we have in Amber is for free users, it doesn't have
36:31
memory, so it doesn't really remember things, which basically
36:33
means that in the back end we don't have your data just like
36:37
goes away, right? We do have aggregated anonymous
36:40
data for, you know, purposes of trying to make the platform
36:45
better. So we are only able to find out
36:47
the, you know, the broad, broad, broad spectrum of talks they're
36:51
doing. But that is just for, you know,
36:53
finding out how the chat bot is really performing.
36:56
So we don't really save anything.
36:58
We don't, you know, sell anything and we make it really
37:01
clear to the users and I think our users are very they
37:05
understand all of this, which is why we've been growing and we've
37:09
been keeping our premium users who also get memory.
37:13
So they really like that. You know, Amber can remember
37:16
things, but that doesn't mean that I remember things because I
37:19
don't have, I am not gonna go and, you know, see who talked
37:22
about what because we don't really save any of that.
37:25
So I think they understand it, which is why they're really,
37:28
really just, you know, come back because it's a secure platform
37:32
and we follow all the, you know, technical background and all of
37:36
that. So none of the platforms are
37:39
hacked or none of the things are leaked.
37:42
I make it a point to make privacy 1st and all of the good
37:47
stuff, which is really important for the users to make it feel,
37:51
make them feel really secured when they're using our platform.
37:55
OK. Yeah, some time ago you launched
37:58
your your beta version and you have actually users now on the
38:02
platform. How did that shift your
38:05
perspective on on entrepreneurship and on what's
38:10
important as as a solo founder? When I was, you know, starting
38:17
off, I had no users. I had people who were like 1020
38:21
users. I meant nothing.
38:22
It was like, OK, yeah, whatever, people are using it.
38:25
And then I saw that it just kept on growing.
38:27
And it made me panic that now I have 100 people, 203 hundred,
38:31
405 hundred. We're almost at 700.
38:34
And now I'm like, excuse me, people are using this.
38:38
And it's hard to come in terms with it because now people are
38:42
really depending on it. A lot of times I need to top up
38:46
my credits on, you know, more technical stuff that I need to
38:51
so they can keep talking to the chat bot.
38:53
I need to pay, you know, our suppliers, not suppliers like
38:58
the open router, for example, money.
39:00
So they can keep talking to it. A lot of times I forget to top
39:03
it up and then the chat bot stops working.
39:07
So my users messaged me, Hey, I really need to talk to your
39:10
platform. Can you?
39:11
It's not working. I'm like, oh shit, I forgot to
39:14
make it. I forgot to up the credits up
39:16
and at that point I was like, Oh my God, people really use it day
39:21
in and day out. A lot of our customers, users
39:24
come back and they're really on the platform talking to it
39:28
actively and chatting with it. So all of this comes with a big
39:31
responsibility, which was that no matter what happens, I need
39:37
to keep this platform going up to the quality, up to the mark.
39:40
It cannot. It cannot slide.
39:43
Honestly, that was a very big panic moment for me.
39:46
Now that we're getting closer to 1000 users, that when I think of
39:51
it, I don't even know those many people in reality, right?
39:54
I don't know 700 people. I don't know 600 people.
39:58
And those many people are really using my platform, which just
40:01
makes me lose my mind that I really need to be on my toes all
40:06
the time and serve them no matter what happens.
40:10
So that's that was the actualization to come to.
40:13
OK, so on that point there, because my question now is
40:19
you've had, you've dealt with burnout, you know what it feels
40:23
like, how are you going to prevent that from happening
40:28
again? Because there's, I always say
40:32
that founders sort of need to be on the brink of a burnout, but
40:38
really need to be like almost maxing out their their battery
40:44
life, so to say. But how do, how do you make sure
40:48
that it doesn't cross, that it doesn't explode?
40:52
And how do you recharge your battery to make sure that you're
40:56
able to do to keep delivering? Yeah, I think what I, I did, I,
41:02
I started setting some goals which are not work related.
41:06
So I made this list for myself where, for example, now I'm
41:09
training for 1/2 marathon and my goal is to get faster, right?
41:14
It's classic founder thing. I think anyone who's the founder
41:17
and investor in a high stress job, they just start running and
41:19
it's a good thing. And I just set this goal that I
41:22
need to get faster. And at the point of time that
41:25
I'm running, which is, you know, every three days I go out on a
41:28
run and then every other day, six or seven days a week, I'm
41:31
just working out or running or, you know, trying to get faster,
41:35
trying to get better, trying to look fitter and all of that, you
41:38
know, getting checked. So those things are like, I have
41:41
different goals, which have nothing to do with my work.
