Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / One Problem, Forever
Transcript
- 0:00You want to know the most underrated startup move of the
- 0:02last decade? Building stealth for 10 years
- 0:04before selling a single license. Sounds insane, right?
- 0:08Most founders ship at six weeks and pivot in six months.
- 0:11This founder waited a decade. No customers, no revenue, just
- 0:14five Co founders, A whiteboard and a wild thesis that everyone
- 0:18else in automation was solving the wrong problem.
- 0:21Then he made an even crazier bet.
- 0:23He decided his first customers would only be Fortune 500
- 0:26enterprises, the hardest, slowest, most cynical buyers on
- 0:30the planet with 0 brand, zero revenue, 0 patience for
- 0:34vaporware. In the first big pitch, a
- 0:36Fortune 100 telecom listened for two hours and politely showed
- 0:39him the door. Then he went straight to the pub
- 0:41at 2:30 on a Tuesday. And I don't blame him at all.
- 0:44I would have joined him, but he was certain they'd come back and
- 0:46he'd win them. A year and a half later, the
- 0:48same customer signed a two and a half $1,000,000 deal.
- 0:50Today, 85% of his customers are Fortune 500.
- 0:54Net revenue retention is above 120 percent, $73 million raised.
- 0:59So what's the lesson? He stopped selling technology
- 1:02and started selling outcomes. He told customers, don't pay for
- 1:05us if we don't deliver. That one sentence shifted every
- 1:08conversation from a transaction to a partnership.
- 1:11So here's your deep question. What's the one problem you'd be
- 1:14willing to solve forever, even if no one clapped for the 1st 10
- 1:18years? Welcome to AI for Founders.
- 1:20I'm Ryan Estes. This show is for operators,
- 1:22builders, and bootstrappers who want to use AI to compound their
- 1:26edge before everyone else catches on.
- 1:28You'll hear from a founder who's raised millions, scaled to
- 1:30Fortune 500 logos, and turn conviction into category
- 1:34leadership. And Speaking of edges, our
- 1:36newsletter is absolutely cooking.
- 1:38It's where we serve up the sharpest AI plays for founders
- 1:41every single week. Pour yourself a coffee, head to
- 1:43AI for founders.co and get on the list.
- 1:46And if this episode hits you somewhere useful, leave a one
- 1:49sentence review on your podcast app because every star is a tiny
- 1:52vote. For more founders getting
- 1:53smarter faster. Let's dive into the episode.
- 2:00Sami, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining
- 2:02me. Thanks for having me, I'm super
- 2:04excited to be here. Yeah.
- 2:07OK. So we're going to talk all about
- 2:09you and your company, Evolute or evoluteiq.com.
- 2:15Did I pronounce that correctly? That's right, Evolute IQ it is.
- 2:19I love it before. Before we get into that, though,
- 2:22I saw something when I was doing some research on you that kind
- 2:25of stood out. Former junior rifle shooting
- 2:28record holder. My God.
- 2:31So you can shoot, you're a shooter.
- 2:34I like targets. I like to hit the targets.
- 2:36Let's look at that. Very early on.
- 2:38This was way back. I mean, I think this was, this
- 2:41was back in high school. So I'm talking 8990 around that
- 2:46time, but for a couple of years I, I did did hold that record.
- 2:50Very happy to do that. Yeah, man.
- 2:53Well, that goes a long ways where I'm from.
- 2:54I'm a Coloradan, you know, And if you looked up Colorado guy in
- 2:58the dictionary, you'd see a picture of me with a pickup
- 3:01truck and a flannel shirt with my cowboy boots.
- 3:03Like I am a Colorado guy. So I'm an I'm a born sportsman,
- 3:08you know, hunting and fishing is a big part of my life and my
- 3:10family's life. So are you a hunter?
- 3:13No, no, no. This was just for recreation and
- 3:16sports. I mean, it was, it was part of
- 3:19the school curriculum and part of it.
- 3:21So we got to represent my school, my state, and eventually
- 3:26do it at the national level, so. Incredible.
- 3:31You still shooting? I actually tried archery
- 3:36because, you know, rifle shooting is not as easy in in
- 3:39the UK as it is probably in the US, But then, you know, not not
- 3:45much of it lately. I mean, I think the last time I
- 3:47was out there was a couple of years ago.
- 3:50Yeah, cool. It's interesting.
- 3:51I mean there, you know, when you get proficient at anything, it
- 3:55becomes almost like a a lens that you see the world.
- 3:58You know, it's like whether it's music or it's martial arts or
- 4:02it's like target shooting. You know, there's, there's
- 4:04something about, you know, shooting at targets where that
- 4:07is kind of analogous to business and everything else, which is to
- 4:10say, you know, if you're, you're shooting a bow, especially you,
- 4:14you, you're not, you're not aiming for the target, you're
- 4:16not aiming for the paper, you're aiming for the middle of the
- 4:20bullseye. You know, so it's like that kind
- 4:23of like focus is, is critically important and that kind of
- 4:26extends everywhere. A lot of times, like having
- 4:28focus and knowing exactly what the target is translates to
- 4:31success in other domains. Yeah, actually there's much more
- 4:35than that. The other, other elements around
- 4:39including, you know, if you're out in the open and doing it,
- 4:42then it's the wind. It's excuse me, it's the wind.
- 4:46It's, it's the different elements and factors out there.
- 4:49But more importantly, I think about one thing about target
- 4:52shooting, whether it is archery or rifle shooting, is you don't
- 4:56miss the target because you know, you, you missed it just
- 4:59when you hit it, you miss it when you, when you fire.
- 5:03So you got to, you got to prepare, you got to focus, you
- 5:06got to concentrate, you got to take all the external and the
- 5:09internal elements. You got to stop breathing just
- 5:12before you just before you shoot.
- 5:15So I think you know if if you've if you started wrong, you
- 5:19already, you already lost it. Yeah, I totally agree.
- 5:23And I'm going to try and hold this analogy because it's it's
- 5:26important. You know, I, I got a new bow
- 5:28last year. I, one of my, my last compound
- 5:32bow. I like to shoot recurve for fun,
- 5:34you know, but you know, for hunt and I, you got to recurve.
- 5:37So I got a new recurve because my last bow was stolen out of my
- 5:40garage by some, some hooligans. So I, I was doing a lot of
- 5:46shooting with my son and you know, he's 17, so kind of
- 5:49teaching him tactics and he's, he's big, he's strong.
- 5:53You know, he's got all the, the components there.
- 5:56But with archery in particular, there's something else.
- 6:00You know, like you're saying, there's all these environmental
- 6:02things, there's, there's focus, there's the body position,
- 6:05there's the draw from your back, there's all these things that go
- 6:08into it. But then there's also a feel
- 6:10that I really like about archery shooting as opposed to like
- 6:14rifles, you know, rifle shooting a hundred 200 yards, 30 out six,
- 6:18pretty easy. Honestly.
- 6:19I, you know, it's like, I don't practice that much 'cause I'm
- 6:22never taking longer than 100 yard shot.
- 6:24But with archery, boy you, you really got to practice a lot.
