Latest / Reframe First / Sergio Khoury, CEO of Ordering | AI Agents Are Replacing Phone Orders

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Sergio Khoury, CEO of Ordering | AI Agents Are Replacing Phone Orders · Reframe First

• Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Reframe First. I'm Alexey, I'm the host of the podcast. Let me welcome our today's guest, Sergio Cori from Ordering Plus, co-founder and CEO founder CEO at Finite Less. Hi, Sergio, it's great having you here. Sergio Khoury: Yes, thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, awesome. We investigated about ordering and it was like, wow, open the page and you see Domino's, KFC, Starbucks, Burger King, and all other big networks that are using your product. So basically ordering is specialist in online ordering for websites, apps, and other platforms. if I understand it right, it's both like... Sergio Khoury: Yes. Oleksij Rak: Food chain networks, it's marketplaces and so on and so forth. So it's all in one online ordering and delivery platform. And we're kind of zero middleman in the loop. if you want to have your Uber Eats for yourself with no middleman, you can have it in 24 hours. Is it right? Could you tell us more about your building kit ordering and what the product is about? Sergio Khoury: Mm. Yes, of course. So ordering.co ⁓ born as a marketplace solution. ⁓ then eventually, ⁓ started serving more and more companies. ⁓ We started to have more and more futures. ⁓ it was already attractive to franchises. ⁓ think it was back in 2018 when we started working with big franchises. Oleksij Rak: of course, it was worked as a marketing team. And eventually, we started serving work for companies. We started to have work for computers. So it was already attracted to franchises. It was back in 2018 when we started working with big franchises. And from there, we've done a lot of work on the big franchises. Sergio Khoury: And from there, there are a lot of requirements that big franchises, big companies have, like having very good scalability ⁓ the system, security, ⁓ a lot of millions of API calls ⁓ hour and so on. ⁓ it was kind of ⁓ few rough years until we stabilized the whole platform. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: During the day, I thought of like mediums, big guy calls, and all that, and so on. And so it was kind of like, I'm going to out here and talk to you, and it sounded like it like a whole bunch of other people. Sergio Khoury: Right now it's fully scalable, processing millions of orders per month. So it's great. ⁓ I like the most ⁓ ordering is that it's and it can be connected to actually any system. ⁓ So that we see ⁓ ourselves of like a headless commerce solution so that franchises can have a great starting point. Oleksij Rak: Okay. So the project is coming up like a great start to life. It can be kind of interesting. Sergio Khoury: It can be connected to other systems and then and more things can be built on top of our platform. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that's awesome. And what makes it so unique is that giant, I don't know, Burger King wants to use this platform. Sergio Khoury: I think of the main ideas is the companies we work with and that it's already enterprise ready. So it's like a plug and play solution where in a couple of weeks or a couple of months you can have your system perfectly connected to all the systems that you have. we are not like other companies where they say like, ⁓ I just have this out of the box solution. I will not customize it. And if you want, we put it in ⁓ our And then it's going to take years. develop. ⁓ a startup ⁓ with that kind of mentality. So if someone comes and they require something special, we will prioritize. We will provide a quote for that and we can implement. ⁓ So kind the energy behind the company. Of course, the team that we have, very capable team. We have been working together for many, many years now. And ⁓ now ⁓ We are evolving to becoming this new company around AI. So it's not just about the AI solutions that we are building with finitles.com. We are actually going to launch kind of like a sister company very soon, sister company to ordering.co, which is all about vibe coding. So ⁓ like you're going to have your own marketplace solution. Oleksij Rak: you It's not just about the AI structures and where it works. It lets us where are you going to launch it. Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: full source code that you can connect to Cloud Code or Codex or Lovable, Replic, whatever platform you want to use. And then it's perfectly optimized so that it can operate with these coding agents. So if you want to build things on top, it's like one prompt away. ⁓ what makes us unique for that is that ⁓ it's kind of like a Wix solution where you have not a Oleksij Rak: It's like one rock away and one makes us really trapped in a door hole instead of a Sergio Khoury: perfectly done platform for e-commerce, ⁓ with our platform is optimized for local commerce, not only e-commerce. So it's kind of the niche of the niche. So ⁓ it total for us to have like agentic flows for this specialized platform ⁓ and allow entrepreneurs grow, allow franchises to connect anything. