Shamyl Bin Mansoor - The Need for Discipline
Founder's Voyage ·
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Transcript
SPEAKER_02
00:00:00
Self -discipline for an entrepreneur is so difficult to have because you're not bound by anything. I mean, you are bound by certain things, but for an entrepreneur, it's very important to have that kind of discipline because you're mostly your own boss. You're mostly trying to create that direction. So sometimes when you don't want to work, I mean, you can easily just take a day off, because nobody's asking you to come in. So that's something that you need to create, and you just need to have that consistent level of, you know, discipline that you need to bring into your life. And it's also difficult because when you're facing difficulties, there are mental health challenges as well. Sometimes you're depressed, but you have to be there for the team, so you just can't leave the team, right?
SPEAKER_02
00:00:43
They have to have the founders with them, pushing them all the time or working with them.
SPEAKER_03
00:01:06
Our featured speaker today is the co -founder and chief technology officer of the ed tech company Learn -O -Bots. He's passionate about making learning playful, fun, and interactive for future generations of makers, leaders, scientists, and problem solvers. Chimil, it's a great pleasure to have you return as our featured guest today. Thank you so much for being willing to take the time to share this leg of your journey with us.
SPEAKER_02
00:01:34
Thank you so much, Nancy, for having me here again. I guess I shared something useful that you invited me again.
SPEAKER_03
00:01:40
Oh my goodness, you shared so many useful things. Listening to our last conversation, I feel like I relearned some lessons for myself. but there are definitely some questions we did not get to. In addition, we definitely want to hear about the updates in your journey. Going back a little bit, I was wondering if you can sort of talk about where you got introduced to entrepreneurship for the first time in your life and kind of what inspired you to want to solve problems through entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_02
00:02:15
Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_02
00:02:16
So it's interesting how once you start doing things And once, you know, a little bit of period goes by, you can retrospectively, you know, look at things in a different way. I to look at these things in a very different way a few years ago. But now I realize that, you know, after a bit of experience, you again look at things very, very differently. So when I started back in 2014, I completely forgot that when I was young, my mother was a businesswoman. one. She started her own boutique when we were kids and I remember her journey a little bit, all the troubles that we went through, all the things that we did when she wasn't at home and the things we could do when she wasn't at home. And I started remembering how similar problems that she faced when she started her own business and then started growing it. Now I think about it, I think it's kind of in the family as well, which I
SPEAKER_02
00:03:11
completely forgot about in my own journey. So it's interesting how you think about things differently. And other than that, my previous experience as a teacher when I was teaching at a university level at undergrad, you know, at university there was around 2012, there was a movement starting of, you know, entrepreneurship, some lectures, some programs. So I started learning, got interested into it. And that's probably where I also, you know, started thinking about starting something.
SPEAKER_01
00:03:39
That's excellent. And I love you sharing that about that your mother had that entrepreneurial streak as well. I have a similar experience where my mother before I was born had started her own business as well and did quite well with it. And that isn't something that comes up to mind because it was something that happened before I was born.
SPEAKER_01
00:03:57
But it's interesting to see these connections. Now, we obviously talked a bit about Learnerbots last time. would you mind telling us a bit more about, you know, going back through the inspiration behind Learnerbots and then maybe bringing us up to date from since last time we talked, what's happened and not only about Learnerbots, but also for you personally.
SPEAKER_02
00:04:17
I mean, the inspiration, I guess, comes from different ways. So for me, it was more like I was interested in entrepreneurship, interested in, you know, starting something because I've always been a risk taker, learning new things. So it turns out entrepreneurship is something is where you're learning new every day. I mean, we still face challenges. We still face new kind of clients that bring in completely new challenges. I think when we last met, I don't remember if it was post -COVID, pre -COVID, because now everything is kind of related to COVID. Because pre -COVID, we were like on a trajectory, moving upwards, and there was like a complete full stop during COVID. And it was all about survival mode. But post -COVID, it took us a couple of years to get out of that hard time. We almost shut down. We had to go into bare survival mode. We had to lose most of our team. So -COVID, we had grown to about 40 team members. We had new clients coming in. We had worked on a new product that was about to launch, but during COVID, it kind of completely stopped. And then since we are in the EdTech domain, it is a difficult industry to be in, especially in the region that we were operating in, in Asia. During COVID, we had this discussion. We were trying to figure out how much time would it take to get out of it. And idea was that it might take another couple of years before businesses start purchasing again. So 2023, we started getting more business. In 2024, now we're on a growth path. We've expanded to other countries as well. So pre -COVID, you can think of that we were pretty much in a single country. In our own country, post -COVID, we've expanded to other countries as well. So that's how the journey has been at the moment.