- 6:28And it's not just about putting the pin on the target.
- 6:30There is like a feel to it, you know, which I think also
- 6:35translates to anything we're pursuing, you know, particularly
- 6:37in business or helping customers or whatever it is.
- 6:40It's like you have a target, but like within like all of the
- 6:43mechanics that go into it, there's a gut feeling that comes
- 6:47in too. Absolutely.
- 6:49I think a lot of, I think any kind of sport, right, not just
- 6:54actually, I mean, there's a lot of believing in yourself, sort
- 6:58of, you know, letting go at the right moment, staying focused,
- 7:01you know, sort of eliminating all the noise around you.
- 7:06I think there's so much more to it.
- 7:07And then, you know, you got to feel not just the environment
- 7:10and the elements around you, but you also then have to feel the,
- 7:14you know, what you're aiming towards, right?
- 7:16You got to it. It sort of becomes one.
- 7:18It's like the, you know, it's when you're building your budget
- 7:22and you're planning your numbers for next year or you're putting
- 7:25your business plan right. I mean, there's elements and all
- 7:27of it, but then you also got to, you got to focus and you got to
- 7:31feel the whole thing. You got to, you got to place
- 7:33some bets, you got to try and read some tea leaves, right?
- 7:38I mean, the wind is blowing east to West, but the, you know, it
- 7:42could change direction just when you're about to let go.
- 7:45So how do you plan all those things in?
- 7:47I mean, so yeah, it's, it's, it's been fun.
- 7:50I think it's been a great learning as well.
- 7:52Yeah. You know, and it's important, I
- 7:54think, to like really kind of meditate on some of these
- 7:58attributes of what we do, why we do it, What is it?
- 8:01Because, you know, your company, you know, you have an agentic
- 8:04automation platform, you're building agents, I'm building
- 8:08agents. It's trying to figure out like
- 8:11what are the attributes that are going to lead to success when
- 8:15you're basically birthing these characters and giving them
- 8:19identities, you know, which is a really exciting time because I
- 8:23don't know really if it's ever been done before like this, you
- 8:25know? So let's kind of use this as a
- 8:27bridge to talk about kind of specifically what you guys are
- 8:30doing over there at Evolute. Quick side note for founders who
- 8:35are using AI to write content, you've probably noticed this.
- 8:39It's incredibly fast, but it doesn't really Dr. meaningful
- 8:42traffic. And honestly, that's because
- 8:44most AI generated content is just average.
- 8:47There's no real insight, no depth, no structure, missing
- 8:50things like internal linking, and Google's getting very good
- 8:53at filtering that out. So instead of trying to just
- 8:56prompt better, I actually came across something interesting
- 8:59called Neena. It's a system that combines
- 9:01human strategy and review with AI writing to create high
- 9:05quality SEO optimized blog content that's actually designed
- 9:09to rank and keep ranking. What I like about it is that
- 9:12it's done for me. Their team handles the topic
- 9:14strategy and the content review and data markups for Google and
- 9:18turns blog posts into actual long term traffic assets.
- 9:22So if you're a founder thinking seriously about organic growth,
- 9:25this is one of those things worth paying attention to.
- 9:28You can check it out at Try nina.co.
- 9:30That's TRYNIN a.cotrynina.co. Every week I sit down and ask
- 9:38myself one question. What do founders actually need
- 9:41to know about AI right now? Not the think pieces of the
- 9:44stuff that sounds impressive, the real useful, put it to work
- 9:47today stuff. Then I write it up, send it to
- 9:50you in your inbox, free. That newsletter is called AI for
- 9:53Founders and I built it because I was tired of wading through
- 9:55hit pieces and people that are afraid of the future.
- 9:58Each issue I break down the tools worth your time, the
- 10:01strategies that are working, and the ways you can use AI to grow
- 10:04your company without burning out or getting left behind.
- 10:06Thousands of founders read it every week and I'd love for you
- 10:09to be one of them. Subscribe for free at AI for
- 10:11founders.co. 3 seconds to sign up and I promise it's worth it.
- 10:16So, so Ryan, you know, Evolute IQ is, is like life's work for
- 10:22me and, and my founding partners.
- 10:25I mean, all of us have been, you know, sort of involved in
- 10:29technology for a very, very long time.
- 10:31But you know, we have been conceptualizing this for, for
- 10:35pretty much most of our adult life and, and almost all of our
- 10:39professional life. And, and the way we thought
- 10:42about Evolute IQ was, you know, we wanted to do something which
- 10:48would solve the problem rather than parts of the problem.
- 10:52What I mean by that is, you know, when we conceptualized
- 10:56Evolute IQ, our thinking was, hey, you know, you have all
- 11:00these great organisations in different industries and they
- 11:04consistently produce outputs, right?
- 11:07And there is something between an input and an output.
- 11:12And that is the people in these organisations, the culture.
- 11:15And then there is the process, right?
- 11:18And essentially for people to consistently deliver outcomes.
- 11:21And we just spoke about archery and, and shooting.
- 11:24I mean, it's, it's a process, right?
- 11:26You, you do things in a continuous way, you do it
- 11:29better, you do it efficiently, and then you get a desired
- 11:32outcome. In any good organization, that's
- 11:35what you follow, you focus, you define an outcome.
- 11:38And then you, you have these processes which deliver the
- 11:41outcomes. And we wanted to sort of build a
- 11:43technology that would underpin these processes, right?
- 11:47Which is, you know, a technology that could think for itself,
- 11:52build things by itself, solve the problem, and sort of do
- 11:55whatever is needed from the input to the output and
- 11:59eliminate the human intervention and sort of do all the execution
- 12:03that is needed to deliver that outcome.
- 12:06And that's sort of how Evolute IQ was born, right?
- 12:09The whole idea was, hey, we want to solve the full problem rather
- 12:13than parts of the problem. We want to automate the entire
- 12:17process rather than parts of the process.
- 12:20So, you know, building agents, creating engines, what just a
- 12:24natural outcome of sort of addressing this.
- 12:27And mind you, we started building this many years ago and
- 12:32we conceptualized this many, many years ago.
- 12:35So it is not about, you know, just the concept and you know,
- 12:39building agentic automation platform.
- 12:41It is about solving that problem you know, and understanding what
- 12:46we need to do it. Yeah, that's great.
- 12:50I would love to just hear how it feels for you.
- 12:55You know, you've been doing automations and that, you know,
- 12:57machine learning and basically, you know what, they started
- 13:00really using AI as a catch all for a lot of these things that
- 13:03folks been doing maybe 10-15 years.
- 13:06But boy, in the last six months it's really turned a corner,
- 13:09right? Yeah, I think it's, it's work to
- 13:13say, hey, I have an AI firm, right?
- 13:14I think everybody wants to, wants to say that.
- 13:17I think the, you know, I have a friend who runs a corner shop
- 13:20who believes that he, he has AI, you know, stacking all the, all
- 13:26the shelves and everything. So what I, what I mean by that
- 13:29is we have been at this for a very, very long time.