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: to build futures by their selves, even like marketing teams could connect to cloud code and build futures. So that's kind of the idea behind that. Oleksij Rak: Wow, that's something new. ⁓ you think the ⁓ is ready for that? So do you think it will be easy for marketing guy from ⁓ franchise to... come over and like build some feature or build some dashboard for himself. Sergio Khoury: Yes, definitely. think that the trend, ⁓ I will personally start giving weekly calls, showing how to code to anyone so that they can actually learn how they will be able to connect cloud code, codex to our platform and then ⁓ it in a way that the system understands, which Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: It's plain English or Spanish or whatever language you speak or ⁓ customer speaks. that's great. I think been playing with it myself ⁓ and it's really great. one of the there is that we need to think how AI agents are thinking ⁓ and ⁓ plugging Oleksij Rak: I I have a point with this myself. It's really, really great. of the great things is that we need to think about how many agents are working through being the agents. Sergio Khoury: the agents to existing code bases, it's harder than approach, which was create the products from the ground up, thinking about agentic coding in a way that AI agents can better understand the code without a lot of settings, ⁓ a lot of like configurations, because there a time where you needed to build everything on the settings side so that it was easier somehow for the users to go to an admin area, then change all these settings, and then the front end should respond according to those settings. But not anymore. So right now, it's better for the AI agent to have, ⁓ I don't know, React or Next.js or whatever code you prefer. Oleksij Rak: So right now it's it's better for an in and out. I don't know if we have to play JKS or whatever, but I'll do whatever. Sergio Khoury: as lean as possible, as clean as you can without only this if, if, if, if, if from the settings. that way the AI agent codes better and faster. Also ⁓ the don't run out as fast and the gets done ⁓ in a way. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah. one kind of like if coming back to. to the ordering, like, what does it take for you to like lend the customer and what will it do like with the new infrastructure that you're building? Like, what's the difference there? Sergio Khoury: Do you mean, ⁓ so that I can understand properly the question, do you mean ⁓ happens after they sign up? from ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Yeah, after they sign up and you need to like run them in your system So we need to like like roll out the whole product for them So I I guess in at ordering is like one process and with what you're building get infinite less It's it will be quite different process with all the Sergio Khoury: Yes. Yes. So for ordering, way we do it, it's mostly white globe, meaning that the sales process, it's very personal. ⁓ We jump phone calls. We explain the product, which is like very, very ⁓ has thousands futures. ⁓ We tried in the past, but it has so many things. Oleksij Rak: . Yeah. Sergio Khoury: that you need to explain a call to the users what we have. You to understand the actual problems that they want to solve to see if we are the right fit for them, explain them how they need to set up the platform so that they can solve their problems. ⁓ Otherwise, was pretty hard for them to go in. try to set up everything. There are many, many things to set up. And then they abandon the process and think that it's a hard platform. Of course, it's hard if you don't know how to use it. But if you implement workflow like we did where it's more personal, you have the sales goal to understand the problems, then after they buy, you have Oleksij Rak: you the problem that after they buy new cars and new money back car, it's so easy in the end. It seems that it's not the problem that comes from front end. We get $100,000 of money back every time. Even if they decide to not do their project, we can't get the money back. And if we have an over-problem, we present our right manager for a four-day financial application. Sergio Khoury: actual money back guarantee. So if in the end, it seems that it's not the perfect platform for them, we give 100 % money back, no questions asked. Even if they decide to not do their project, we can give them money back. ⁓ And then we have the onboarding call. We present our project managers or support team so that they can actually know who they will be working with. And our team helps them the actual process to create the apps, them the app store, to Google Play. ⁓ So not like you buy a platform and then it's everything done. With marketplaces, there are a lot of steps. You need sometimes to even create your Apple account. So our team guides them on how to do that. It's normal to get rejections when you are uploading an app. So our team helps them write the explanation so that they can be actually accepted by Apple and Google. So it's a lot of experience that if you are new, if you are an entrepreneur new to these technologies or new to even Apple or Google policies, it's harder. I'm not saying it cannot be learned. Of course it can be learned. But if you have an experienced team behind that, Oleksij Rak: So it's an experience that if you're in a physical institution, you have more or more points to consider. I think it's kind of a better call for your behavior. But if you're in a physical institution, you have more Sergio Khoury: that's going to help you, I think that's better. Oleksij Rak: And how will the new approach help Or will the finite less approach help this onboarding process? Sergio Khoury: Yes. So for FiniteList, it's two kinds of customers. first, the for FiniteList is so much bigger. We are basically