SPEAKER_03
00:06:00
I really appreciate you taking us,
SPEAKER_03
00:06:02
you know, through kind of both sides to that. I've definitely heard people articulate this sort of as like, you know, the before times and the after times. It totally makes sense that you would have that many shifts in obviously with shifts in our personal lives, but in the layers of how your company operates. Do you feel that at this point, like STEM and STEAM education models are beginning to gain more popularity or more traction like in the time since we last spoke? If not, what do you see as the barriers to adoption currently?
SPEAKER_02
00:06:38
That's a very interesting question. So when we started back in 2014, especially in our region, so the STEM movement was kind of starting up in different countries. So in the United States, I think it was the Obama administration that was putting a lot of focus on STEM. There was the White House fair as well, where they would invite kids to the White House, share their STEM projects. And we kind of started in a similar timeframe. Initially, there wasn't a lot of interest and we had to work really hard to create this interest in STEM education. But I think then again, when we talk about the bad things that COVID did, it also did some good things as well. In Pakistan, most of the schools had to adopt and they were like very less tech savvy. Most of the teachers did not like technology, but COVID forced them to adopt technology. That kind of helped us as well because teachers within schools are key stakeholders for the product that we sell, right? So if the teachers are not on board, then it's very hard to make sure that the school comes on board because with our new SaaS -based product, we're enabling schools to become STEM schools, which is a Cloud -based solution. Within that, we enable the teachers to become facilitators in their classrooms where they bring in STEAM education through our platform. However, if COVID had not happened, training them on technology first and then on the platform would have been really, really difficult.
SPEAKER_02
00:08:02
So in some ways, it has helped us a lot. To answer your question, there's a lot more interest now than when we started. And we've seen this trend over all these years. So initially we started off with, you know, one -off camps, like summer camps for kids, winter camps for kids, right? And then weekend camps. And then we kind of made a shift towards a SaaS -based, a software as a service -based solution, because that's a more scalable solution as our previous, you know, product, which is like, you know, sessions for kids over summer and winter,
SPEAKER_02
00:08:32
where we have to have trained HR, right? We have to have trained STEM teachers. So that was not scalable. we kind of shifted to a more scalable model. And that kind of runs in school. And now there's a lot more interest in STEM education. You know, even in South Asia, in the Middle East, now we're getting a lot more traction. And interestingly, we are placed in a very sweet spot at the moment because we have a product that schools do want. We are at a stage now that we are growing. And as I mentioned earlier, where we are learning new every day, it's more of a scaling challenge now than an adoption challenge, right? So now we have a completely different set of challenges that we're facing.
SPEAKER_01
00:09:11
Absolutely. And I think that's a good set of problems to have to like be focusing on scaling, but it feels definitely like one of those things that you've been working on getting to this point so long and it's starting to grow and everything like that. But it's whilst sometimes from an outside perspective, it looks like it's overnight or just very short time period. It's actually something that you've put a huge amount of effort into to get to this point. And I think that's, that's a really good place to be. But also, you can feel the weight of that history behind it.
SPEAKER_02
00:09:42
Yeah, absolutely. It seems like overnight, but if I look at it, it's almost 10 years and we're still growing.
SPEAKER_01
00:09:47
I mean, incredibly well done. That persistence is such a powerful trait for an entrepreneur. I think it may be one of, if not the most important traits for an entrepreneur to be able to have to be persistent, even when times get tough. And you mentioned that you had to let go of some of your team during COVID times, and that's an incredibly difficult thing to do. And I want to say, I'm sorry you had to go through
SPEAKER_01
00:10:10
that. Now that you're back at the point where you're looking to grow again, do you think you have a different mindset about how you'll grow the team from here than you did there? Has that experience changed how you think about it in any way?
SPEAKER_02
00:10:22
Yeah, absolutely. So every stage we've learned something new and every stage we found that, so for example, for scale, it's important to have the right team. So the team that we've had before was probably not the right team when you're scaling, right? So when you're hustling, when you're new, you're trying to be lean, so you hire resources on low budgets, you don't have a lot of budget, and then you try to build your product and keep on hustling. Then you get to a point where you start getting bigger clients, and then you need to invest more on your team. So I believe at this stage, we need to bring in more experienced people. We need to spend more money on HR. Before that we could just handle it ourselves. But now as we are growing, as we're getting more clients, as we're getting into more countries, it's a completely different ballgame. So it's definitely different. So right now, the team that we are hiring, the team that we are thinking to hire is a completely different team that we would have hired before, or we could afford before, right?