- 13:33And I just want to pay tribute to my partners and my founding
- 13:38team, you know, Deepak, Sanjay, Naveen and Arun, all of us, you
- 13:43know, we, we conceptualize this way back in 2004, we put pen to
- 13:48paper in 2007 and we have been at it, you know, in stealth
- 13:53building from 2009 to 19. And then we incorporated the
- 13:57company. And so if you look at it, you
- 14:00know, everybody talks about AI in the last six months and how
- 14:02the market has changed and Oh my God, you know, all these things
- 14:05are happening. But for us, we have been
- 14:07thinking of, you know, end to end automation for a fairly long
- 14:11time. And even before there were LLMS
- 14:15or whatever. I mean, our thought was, hey,
- 14:17can this piece of technology think for itself?
- 14:20Can itself heal, can itself learn?
- 14:23Can it do all of this? Right?
- 14:24So I think coming back to what I said earlier, the the obsession
- 14:29was let's solve a problem, but then keep solving the same
- 14:33problem over and over again for the rest of our lives, right?
- 14:39And I'll tell you what I mean by that.
- 14:40It sounds funny, but you know, it's, it's very weird to say
- 14:44that I'm building a tech AI organization that is going to
- 14:46keep pivoting. What I mean is if you look at
- 14:50human life 400 years ago, you know, health and Wellness was a
- 14:54problem. You know, people would fall ill
- 14:56or they would die or they would fall ill and people would treat
- 15:00them, but it was, hey, you fell ill and so you're getting
- 15:03treated and people would give them medicine or fruits or
- 15:06whatever that they did 4-5 hundred years ago.
- 15:10If you look at it about so very, very reactive measure to what
- 15:14happened to an individual's health.
- 15:16If you look at it 30-40 years ago or maybe 50 years ago, we
- 15:20could run tests on a pregnant mother to know if the child
- 15:25would have Down syndrome or any other issues that were there,
- 15:29right? And we could proactively address
- 15:31those. So, you know, from reacting, we
- 15:34went to something which was a little bit proactive.
- 15:37If you look at us today, you know, some of us wear things on
- 15:40our wrist. You know, we have these smart
- 15:43watches and and devices which tell us what our heart rate is,
- 15:47what our blood pressure is, how many steps, how many calories,
- 15:50all of that. So and so we know exactly near
- 15:55real time how our health and Wellness is looking.
- 15:59So from being reactive to proactive to near real time, we
- 16:04are solving the same problem over 500 years, but the
- 16:07technology and the way we solve it and what we do with it is
- 16:11completely changed. And if you talk to some of the
- 16:13leading life sciences companies and some of the other companies
- 16:17that are out there, we take all this data now and we process it
- 16:22and we, we can say, Hey, Ryan Samit, you know, you're eating
- 16:25habits or your walking habits, you know, based on this data,
- 16:29you guys are pre diabetic or whatever.
- 16:31But if you address these 4-5 things in your future
- 16:34generations or whatever, the chances of them inheriting this
- 16:38is, is much lower or, you know, whatever.
- 16:40And so if you look at it, you know, I've gone 500 years to
- 16:43what it could be in the future. I'm solving the same problem,
- 16:48but I'm using technology to do it very, very differently.
- 16:51And that's how we conceptualize or that's how we view Evolute IQ
- 16:55and the technology that we want to solve the same problem, which
- 16:58is the process. But we've moved from, you know,
- 17:01hyper automation to intelligent automation or cognitive stuff
- 17:05to, you know, the deterministic agentic automation today and
- 17:09then the future of singularity or AI wherever we go from here.
- 17:13So that's that's how I look at. It and so let's talk about that
- 17:18next step, which is then kind of like the prescriptive, like
- 17:23taking everything that you've got now and recognizing the
- 17:26pattern for pathology potentially in the future and
- 17:29then like creating the proper prescriptions now.
- 17:32So that might be kind of the next step of like where, you
- 17:35know, AI agents and automation is going now, you know, over the
- 17:39next 1224 months is like how what indicators do you have
- 17:43within your systems and processes now that can inform
- 17:46better decisions today? Would you would you agree with
- 17:48that? Yeah.
- 17:49I mean, we do have a few life sciences customers and, you
- 17:53know, healthcare customers who are looking at those models and
- 17:57who are looking at those things. I mean, there's so much of data
- 18:00available. You know, there's so much of,
- 18:04you know, relatability or pattern that is available.
- 18:08And you've got all these technology models that are there
- 18:12today where you can analyse this data, you can have predictive
- 18:17analytics, you can run different models and then you can come
- 18:20back and, you know, you can make recommendations, right.
- 18:23So we do have a few projects in flight.
- 18:26A few of them are beyond the proof of concept of proof of
- 18:29value and more into the execution.
- 18:32And, you know, it's very exciting to see that you could,
- 18:36you know, based on data, you can address certain things that
- 18:39could happen a generation later or, or at least avoid it or, or
- 18:43look out for it as, as you sort of look into the look into the
- 18:47future. I think the best part about AI
- 18:49is it's not just about reading tea leaves.
- 18:51It's sort of looking into this very well and looking into the,
- 18:58you know, the crystal glass. Yeah, totally.
- 19:03You know, it's interesting because I talked to a lot of
- 19:06founders. I'm picking everyone's brain and
- 19:09I I couple of motivations. One of them is my daughter is in
- 19:12college right now and she's trying to figure out what she
- 19:14wants to do for a career. And obviously it's just not that
- 19:17clear. So I talked to to founders CE
- 19:19OS, you know, hey, what are you hiring?
- 19:21Who are you looking to hire? They're like AI native.
- 19:23We need AI native people in this organization.
- 19:26So I say, you know, what's AIAI native?
- 19:28They're like, I do not know. I'm like, OK, OK.
- 19:31Or people are like, they're scrambling, they're like, we
- 19:33need an AI transformation. We need to be AI native in our
- 19:36company. It's like, what is that?
- 19:38Well, we don't know. We got ChatGPT subscriptions for
- 19:41everybody. Does that count?
- 19:42So, you know, with your work, what's really interesting is
- 19:45it's, it's consultive in a, in a, in a sense, because, you
- 19:48know, Step 1 of engaging with EIQ is to define your goals.
- 19:53Are you starting to see that people are kind of walking in
- 19:55like with their, their hairs on fire?
- 19:57They're like, we need AI stuff and they don't really know where
- 20:00to pin that goal. Yeah.
- 20:03I think the biggest thing, you know, the good and the bad of
- 20:06social media and marketing is we have created so much of
- 20:10information and some of it is chaos.
- 20:13And you have in the end created, you know, a confused buyer or a
- 20:18confused customer or a, or a confused enterprise owner,
- 20:22right? Because there's so much of
- 20:24information. And then every week or every day
- 20:27we see new releases coming in different organizations
- 20:30announcing, you know, a different model or a, or a
- 20:33different platform release, which can do so many other
- 20:37things. And So what tends to happen is,
- 20:40you know, there's like this buying freeze, right?
- 20:43I mean, people are like, should I do something or should I wait?
- 20:47You know, should I put my money on the table or should I just
- 20:50wait for, you know, the next role?
- 20:52Maybe that's a better one than this one.
