From Developer to Disruptor: Esa Bisseh on Using AI to Transform Recruitment

0:00Welcome to IT Mastermind Talks, your access to insights and experiences from thought leaders in the IT services industry and those that support the industry. Our podcast features not only the season professionals charting their start to exit journey, but also the key contributors who help ensure their success. We delve into the diverse challenges encountered within the IT services realm, encompassing both professional hurdles and personal obstacles. Join us, be part of our growing community and engage in the conversation hosted by Ian Markram of Loading Growth.

0:36Good day, and today we have Essa joining us for our podcast with IT Mastermind Talks. Essa has quite a unique story. He started out in the consulting world, used the consulting arm of his business to actually grow the actual funds and proof of concepts and MVPs to build a couple of SaaS products. And one of the SaaS products at the moment now he's launched and is going fairly well, and he'll talk a bit about that, so I don't want to give all the way the goal of the session. Essa, so we've been working together for a while and I've got to know you quite quite closely. Could you just give us a bit of a background of who you are before we kick off?

1:15Yeah, first Ian, thanks for having me. My background starts in software development where I I was a programmer. I moved on to a project management. That project management after a quite a number of years led to a number of opportunities in the consulting space, again in software development and I basically took advantage of that to form a business for myself where I met yourself and other like-minded folks where great help with the consultancy aspect and developing that business given my technical background. I I definitely needed that assistance. I would then grow that part of I'd grow that business and then grow use that as leverage to be able to hire developers and put together ideas for SaaS products and proof of concept that I've been dreaming of implementing for a while. So, it's a great spot we're in and I'm aware of a number of people in the industry and I'm sure you are as well and of people that do that exact same thing. It just it makes perfect sense to build out a product based out of an existing business and try and grow that as a another service or something that's a lot more capable of expanding into something much bigger than just a

2:24Brilliant. Brilliant. It's yeah, it's been quite a journey. I'm not sure how how much detail you want me to go off just as part of the intro, but yeah, it's it's it's it's it's quite different. Product and then selling it are two different things. So, my expertise in building products, yeah, didn't really put me on the great path to selling the product and growing the business, but

2:44Over time I think we've like that's sort of settled into those steps in relation to getting a viable product and trying to generate revenue and I thought I think we're we're very either we're there or we're very close to being there. So, Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for that. There's so many things I want to jump into, but we've got a bit of a flow to go through and we'll get and unpack some of those insights that you've had as you're going through your journey. So, you started off as a sort of sort of like a project management and then you built into went into consulting and that was really good. But what was Do you remember far back what were the initial steps to get in there? Did you you know, did you plan yourself to do that or was it by mistake? How did you get actually get those initial steps?

3:25No, it's the fan calls that you get people asking you questions. So, I I started off I had a project management consultancy role and I had a CEO that I'd worked with in the past over several several jobs calling me and asking about overseas and offshore development teams and using them as part of their strategy for development. That led to basically my my opinion on that or my experience on that was to you're better off doing it in Australia.

4:00In relation to the back end, the front end work from and I convinced basically they gave me the contract. On my opinion about how to deal with it. So, it made sense to do it in Australia as opposed to going to a cheaper Asian outsourced company. And from there it led to me getting offers of the actual contract work and I took it from there. It was basically the the few the few sales that I've managed to do. That was that was how it kicked off and from there I got other contracts as well in that same vein. So, the experience in that project management space in software led to people asking me about my experiences and that led to me being offered contracts

4:41From really fairly large corporations and I took it from there. Brilliant, brilliant. So, you you built trust with people, you showed results and and they felt naturally you know, in line with where you were going and and they could trust you. And I think it's it's you know, everyone buys from people at the end of the day even these big corporations when they're needing services that they're buying from that person who can they think they can deliver that you know, results that. So, that's awesome. Brilliant, brilliant. When you started you have a vision or did you said you know, as you it sounds like you naturally fell into this opportunity which is nice. Do you ever do you ever at the beginning stage sit down and say hey I've got a vision here or did you just wing it as you went along and and it was natural to

5:23Look look that's that's a good question and from from my perspective and where I was in my career like this this this was my dream. It was just form consultancy and then from later on have the capacity to be able to build things out. Did I have a vision as to what direction like this was the final goal for me? I did and after that I'll have to build a vision and that and steer the direction of the company. So, it was yeah, you're right. You do need to make that transition from wanting to be somewhere and then once you're there, you have to you have to grow from there and make it happen. So, I I I didn't really have that strategy. I thought it would all fall in place. I and in in certain ways, I was a bit naive in that I thought that I would now that I've got a couple of contracts, I'd be able to grow the business by simply hiring sales reps by spending money in that area and that would be the solution and that's and I wasted a lot of money doing that. So, you're right. I I didn't have that vision. I had I had a lot of naivety that I had to build up a lot of experience to be able to you know,