SPEAKER_03
00:11:17
That total sense. And I know last time we talked about how your leadership style has changed. And I'm sure that that kind of factored in as well. I
SPEAKER_00
00:11:25
actually
SPEAKER_03
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wanted to build off of
SPEAKER_03
00:11:27
what Spencer was saying a little bit about persistence and ask you in your opinion, what characteristics does a successful founder need to have? Do you think there are character qualities that help people find long -term entrepreneurial success? And if not, that's okay too, but.
SPEAKER_02
00:11:46
Again, an excellent question. So we've learned a lot of things and we've learned that by making a lot of mistakes. 10 years running, I mean, there are companies that grow and grow and grow. I believe we've not grown as fast as we should have, but I think we can give credit to COVID for that. So I'm safe over there. But I think there are certain characteristics that I've learned that do help and persistence is absolutely one of them. So it does not mean that we were passionate every day. It does not mean that we did not think about quitting. So past six months, I've probably gone very close to quitting. So it's always there every other day when it's down, when you're down and out. It's very hard to pick yourself up back, back up and then start to think over again. But I've learned those lessons as well. I've left things before. I had a research lab, some projects that went south and I kind of left them where they were
SPEAKER_02
00:12:40
instead of continuing with them. So learned those lessons. So time it was not about quitting, it was about making sure that survive this wave, this downward wave and then eventually it will pick up. And believe so persistence is definitely the key. The other thing that I found is discipline. Self -discipline for an entrepreneur is so difficult to have because you're not bound by anything. I mean, you are bound by certain things, but for an entrepreneur, it's very important to have that kind of discipline because you're mostly your own boss. You're mostly trying to create that direction. So sometimes when you when you don't want to work, I mean, you can easily just take a day off, right? Because nobody's asking you to come in. So that's something that you need to create. And you just need to have that consistent level of discipline that you need to bring into your life. And it's also difficult because when you're facing difficulties, there are mental health challenges as well. Sometimes you're depressed, but you have to be there for the team. So you just can't leave the team, right? They have to have the founders with them, pushing them all the time or working with them. So these are some of the things that, you so discipline, persistence, and then again, their passion is a bit of a bit important as well, because when you're down and out, that's something that you, you know, go back to, why did you, you know, you start questioning yourself, why exactly did you, are you doing what you're doing? Because there are so many other options that you could do, right? I remember just pre COVID, I was and talks with two recruiters, one from Facebook and one from Amazon.
SPEAKER_02
00:14:13
And I did not accept any one of those offers because I was so, I just told them I was, once we get learned about somewhere, then I'll think about something else. And turns out right after that COVID hit and it was the worst period that we went through. So there were a lot of regrets during that time as well. But I guess I think persistence and being passionate is just, you just need it all the time.
SPEAKER_01
00:14:34
Absolutely. And I think you're right about your team needs to see it in you. Like if you're the founder who goes home at five, like everyone else goes home at five probably as well. If you're, you know, taking it easy, not working that hard or don't seem to be working that hard, even if you are at home or something, it's demotivating for the team. And so I think that they can see that you're persistent, you're working hard, you're trying to solve problems and you've got that energy. even if you don't actually feel it all the time inside, I think that's so important. And I think that brings a lot of energy to the team as well.
SPEAKER_01
00:15:08
We have talked last time about work -life balance and that you were having some difficulty finding work -life balance at the time. I was wondering if that's gotten better, if you feel that's still at a similar stage, what's your perspective on that?
SPEAKER_02
00:15:22
Yeah, I do remember that, it's been difficult, but I guess as you gain more experience, you get a lot better at decision -making, right? You get a lot more confident at decision -making. I mean, in very simple words,
SPEAKER_02
00:15:35
you find the hacks for most of the things because you've done so many things already. You start getting more time for yourself. You know, during that period, I made a conscious decision of being more disciplined, spending more time at home as well, trying to improve on work -life balance, trying to give myself some time as well. And that's one of the reasons that I kind of stopped working on weekends unless it was some meeting that we had to attend. So that's something that's definitely improved over the time.
SPEAKER_03
00:16:01
I really appreciate you being so honest about sharing the ups and downs. There's no way that you could have known
SPEAKER_03
00:16:07
that that was like gonna be the toughest time when you're turning down recruiters. And there's always that shoulda, woulda, coulda, but I love that you come back to your why, you know, and just reevaluating why this is the thing. So, if you don't mind me asking, why is this still the problem for you?