41:44
It really helps me anytime I'm feeling like, you know, I, it's
41:48
too much. I have too much to do.
41:49
I have too much work. One hour in the day is just for
41:53
me. And that's, you know, I just
41:55
take it out. I go and work out.
41:57
I go and run and I have a different goal that I set for
42:01
myself, so it can get a little toxic, the whole, you know,
42:05
setting a different goal for yourself.
42:07
But even then it's just making me feel much better.
42:11
And then the other thing that I started getting back into, I
42:14
really liked. I'm not any good at it, but I
42:16
like to paint and draw and clay and all of that.
42:20
Pottery as a kid. So I started, you know, I
42:23
brought this air dry clay at home and I just make like really
42:27
weird sculptures. They're really bad.
42:29
I throw them out. But I still do that like an
42:32
hour. When the day ends, I'm just
42:34
sitting with my music and just doing that or reading a book.
42:38
So it really helps to just disconnect from your work
42:42
identity. Even though I work from home, my
42:44
laptop is always with me. I make it a rule.
42:47
Yeah, me and my partner both that at lunch, dinner and
42:52
breakfast, we're not to talk work, we're not to look at our
42:55
laptops or our phones. We're just going to, you know,
42:57
watch TV or we're just going to eat, do something fun.
43:02
And then good thing I have a dog.
43:04
So three times a day, I need to take a break.
43:07
I need to take her out. And that really helps me just
43:10
disconnect from my daily life. OK, yeah, the the running part I
43:16
can fully empathize with because I do that twice a week and I
43:20
have two workouts per week that are almost, I don't know if you
43:27
deal with it the same way, but for to me, they're really
43:30
sacred. I need those and I want those.
43:34
And I make time for those. Whatever is happening.
43:39
Runs raining outside. I still go.
43:43
Yeah, it it gets to a point where it's really crazy because
43:46
it's in the Netherlands, it rains a lot, doesn't see the
43:48
sun, but I still go out and trenching rain.
43:51
I still do my 5K4K. Whatever.
43:53
Just get out. Just do it.
43:55
Come back and then get back to your work.
43:57
Do you have a scheme for the for the half marathon?
44:01
So, so yeah, build up to towards.
44:05
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because running 21 Ki can
44:08
tell you from experience. Running 5K is sort of you can do
44:13
running 10K if you train it's it's reasonably possible.
44:19
Running half a marathon is is a different beast.
44:22
Already I I was supposed to but I got injured in my knee so I
44:27
wasn't able to do that. So I just ran a 10K back in
44:30
Norway and I saw my boyfriend run his first half marathon.
44:35
It was I was like I don't know if I can do this but I still
44:38
signed up because it is also mental.
44:40
You really need to push through. It's more mental than its
44:43
physical I've heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, true.
44:46
Yeah. The only advice I have is train
44:48
at least 17 K make sure you have like 1617 K done and the last 5K
44:56
you can do on on mental strength.
45:00
Good to. Know anyway that's that about
45:06
running that shift to fundraising because you're
45:09
fundraising too. I was wondering what your yeah
45:14
what your expectations and were and how they because there's the
45:22
2% famous 2% where venture capital that goes to female
45:28
founders. How did you deal with the whole
45:34
experience? What was the experience like?
45:36
Yeah, I think it's been, I mean, I knew there was going to be
45:40
hard, and it is hard fundraising, especially as a
45:44
solo founder where you don't really have, you know, you
45:48
can't, I can't really spend my entire day just fundraising.
45:52
I also need to do other things, right.
45:54
So I realized. There's a company to run.
45:57
Yeah, there's a company to run, you know, and I, I was just you
46:00
when I was running and my partner likes to talk a lot and
46:04
give me a lot of lectures when I'm spiraling.
46:06
He was like, you know, this 10K that you're doing, one day
46:10
you're going to do a marathon and then you're going to realize
46:13
you really need to keep your pace, hold your pace.
46:15
Because if you're going 42K kilometers, you cannot Sprint
46:19
out of it unless and until you're like a professional
46:21
athlete. So then I realized it's very
46:24
cliche, but it is a marathon, not a Sprint.
46:27
I need to save my energy. I need to, you know, hold myself
46:33
and make myself understand that this is going to take time.
46:36
It's not going to be like I, I'm very impatient to.
46:39
And it cannot be that, oh, end of June, I'm just going to
46:42
finish fundraising. That's that's not going to
46:44
happen because the market is hard.
46:47
All of the other odds are also sort of against me, you know,
46:51
like the female founder, also brown, a lot of other things,
46:56
you know, so a lot of things are going to come to me where people
46:59
are going to tell me that this you're not going to be able to
47:02
do this. But I've been told that too many
47:04
times in my life that it doesn't even affect me anymore.