6:31What I needed to be able to develop the business because what I knew at the time when I started was definitely inadequate and that is after I spent years upon years reading business books, listening to podcasts, and doing all this stuff. I thought I knew it all, but no, it was it was absolutely inadequate as far as growing the business. Yeah, look, it it's a it's a complex thing with running your own business. I I got to 23 mil turnover with my business in 2012 and we exited to entity data and we thought we knew everything when we left, but we my journey of learning only came afterwards when I started coaching IT services firms because everyone had a different challenge or a different problem and it made forced me to actually work out what what was the way they could to operate. And I initially I honestly SR, I always thought people that have service firm and a software company trying to do thing two things could never really work because we had tried that and it it was so difficult because you have this competing sort of internal mechanism between trying to keep people billable and then build product. So, it was this this hard thing to actually to work through, but you've done it and and that's testament to you and your style of and your approach of to well done.

7:36So, we we worked out how you got your first client, which is awesome, but what was your biggest challenge you think you faced early on in the that's early stage of your business. What What do you think if you can cast your mind back that far Well, okay. For me, it was I was used to doing everything working within other corporations or companies. For me, doing it building it out on myself and just simply doing the paperwork and finding the time to do the paperwork because I committed to a lot of things in relation to building out products for either that we were consulting for or building out a product for myself. Finding the time to be able to just do the administrative parts of the business was extremely difficult. I mean, you hear the crazy stories about, you know, people doing their BAS statements and their small business owners complaining about the complexity of the tax system in Australia. Until you actually start doing it, it's it's a headache and it's a headache no no one wants to be a part of. They sort of sucks all the fun and all the great stuff about the the work.

8:36It's It's something that I that I that I did that I did struggle with and then it comes to building out a routine and you know, figuring that out and yeah, and you know, you guys like you're a great help when it comes to that like with with Loading Growth. so yeah, that that that was that was a part of it. The other part was I had I committed to a lot of things and juggling building a product with a consultant is extremely difficult. I I had I had a yeah, there was there was so many things when it came to building the product. You need to do that in parallel with also building the business case around the product and looking for investors that I wasn't used to and doing that alongside running a consultancy. So, yeah, it was it was quite it was quite challenging, but yeah, look, if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. So, it was yeah, really great.

9:24Well, obviously, you know, today is BAS day. I think BAS week this week. So, it's more paperwork. I think that's why you brought it up. It's probably fresh in your mind. I've been paying BAS as well. Awesome. Get on to the on to to the building phase. You I presume you you got you know, they got cash from the services world and consulting arm and you build that up and then you started to build out a couple of products. But how did you find which product you were going to go into as a you know, cuz you I know you had a lot of great ideas and you're just trying to work on which is the right product. Which is Did you have a process to go through that or you just you know,

9:57I've I've had the like you said, I've had a couple of ideas, but again ideas don't mean anything. The the vision for Tyrenem or the products that we that I eventually settled on that came to me back in 2008 and it was something that I I would if I was in the recruitment space or I was a candidate applying for a job, that was the product it was a vision of the product that I would want. Because back in 2008, there was a global financial crisis and there was all these I I was out of work. I got made redundant from a fantastic job that I had that I unfortunately had to leave because of no fault of my own, but a German company that thought scaling down in Australia what they needed to do because of a GFC. So I was finding it difficult to find work back then cuz no one was hiring and the feedback that I got from recruiters was that there is a and they're inundated with applicants all the time. So they can't go through this whole application process. So it's just as frustrating for them as it was for me and the sad reality is back from 2008 till today when I'm still in constant contact with recruiters, they all still say the same thing. They all still say that they're still going through that exact same recruitment process. It hasn't changed.

11:14It's still frustrating for them and till this very day, the the number of applicants has this is the worst I've ever seen in relation to some of the roles that they keep advertising. So the market is is fairly bad at the moment just like it was back in 2008. I had that vision and I thought it'd it great and back then and I just settled on the idea because it seemed the most plausible. It seemed like the thing that I wanted to do as well. So it had I knew that the space was ready for disruption and it was something that I was going to enjoy doing. And to me that was enough. that's a bit naive as well in that you need to do your research about the market and the the whole the whole market either in Australia and globally was amazing. It's huge. There are a lot of big players. So if you're going to position the product, I needed to it was not competing with the big players. I was building a product that was sort of aligned with them that they can use and integrate with their products, be able to to come to the market and actually forge a proper niche and then grow from there. So that I settled I did do that research.