SPEAKER_02
00:16:29
Yeah, that's a difficult one. I think it's still the problem because, so one of the things that I've always been interested in is solving problems. And I think we haven't solved it yet. So we are still solving that problem. So, because I'm interested in solving problems, so initially we were solving a different kind of problem within the same domain. But we are still solving that problem in the same domain, but these are now different problems. I get interested and I'm happy when I'm challenged. In my previous job as a lecturer, when I was teaching, initially
SPEAKER_00
00:17:02
I
SPEAKER_02
00:17:02
had a lot of challenges. I was not a good teacher. I know this is being recorded, but I do know that I wasn't very good at teaching, but I improved over time. I took it as a challenge and when I was receiving good feedback, I thought, you know, this is the peak and I don't think I can grow any more than that. And that's where I made the shift. Interestingly, being an entrepreneur, the challenges never end. I mean there are every day they're like new challenges and I believe that this is one of the most challenging careers that you can have. I mean apart from being a space scientist but I think that's now become easy as well in some ways. But going back to when you see the
SPEAKER_02
00:17:35
impact that you have, about a year ago we did a project where we created around 50 maker spaces for government schools in Pakistan. These were in government schools that are funded by the government and in the top, in the northernmost region in Pakistan, I'm not sure if you've read about or heard about, it's the most beautiful region with a lot of mountains. So these are like remote areas, we don't even have internet connectivity. And then there was this push by the government to enable those schools. So when we did that project, it was a lot about that passion and we could see the impact that we are creating. These are kids that live in rural areas within the mountains and they had access to things like 3D printers and robots and, you know, electronics and most of the private schools don't
SPEAKER_02
00:18:23
even have that in some cases, right? So that's something that reinvigorates your passion even if it's, you know, died down over years. When you start seeing the impact that it brings, the joy that it brings to kids' faces and the opening of their minds, right? So not many of can travel from where they live, but we kind of brought the world to them, right, in those remote places. And that's where, you know, you get these motivation back to keep on moving and keep on making that impact.
SPEAKER_01
00:18:52
That's excellent. I think I was actually also about to ask where you get your inspiration from, and I think that's a perfect example, like, that you can see that impact on those children's lives and see that you're opening up access to these tools that they wouldn't have access to is incredible. And I think that that feeling has to be one of the best feelings, you know, ever to have for someone. And I think that's so, so cool. So thank you so much for sharing that. Hello all, I hope you're enjoying this episode with Shamil. I wanted to ask you, our listeners, if you could give us a review on your podcasting platform of choice. We don't have sponsors and don't run ads, but we are looking to grow. So, if you feel we bring value to your listening experience, please drop us a review when you get a chance. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_01
00:19:42
If we take a little bit of a change in how we're thinking from how you've been doing recently and in the past, and we take a little bit of a look at the future, what are your objectives for this year? I know it's a bit late for you new year resolutions, but what are your objectives for the year and what do you picture for the future of the company? Are there like ways you're planning on browsing out or products you're looking to change? What does that look like for you?
SPEAKER_02
00:20:10
So one of the main goals is to now expand to other countries. So we've already signed up a few clients in the Middle East. And the goal is to move to Middle East and, and, you grow the business over there. Within Pakistan, we're one of the leading companies, you know, we've mostly we are followed in terms of, you know, what we've done, we are the most pioneering company in tech. The goal is now to repeat that in a different kind of market with new kind of challenges. And interestingly, we've been trying that for a few years and we've been failing at it because different markets have different kind of requirements, right? So for us, the lack of rules and policies was a blessing disguise in Pakistani education because the government does not regulate the education sector a lot. So we had a lot of room to play with. So we introduced our software within the, so if you could sell it to the school owner, I mean, the school owner was the main decision maker. So he did not have to have any kind of approval from any ministry or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02
00:21:08
But when we talk about other countries, it's a completely different ball game. You have to go through the ministries. You cannot just launch a product. So that's something that we are learning now for different countries. So the main goal is to take it out of Pakistan. We know the solution works. We know it's one of the best solutions because whenever we show it to the schools, they love it, they want it. But now we're just trying to figure out how to expand, how to scale it up in other countries. And that's the main goal for this year.
SPEAKER_03
00:21:35
That's an exciting place to be. In the US, I feel like the barrier I think of is funding for something like this. I think of a program like yours as something that only the elite in the U .S. can afford. And I grew up in a huge family and went to public school. And there were times when, you know, we just didn't have access to certain things like, you know, now we have technical drawing and now we don't. Even if it's not a problem that you're interested in solving directly, I'd love to get your ideas based on your experience about how you think quality education could be made more affordable or if you already see that happening and if you want to just answer it within a market that you know that's totally understandable too because I do understand that it works
SPEAKER_03
00:22:28
differently in different countries and cultures.