- 20:54And we are seeing that happen all the time.
- 20:57I mean, when I walk into a room, I see a lot of my customers
- 21:00asking so many questions. And so I think it is a great
- 21:04time to be, you know, somebody who is part of an organization
- 21:08like Evolute IQ because, you know, it is.
- 21:11I believe it's the responsibility of a vendor
- 21:14partner or a technologist to educate the customer.
- 21:18I think this is not an opportunity to sell.
- 21:21This is an opportunity to educate because if people don't
- 21:25understand what they are buying, you know you're never going to
- 21:29have a long term relationship. It just becomes a transaction.
- 21:32And I think, I know I'm talking at a philosophical level rather
- 21:35than a technology level, but the truth be told, I think a lot of
- 21:39people don't understand what AI truly means.
- 21:42They don't understand whether they need it.
- 21:45They don't understand. I mean need is.
- 21:48Pretty. Obvious.
- 21:49I think everybody needs it. Sorry, but I think, you know,
- 21:52everybody thinks they want it. But how do you want it?
- 21:55What do you want it for? You know, Are you ready for it?
- 21:58Is your organization ready for it?
- 22:00Do people really understand what you're going to do with it?
- 22:03So I think it's a, it's a massive opportunity.
- 22:05And I think any deal that we have won, I think obviously we
- 22:09win because, you know, we've been in all the Tier 1 analyst
- 22:13reports and, you know, obviously the technology is phenomenal and
- 22:16we get a lot of accolades, but it's also because people trust
- 22:21us to do the right thing. They trust us to to explain to
- 22:25them what is happening, what it can do for them, you know, how
- 22:28they can use it, what are the kind of people that will use it,
- 22:32what is the outcome that they can derive from it.
- 22:34And one thing we have done, Ryan, is we have started betting
- 22:38on, on our technology. We have started betting on
- 22:41ourselves. So what we say is, hey, if we
- 22:44don't deliver the outcome that you want, then don't pay us,
- 22:48right? And that's sort of making them
- 22:51understand. And so when you say that both
- 22:53parties are now committed to define what that outcome is,
- 22:58right? I mean, in, in a very simplistic
- 23:00way, let me tell you this. If you're going to buy a car
- 23:03from me, I'm not saying here's the car for $90,000 or $100,000
- 23:08and then go fill the gas. What I'm saying is tell me where
- 23:11do you want to go, right? Or, or rather lease the car or
- 23:14rent the car. I'm saying don't, don't ask me
- 23:16about the price. Tell me where you want to go.
- 23:19You said you want to. So do you want to drive from New
- 23:21York to Colorado? OK, great.
- 23:23That's what you will drive. That's the distance you will
- 23:25drive. Once you reach Colorado.
- 23:27You pay me for the gas and you pay me for this and you pay me
- 23:29for what you have experienced and where you have reached.
- 23:33Now you need to define where you're going exactly.
- 23:36You need to tell me, you know, hey, listen, I need to go to St.
- 23:40#14 house number 5, right? You need to be specific.
- 23:44And based on that, we when you reach there, you got to pay.
- 23:47So see, I'm forcing you to think, I'm having forcing you to
- 23:50have clarity, but at the same time, I'm trying to understand
- 23:53how are you going to drive? You know, how long are you going
- 23:55to drive? Are you going to take breaks or
- 23:56whatever? You know, that's the thing.
- 23:58And that is very, very important for a responsible software
- 24:03vendor, for an AI native platform like Evolute IQ and for
- 24:08me and my Co founding team and my colleagues at Evolute IQ to
- 24:12be that transparent to the end customers and sort of help them.
- 24:18It's a great. Analogy, you know, cuz people
- 24:20get lost in the technology to use kind of your analogy if
- 24:24they're like, hey, we want to go to Colorado that's the outcome
- 24:27we want to go to Colorado specifically, we want to go to
- 24:29the foothills over by where Estes is at.
- 24:31We want to go we want to go shoot some bows, you know and
- 24:35then you're like OK, that's great and they're like yeah so
- 24:38the kind of car we want is like a classic 67 Cadillac.
- 24:42I really want to, you know, a sunroof and I want leather
- 24:46interior. Like no, no, no, no, no, no.
- 24:48Don't think about the car. Like let's think about going
- 24:51shooting these bows. Like keep a focus on the outcome
- 24:54you want. And then the technology that
- 24:56gets there almost becomes absolutely, absolutely.
- 25:01See Ryan, the biggest mistake Lord of my peers make or lot of
- 25:06technology companies make is we try to sell technology do a
- 25:10business. I mean, your business is
- 25:12interviewing people and creating great, fantastic content on
- 25:17podcast. Do you really does it really
- 25:19matter to you what kind of technology or what is the exact
- 25:23thing below that right? I mean it doesn't similar
- 25:27similarly just. One SEC.
- 25:30Sorry, sorry. You'll have to cut this out.
- 25:35I got a call from a customer. No, no.
- 25:37Problem not sorry, so let. Me say that see, the biggest
- 25:40mistake a lot of my peers make is that, you know, they they try
- 25:44to sell technology and a software to the buyer.
- 25:48That's not. It's not their business.
- 25:50I mean your business is making good content on podcasts.
- 25:54You really are not concerned whether your current screen is
- 25:57of a certain make or whatever. You, you are looking for good
- 26:00sound quality. You're looking to make sure that
- 26:02when, when we are talking, you know, things don't break.
- 26:05Similarly, A retailer who's manufacturing, you know, say
- 26:10chocolates or whatever, they want to make the best
- 26:13chocolates. They want to sell the most
- 26:15chocolates in the world and they want to make sure they make the
- 26:18best margins in their industry. They are not interested that
- 26:22they're running the best AI model or they're running the
- 26:25best, you know, workflow tool or they are doing the best
- 26:29analytical tool. No, they are interested in
- 26:32growing the business. They're interested in delivering
- 26:34value to their shareholders. They're interested in ensuring
- 26:37that the customers are consistently.
- 26:39Happy and I think if you. Understand that you got to work
- 26:43with them to deliver that rather than here is my technology and
- 26:47this is what it can do for you. Let's let's do.
- 26:50This for, for folks that are maybe a little bit in the weeds,
- 26:52maybe they're, they're just like thinking about the technology,
- 26:55not the outcomes. Maybe we can list some common
- 26:57outcomes that like almost every company could benefit from
- 27:01automation or AI tools. The one that comes to mind for
- 27:04me is I like to have an end of the day report from absolutely
- 27:08everything that's happening in my organizations.
- 27:11And when I've tried to be a stickler about this, it feels
- 27:14punitive, like humans don't like you looking over their their
- 27:18shoulder and, you know, sniffing their hair and seeing what what
- 27:21they're up to every day. It it feels like they're on a
- 27:23pip. So, you know, it kind of wanes
- 27:25And instead it kind of becomes kind of a weekly recap or maybe
- 27:28a bi weekly report. And then I'm not getting what I
- 27:31want, but I have to sacrifice that because I want the team to
- 27:34have what they want. But now you can kind of get a
- 27:37really good snapshot if, you know, with the agents that are
- 27:40kind of crawling all over your organization at the end of the
- 27:42day, they can show the output very simply automated, where I
- 27:46can be like, that makes me feel great.