12:18I did try and get in contact with a lot of recruiters, ask for their opinions and survey and see if they would purchase a product of the kind that I was building and a lot of the feedback was yes and from from that I sort of based on those surveys I I took the product and ran with it. So for me it was just a case of from that point onwards getting the tech over the line. But I also went through that during that same time I went through a lot of VCs, venture capitalists, trying to get investors into the company. They were really good with providing feedback. So their understanding of the market

12:51Obviously they got teams and people doing research on this stuff and they came back with a lot of good feedback as well. So it wasn't just a case of me doing the research with you know, little surveys against people that were willing to do it, but they came back with a lot of very interesting facts, a lot of advice on how to position the product as opposed to competing with something that I would be impossible to compete with. So it's just about taking on board all the feedback that I could and unnecessarily, you know, complying with all the feedback, but being able to being able to relate to all the players in the market, whether they're customers, ECs, or even even candidates. And since we did build the product, we do exactly the same thing with our

13:38So, which is why and I'm watchful of you know, we'll probably cover it We sort of had this strategy of implementing the product with the customers at a scale that it's not set for growth. It's it's let's just get these handful of customers, these these founding customers settled. They can give us feedback on the product. We can actually develop it to the point where this is what they want, and then we start scaling. And that that's that's how that's how we deal with it. It was It wasn't a case of just doing everything at once. It We We did take the baby steps, and we're probably we're probably lagged behind in how quickly we should have taken the product to the mass market as a SaaS

14:17But I think that right now we've got a product that is actually fits the market, cuz I think a lot of products out there they've come in place that have copied us, well, potentially copied us or do do similar things that are not hitting that mark cuz they don't understand the recruiters. They've just rushed the release of the product. I think I think right now we're probably in a good position in comparison to the other products that face a lot of criticism. Our product HireM does not face those same criticisms. once people demo it once people see it.

14:47Great. So, let's let's go into that product now because we spoke a bit about it. You You 2018, you you saw this opportunity happening in the marketplace cuz of GFC, you started to do some surveys, you got feedback from VCs, you obviously did a lot of research around that. So, you came up with the product. When did you start building the product, and when when did the product actually launch?

15:07Yeah, so we we started build I started building the product on my own. I was doing the back-end development work back in 2021, but that was sort of like part-time. It was on and off cuz I was I was quite busy. Once I had the developers as part of my consultancy, I was able to throw work at them when they were available. And that that gave me a lot more more runway to be able to to finish off the product. So, it did take a while to get the product off the ground cuz it was just building it in in in patches. But, I I I do a good job of documenting what needs to be delivered and handing that over to developers. So, you know, I'm not It's It's very I was very confident with what product would be delivered at the end. So, we we launched the product basically earlier this year. We really really struggled at that time. So, it took quite a number of years to get the product off the ground. And as I was building it, we were still looking at what was coming onto the market, what was growing, what and we I pivoted within even though we were still pre-revenue, still didn't even have a a completed product. We're still changing the product to meet the technological advancements that were coming out at the time, including things like large language models and generative AI. So, by the time by the time we got the product similar to what we have today, it took a number of years. And And hence the reason why we launched. So, it it it did take a while to get to market. Probably something if you tell a VC that that's that's what we did and this

16:40Is how long our idea took to get to market, they'd probably tear their hair out. But, it's not Yeah, it's not what we did. I just took my time and I thought and revenue wasn't the priority. It was a case of let's just get the right product out there and I see and take it from there. Great. Can you talk about the functionality of the product? Like, what does the product actually do? So that people listening can understand.

17:01Yeah, so it's a it's a It works with ATS products. it's a recruitment tool that shortlists candidates by interview using generative AI and large language models to interview the candidate. Unlike some of the products that have recently come out, we have got guardrails in relation to that interview. So, you we define all the questions prior to the interview, so you're not directly interacting with a chatbot that will come up with any question that he wants. We define the job description, we define the questions, we then launch a email to all the candidates that have applied for a position where they can interview with that preset questions, and then we use AI to assess each candidate based on the transcript of that interview. So, yeah, and then that that grades we grade each one of those applications. So, we've positioned it in a way, and the reason why we put those guardrails in place and we we use preset questions and not just a direct AI chatbot is that we want the recruiter to be a part of the process. We're not we're not trying to eliminate recruiters. We want the recruiters to be We want the recruiters to be there, and this to be just the initial step of finding the top 10 or top five candidates that that they want for a particular role as opposed to them sifting through hundreds of resumes for each individual role, which is the which is this this huge complaint that recruiters have.