SPEAKER_02
00:22:31
I think in education it's pretty much the same to be honest because there are private schools in Middle East even in the UK and then there are government schools right and have different kind of fundings and even in Pakistan it's quite the same that we have some elite private schools then we have some you know middle class on the socio -economic ladder right those kind of schools and then we have the government schools unfortunately that's that's the case for Pakistan so it's a pretty much similar kind of model however what we started with was the goal to democratize quality education right so we don't care if you don't have the money, we do care, because how are you going to pay us? We wanted to bring this kind of education to the masses, right? And the initial goal was to do it in Pakistan, because we know that in Pakistan there are remote areas, we know
SPEAKER_02
00:23:19
there are government schools. So every time when we were developing our products, we were thinking of these problems. The summer camps or the winter camps we used to have, or we still have, are still very expensive, because because they have a lot of hardware, they are, you know, resource intensive. But the The that we've built for schools, it's a cloud -based software as a solution, you know, software as a service solution. So it's, and the reason was to make it cheap and affordable enough that even a government school
SPEAKER_02
00:23:46
that could not afford it would be able to afford it. So that's how we are kind of solving that problem. And that's a problem that's very close to our heart because we want to democratize quality education. And we've done that by trying to, I won't say we are perfect at it at the moment, but we've done that by bringing that experiential fun learning experience into this product. Of course, we are improving it over time, and we're doing it by creating many simulations and many games that kind of give kids that intrinsic motivation to play and then learn. And hopefully, we'll keep on adding that kind of content to bring that similar kind of experience for kids. It is affordable. As I mentioned, the same software that we are deploying in elite schools in the Middle East and in Pakistan, we are also giving it to government schools as well. So we figured out ways and paying models that they can afford as well, but that's something that we want to do.
SPEAKER_01
00:24:41
That's awesome. I still remember the teachers that inspired me to be curious about learning. And I think that's the key, as you've just said yourself, to teach people to be curious and to want to learn more, and that it's not a bad thing to be someone who learns things and explores the world. I think that's really, really great. We've had a couple of people on relatively recently
SPEAKER_01
00:25:06
talking about AI and its impact in their sectors or things that they see being developed on it. I feel like education is one of those areas that's had already some impact from students like using AI to try and get answers that they don't have to work for and things like that. but I assume there's also positive ways that maybe it's impacted. Have you seen impacts on AI in your sector or even within your business, like in business efficiency? Has it been positive or negative for you? What's your experience so far?
SPEAKER_02
00:25:40
That's something that has happened over the past year. A lot of, you know, things like ChargeGPT have improved, you know, helped us and is helping everyone, right? For us as a business, it's very, very useful because for us we generate a lot of content and that's hard. Initially I tell you something interesting that we had videos built into the product and creating quality videos was really really expensive and really really hard and we kind of made a conscious decision initially to stop adding videos to the platform because it was expensive at that time and now creating videos you know generating content has become so much easier so that's definitely helped us a lot as a business. Now we are creating tools internally to generate content automatically. Now instead of focusing on creating that content, we can focus on researching content. Thinking about how to improve learning or learning outcomes and how to bring in more domains within the product definitely helped. In terms of impact on education, so it's a bit early to say, but we definitely introduced some new lessons within the product. So of teaching how to code, you know, programming robots, we taught kids how to use chat GPT to code robots, right? So we wanted them to learn these new things and new technologies. And personally, I'm a big proponent of, you know, using these technologies. I don't think it's cheating or anything like that. I think it's just the evolution of how we're going to learn in the new world. So I believe instead of spending time on old things, we should just build on the tools that we have and then discover something new, right? So instead of learning to present, we should have a ready -made perfect presentation that has been, you know, researched before. We don't have to fact check it. And then we can focus on something else based on that
SPEAKER_02
00:27:33
presentation. Can I start a new business? Can I clean something in a more, you know, proper way instead of spending time on creating that presentation? I mean, that's just an example, but I think these tools are going to help and transform education. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think it's a bit early to say, but it will definitely have a huge impact on education.
SPEAKER_03
00:27:51
Yeah, that makes complete sense to me. And I get the sense that you really want to be on the cutting edge of what's next. And that makes so much sense to me with your business model. How do you decide? And I guess, how do you test things within your learning framework? Like, how do you decide if something is going to become part of the curriculum? Do you test it, you know, amongst the teachers first, or do you test it live with students?
SPEAKER_02
00:28:19
Yeah, so since we're kind of two running in parents, running in schools, but we also have our camps that happen every weekend where students come in to our campus, right? So that's kind of more of after school learning and not within school learning. So most of our experiments are done in our winter and weekend camps and summer camps. I mean, it's all the curriculum is completely ours. there is no formality about it, right? So the parents know what we are working with, the kids know what we're learning something new, so we do all our experimentation over there and then we use that as a testbed and then bring it, you know, bring that content within our product that we sell to
SPEAKER_02
00:28:55
schools.