47:08
I'm like, I don't care. I'm going to do it anyway.
47:11
You know, it's OK, I can do this.
47:13
And I think that's really how I just go through with that, that
47:17
no founder, I think. And I, I always take it as you
47:21
know, I, I heard that someone rejected Cursor because they
47:26
thought it was the not going to do well.
47:29
They're doing extremely well. So it's their loss.
47:32
That's how I, it can be a little cocky, but that's how I like to
47:35
think of it, that people who are going to reject me or who are
47:38
not going to invest in me, I don't need to think of them.
47:41
They're probably not a good fit anyway.
47:43
And I just need to find the right people who believe in me,
47:47
who are going to invest in me. I think it's going to happen.
47:51
Not today, maybe not tomorrow, in three months, four months.
47:54
It's going to take as long it's going to take.
47:56
I cannot speed up the process because fundraising is
47:59
difficult. It's, it's a hard game to be in.
48:03
And you know, especially since I've have had more customers
48:07
growing in and the love that really pours into me.
48:10
I get messages, I get so much support from my users.
48:13
It really just removes all the imposter syndrome that really
48:18
comes in that, you know, I cannot do this.
48:20
I'm like, no, I can do this. I think I can do this if my
48:23
users like me, who's not to invest in this company.
48:26
So that's how I really think of it.
48:28
Yeah, in the end, the investors are only rocket fuel to make it
48:33
grow faster. But you already grow, so you
48:37
don't need to. It's not you're what I'm here,
48:40
you say is that you're sort of less dependent on on the
48:44
validation part. Yeah, I think a friend of mine
48:47
asked me this question that, you know, what's going to happen if
48:51
you don't fundraise? Like it's just going to be
48:54
slower for me to grow because you do need a lot of capital to,
48:58
you know, scale rapidly. It's going to be slower, but
49:01
it's going to happen. I'm going to make it happen
49:03
somehow or some way or the other.
49:05
It's going to be slower than I would expect if I wasn't able to
49:08
fundraise, but it's not going to be the end of the world that,
49:12
you know, everything's destroyed because I still have people
49:15
using me. So that's a good outlook to look
49:18
at it. OK, what's the worst or the the
49:21
weirdest remarks you got from people in the as part of the
49:25
fundraising process? It's standard really just they
49:30
all they never reply. I think I've seen this with PCs.
49:33
They're never going to reply with I'm never going to invest
49:35
in this or this is a bad idea because you, you never know,
49:39
right? You're not an astrologer, you
49:42
don't know what what's going to happen.
49:44
So I've always heard this is a very crowded market or, you
49:48
know, yeah, we, we think as I, as I'm raising pre seed, a lot
49:54
of people ask me for revenue. I'm like, excuse me, there's no
49:57
revenue because it is pre seed. And you know, I'm still
50:01
validating my idea and reaching people.
50:05
And one thing that I've always heard from investors on their
50:09
website is like, we are the first check in.
50:12
We believe in, you know, yeah, very, very, very early stage.
50:17
And then they're like, but we need 1,000,000 in germanium,
50:21
like, OK, bye. You know, so that's that can get
50:24
a little like, excuse me, what is your headline doesn't match
50:28
with your expectations. So yeah, sometimes it can get
50:31
like that. But yeah, it's just part of it.
50:35
But, and, and did you experience any of the, the part about being
50:42
asked about, oh, how are you going to deal with this at home?
50:45
Women are known to get different questions from investors than
50:50
men. So did you experience any of
50:53
that part? No, honestly, I think I've been
50:56
really lucky that I haven't really had any strange questions
51:00
being asked to me. They've been all the people I've
51:04
talked to, they've been really respectful and they've really
51:07
not brought up any, anything which has been out of the the
51:11
ordinary that I would truly, yeah.
51:14
So I've been lucky in that department.
51:15
OK, then I'm happy. I'm really happy to hear that.
51:19
So, So what, what is next for for Amber?
51:25
What does the future look like? So how do you want to build it?
51:28
Yeah, I, I think as if I'm going to be very ambitious, and this
51:34
is also on my pitch deck, that if I'm going to be very, very
51:37
ambitious, I think I want it to be.
51:39
You know, you think of meditation, you're thinking of
51:41
head space, you think of sleep, you're thinking of calm.