18:30So far as them spending their time, and it's not even an effective way of doing it. and I It's funny cuz I've spoken to spoken to some high-profile recruiters in Australia. They have their own podcasts, and they constantly repeat this. Recruiters aren't good at finding the candidate. Not not because of their own ineptitude, it's just That's just the nature of how it is to go through a resume. You're not

18:55We we built our product so it's a symbiotic relationship between the recruiter and the AI. The AI's just there to simplify the process. and that's exactly what it does. So, it it grades every every answer to the questions, and it forms an aggregate the answer the answers, and put puts together a a short list of candidates to all the 400 or 300 applicants or whatever it is.

19:22Fantastic. Great. So Sorry, carry on. Yeah, so our our our intention is to be able to use that short list to be able to then have the recruiter call up the all those short listed candidates as opposed to some people that are extremely ambitious we have with AI where they want to have AI control the entire workflow and the entire process. Our solution is a bit different.

19:45Yeah, great. This has got the human element in there. I think it's really important. People want to you know build a bit of trust. You know, you you got to have that human element in there as well. I know a lot of people Funny enough I was talking to one of my other clients last week and they were saying that they know someone that's quite high profile went through like a two three step process with AI doing the whole piece. And they were a bit shocked about it and and they thought it was pretty What was the words they used? It was pretty unauthentic. And basically he was wondering if they wanted if he even wanted to work at the company because you know, it went through like a three process with all AI, you know what I mean? So I think it there is that definitely there's work there with AI to use, but I think at the end of the day you got to have some human interaction cuz people you know want to see what they're all about. Anyway, very very interesting. Launched this year. How was that launch going? How You said the sales were quite hot initially beginning of the year. What's changed or if anything's changed in that department?

20:42Yeah, not not much. So what we've had is a small handful of clients that initially took up the product. So we've got those subscribers. We are using a sales rep to find those clients. We changed our focus to deal with partnerships. So instead of looking for individual clients, now we we changed our focus to do to find corporations that sit within that that frame of I don't want to say volume highs. Yeah. So, for example, retail. So, our idea is that if if we focus on those, which is a very unscalable a thing to do, especially at which is fine at the beginning, that we secure that kind of partnership where they bring on their customers onto our platform, then we get a lot of customers at the one time. And that's exactly what we're working on now. So, we're we're very we're very Let's just say we've made progress with that.

21:35Right. and that that is going to that is going to eventually become something that's Yeah, great. It's going to It's going to work with other clients as well. So, we're we're we're very close to signing our first very, very large partnership with a major Australian retailer. So, I'm hoping that I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch. That's where we are at the moment. Right. Well, that sounds promising. There's There's a couple of ways you can go to market, I suppose. One's direct sales, you mentioned that. One's through partnership. The other one's through a referral network process as well, where everyone gets a bit of a a referral fee. Have you looked at the referral

22:07No. What we've What we've done, we've Like you said, we've we've gone through down the partnership model. We want to expand that, but we've also built out the system. It's a SaaS platform. We really should be selling it like it's a SaaS platform and selling it as a subscription. So, I've built that out as part of the as as as as part of the plan, and that's going to happen as as we build out a marketing campaign to accompany that. So, technically, well, as far as the technology is concerned, we're there to be running as a SaaS platform now. We're we're just putting together a marketing campaign to do that in parallel with the partnership agreements that we're signing.

22:43Right. Well, let's let's hope that all kicks off and and makes you soar. So, that that there there is a a few things there that I've seen recently with with people that have the those software products. And this is sort of a question that I I would love to to know the answer to because you've been doing AI, I think, for about 8 years in some form or shape. Is that right, Essa? That's Yeah, yeah. And then you And this product's been going for like 2 years solid building and that's had AI in it as well, I suppose. And technology as you said is changing all the time. I know there's a lot of tools out there with AI for example to help you to build products and build, you know, and they're only going to get better obviously as we know. So they're at the early stages. And who knows really what they're like because you you you would you you thinking with those at the moment. So let's say for example 2 years ago you started your business and you started your business today have the tools actually progressed so fast as everyone's hyping that would have actually allowed you to develop your product quicker and faster or is that still not the that Yeah.