SPEAKER_01
00:28:56
That's really interesting. Thank you so much for taking us through that. In the education sector, it's something that, as you've said, there's all these new tools coming out and there's all this growth that's happening in it. I I like the education system as a whole has been historically designed a certain way that's benefited people in a long way, but I've heard a lot of different people talking about big changes to how we should be doing education and what's required in education. Do you think across the next, say, 15 years, education as a whole is going to change massively? Do you think this is something that, like, obviously platforms like yours are going to be a big help in that sense? How do you see sort of education sector changing?
SPEAKER_02
00:29:35
Definitely, there will be a lot of changes and one of the changes that we can see at
SPEAKER_02
00:29:39
the moment is that most tech companies have removed the requirement for a degree. So they're looking for skills. So I believe it's more of learning those skills and as technology is enabling that learning, that's going to impact every kind of education. So if we have kids who can learn skill and start earning at an early age, they would probably not go for, you know, degrees and stuff like that, right? So that's something that's definitely going to change. So mean, I can tell about Pakistan that in universities, we have four year degrees, right? And by the time you graduate, many of the skills that you've learned, or many of the technologies that you've learned are already obsolete, and the new ones are coming in. But I guess it's the, I think, I'm not sure how that's going to play out. It's the social experience of being in a university. That's something that I don't know how that's going to play out, because that's also important as well. So it's not just about learning those skills, but the time that you spend with your friends, the friends that you make, new friends that you make, you work on different projects, the social experience is also important. So that's something that I'm not sure how it's going to play out. I mean, we can have all the Zoom calls and discords that we want, but the personal touch when you sit down with someone, you have a cup of tea or have some coffee together and and something is still something that's very useful. So within an environment, so I guess it's going to be a hybrid of skill -based learning but within social circles, they could be physical or online.
SPEAKER_02
00:31:08
So that's something that's going to come up, especially with tools like, I mean, we know that the younger generation, the newer generation is used to small chunks of, they don't have long, I mean, we've been talking for 40 minutes, I'm pretty sure no young person would sit and listen to us for 40 minutes, they would have probably left in the first or second minute. That's a challenge that we have with the tools that we have access to, right? So I think there will be a combination of all these factors, but it's really hard to say at the moment.
SPEAKER_03
00:31:37
Well, and that's an interesting observation. I actually feel like we have trained that into adults that didn't previously have that focus problem too. So, the fact that you're giving kids these skills, like this curiosity that, you know, they can kind of use to keep themselves going and growing, I think is really essential to the evolution of the human species, if you will, successfully, you know, because it doesn't work always to just like move on when you're not interested anymore. I'm really glad you're training future problem solvers. So for yourself, whether it's on a day -to -day basis or just in the past month, if it's changed,
SPEAKER_03
00:32:23
that's totally valid too. How do you find yourself defining success at this point? You definitely touched on something really essential, being able to see the impact in your students, but for yourself personally and professionally with your business, is there a difference in the way you measure it or do you feel like you have a similar measuring stick at this point for that? And
SPEAKER_00
00:32:48
there's no
SPEAKER_03
00:32:48
right or wrong. And by the way, you can reject any question. I realize I've asked some more philosophical ones.
SPEAKER_02
00:32:55
But I believe you become half a philosopher when you spend 10 years working on the same problem, right? So I've got lots, yeah, lots and lots of things that we've learned. And over the past few months, there's been a lot of introspect as well, you know, introspection, because I told you a few months ago, I was like, again, re -questioning myself. Why are we doing what we're doing? So I don't think there's a specific yardstick, but I think it's always a learning journey. We keep on learning new things. And as long as we are learning from six months ago, things that I was I was doing, I thought I was making the right decisions. Now I look at them, I think I've learned from those decisions as well and they could have been better. And I believe six months down the road, it would be a similar journey. It's a constant journey of making changes to how we make decisions. I remember, I don't know if I've talked about this before, but me and my co -founder, Faisal, both of us were very, very bad at firing people. We could not just fire people. We had hired the wrong person, but we were, I don't know, we just could not fire them. We you know, maybe they have a family. I mean, maybe we're responsible for them. And initially it was really hard when we had to let people go. We thought there would be some kind of negative repercussions. So these are something that we haven't done before, but now I'm like really, really, really lethal. It's like, if I don't want someone on the team and I feel they're not productive, I don't take a couple of weeks. I you know, we just sit down and decide and let them go. And we, but I mean, in a more empathetic way, not, not just fighting people, but letting them understand why they're not needed. But this is something that we've, you know, we've matured over time by, as I mentioned, by making a lot of mistakes.