building AI agents that replace boring human work. That's kind of the mission. So what's one the most boring jobs, I think, happens right now? and it's in every country in the world, it's phone calls. Still, one of three orders are via phone, even in developed countries in Europe, US, Canada. There are still between 25 % or 35 % of phone calls placing orders. So that's kind of the first use case that we are automating with Finitless. We are starting with ordering agents for ⁓ taking orders. It can be used for restaurants, hotels, for room service, and any other product that you would like to sell. It's also a really use case. It's for creators. Maybe you are selling a book, you are selling courses, or whatever you Oleksij Rak: Thank you. . . Sergio Khoury: sign for FiniteList, then ⁓ create products and ⁓ train little bit the ⁓ AI We of course help in that ⁓ so that understands exactly what your customer is asking. It can sell automatically. You can even pay with credit card and receive the payments and you receive the orders automatically into FiniteList. ⁓ So it's really nice process. Oleksij Rak: . Sergio Khoury: the one that we are building. And of course, for phone calls, like I explained the chat use case, have WhatsApp, but we also have web chat, which ⁓ believe it's going to be as big as WhatsApp. WhatsApp is very big in many countries, but not all of them. But can already click on any social network. and go directly to a website and then communicate with an AI agent optimized to sell your products or to know your company and orient and help the customer. that's kind of the idea behind the web chat. because we control the interface, it can be more dynamic than just messages with WhatsApp. So we can add additional images somewhere in the interface. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: . Sergio Khoury: browse the menu and see many other things that you cannot do with a simple chat to chat interface. ⁓ back a little bit to the voice agents, for that, we are launching, ⁓ I in March 2026 or April 2026. And I ⁓ mentioned dates because I don't know ⁓ whoever going to see this. Maybe it's already May and it's already launched. Oleksij Rak: I think you are in or in project 26 or whatever. I mentioned the dates because I don't know how long I'm going to see this. Sergio Khoury: But the way we are doing that, it's, again, starting with restaurants. ⁓ To process phone orders, we connect directly to the point of sale systems. So their orders are injected automatically. And the process of sign up, it's also very easy. A restaurant can go to our website. They will be asked to connect the point of sale system. We extract the menu. then you can start playing with the AI. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: basically, and start getting the orders directly into your point of sale system. Oleksij Rak: Like aren't you afraid of like, not not you afraid, like people are still afraid of AI and AI adoption not ⁓ so high not so as resistant, know, because AI will take my job, whatever. And, but on the hand, founders want and stakeholders want efficiency as they push towards AI. How does it work with, ⁓ will it work with... Sergio Khoury: you Oleksij Rak: with your product because like, as you say, you need to get in and start working with an agent. So start using an AI agent, which is something you use. It's not just GPT, it's an agent, which you need to deal with to write code and you're a marketing guy or I don't know, restaurant manager. So do you see any kind of resistance there? And like, what's the trends there? What do you think in terms of AI adoption? Sergio Khoury: Mm-hmm. Yes. ⁓ I think that, of course it's a ⁓ very large topic and there are ⁓ many answers for this. ⁓ no one ⁓ answer. I there are theories or ⁓ thesis around ⁓ the way are it is that I don't know any human that actually enjoys taking phone calls. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Sergio Khoury: So that's kind of the use cases that we want to replace first. ⁓ I don't know what will happen in two or three or four or five years. Maybe we are going to start replacing even some cases where ⁓ it actually work that it was already enjoyed by humans. But for now, are focusing on replacing boring human work. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: so that humans can actually do other things that they enjoy. So for example, if there's a chef or there are a lot of persons in a restaurant, the least enjoyable they is taking the phone calls. They can be doing other things around. ⁓ restaurant that it's not taking the phone calls. So I think that's ⁓ a pretty nice use case. ⁓ like if you walk into a restaurant and see ⁓ the that are taking the phone calls and telling you to wait and you are actually physically there and they are not helping you, that's more frustrating. So it's kind of imagining these use cases where humans can actually do more creative work or other kind of work that they will enjoy more. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, I can imagine that. Yeah, so you found the pain point and you're like penetrating this business through that pain point. And then on top of that, you can chat with the agent and build your own dashboard. Yeah, Awesome. And how much do you think such kind of automation can help or can save? Sergio Khoury: Yes, yes. Oleksij Rak: terms of... Sergio Khoury: Yes, there are two approaches there. One of them is actually recovering that are already lost because even if you have people answering phone calls, you will lose sales because you cannot take each and every order by phone. There are rush hours. Maybe there are phone lines. The person that's answering the phone needs to go to the bathroom and take breaks and so on and so forth. So the restaurants are already missing phone calls that can be recovered with AI. So that's one of the pain points. The other one is the actual substitution of 100 % of the phone calls. So I think that... Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. you Sergio Khoury: It will depend on the restaurants. Some of them will want complete automation upfront. Some of them will want to recover these lost sales. those are ways we are approaching ⁓ this problem. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense. like with regards like the I'm talking with people, like it depends who is on which side of AI. And, like people saying AI cannot replace the human touch, the human in the loop. And like I was chatting with you, like I was thinking like sometimes I'm going to restaurants, I'm in a hurry, I give them a call, tell them I'll be there in 15 minutes, please cook me the dinner. And this is kind of human touch approach, which how can it be handled with an AI agent? Sergio Khoury: Mm. Yes. Yes, definitely. It's really helpful in that kind of use case that you mentioned. When you're in a hurry, you maybe just want to send a ⁓ message or a quick phone call or just a quick chat message. And then your order is going to be prepared and ready as soon as you arrive. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Sergio Khoury: Yes. Oleksij Rak: Good. Yeah, we've discussed a lot some of AI trends. What else do you see that's changing in the industry? Like stepping back, you're working with quite a lot of big clients in industry nowadays. It's like franchises. What is this changing like and how do they adapt to the change? Like over the last, I don't know, a year or two years, like age of AI for sure, is there anything else? ⁓ Sergio Khoury: Mm-hmm. Yes, think also the part can be handled very good by AI already. And there a of companies working on support agents. So I that's one of the ⁓ easiest things that can be with Also, Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: I would think that big companies, they all want to do something with AI, but they don't really know ⁓ to do. And they also don't have the people that ⁓ how to ⁓ to ChagiPT and create agents ⁓ create agents like in ⁓ or ⁓ platform they choose to create AI agents. Oleksij Rak: They don't really know what doing. And they also don't have the people that know how to create agents, or create agents like a blockchain or whatever other agents to create agents. So I think for a lot of companies, I think it's important that they focusing on specific use cases. Sergio Khoury: So I think more and more companies ⁓ are going to be emerging that are focusing on specific use cases ⁓ so that will be ⁓ to ⁓ The specialized software replaced the general software like spreadsheets and Word documents and so on. I think the same is going to happen with AI agents where you have these general platforms that allow you to create agents that they are really nice platforms, even 11 Labs, Cloud, ChatGPT, and Salesforce. There are so right? ⁓ But they want to like a general use case where someone can learn how to create the agents and then you go. You can have like the fully agent connected to all these different systems. But that takes time. That takes skills. That takes knowledge and so on. ⁓ But think, ⁓ and sorry, just going back to the idea is a lot of companies are going to ⁓ be creating these kind of solutions where you go, sign up, connect your systems, especially for certain use case, and then it's done. You are done and you are set. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, over the last two, three years, I see that a lot of products emerge that solving one specific pain. So it probably started with API, for instance, when you can use the API to search Google, because Google doesn't let it. Sergio Khoury: What do you think, Olex? Oleksij Rak: So, and it's solving one simple, one simple, simple pain and like, ⁓ it's like piece of the puzzle and a lot of such software is emerging so that you can build and as soon as it ⁓ and it does become agent ready, you know, ⁓ all of a sudden you have a lot of software as a service instruments around like ⁓ cloud ⁓ can be used by your agent as a tool. So, that this is like this kind of agentic approach. But in terms of what you said like about specific niches, so I see where you're going. So like you are trying to conquer your own niche you have with ordering combo, but you want to evolve it into the future with agentic approaches with all this kind of stuff. If I understand this right. ⁓ Sergio Khoury: Yes, yes, exactly. kind of the idea. ⁓ when start in a company, you know this also ⁓ as it's just like you need to keep moving. And ⁓ then time tell what to build next. what to focus ⁓ And it's very interesting because you see like the whole picture of what's going to happen in two, three years. You just need to keep moving. ⁓ And every week, every month, it's like a year from 2010, 2011 and so on, because it's moving so fast So, so fast. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. It's really rapid and like good news to you because like you are like way ahead from what I understand. Because like ⁓ had to wrap my head around like the idea of like the marketing guy can go on and like have a copy of your software and build some feature. was like what? But the end I understand where you're going so you're like... solving one specific pain, but giving them the instruments to build on top of that. really awesome. So ⁓ you just need ⁓ keep moving because like the world is evolving really fast nowadays. Sergio Khoury: Yes, and we all have like 12 months. Like every time it's like you're 12 months away of either winning or losing and you need to move fast. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, what's about time pressure? You're moving fast, but the time should be pressing. Where do you want to be in six months? What's the plan? What's pressure there? You definitely feel the pressure because from what I see, you're moving really fast. Sergio Khoury: We are trying. We are moving as fast as we can. idea this is that are optimizing company and removing all the past mistakes that ⁓ we did because have been in this business for over 12 years now, I think. Maybe even longer. I've been an entrepreneur for almost 18 years actually 20 years now. So everything I've learned of how not to do things, which is a lot, so many mistakes, I'm... Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: kind of trying and thinking every week, like, OK, what do I need to do to avoid the same mistakes again? that's the way I'm operating now. Also kind of creating a list of the things I enjoy doing the most so that I can optimize the company for the process, not for the end goal, because this is like a road that I enjoy and it's going to take years of of continuing to work on this ⁓ and not like my work will end and I will ⁓ retire ⁓ one It's like I want to continue working because I enjoy that. ⁓ So now I'm optimizing more towards ⁓ the and not only the end goal. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: And what I mean for this. there are so many things. I'm trying to think ⁓ to explaining first. But ⁓ one them is the tools that we are deciding to use or the workflows that we are deciding to optimize ⁓ so that it's not only doing things that cannot scale. We already did that a lot, and it didn't scale. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: We actually need to think differently now because now things are actually scalable with AI, not only on quantity but on quality. So if in the past you created one sales presentation that targeted kind of customer and one of use case, and that's it because maybe your team took a month creating this presentation so that it could be almost perfect. Right now with AI, it's like can create x of presentations, maybe 20. Decide which one you like the most. And then tell the AI with the proper instructions, like, OK, this is a presentation I like. Now create for these 20 different use cases and for these different 20 industries ⁓ and so ⁓ And everything is done automatically and you have Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: 20 or 50 presentations in one day instead of in 50 months the fraction of the cost. So everything so scalable right now. And also kind of thinking around this is that you need choose the tools that allow you to scale this way. So for example, we chose Oleksij Rak: Yes. you Sergio Khoury: HubSpot as the CRM because they have a really, really nice API. A lot of things can be built on top of ⁓ HubSpot. We developed an internal sales tool so it can be used by me or by any salesperson in my company or even distributors or reselling partners that we are getting so that can have a standard sales process. And that was not so easy to do in the past. Right now it's like very, very nicely in-house app that we did, perfectly connected to HubSpot. ⁓ you click create quote, everything is synced around all the platforms. So going to the idea that I was explaining is you need to choose the tools that allow you to scale in an agentic way. ⁓ And kind of the thinking also around. My company is Finitless and Ordering that we can build the tools that can also be connected to these AI agents so that companies can scale by having some sort pre-done work with our platform and then just add things on top so that they can move 100x faster. ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely agree with you. That's also what we do at our company. it's, yeah, you need to like... automate all the processes and streamline them through some tools so that AI ⁓ agents can jump in at certain points and help out. That way you just scale out the team's capacity. you could fix something like in what you're doing ⁓ the company, ⁓ thing with snap of your fingers, what would it be? Sergio Khoury: Yes. ⁓ Getting to use AI tools like perfectly. That would be my dream if I had a magic wand. Because... ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Getting to use or getting to use perfectly? Sergio Khoury: Getting to use yes. So pushing a lot our team so they can feel the commitment of using AI tools because it's going to ⁓ allow them work faster and better. And I'm not thinking that they are going to lose their jobs. On the contrary, I want them to use them perfectly, but also to keep hiring more people so that every new hire can actually also use the AI tools that we are using internally. ⁓ It can continue to scale. ⁓ So right now, I would say that each one of our team members is doing the ⁓ job that previously was done by at least two people. I think that we can scale that to 10 people. So every person will be like 10 persons. that's like ⁓ ⁓ what you can accomplish with a 50 people team that you couldn't a few years ago. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Especially since you reduce the amount of communication, which takes time. And if one person can handle work of at least two, that you mentioned, of five people. So it's like one person is already a team and you remove all the communication inside. So it's way too big of problem. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. Sergio Khoury: Yes. Definitely. And adding to what you said, it's like every person is now like a manager, a manager of AI agents. And then you can give each person bigger projects that they can own and then they can actually accomplish in record time. Even if it's like, let's say in the past, it was very great to hear. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Sergio Khoury: that you needed to hire someone that was a full-stack engineer. So they could know back-end and front-end. But then, your company grows, you find you need back-end engineers, and then you need front-end engineers, and then you need security engineers, and this and that. But right with AI, it's like you can have the front-end engineer that, ⁓ with agentic can create the back-end, can fix the security. ⁓ can also architect the idea or the vision or draft ideas of how the product should evolve. not like five years ago. And if we want to keep growing this market now, we need to evolve and think as 2026 companies and ⁓ as Oleksij Rak: Yeah, absolutely. big of a team do you have working at ⁓ Sergio Khoury: now we are 15 people. ⁓ think that the may grow ⁓ to maybe 30 or 50 in the next 12 months. But before I had people in the company. Then we needed to reduce the team because we realized Oleksij Rak: Okay. Sergio Khoury: that we didn't have all the processes in place. So even though we had 60 people, it was like 50 % of the time lost managing people and not actually doing the job. And then we decided to decrease the amount of persons so that we can structure the processes properly and then grow with that in a more organized way. Oleksij Rak: So are you threading like having sales, so are you having like real customers or you're still building it as a startup? Sergio Khoury: So for FiniteList, we have already a few clients. ⁓ ordering.co, we have hundreds of clients ⁓ and thousands locations. So even though maybe one has, I don't know, ⁓ 500 locations another has 2,000 locations and so on. But with FiniteList, Oleksij Rak: Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Sergio Khoury: the way we are trying to do it is So with two grow strategies, one will be product-led and the other one sales-led. So for bigger companies, we can sell one by one. But for smaller ones, they will be able to sign up, test the tools, and set up the agents, and then start getting orders automatically. So that's kind of the idea. Oleksij Rak: yeah, ⁓ I like a side question regarding like ordering like ⁓ There ⁓ a ⁓ there a lot of functions of marketplaces because I thought it's like most most of Franchises big franchises, but ⁓ it's about marketplaces market, but I do not really see how it fits with marketplaces. Could you like Tell me more because like marketplaces is like chicken and an axle like there are two customers in the market Sergio Khoury: Mm-hmm. Hmm? Oleksij Rak: Thanks. Sergio Khoury: Yes. So for marketplaces, we focus on creating solution so anyone can actually start their own version of Uber Eats or Doordash. ⁓ Most of them decide to do that in their cities or maybe smaller countries or even niche. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Sergio Khoury: like ⁓ wine delivery ⁓ or pizzas or ⁓ don't like everyone has an idea. But also what realized with startups and entrepreneurs and marketplaces is that most of them have ideas and they need custom development for that. And then when you start adding up the costs, of starting an actual business for the marketplace, it's very high. ⁓ So that's kind of the reasoning behind creating Vibe orders or the ordering version that will allow Vibe coding so that anyone can ⁓ continue add things on top of the platform. And going back to the question of the chicken and egg problem, Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Sergio Khoury: ⁓ there are a lot of strategies for marketplaces to avoid this problem. One of them is like, you, you can start going to businesses and tell them like, Hey, start with my platform. You will not be charged for let's say the first few months. then you have these, this full marketplace with a lot of companies, and then you start doing some marketing. You can start with friends, family, and then. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Sergio Khoury: you can strategize according to the volume of orders. ⁓ sorry, again. OK. So example, focusing on getting customers that are companies they have, I don't know, 1,000 employees. And then you go to that company and you tell them, hey, go and order to my marketplace. I can sell you credit upfront. You will be saving so much ⁓ credit because are not charging commissions. ⁓ UberEats and Dordache take at least 30 % commission from the restaurants. So a lot of restaurants decided, OK, I'm not going to cut my margin, so I'm going to transfer this cost to the user. So if you go to UberEats as a customer, then you're already paying for a $25 order. You are paying sometimes $45 or $50 per order. So you lose a lot as a customer. Oleksij Rak: . Sergio Khoury: strategy I said about how to tackle the chicken and egg problem is just one, but mean, there are a lot of strategies. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure there. do you think is currently the biggest challenge standing on your way in what you're doing with FiniteLess? Because you are trying to move really fast, conquer the market. Sergio Khoury: Yes, distribution. Yes, because everyone listens about or is having some kind of perspective around AI, but it's impossible to know all the tools. Like, I don't know if you feel it. I feel it like every week. feel that I'm missing out this. Oleksij Rak: distribution. Sergio Khoury: I have this fear, this constant fear of not having the right tools that will allow me to continue scaling as fast as I want. then you go to product hunt and you see ⁓ tools and you see like maybe 20 or 50 of them ⁓ ⁓ % of those tools are really, really good, really nice that could really help your business that could implement. if you have the time, but you don't have the time to implement like 20 different tools every day. ⁓ think that's one of the biggest challenges. Getting this ⁓ distribution that can actually know that we exist and that signing up and FiniteLess, it's very easy. And then it's going to save a lot of work, a lot of hours, and it's going to recover sales and so on. ⁓ If I could reduce it, it would be the distribution. Oleksij Rak: So you mean that like the market will be so much flooded with this tool that like restaurants will be missing your tool? Sergio Khoury: Yes, like right now, I think it's very hard. You see so much noise also. And I mentioned like the nice side where you find 50 % of the tools that are really nice. But also if you don't search good enough, then maybe you are checking out 500 tools and just 10 of them work. eventually you say like, I'm not going to take any tool because all of them are not worth it. for a restaurant to see our product and then to actually go to the website and create the account and start trying it out. I think that will be the hardest part because there are so many things right now. So many startups, so many tools. Oleksij Rak: Do you think this noise is temporary or is it permanent from now on? Because the ability to create noise just opened. A lot of people are jumping in because it's kind of an opportunity. so as a result, have the market flooded with this noise. Sergio Khoury: Mm. Yes. The. a really good question. ⁓ I do see a trend where more and more people are becoming entrepreneurs because it's so much easier now to start, not to run the company at scale. Those things that you need to learn. And that's mean, ⁓ nobody knows I'm still learning every day. sure you are still learning every day. So I'm even Elon Musk and Sam Altman are still learning every day. ⁓ So not something that can be avoided. But this fear of starting is reduced to prompting. So that's great for the economy, for ⁓ startups, entrepreneurs. Because right now, you can't Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the 50K prototype or like MVP niche is basically that because in prototype in a few days by yourself. Sergio Khoury: Imagine something and then build it in a day or two at least the smaller version and before it took months Maybe six months to get something to work and go show that to investors so ⁓ Mm. Oleksij Rak: with the prompt. I know like a lot of service companies who are living called that niche. So they were finding customers for 50 to 100K who were raising some seed money or press seed money to build some prototype. It's not needed anymore. You just build some course or whatever and you build it yourself. Yeah, for the tokens. Sergio Khoury: Yes. Mm. in a couple hundred dollars and that's it. Yeah. And going back to your question, ⁓ that this is going to continue for at least a few years, maybe three to five years. And God what's going to happen after five years. I'm not sure how many things are going to be already automated and how many. how many startups are still required in the tech world after that? I'm not sure. think that humans will need a lot of things to do for entertainment, like physical entertainment, because the workweek it's going to be reduced to four days per week or maybe three days per week or maybe instead of eight hours per day, it's going to be a four day work day. I'm not sure. So people need to be entertained somehow the physical world, or at in the digital world ⁓ with Netflix, or ⁓ social But people will need entertainment. Hopefully it's more in the physical world. What do you think of it? Oleksij Rak: I don't know. Before being entertained, they need to earn money for being entertained to pay for the entertainment. Sergio Khoury: Yeah. Oleksij Rak: It's like this is kind of revolution of the level of in my understanding of an industrial revolution and you need to just like a lot of powerful tools are emerging ⁓ learn to use these tools ⁓ like goods will be produced but they will be at a lower cost at a bigger scale and so on. ⁓ same that happened during the industrial revolution. And like who do not get used to Sergio Khoury: . Yes. Oleksij Rak: to these new tools, we'll lose. And this one who will adapt them, adapt to using these tools, will win. So it's shifting the job market. And that's why people first need to find their niche in the job market before being entertained otherwise. Sergio Khoury: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes, yes, definitely. I agree. Oleksij Rak: I absolutely agree with you that it's not about reducing the number of people in the company. It's about way more in your company. It's extending the capability of your company. So people will be needed, but they should become more capable of ⁓ producing something, some value. Sergio Khoury: Definitely. ⁓ of producing. So going to be very interesting because if you go back 30 years from the speed advancement has been evolving like every 10 years, maybe, like first with the internet, then with apps. than now with AI, it's like multiplied. So ⁓ this was done ⁓ the last 20 years, 30 years, what's going to be in the next 30 years? Like ⁓ that, what can be ⁓ the things we've ⁓ in the last 30 years? Maybe really going to space and like ⁓ having lives. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. This one is on, you got 20 years, 20 years, and one month to be in the next term. You're like 10 weeks out, one month and a half. Sergio Khoury: I don't know. Oleksij Rak: So, what's your biggest bets about the future? Because right now you're all into agentic approaches. So from what I hear, you do believe in that. Yeah, that's a smart choice probably. What else are you betting on in your business decisions? Sergio Khoury: Yes. That's a really good question. Automating as much as we can, standardizing way work so that a new hire can ⁓ start the job done in the same it's hired. Besides agentic AI, mean, we are not doing ⁓ ⁓ of course, not be touching, but I really like is everything that companies are doing around energy and they can produce better energy that the demand for AI can be satisfied. So that's, would say that's the biggest problem in the world right now. ⁓ you can be, you hit the bottleneck with energy faster than ⁓ with now, ⁓ I Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. It will just slow down the evolvement of AI. ⁓ Sergio Khoury: little bit until AI ⁓ that also. So can put ⁓ like to work on energy problems and then it's going to be solved. ⁓ I'm they are already working like that, ⁓ but they will figure it out. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. Awesome. Well, it was quite an interesting discussion. We appreciate that. We really appreciate you coming over. Is there anything you would like to add on top of that? Sergio Khoury: Yes. Thank you so much. would like to ⁓ also about your take on that, ⁓ last question that you asked me, about the future besides and ⁓ what you ⁓ doing your business? What's your take on that? Oleksij Rak: Frankly, we are doing the same. like my take is like agentic automation and efficiency becoming more, not efficiency, efficiency is wrong. Efficiency is about saving costs. It's about productivity, increasing the productivity. ⁓ it's, I think it's a race now right now and the one who is faster and ⁓ better in getting. Sergio Khoury: Yes. Nice. Oleksij Rak: more efficient in getting more productive and is better in adapting new approaches and ⁓ to the new world and adopting new ⁓ that ⁓ should win. And that's a race and you need to be fast. need to like work and learn a lot. The of like knowledge I gained over the last like two years ⁓ is... Sergio Khoury: Mm-hmm. I like that. Oleksij Rak: Probably it's more than over the last 10 or 20 years. So it's like, it's enormous. So you just continuously like soak in some something new. for instance, we had our like product in like travel niche, which was like inspirational stuff and we were living off like Google traffic. So the traffic died off like two years ago after Google started fighting QCI. ⁓ Sergio Khoury: I agree. Mm-hmm. Oleksij Rak: So we kind of wrapped the product and put it aside. And now that I'm having this podcast, I'm saying, okay, I could have done this, I could have done that. And I'm opening ShadGPT and just asking, what's next? How can we do it now? I think about, maybe we should reincarnate the product, I'm seeing new approaches. We ⁓ the product for 10 years. I did not see these approaches. Now like... Sergio Khoury: Yes. Hmm. Oleksij Rak: In a weeks, I see that, okay, probably we should like, this is the amount ⁓ learning I'm coming through and ⁓ happening every day. So it's enormous. and yeah, my understanding is the one who is faster, ⁓ win. ⁓ completely similar to what you do. So you just need to move fast. We cannot predict the future, but we need to adapt to what's happening right now. Sergio Khoury: Just. That's great. I like that. Definitely. I completely agree. ⁓ And the great thing about already having these companies, like you have your company for 10 years, ⁓ we also do 15. So that's great because like all the boring work that needed to be done so that you could have your platform at the level that you have it right now. Oleksij Rak: 50. Yeah. Yeah. Sergio Khoury: It's all the work that other companies, maybe they are not going to take as much as we took because of the tools right now, but they are still going to take a lot of or years to build something even ⁓ to what we have. ⁓ So ⁓ your ⁓ advantage because now you can simply evolve, relaunch certain products, but connecting to your same platform ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Sergio Khoury: APIs or whatever. And then you will have new startups inside your company. then whichever more traction, then you focus on that one more. And you need to bet more. That's what we are doing. We are placing our bets. We are working towards that. And then we are going to choose the winners. And from there we go. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, that's awesome. That's really awesome. So yeah, that's what you do. You need less on top of ordering. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks a lot for this discussion and for... Sergio Khoury: Yeah. Yes. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. Oleksij Rak: Really great. Yeah, I did enjoy it too. Yeah. Bye. Sergio Khoury: Yeah, thank you. Bye.