23:42Yeah, that's that's quite a contentious question. Yeah, it's a good question because back when ChatGPT 3 launched they were all saying this is going to write off all the all the coders. Well, some and and I'm talking about some major tech players in tech like that would say this and that didn't eventuate. So what we we're still we're still got coders and we're still got people that are relying on the AI to improve their coding. So they're becoming better at coding and I something that I've experienced myself. So in that same vein I think yeah, the tools they will keep coming out and will keep but that that sudden change that everyone keeps talking about in the same way I don't think that's going to happen. It's something that'll be more gradual than everything else. The tools do come out. How many people can keep up with them? I struggled to keep up with them myself. They're coming out every day. So you know, learning a new platform just to just to improve what you're doing I think it's it's extremely difficult and cumbersome and I think that that's where like one has to keep an eye out and try and be as innovative as possible. And like I said before I pivoted the functionality of the product to accommodate new tools that were coming out. So I do I do try and do that but it's going to get to a point where it's going to be harder and harder to to this stuff up.

25:00Yeah, great great great to hear. You know, the the the hype, you know, the Gartner hype cycle is always very interesting. And this the share market's going gangbusters with the Magnificent Seven in the US, but mostly because they're all focused on AI now or some form or shape of it. So, it's interesting to see, you know, where it lands and I suppose we'll know I think we'll know in the next 3 to 6 months and before the end of the year anyway, calendar year, because we'll see where you know, where that where that hype is reality. And I think that hype has been driven by these companies, but at some stage, if they're not delivering the results for the shareholders, then there's going to be a a reckoning at some point. You know what I mean?

25:35Yeah, I think there'll be a consolidation between some of the products within these companies. I don't think AI is just hype. I think it's and it's far from being a bubble. Had we had the dot-com bubble and that was legitimately a bubble. I think AI it has it has utility. It has it has a lot more to it than simply being a bubble. It's It's the next wave. It's like it's like the mobile wave and it's a great opportunity. It's not simply hype. I where it's just going to disappear very quickly. It's AI is here to stay. But, it's going to going to definitely change from just being you know, seven massive companies to not all of them can sustain going down that AI path. So, it's going to it's definitely going to change in that way where we have the products either merging, some disappearing, some it Yeah, it's and it's not the the kind of product where people can just simply walk in and build it out. You need to have those resources to be able to build out something at that scale.

26:44You're right, it will change, but it's definitely not hype. It's I think it's something that's going to be here for the long run. It's going to be here for foreseeable future. to hear your your view on that. Okay, so the next thing is about building a bit of a team around you. So, you've got a few people working with you. Some are contractors, some are perm, you know, flexible sort of team members that you have. How do you actually build a a bit of a culture on that a team culture? You have you get everyone in sync and and and your dev on your dev builds or your product launch or your marketing campaigns? How do you actually do that at the moment, Essa?

27:15Because I focus on tech cuz of my tech background, I'm probably not the the best at it. look, it's about being kind to people and just enjoying their company as well. I've got a couple of co-founders at the moment. I started the company on my own and then I brought on two co-founders that were impressed by the product and they have put in their own capital into growing the company. So, they they became the seed investors that allowed me to build out the product to the very

27:44And they've done a fantastic job. One of them well, the CEO, he's he's got a amazing reputation as an entrepreneur across Australia and the United States and he and the sales person that we brought on board responsible for the large partnership agreement that we're currently signing. So, building a culture, I rely heavily on them. They're a lot more experienced in business than I am. when you know, they're they're very they're very sober heads and they're very responsible and mature. So, it's easy to get them to do their thing. It's just for them it's like second nature.

28:19Company culture really plays out when it comes to the developers and that for me is just everything I just keep it professional and I keep the communication short and I let them know that the company culture is you're free to make mistakes. Just own up to it and then fix it. And that cuz that that's for me coming from that programming background, that's the fear that programmers have is I get caught out or they're going to it's going to take too long for them to do something and you know, they're they're they're running late with something. For me, it's just fess up to it straight away and then we fix it together. And that seems to get them inspire inspired to just do the right thing by the company as well. I've had in the past like with my programming like people that you know, especially the overseas coders if I move to another company that they call me and ask me to take them with them. Well, no, you're working for a Vietnamese company. I can't take you with me. So, it it doesn't it doesn't work that way. yeah, so there's there's I think building company culture is just common sense and having the emotional intelligence to be able to deal with people and not not let it get to you.

29:22There's enough stresses and enough things that take up your mind or your thoughts. You don't need to really get consumed by the interactions that people have. For the most part, if they if they if they fit into the team, they're just going to do the right thing Yeah, great. Sorry, just yeah. Good. Good. now, just going back to your journey with your product company, you basically ended up building a product out. You went to market to get some capital to expand or carry on further develop the product. You've got sounds like you've got two seed investors that came on and and they took roles or part-time roles in the business. If you can talk about that process you went through so so that people listening can understand the process you went through

30:00To get that. Of looking for Yeah, looking for and then finding them and how to make them the CEO and and you know, there's a lot of changes there. A lot of lot of people still want to give up and I when I always talk to people if they're single founders, it's always quite difficult to bring in another founder a co-founder or a you you know, investor who wants to be on the board or you know, it's quite it's quite confronting.