SPEAKER_01
00:34:32
I think that's also something that, as painful as it is, you need to learn in entrepreneurship. The problem is, no one is a perfect hirer. No one can meet someone for three hours across three weeks and be like, I know exactly what you're going to contribute to the team and you're exactly what we need. And so you have to be able to, as you say, be lethal when you need to be.
SPEAKER_01
00:34:54
It's so important and so powerful. Now, I believe you attended the Tokyo Tech Bootcamp. Have you found any of the tools or lessons from the bootcamp to be particularly pertinent to your journey? Anything that has come up time and time again?
SPEAKER_02
00:35:10
Yeah. So talking to customers, it's the most important journey that I would not do before. My co -founder just hated me for it, probably still hates me for it. But being a techie guy, I was much more comfortable sitting at my desk as I am right now. But he was the one talking to customers and but he always wanted me to go and talk to customers. And that's something that I just thought was his job and not mine. It turns out it was mine as well. And that's something that I learned over that wonderful time that I had spent at the MIT boot camp in Tokyo. Probably the first night or the second night, we had talked to like 30 people
SPEAKER_02
00:35:49
for the first assignment. And I thought it wasn't that difficult. So that's something that convinced me this is important and that needs to be done all the time. So being someone who's always been an introvert, it's still difficult to go and talk to people. But if you know, kind of take it as a challenge, and has I've gotten used to it a bit, but still, this is something that I'm that I'm improving myself on.
SPEAKER_03
00:36:10
It a lot of sense. And when you're talking about your co founder to your, you know, kind of making me think like you've gone through, well, I guess I should ask is your co founder still your co founder? Did that relationship make it through these layers?
SPEAKER_02
00:36:24
Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03
00:36:25
Okay. I'm just thinking that it's someone you've known through, you know, thick and thin, you know, and it becomes kind of like a marriage. And I was just wondering if
SPEAKER_00
00:36:34
you
SPEAKER_03
00:36:34
think, you know, there were certain things that you recognized in your co -founder looking back, you know, like, do you think there's anything that really makes a good co -founding team? Like, was there a way that you knew that this was gonna, this partnership was going to work? Or do you think it was, you're just happy that it worked out?
SPEAKER_02
00:36:57
So for me, when I work with people, it's important to be comfortable and to have fun. For me, it's very hard to work with really serious people who are serious all
SPEAKER_02
00:37:04
the time. With my co -founder Faisal, our common interest turned out was food. He's a foodie and I'm a foodie. So whenever I was not happy, he would probably take me out and, you know, make sure that I get something, good food. And then we would, sort things out. And we've gotten divorced many times, I think. Almost gotten divorced many times, but we're still together, right? So one of the things that other people told us is that I was the techie guy, he was the sales guy, so we kind of complemented each other. But we found over the years that we've created this natural, we've had, I mean, it's created itself, but there's this chemistry where when we go to a client, when we both go to a client, it's a very easy close sale. When one of us goes, it's usually difficult. I mean, he's a good salesman. He does pretty good sales. But if I go, it's usually not a close sale. So that's something that we've discovered over a period of time that we've gone to different meetings. But we're still together, through thick and thin. But let's be.
SPEAKER_01
00:38:06
That's awesome. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01
00:38:08
I'd love to dig in a little bit deeper to that. One thing I'm personally trying to learn is the skills of sales and marketing side of things. That's not something I've got much experience with. And it's something that as also a very techie guy, I'm a little intimidated by. I'm used to having all the facts and being able to very clearly, succinctly like design the solution sort of thing. Not having to like discuss it out and try and like empathize and see how everyone's perspective is.
SPEAKER_01
00:38:35
How did you approach learning those skills? And when you're in that team sales position, How do you play off each other to exercise and get the sale?
SPEAKER_02
00:38:46
Yeah, for one thing, I've learned to stay quiet. When he's selling things that we don't have, I just roll my eyes and stay quiet, right? So that's one thing that as a techie that you have to learn because he's always selling something that we don't have and I have to go back and build it, right? So you have to stay quiet, let him sell it and then we kind of figure out how do we build this feature that we're eventually going to give to the client.
SPEAKER_02
00:39:11
That's one of the key learnings.
SPEAKER_01
00:39:12
That's definitely one I need to learn, I think, for sure.
SPEAKER_03
00:39:15
Well, I think I'm so afraid of that, though. Like, as someone that is capable of building things, I feel like Spencer should be confident about that. That's my impression, because I'm like, he can build anything. It is just a skill set. I mean, that kind of like reminds me of like the, you know, selling ice to an Eskimo thing, but it's not really. It's selling like the next level of ice pick. So you have to have like some vision in order to be able to sell like that. I would almost guess that that is something that you and your co -founder kind of have in common. He's like, I know Shamila is going to be able to envision this maybe a little bit differently than I do, but he can perceive what I'm selling. And we actually had someone on a couple weeks ago, totally different, you know, market and product.