51:44
If you think of Amber, you know, someone to talk to, maybe you
51:48
want to think of Amber. That's what that's where I
51:50
eventually wanted to be. But I think right now I'm on a
51:54
right now plan. I'm a great Grey's Anatomy, you
51:57
know, I watch it a lot. And Doctor Bailey said, what's
52:00
the right now plan? I'm like the right now plan
52:02
honestly is to just crowd 1000 users, give them the best
52:06
platform that I can truly give them.
52:09
Keep up the quality, keep up the good work and just be at it.
52:13
So I haven't really, I don't think too much into the future
52:17
because it's future is really just, you know, really
52:21
unpredictable. I don't know what's going to
52:23
what's going to change, what's going to happen.
52:25
But if you're able to ask me next week, just grow my users,
52:30
maybe ship some new features, get on user queries.
52:34
That's all I can really think of.
52:36
OK. So it's really also short term
52:41
getting to the next step rather that while there is a big, big
52:46
goal to to be the, let's say they call them, of mental
52:50
health. So is there anything you before
52:54
you started that you would have liked to have known looking back
53:00
at your journey? Honestly, I think I learned a
53:04
lot from my first venture, which was espresso.
53:07
I learned plenty from that. I think the other thing that I
53:11
would, you know, tell myself is that you don't need to just
53:16
because I'm told that, you know, you're supposed to go to
53:18
networking events and you're supposed to talk to a lot of
53:20
people and you're supposed to meet a lot of people.
53:23
I think what I've learned is I need to keep the quality up.
53:27
A lot of places that I go to, I meet a lot of mansplainers,
53:33
people telling me I can be a little product better than you.
53:37
And that drains me because I do not wanna be hanging out.
53:41
I mean, sure, go ahead, make it. But I don't wanna be in places
53:46
where I get nothing out of it, right?
53:49
I need to come back and feel energized rather than really
53:53
trained and never show up for an event again.
53:56
I think that's what I've been teaching myself, that it's not
53:59
important for me to say yes to everything, yes to, you know,
54:03
every meeting, yes to meeting everyone.
54:05
Sometimes I also need to say no. This is not the right fit for
54:09
me. I don't want to be, you know,
54:11
sitting in on this meeting, which I don't know the outcome
54:14
of. Because I think as as founders
54:17
and as I think also as women, we're just too much into yes,
54:21
yes, yes to everything. Don't say no.
54:23
People are going to get offended.
54:24
No, say no. They can get offended.
54:27
You don't owe them anything. It's OK.
54:30
So I think that's what I would tell myself before I started
54:33
that don't cut yourself short with meeting the wrong people
54:38
and studying in a place where people are just going to tell
54:40
you you don't belong because what's the point?
54:42
You're just going to make yourself feel worse.
54:47
Yeah, true. And I think it's very strong to,
54:50
to also be able to say no. So if they're, let's say there's
54:55
a female founder listening to this and they're, they're
55:01
thinking about launching a mental health app, what, what
55:05
advice would you give them? It's it's tough, but it doesn't
55:10
mean that you cannot do it. You need to believe.
55:13
I think the first thing that needs to come for you is the
55:16
passion, the you know that you really need to build something.
55:21
Be ready to pivot your product. Don't be stubborn like I was.
55:26
Do sit on one product and just, you know, be like, I'm going to
55:29
build this, I'm going to do this.
55:30
No, in a start up you need to pivot.
55:33
You need to have user feedback first.
55:36
Then there's anything else. It's always put the users first.
55:40
Don't think of anything. So that's one thing.
55:42
And the other thing is people are going to keep telling you
55:45
you cannot do this. You just get used to hearing
55:49
that. Don't get used to hearing that.
55:51
Don't think that it's going to be true.
55:54
Just treat it as as, you know, white noise, like people play
55:58
background music. It's just background music that
56:00
you cannot do this, just like they're going to keep.
56:04
Yeah, the sound is there. The sound is there, you just
56:08
need to ignore it. Yeah, you just think to ignore
56:10
it. It's going to.
56:11
Yeah, Just let it be. Are there questions that female
56:16
founders should ask? So you're not telling me I can't
56:19
do this, so how can I? You can, you can.
56:22
You should always look at problems with how can I solve
56:26
this or how can I do this? What would be a better way to
56:31
find more users instead of framing?
56:34
And this is from therapy framing questions negatively where
56:38
you're like, can I do this? Ask questions like how can I do
56:43
this? You know, it really changes your
56:45
perspective on your questions. So instead of really questioning
56:49
yourself question, you know, how can you do this?
56:53
Or how can you be better? How can you make your product
56:55
better or just anything? And I think this is also for
56:58
life, especially for women. I think you're going to keep
57:01
hearing a lot of things. And you don't need to be a big
57:05
critic, critic of yourself. People are going to do that for
57:08
you. Let them, you know, so you don't
57:11
need to keep questioning yourself over everything.