30:22Yeah, it it you're right because you know, you you spend so much time building something you think you think that it's yours, but really it's not yours. It's the market. You you're there to give it to other people. So, yeah, from my perspective, a lot of it was trying to reach out to VCs. I I did it to it was mechanical. I had a spreadsheet. I'd go through it. I had a list of VCs across Australia that I just I started ticking off letters sending pitch decks and things like that to to no real to no real success in relation to getting funding. I It was more the business and personal relationships that I had in the past where I was able to speak to people and people came in, took a look at the product, and were blown away by and said, "You know what? I want to invest in this company." Yeah. And given their given their reputation, given their status in business, it made sense to bring them in as partners. And they you know, I I I couldn't when they offered I could only oblige. So, it's either it's either I struggle as a sole founder knowing that VCs don't really like sole sole founders. They like a number of about three or four. It made sense that I would bring in the two co-founders. And it would make sense that they would also take on a lot of the workload especially in relation to you know, raising funds themselves and being able contribute to the operations. So, for sure. I was I was completely swamped at that stage. So, if for me it was a lot easier. I don't know about other founders where they they do struggle bringing people on board. For me it was

31:55An easy decision. Great. Great. The expansion so you're through to partnerships and you and sounds like you you're on the on the journey there and and a good way as well. You're probably going to work on the partnerships initially. and then I suppose once you got the product out there and people were using the product then you can further test it and further refine it and put more effort into it I suppose and get those customer stories success stories which is what everyone is trying to do. What's the next? Are you going to go partnerships extend that in Australia or you're going to go to the US or you going to work on the SaaS model and go try and go direct? What's the thoughts around the go to market there?

32:29No, so it's definitely once we've got the those handful of partnerships it's going to be going towards the SaaS model. If we can't put it out there to the mass market, that's where it becomes valuable. If we can't do that right, then we shouldn't be running a SaaS product. Yeah. So, it makes sense. And the only reason why we've done going ahead with the partnership is is like a lot of the the the documents documentation that you read about growing a business is to start off with the work that isn't scalable. And then and then do the other work. I mean, I think there's a lot of a lot of tech companies that have done that in the to great success. And I think for us that that seems to be paying off. But in the long term, it's definitely going to be a SaaS model where we market on the internet and and sell on the internet as well. The partnerships, there's only so many that we can get. And you know, there's there's there's been a lot of you know, eminent business people in Australia that tell you not to chase the white whale, but you know, get a lot of smaller clients who are better than getting one big client. and it's a lot easier, apparently. So, yeah, that that's that's the idea that we're going

33:41Yeah, look, it's makes sense. We'll watch from afar to see how that's that go-to-market strategy works. It's it's quite difficult to get to get it working, but it sounds like you've got a salesperson on board and a and a person who's done done some raising before, which is really makes you a powerful team. You know, if you the if you can focus on what you call and keen to focus on, which is building the product, and you got people around you who can do everything else, that's just brilliant. So, congratulations on on those additions to the team. How do you you know, with innovation, we've we've spoke about things are changing quite quickly. And I I know you sort of probably really answered this. How do you actually keep on innovating the whole time? So, I'll give you an example. Spoke to a a client actually earlier on today, and they've built a stack a product on a stack.net one, and they want to upgrade it. Now, it's a product that's out there. It's a SaaS product, but they've got to work on, you know, it's a big upgrade. and it's a lot of effort, and they're trying to build out the road map at the same time. So, they've got a bit of technical debt there happening. So, you know, how do you keep on moving forward with your product, you know, making sure it's a scalable, making sure it's upgradeable, it's security-wise there because obviously sales product's got to be security compliant at all times. So, you know, there's a lot of things happening there. So, you know, what is your thoughts around that space? How do you keep up to date with that?

34:57Well, you you you hit the nail on the head when you said road map. that's that's exactly it. When when we built out the product, we built out a minimum viable product. We knew what we were going to take to market and that's what we aimed for. But, we also had a road map of about 5 years of ideas that we can use, but realistically, we don't have 5 years of runway to pay for that development. So, the road map was really important in being able to not only using, you know, when it comes to saying innovative, looking up podcasts, looking up YouTube, looking up Reddit articles, and just staying up to date with all this stuff and then injecting those things within the road map as as priorities or things that we're not prioritizing. The road map was basically something that we can just point to and say this is what we're going to deliver by such and such a date. The red is just a pipe dream. If we get to it, we'll get to it. But, you know, we've got our targets on that road map that'll, you know, this is the product that we're launching.