- 27:48So that's an example of one. What are maybe some other
- 27:51automation and AI examples? Yeah, you know, I think.
- 27:55A lot of us, I'm a stickler for scorecards and KP is right, I
- 27:59think I like to skip keep score and and that's the most
- 28:04objective way of knowing whether you know an individual or a
- 28:08group of people or a team has delivered to what we want them
- 28:11to do. And I think probably that's why
- 28:13I like my customers to measure me on outcomes because I want to
- 28:16deliver for them. I think a lot of organizations
- 28:20create these scorecards and then, you know, there's a lot of
- 28:23data that needs to get forward from different systems or
- 28:26different people or different departments to say if you know,
- 28:30John Smith or Jane Jane Doe or whoever it is has delivered to
- 28:34what they promised to or whatever.
- 28:36I think in the current scenario with different agents, you know,
- 28:39being there, all this data can get consolidated on a daily
- 28:43basis or, you know, whatever in the time frame that that you
- 28:46want these agents to do that. And you can literally in real
- 28:49time know, hey, you know, what my Minnesota department is
- 28:53really doing well on sales or my, you know, factory
- 28:57manufacturing unit in Philippines is behind or in
- 29:00China is behind that or they need certain inventory and
- 29:05things like that, right? That you can in, in absolute
- 29:08real time know what's going on rather than and, and evaluate
- 29:12people against it, right? I mean, if, if there's an
- 29:14inventory manager whose only job is to make sure all your
- 29:18manufacturing units globally never go below, you know, 70% or
- 29:2340% inventory, you would know, if something was happening, you
- 29:28would know it real time, you will have access to that.
- 29:31And you can then say, Hey, listen, you know, because
- 29:34otherwise this kind of data gets missed.
- 29:36You do it once a month. People can you know, they can,
- 29:39they can do, they can massage the data and things like that.
- 29:42So scorecards, getting real time data towards the scorecards,
- 29:47measuring it, that is one, tracking your inventory, that
- 29:51could be another. There are so many other things
- 29:54specifically in the healthcare space, in the insurance space,
- 29:58you're tracking your bills, tracking your insurance claims
- 30:01on our daily basis. There's so much going on between
- 30:04the providers and you know, the payers, you know, then there's
- 30:08the customers or the other the patients, you know, who have put
- 30:12in their claims, you know, tracking that on a daily basis.
- 30:15All those things, you know, agent AI can make it very
- 30:18simple. You can have all these different
- 30:20agents and my personal favorite is one of our customers, but
- 30:24whom, you know, we run the whole a warranty management.
- 30:27This is a medical device manufacturer and you know, the
- 30:31entire warranty management for their pacemakers is now run on a
- 30:37blue tyke, right? So at any point in time their
- 30:41organization knows how many pacemakers are out there.
- 30:44What kind of, you know, reflection parts do they need?
- 30:47And they get that on a near real time basis.
- 30:50So that because in this case, if something goes wrong and the
- 30:53parts are not available, you know, you're, you're looking at
- 30:56a life loss rather than just a financial loss, right.
- 31:00So I think, yeah, some of the other ones, I mean, if you want
- 31:03to have some fun with it, I have, I have some agents running
- 31:08and calling on my, on my personal computer and they track
- 31:12to take care of my nutrition. They give me recommendations in
- 31:16terms of what tasks that I need to do before I do.
- 31:20So. I mean, it's how much, how, how,
- 31:22how, how much of your personal life you're opening up and
- 31:26letting and, and it's, it's pretty cool.
- 31:28It's pretty exciting. You know, it's, it's also a toy.
- 31:32I mean, I, I, I feel like I have my own personal dreams at times.
- 31:36You know, who's there my own man's Friday and I, I can have
- 31:41conversations and, and no stuff. It's, it's fairly exciting.
- 31:44What what this can do for you? It is fun that that the, the,
- 31:51the toy aspect is something I kind of miss.
- 31:53You know, early on that's all I was doing was just playing
- 31:55around with it, which is really fun.
- 31:57You know, now it seems like it's implementing all these systems
- 32:00and operations. I got to get back to that, you
- 32:02know, you know. Speaking of KPISI, want to go
- 32:07through some of yours because you've had an extraordinary run
- 32:10in seven years. You guys are very, very
- 32:12successful. It looks like you've raised
- 32:14about 70 million across a few rounds, led by Baird Capital.
- 32:1985% of your customers are Fortune 500 enterprises.
- 32:23It looks like you're doubling, almost doubling ARR every single
- 32:27year. Extraordinary.
- 32:29I'd love to go back to the beginning, you know, enterprise
- 32:32customers and notoriously difficult to get.
- 32:34When you were thinking go to market in the beginning, how did
- 32:37you kind of capitalize? Did you use design partners?
- 32:41How did you kind of find your first few customers, you know?
- 32:44When we started Ryan, we decided we will only sell to Fortune 500
- 32:48customers and the reason was we said Whistle, a Fortune 500
- 32:53customer has all the possible reasons why they don't want to
- 32:58buy from you, right? They already have what so many
- 33:02technologies and you know, so much of legacy systems, they can
- 33:07pick up the phone and call whoever they want to call and
- 33:10those guys will be there and such deals with them.
- 33:13They pretty much have bought every single software or
- 33:15technology that is out there on, you know, multiple year
- 33:19contracts and all of that. There is definitely, you know,
- 33:23behaviour, culture, territorial stuff, you know, name, name the
- 33:28issue. And then above all, when you're
- 33:30a startup, nobody wants to bet on you when you have 0 revenue
- 33:33or you know, 100K of revenue. Because the question then
- 33:36becomes, hey, you know, are you going to be around if I beg
- 33:40this? So we said, hey, you know what
- 33:42we, we believe we have the conviction that we have built an
- 33:45awesome technology. We have been at it for a very
- 33:47long time. We were the. 1st.
- 33:49Guys out of the door back in 2019 that said that you know,
- 33:53you, you need to address the process.
- 33:55It needs to be end to end. You need to have a full stack.
- 33:58Everybody else was talking about you know, RPA and Barts and
- 34:03Workflow and ITSM and all of that.
- 34:06We were the only guys even from day one we were saying end to
- 34:11end process, end to end stack, right.
- 34:14But we said we will go with that to the Fortune 500 customers and
- 34:18we will convince them that that is right.
- 34:20And it was, it was not an easy task.
- 34:22So the way we did it is we are a very partner centric
- 34:26organization. So we we generate a lot of our
- 34:29business to our partners. And even if we go direct, we
- 34:33bring in our partners, you know, tier one partners like HCL tech
- 34:37or you know, PwC or you know, we have a lot of those guys on our,
- 34:42on our partnership. Very, very few of them.
- 34:44When I say, Lord, I don't need hundreds, but we have about 15
- 34:48key partners that we work with. But these are guys who have been
- 34:51in in with the end customer, with the Fortune 500 customers
- 34:55for many, many years, right. One of our partners is, you
- 34:59know, WNS Cap Gemini, they've been with us since the very
- 35:02beginning and, and they've been around for a very long time.