57:15
Yeah, it's. Well that that is a really
57:18
beautiful place to to move to. My last question.
57:22
So I'm on a mission to make inclusion and tech the new
57:25
normal by the end of 2032. No, let me let me just rephrase
57:29
that out loud. I'm on a mission to make
57:32
allyship the new normal by the end of 2032.
57:37
What is one thing you think I should do to get there?
57:42
I think good question. That's I'm probably going to
57:47
have to think on that. Yeah, I think what you're doing
57:49
honestly today, right now, I think that's a lot is when I was
57:55
like, I, I heard of your podcast now woman disrupting tech and a
57:59
man is hosting it. I was like, huh, weird.
58:02
OK, Because a lot of times that we go to these conversations
58:06
where like, is he going to be like one of those people who are
58:09
just going to mansplain me things?
58:12
But you know, you weren't. And that is really nice to have
58:16
that conversation that, you know, you're just here to listen
58:19
to us and support us. And and that's that's not
58:23
because I think you cannot just alienate one gender and be like,
58:29
oh, we're just going to do this alone or the other way around.
58:32
You need to be in it together. So instead of looking at us as
58:37
you know, women is in the room, just think of us as people.
58:40
You know, we're in the room with you.
58:42
We're doing anything that we can do.
58:44
So I think this podcast that you've started, I think that
58:46
really is just can be one of the answers that, you know, you're
58:51
you're helping us have our stories out, asking us the right
58:54
questions and helping other women come out and just talk
58:59
more. So I think that's it's, it's
59:02
really nice to have men support, you know, or just be there, you
59:08
know, thinking about that. OK, yeah, they can do this too.
59:12
Yeah. So what's what would be the next
59:15
step? So listening and giving women a
59:18
platform is obviously a step one and also visiting or let's say
59:26
assuming we're in the room together, it's not just man
59:30
versus women. What is the next step from that
59:34
you think? Yeah, I think just, you know,
59:36
helping if, if we're in the room together, just not making me
59:40
feel any less, I think that would that would really mean a
59:45
lot. And then because I don't feel
59:47
less, I don't feel like you're going to say the wrong thing
59:51
because you're being just a normal person.
59:54
It really empowers me to, you know, make the right decisions
59:58
and really talk open with openly with you.
1:00:01
And that's really just empowers me and that's all you can do as
1:00:05
I think. I don't know if that was the
1:00:07
right answer to the question because I can't really think if
1:00:10
what would be the next step because I think that's the the
1:00:13
first step is what you need. And I think the change is going
1:00:17
to keep, you know, happening from that.
1:00:20
OK, cool thing. Thank you very much for an
1:00:25
amazing conversation, really enjoyed this.
1:00:28
If people want to learn more about you or about Amber, where
1:00:34
can they find more information? Yeah, well, you can follow me on
1:00:38
LinkedIn. I'm Ghu Singh and Amber.
1:00:41
It's www.ambermind.ai. You can go to the website, try
1:00:46
the product out. If you don't like it, please
1:00:47
come back, tell me what you don't like, I'll fix it.
1:00:51
Hopefully you like it there. So yeah.
1:00:55
OK. So also, and that's an invite
1:00:58
that I extend to listeners really provide, it's good to use
1:01:04
the platform, but these also provide feedback because that's
1:01:07
how people learn. Yeah, so constructive feedback.
1:01:12
Please. Yeah, of course don't bash it.
1:01:17
We have other people for that. Yes.
1:01:21
OK, cool thing. Really enjoyed this
1:01:24
conversation. Thank you very much listeners.
1:01:27
Thank you very much for listening and until the next
1:01:30
episode, keep being awesome. Well, that's it for episode 117
1:01:40
of Women Disrupting Tech with Guru Singh, titled How Burnout
1:01:45
Fueled Guru Singh to Build a Bridge between AI and Therapy
1:01:48
with Amber Koohoo. And I hope you found our
1:01:52
conversation as inspiring and empowering as we intended it to
1:01:55
be. And if you have any questions
1:01:57
for Koohoo, please leave them in the comments on Spotify, Apple,
1:02:01
or YouTube. I'll make sure you receive an
1:02:03
answer. When you want to connect with
1:02:05
Koohoo or learn more about Amber, please check out the
1:02:09
links in the show notes. As usual, you can find the show
1:02:12
notes at Women Disrupting Techno Blog and the link is also in the
1:02:16
description. If you've enjoyed listening to
1:02:19
this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review on
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1:03:35
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1:03:37
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