35:56In the short term, we're going to do this in the medium term, but this is our aim and in the long term, well, you know, we can we can we can put aspects of the road map in the long term. And that's basically it. And then and again, it's enjoying the job really plays a big part in that innovation because you keep looking for these things naturally. It's it there's if you know, if you need to force yourself to to look for what you want to do next, then maybe maybe maybe I'm not in the right job, but for sure. Yeah, just enjoying it just makes it so much easier.

36:30Yeah, I think you're right there. I think a lot of people I talk to, I say to them, "Look, you know, you've got maybe 4 or 5 months you've got to give this a good crack to see if it's successful, if it hits a market, or if you're really enjoying it. If you don't enjoy it, then stop it." You know, I had a long conversation with a potential client who wanted to come on 2 weeks ago, and I said, "Look, you should look till the end of the year. You've got 5 months left of the year. You should map it out exactly what you can achieve in that 5 months and see what the results are, and see if you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, cut it off in January and go back to something

37:02Because life is short, and and and it is competitive out there. So, it's going to be ups and downs in any type of product or services business, doesn't matter what it is. And you've got to be, you know, you've got to have the long-term energy to stay the course of the journey. If you if you too short focus, too short-term focused, it's just too difficult. It's just too difficult. So, yeah. The really, really good point that you made you brought up there, sir. How do you stay focused?

37:27Just talking about that, cuz one of the other challenges a lot of my clients have is I know they've got the road map and everything else, but how do you stay on on target to achieve stuff? Do you have any personal tricks that you use or No, I I do the opposite. So, I do stay focused. That's I don't need help with that. What I need help with is not getting burnt out, and I've never learnt that. People keep telling you not to get burnt out, and hard. It's so hard when you're doing the work to say, "Okay, I need to stop, and I need to I need to focus on something else, or I just take a bit of a breather." So, the focus isn't isn't the problem. It it it But then again,

38:03Yeah, I I think I think I think there's there's there's there's ways like I guess in relation to focus, I get I get feedback from co-founders and the sales rep, and they sort of steer me in the direction that they want, and then I have to make decision you know, well, what are we got, are we going to work on? And that sort of aids and having people around you. If I was on my own, I would just be with my head buried in the keyboard, and you know, typing away. So, you know, focus focus on the work isn't a problem. It's more a case of you know, doing it consistently, and I've been doing it consistently for What is it? It's been 5 years now. For the last couple of years, it's been like almost 7 days a week and ridiculous hours every day. It's not It's not easy to You know, to not get burnt out. So, and that point There have been times where I just sit down on a weekend and just like I refuse to, you know, do do any work or even go through the week and refuse to do any work other than respond to emails.

39:00So, I guess that is a loss of focus, but that's a loss of focus because of burnout. So, You know, I I take Yeah. I I generally I once that does happen, I sort of I And I identify fairly quickly, and then I, you know, go back to a more reasonable schedule with the work hours and things like that, and then

39:22Yeah, and then and then go from there. Great. Great. You know, it's it's because you enjoy what you do, you know? So, I I'm also the same. I can on a Saturday morning, you know, the whole house is asleep. I can get downstairs into my home office, and I can I can actually get on to do things, and and before you know it, it's like 2:00 in the afternoon. And it's and I love it. But, it's actually not really that good cuz you burn out after a while, and then, you know, you you feel guilty cuz you should be doing other things as well. So, I've got to try and maintain an equal And and it's difficult for people that really enjoy doing the thing. So, that's really good that you can do that. You know, cuz you are enjoying your job, and and it does it does give you back a lot of energy as well to keep you going, but you got to be kept mindful it doesn't burn you out. So, do you have any failures or setbacks? Just to, you know, last we want to finish it off here. Are there any things that have have actually hit you where you just thought, "Oh my gosh, I can't get over this." or it took a lot of effort to get over it mentally. it could have been something with the business. It could have been something with personally happening with you and the business. Anything that sort of hit you in the last sort of 5 years?