- 35:05They have depth of experience with, you know, the insurance
- 35:09industry or the healthcare industry.
- 35:11And the thing was, you know, what is important to us was.
- 35:17The customer. Needs to believe in whoever is
- 35:20bringing the solution. And there's nobody better than a
- 35:22personal who has been with them for, you know, 20 years, 10
- 35:26years has a phenomenal track kicker because then it only
- 35:30becomes about is the technology good enough?
- 35:32And I think we were, we were very, very confident from day
- 35:35one that we have. And you know, my thing has
- 35:38always been, hey, here is my technology, here it is
- 35:42out-of-the-box. Open it, see it, touch it, feel
- 35:45it. What we are saying about the
- 35:46technology is what you get. It is not a figment of our
- 35:49imaginations. It is not going to be the next,
- 35:53you know, it's not a PowerPoint deck and it's not going to be
- 35:56something which is coming in the next release.
- 35:58If I'm telling you it is here, then you you can use it, you can
- 36:02touch and seal it. That's one of the reasons why we
- 36:04spent 10 years building the platform before we even
- 36:07incorporated the company. We kept getting feedback from
- 36:10prospects and friends and partners, but that was the
- 36:14conviction. So yeah, we, we, we went with
- 36:16partners who had credibility with the Fortune 5 hundreds.
- 36:20And that is a big plus because we were unknowns, but we were
- 36:24active. And then, you know, The thing
- 36:26is, once you get in the door and you genuinely deliver and you
- 36:29consistently deliver, you know, then it's just a matter of, you
- 36:34know, people knowing and scaling and believing in you.
- 36:36And you know, as one of the features is, you know, we have
- 36:40120% customer in an NRR, right, which we have as, as A.
- 36:45And then I think that is a bigger metric than doubling my,
- 36:48my ERR, because the fact that my existing customers continue to
- 36:52grow with me and, and they do that, that is much more
- 36:55satisfying than than anything else.
- 36:59It's an amazing model. You know what, what's kind of
- 37:02sticks out is it's you had a lot of faith in yourself.
- 37:04I mean, you built for 10 years without any customers.
- 37:08Yeah, I mean. That's what I said, right?
- 37:10So it is life's work for for the four, five of us.
- 37:14And that's why I said I feel privileged to be the only guy
- 37:17talking. I wish I could get my band here
- 37:19and then all of us could talk together.
- 37:22But you know, it's it's not just the five of us who thought about
- 37:26it, but it's also the the 100 and 2000 and 30 people who
- 37:30believed in US. See, one thing I'll tell you
- 37:32about founders and Co founders, right?
- 37:34You believe in yourself, so you take a bet.
- 37:37But I give a lot of credit to employee number one, to employee
- 37:41number 60 or even employee 100 because they are betting on your
- 37:46dream and they are betting on you.
- 37:48They they believe you will make it right.
- 37:51And I think so. So I feel extremely privileged
- 37:54to sit here and talk on behalf of all these hundred 120 people
- 37:57that we have in the team who believed in this and who made
- 38:01this happen. So yeah, it's it's been a
- 38:04fundraise so far. I love it and and that's a very
- 38:08clever back door into massive enterprises and smart, you know,
- 38:14so you, the, the partnerships you made was they, it sounds
- 38:17like they were kind of design partners.
- 38:19So these are vendors that are already serving these Fortune
- 38:21500 companies and you're having conversations with them for 10
- 38:25years, like, hey, what are you seeing?
- 38:27Where's the gap in the market? Here's what we're working on.
- 38:29What do you think till you get it to a place where they're
- 38:32like, hey, we need this now. And so they're basically
- 38:35backdooring you into their customers saying like, look,
- 38:38Sumeet is able to to do this, this full process and, and we're
- 38:42still a great component of it right here.
- 38:45But you need to see Sumeet's scope and what they can do with
- 38:49Evolute. And then so, you know, and, and
- 38:52then, yeah, like you said, 120% NRR, which is unbelievable, you
- 38:56know, especially for tech or SAS platforms, which where churn is
- 39:00like just the, it's the C word, you know, that they don't even
- 39:04want to discuss. I I used to ask people about
- 39:06churn and I, it got so uncomfortable.
- 39:08I just stopped talking about it because it's brutal.
- 39:11Yeah, but I. Think Nancy, our focus has been
- 39:151 customer at a time, right? We are in no hurry to to conquer
- 39:20the world because what we believe in as we have a good
- 39:23tech, we have a good. Bunch of customers.
- 39:27We want to keep working. I mean we have not.
- 39:31If you asked me, we did a very bad job of marketing in the
- 39:34past. We never went around something
- 39:36artist saying listen we are so awesome.
- 39:39Instead of that, I think every time we made some money we made
- 39:42sure we investigated and doing something for our end customers,
- 39:46you know building something with them.
- 39:47And the only ask we had from the customers was if you really
- 39:50think we added value and we did something nice, just, you know,
- 39:54tell somebody else about it or you know, give us a reference
- 39:57rather than me going out and you know.
- 40:02Sponsoring. Stuff for attending events and
- 40:04telling the world how great I am.
- 40:06I think that's what we focused on.
- 40:08And I think it's speed off because I have had a few
- 40:11customers who have in the last 7-8 years, teams, a few
- 40:14organisations and they brought us in every time they went.
- 40:18And I and I don't think I can have a better, yeah, a better
- 40:22marketing engine than than my customers.
- 40:26Yeah. I love it.
- 40:28OK, we're at the time in the podcast where we're going to
- 40:30enter the quantum round. Are you ready?
- 40:33OK. What?
- 40:34What is that? That's something interesting.
- 40:37I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out.
- 40:38But I was like, we could do the lightning round, but that that
- 40:44doesn't seem like 2026. We got to go to the quantum
- 40:46round. You see what we're doing there?
- 40:48You go, I talked to you then my my for a left road map because I
- 40:51was like, man, that was so stealth that.
- 40:55Makes do you have something, some quantum action going on?
- 40:59What's going on? Ryan.
- 41:03If I if I, if I tell you, then yeah, I need to fire you, man, I
- 41:06thought. You're going to say you have to
- 41:10kill me. So I like hiring is much better.
- 41:12You know, I'll take. A job and.
- 41:14Be inside track. Yeah, you.
- 41:15Know, I thought of saying completing in the way it's
- 41:18naturally said, but then I stayed away from it.
- 41:20Considering you're a hunter, I said, you might as well be
- 41:22better. That's right, I'm dangerous, but
- 41:27very slow. I'm very slow.
- 41:30OK. You're in London right now, why
- 41:34are you not in the States? You know, very, very interesting
- 41:40question. I'm wondering whether I should I
- 41:42tell the truth or should I answer no, my action.
- 41:47Well, the truth is my, my wife refers to be in London.
- 41:49She likes it here. So that's that's one way of now
- 41:53the children actually running global organizations.
- 41:56I see London is a good, good midpoint.
- 42:00The reason being, you know, I think so I do keep a house in in
- 42:06the valley. So you know, we do, you know,
- 42:09Bay Area, I do frequent that we got an office there as well.