SPEAKER_03
00:40:11
But basically, her company started because they sold something that they weren't quite sure they could deliver, but they wanted to. And so I think probably you and he shared that, that passion to to deliver good solutions, if I were to guess. So thanks for taking us through that. Because I do think those are some of the pains. Like I loved when you said we've gotten divorced and back together several times, because it can really feel like that when you're really working with someone on a team that like you really don't align at certain points. But I also think that's like some of that testing balance we need. You know, like we were talking about at the beginning, you don't just want people that say you're wonderful, you do everything amazing. right? Have you had some other people in your life that have kind of helped you fine -tune what you wanted, you know? And were those people, as we were talking about, you know, more yes people, or were they people that really picked things apart in a good way for you? And I guess, what does that look like for you? What kind of critique do you feel like you need to grow? if that's not too much of a question.
SPEAKER_02
00:41:28
So in my case, since I've spent the last part of the decade working with my co -founder,
SPEAKER_02
00:41:34
he's the one who's been the most critical and I've been the one most critical about him. We've had other people, some advisors come in who have been critical of both of us, right? I guess we've together kind of helped each other grow as well and then we learned, you know, we've made quite a few mistakes as well. I mean, we know that we keep making mistakes, but you know, so learning from those mistakes is important. That's what we've been doing.
SPEAKER_01
00:42:01
Absolutely. And I think it's the way you develop is learning from your mistakes. And it's an absolute superpower having someone who's willing to be like, you, you were great at this and this and this, but maybe you could have been better in this or the way one of my most trusted people would say to me, you sucked at this. And so it's just really helpful to have someone who's willing to really tear you apart with a constructive goal. I think that's super powerful. Now, unfortunately, we are coming to the end of the hour. We always like to ask our words of wisdom question, which I'm pretty sure we have already asked you before. Are there any words of wisdom, philosophies, quotes, or ideas that have come to you that you've heard from someone else, or that have helped you in your journey, that you'd like to leave with us here today. And feel free to interpret it however makes the most sense to you.
SPEAKER_02
00:42:55
That's a difficult question. Should have thought of an answer before, but I guess anyone who's listening or would probably listen is thinking of, you know, becoming an entrepreneur or trying to start a new business, then it's important to have, I believe, some kind of experience. I mean, I can tell you, I have a Pakistani audience. So I can tell you that sometimes it looks much fancier from the outside,
SPEAKER_02
00:43:19
but it's really, really, really hard. Sometimes you don't even have money for food. I mean, things like that seem like it won't happen, but it does. You know, when you have to pay your team, right, and they're the most important, you can't pay yourself. So it's not easy. So the more experience you have, the more easy the journey is. So I'll leave it at that.
SPEAKER_03
00:43:41
That makes a lot of sense. And I think that that is a good argument to stick it out. You know, if you really have passion for something, to continue to be persistent. Well, thank you so much for taking so much time with us, Shamil. I feel like I learned as much this time as I did about you and about life, to be honest. We really appreciate your thoughts and everything that you with us and taught us today. And thank you to those that joined us live today and will listen later. We really appreciate your perspective and energy. And Spencer and I and the team behind Founders Voyage feel really fortunate to be part of this community with you and for the opportunity to bring you cooperative learning experiences each week. Shamil, if there's anyone that you would like to nominate
SPEAKER_03
00:44:33
as a future Saturday session guest, I would be honored to extend that invitation to them and expand our network of inspiration. Thanks so much, everyone. I hope that you have a great day and evening ahead. And you can listen to our first episode with our first interview on the Founders Voyage website or on your favorite podcast listening platform if you search for Founders Voyage.
SPEAKER_02
00:45:01
Thank you, Nancy. Thank you, Spencer, so much for having me. I think this was a much more confident talk than the discussion than the previous one. That was my first time.
SPEAKER_03
00:45:10
All right. Well, keep us posted about how we can support you personally and professionally, and we look forward to connecting with you again soon.
SPEAKER_01
00:45:19
I think there were so many good quotes this time. It's going to be hard to pick how to start for the next episode, but thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure.
SPEAKER_02
00:45:28
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00
00:45:41
You've just finished another episode of Founders Voyage, the podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. The team at Founders Voyage wants to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We hope you enjoyed your time with us, and if so, please share this with someone else who might enjoy this podcast. You can also support us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and by donating to our Patreon. Outro music today is Something for Nothing by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.