40:26Yeah. I think I've mentioned this to you before with obviously in the park like we've talked about sales. I I always struggle with that like growing up. I'm not that kind of person that can just go out and do it. So on the odd occasion that I have I've had some success, but a lot of 5 years along the way and I thought by now I would have learned how to do it. given all the years that I've been doing running a consultancy and then running a tech startup as like it's just not happening. I'm not learning it. I'm not getting any better. I think that to me I don't I don't know. if

41:04I'm sure. mindset of going back to building out the technical work that probably hindered my progress. Yeah, I I consider that if I I should have been better at it by now. Yeah, look it's it's a it's a hard thing. I mean I I would say you know since I know you you're more of an introvert and you love getting the things done down in the weeds to solve problems and and I think the energy that you get from that is really really good cuz it's self-fulfilling. And I think when you're going to do something that you don't want to do and it's hard to do and natural that energy doesn't return and it's just like it leaves a bit of a vortex for you as a person and and and that's that's a challenge for a lot of people that I coach because they all you know they all grew up doing tech, you know, majority of them. And there's not many people that I work with that actually can go from doing tech and actually do sales in the space of the same day. And it's because they've got to have a mind shift. So it is difficult. It is difficult, but you don't have It sounds like you don't have that problem at the moment cuz you've got two co-founders there to help you out. So you obviously realized that was a there was a challenge, but you you've overcome that by hiring the right people. So that's you know, that's

42:09Yeah, look definitely definitely one for identifying my own shortcomings. So, and bringing on co-founders, it's really important to bring on people that you know, they they meet their shortcomings and excel at my shortcomings. So, it's For sure. Yeah, it was definitely, definitely something that was part of the consideration of bringing in the the co-founders on board.

42:33Yeah, it was such a great idea because you will feed off them as well, the Cuz they'll be energized in what they're doing. As you said that this the things they do will be second nature for them, just like things with you will be second nature when you're doing the development of the product. And you'll fly so much quicker that you'll that energy together is really, really powerful. When you get two, three people who are in their in their zone of doing what they're good at and they enjoy, then everyone is in in a good mood and and progression. It's hard when you got two, three founders and and they're trying to do different things and they're not professional at it and they don't want to do it. it sort of brings some anxiety to the to the team a bit an unfairness because I've got to do this, but you're doing that and you know, it's sort of it's quite tricky. So, it's always difficult to get the right the balance with the founders. So, congratulations on that. Any questions? Anything that you think we should talk a bit about? We've got another two, three months left, Essa, that you would like to share about where you're at with the stage. Are you still doing services or you only focus on product now? What's happening around that?

43:29No, no, I've I've I let the contracts wind down. So, as I didn't pick up anything new, so I just let them wind down so I can focus on this. So, at the moment not really doing any services. Yeah, I'll I'm just focusing on Tyron and Matt for the time being. I'm yeah, I I I I think for for the time being it's it's just a case of I just need to get this monkey off my shoulder and just fit finish the product up where okay, at least we've got, you know, some some a lot of revenue coming in for us to then go to VCs and then you know, you use use that as potential to get ticket to gain some capital. Yeah. But yeah, so look, we're we're we're we're doing all right. Well, I think you know, given given the circumstances, I I I I regret not not, you know, possibly finishing the product faster. Where we are at the moment in relation to our partnership agreements, it's sort of there's a light at the end of the

44:29Yeah, personally, if I was just to go to just general sales approaching company by company, I think yeah, we would we wouldn't we wouldn't have made it. Okay. That's good. Good. Any last parting words for anyone that's wants us, you know, go from services to a software product? Yeah, it's not it's not that I I thought like you build a good enough product, you build a you know, build a better mouse trap, they will come come knocking at your door and yeah, that has definitely hasn't been the case. It's been a case of you know, chasing everybody just get out with phone calls and it's you know, when people see the product, they're they're they're blown away by it, but there's also that reluctance and questions and the uncertainty of AI that sort of sort creeps in.

45:16Yeah. Yeah. Think I think the building part of it when you come and that's a lot of these people that do have those services and they build a product, they come from that building experience, but the sales and the building out of the business is a whole different animal and yeah, it's it's hard to it's hard to to grasp everything. So, the optimism that I had at the beginning certainly waned a few times, was rebuilt, and then waned again. So, you have to be really really

45:47That's it. It's incredible the kind of journey you go on. It's not all you know, smelling roses. It's it's it's a very difficult journey. And luckily, and this is where you know, you know, people like yourself come in with may support, motivation, insights, and look, it's always always great to speak to you and get get your idea of things and yeah and it's yourself and plus plus many many others like my co-founders.

46:11Fantastic. Thanks. Well, thanks for for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. Esther, we'll get you back in a year or two time once you've gone global and you're making a lot of money. So, let's let's all make sure you get there. All right. Thank Thanks a lot. Esther, cheers. Bye. Thanks for joining us on IT Mastermind Talks. Don't miss out on our next episode. Hit the follow button and stay updated. Want to be our next podcast guest? Contact us and share your expertise with our audience. Visit for more information.