- 42:12But I think when you're running global organization, when
- 42:15you're, you know, your customers are global, I think it is
- 42:18important to also be closer to the customers and closer to the
- 42:21teams. And London sort of allows you
- 42:23to, to do that working out of multiple time zones.
- 42:27Also from a travel perspective, I mean, New York is, is just a
- 42:31few hours away. The continental Europe is an
- 42:33hour, Asia just a few hours away.
- 42:35So it's not a burden in terms of travel.
- 42:39And in my role and my job, you know, most of the times I'm on
- 42:42the road anyways. So I guess I come come to London
- 42:46to do my laundry. But the rest of the time I'm
- 42:49pretty much on the road in front of customers.
- 42:51So it's cool you. Know all the folks I talk to
- 42:55from London are trying to get out of there.
- 42:57They just talk about it like it's some depressing place.
- 43:01What is it that your wife really enjoys about London I.
- 43:05Think it's the weather. I don't think she likes the hot
- 43:07weather in California. Yeah.
- 43:11Well, in the Bay, it's kind of cool.
- 43:12I mean, if that's too hot for don't go to Arizona.
- 43:18No, I. Think yeah.
- 43:20I think. Yeah, it's the weather.
- 43:21I My only thing to learn was I wish you had told me this before
- 43:25marriage. We could have looked at it
- 43:28because I gave up. You don't like.
- 43:30Yeah. Because I gave.
- 43:30Up sunny California for London. Yeah.
- 43:32I mean, it took some time. I mean, you don't give up
- 43:35California for London, but it grows on you, I guess.
- 43:38I mean world wise it makes it easy.
- 43:41Cool. I love it.
- 43:43You talked a little bit about some of the stuff you're doing,
- 43:45personal optimizations, maybe some fitness trackers and stuff.
- 43:49What are some other kind of fun tools and toys and experiments
- 43:53you're running with AI right now?
- 43:55On a. Fortunate level.
- 43:56I mean, I'm trying to understand, you know, how AI can
- 44:00help my, you know, day training. I love to do some of that on my
- 44:06E trail account. And so there's a few experiments
- 44:10I'm trying to run. I mean, obviously giving access
- 44:13to your bank accounts is not something I would recommend to
- 44:16anybody or the smartest thing to do.
- 44:19But it's it's a very fortunate thing that I want to understand
- 44:22if the agent that I've built understands my personality of
- 44:27how I like to trade and how I like to do things.
- 44:30And you know, is it intuitive for the agent to understand my
- 44:34appetite for risk on based on certain parameters and things
- 44:38because, you know, I have a higher appetite when it comes to
- 44:41a certain industry. I am sceptical about a certain
- 44:44industry. There are times in certain
- 44:47geopolitical news for which I react in a particular way.
- 44:50And I have seen the agent sort of mimic it at times.
- 44:54It's not there yet, but it's it's just some it's a fun
- 44:56experiment because I would love to love to have, you know, a
- 45:01mini me sort of doing that because if somebody they really
- 45:04pick it up, they do it in my personality.
- 45:06Man, I could be making money and works great.
- 45:10About it. Do do you have a separate bank
- 45:13account for that agent? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 45:15Yeah, that's why I said, I mean, yeah, yeah, it's, it's not, it's
- 45:19not exposed, but yes, I do. I mean, I started with dummy
- 45:22data and then I started, you know, doing it with with small
- 45:26amounts. I mean, I've got to, I've gotten
- 45:29comfortable up to a certain amount, but I think there's it's
- 45:32a long way to go. Give me some of the.
- 45:35Attributes that you're training this agent for of what what
- 45:38would be a successful trade or what you're looking for for a
- 45:41successful investment and maybe red flags that you're training
- 45:44the agent to make sure they avoid actually Ryan.
- 45:47What I, what, As I said, when I'm trying to get this agent to
- 45:50behave or understand my personality, my appetite for
- 45:54risk, my reaction to certain geopolitical news or my reaction
- 45:59to certain technology launches or whatever.
- 46:02Because if I look at myself, you know, I, I read a few things
- 46:06every day. And then based on that, I will
- 46:08say, OK, you know what? This is what I'm going to do.
- 46:10This is not what I'm going to do and this is what I like to do.
- 46:13And if, if I look at it over a period of time, there's a fear
- 46:17pattern, right? I read Reuters, I would look at
- 46:20Bloomberg's. I will look at what, you know,
- 46:22some of these tech giants are doing, some of the celebrity
- 46:26personalities that are there in tech, what they talk, whatever
- 46:30certain geopolitical stuff that I see, what I like, what I don't
- 46:33like, and then I react affordingly, right?
- 46:35I will, I will dump some stocks based on certain things.
- 46:38I will buy something or I'll double down on something.
- 46:41So I'm getting that agent to sort of shadow and track these
- 46:45things, put all this data which I've done and sort of put in
- 46:50there and create. I mean, it created a fantastic
- 46:53spreadsheet and a fantastic chart and sort of flag the, the
- 46:58thing that, and it tells you something about your
- 47:00personality, right? I thought I was a very
- 47:03aggressive cool dude and it, you know, I'm an aggressive cool
- 47:07dude in a, in a particularly safe environment kind of a
- 47:11thing. And I've started seeing that,
- 47:12whereas because when certain geopolitical news come, I see
- 47:16that I calm down and that's something I didn't know about
- 47:18myself, but the data and the pattern.
- 47:20And now the, the agent has started mimicking that, not to
- 47:25the absolute extreme, but but start of doing that.
- 47:28And that's the cool part of it, right?
- 47:29I mean, it's as I said, I mean, if, if I can make a mini me and
- 47:34just have it installed on the other machine while I'm working,
- 47:37I I don't have to keep, you know, tracking the ticket all
- 47:41the time. Credible.
- 47:44I love it. I want access to that
- 47:45spreadsheet. I need help.
- 47:48Do you? Have investing.
- 47:49Instincts, but but it is you. But this is about my in.
- 47:55I wanted to invest like me, right?
- 47:57I'm not expecting them. So do I I want to.
- 48:00Invest like you too. Give me this.
- 48:04Off off the record, I can. I'm happy to share because I
- 48:08will train my. Investment agent and then I will
- 48:11have your agent to give tutelage to my agent so we can learn
- 48:16better. And now you're talking like my
- 48:19elder daughter, but sure. Amazing, incredible success over
- 48:26the last seven years. But I'm sure those first ten
- 48:28years of building in the dark without customers were
- 48:31harrowing. What were some of the ways that
- 48:34you and your team kind of kept each other going, kept each
- 48:36other inspired, kept each other like pushing through for those
- 48:39those 10 years so. Ryan, I think a lot of that
- 48:42friend in boast to, you know, Sunday and the 2025 or the
- 48:46people along with Naveen who sort of doubled down and focused
- 48:50on the technology and believed in, you know, we will continue
- 48:55to build. And I think it's very difficult,
- 48:59you know, to swim in an ocean when there's nothing on the set.
- 49:02You don't know whether you're going to reach the shore.
- 49:05And so it was all about, you know, the vision and the
- 49:08technology build, believing that, you know, this is where we
- 49:13want to go. But the most important thing
- 49:15I'll tell you that works for, I said, I think.
- 49:18We have been. Very lucky.
- 49:20And we have been very good at sort of reading the tea leaves
- 49:22both in terms of what we built as technology, but also what we,
- 49:27what we created as a, as a, as a distribution channel and the
- 49:32business model. I think both have worked for us.
- 49:36And it was so, so to answer your question, it was about swimming
- 49:39in the dark and believing in each other, sort of knowing
- 49:42that, you know, just going, going, going all in.
- 49:46I mean, it's not, it was, it was not a measured this.
- 49:49And I'm answering on behalf of all of us, like it's not just
- 49:52me, as I said. So this answer is actually again
- 49:55a tribute to the rest of the team, which is not on the call,
- 49:59but that's how we did it. Yeah.
- 50:03It's also a testament, you know, there's a lot of like talk and
- 50:06dreaming about the, the one person Unicorn, the like that
- 50:11can happen because, you know, when you have a solid team, you
- 50:15can go so much further. You know, it's like if you go
- 50:17alone, you go faster, but if you go together, you go further, you
- 50:21know, And I think people need to be reminded of that when they're
- 50:23like, we need, I need one person and 17,000 agents and I can
- 50:28conquer the world. It's like, man, sometimes,
- 50:30especially in the beginning, you need somebody patting you on the
- 50:33back when you're crying in your beer.
- 50:34You know what I mean? Yeah, I, I.
- 50:36I tell this to all my acquaintances, friends, anybody
- 50:40who wants to do a start up right?
- 50:41I said, don't do it alone. I mean, you know, it's, it's
- 50:45really, it takes a lot out of you and it's a lot of people
- 50:49have this misconception of, you know, I've saved the money for
- 50:52two years or I've saved money for three years.
- 50:54I have this great idea and I'll make it happen.
- 50:57And I'm like, you know, it's not about the money, It's not about
- 51:00your savings. It has I mean, great that you
- 51:02can take that chance. I mean, but that's just the
- 51:04financial aspect. I think conviction and passion
- 51:08and, and especially conviction and passion when things are not
- 51:12going your way, you, you do need people around you who have the
- 51:17same belief and the same vision and the same purpose, who are
- 51:20going to rally around you and going to be there.
- 51:23Because you know, I'm, if I sit here and I tell you that,
- 51:26listen, you know, I, I've never had a dark day or I never,
- 51:31that's all bullshit. I mean, the truth be told, you
- 51:34know, whenever you start something on your own and, and I
- 51:37had the benefit of having a good bunch of people around me.
- 51:41I mean, so we could talk, we could share.
- 51:43And even then there were days like, you know, and I, and this
- 51:46is one of my favorite anecdotes, right?
- 51:49We had just started a loot IQ and, and wheel on my shelf.
- 51:52We went to this large telecom provider who was a prospect and
- 51:57we went and we pitched A loot IQ and we said we're going to
- 52:00change the world and end to end automation and all of that.
- 52:03And this gigantic, large Fortune 100 enterprise looked at us,
- 52:08let's talk about two hours and said that's what we think we
- 52:12will get to in 20-30. And this was in 2019.
- 52:15And very politely showed us out of the door.
- 52:18And both of us went to a pub at I think 2:30 in the afternoon on
- 52:22a Tuesday and sat there and said, why the hell are we doing
- 52:27that? Why didn't we lose, you know,
- 52:28give up some good jobs to do this, right?
- 52:30And that's the truth of it. But then, you know, by the end
- 52:34of the fourth point or third find the 4th point, I think we
- 52:37both were like absolutely sure that, you know, we we're going
- 52:41to go back and we're going to convince and do all this.
- 52:43And you know, a year and a half later, the same customers
- 52:47started doing something like 2, two and a half million of
- 52:50sterling worth of licenses. So there are bad moments.
- 52:55Never do it alone. But in my personal opinion,
- 52:58anybody who decides to do something on their own and
- 53:01starts, I think is a winner because it takes a lot more than
- 53:05finance. It is the last mile.
- 53:07The actual thing is storage, you know, jumping off the Cliff,
- 53:11irrespective of having the parachute that the jump, when
- 53:15you actually do it, I think you're a winner anyways.
- 53:18So it doesn't really matter what the outcome is.
- 53:20In my books, you're an absolute winner.
- 53:24Beautiful. I love it.
- 53:26The last step is just the courage to keep it going.
- 53:29Yeah, amazing. Kind of wrapping up here.
- 53:33This has been so much fun to me. I really appreciate it.
- 53:36Are there any like business ideas this audience loves
- 53:39business ideas that you think could do really well right now,
- 53:43but you just don't have the time or you're not the person to do
- 53:45it. That's very interesting, Ryan.
- 53:51You know, I think, I think any, anything that we can build in
- 53:57technology, but which is outcome driven.
- 54:00And I know I'm making a very, very big generic statement.
- 54:04But if there is any task that we all are doing, if we can commit
- 54:10to outcome. I mean, as I said, right, if, if
- 54:13in very simple terms, if you could build, build a curriculum,
- 54:17but you only charge for the education, actually there is a
- 54:19successful graduation of an individual.
- 54:22I think that's agreed using AI, right?
- 54:25Teaching the course, getting the individual to go through the
- 54:29course and qualifying and getting an outcome.
- 54:31I would, I would say something like that would be a brilliant
- 54:34idea. I think at this point in time,
- 54:37anything that you can commit to an outcome and you can use, you
- 54:41know, the AI to do that. I would say the brilliant idea.
- 54:45I'm sorry, I'm not being specific because there are a
- 54:48couple of patients I have in the mix.
- 54:49So I don't want to, I don't want to give that away, but it goes
- 54:55in the back. Pocket, yeah.
- 54:56But you know, hey, even even the small thing that I said, right,
- 55:00the the trading agent and things like that, if you can, you can
- 55:04create one for nutrition for yourself or you know, just
- 55:08anything, anything about a daily task where you can again, commit
- 55:12to outcome, I think would be a great business idea, just one.
- 55:17Incredible Sumeet this has been so much fun.
- 55:21Thank you so much for coming on the show.
- 55:23I want to encourage everybody to go check out evoluteiq.com to
- 55:28see the the fruits of this incredible company.
- 55:31It's been awesome. Couple of shout outs Sarabi
- 55:34shout out to you. Shout out to snuggly Ruby in
- 55:37Connecticut. Sumeet What When is the best
- 55:40place for people to connect with you online?
- 55:44It's my e-mail sumeet@evoluteiq.com.
- 55:48I'm also on LinkedIn. Happy to answer any questions or
- 55:52get connected. Fantastic.
- 55:55And we'll put all the show notes in wherever you're listening to
- 55:59this. It should be down there.
- 56:00You can connect with Samit and check out Evolute IQ.
- 56:03Thank you so much, Samit. Have a wonderful day.
- 56:05Thanks. I really appreciate it.
- 56:07Really appreciate it. What if you had a?
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