Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to another episode of the Growth Focus podcast where we bring leaders from all across the globe, especially from the tech industry, to talk about their time, their insights and their expertise with us.
Without further ado, let's get this episode started. So. Well, Nish, it's fantastic to have you here today. Why don't you start off by introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about you and what is it that you actually do.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Hi Gary, wonderful to be on your podcast. Big fan of it. So, a little bit about myself. I started off in a non tech background. Believe it or not, I come from economics and law background and, and then I saw how quickly tech was changing and I embraced it. I learned coding by myself, did a little bit of classes and started actually building stuff because that's what's important, right. You can accumulate knowledge, but if you don't do something with it, then you're not really sure about your weak points. Right. So about nearly like 10 years ago, a partner and I came up with some ideas and then we kind of triangulated on a.
And then we decided maritime was a neglected area at that time and AI itself at the time was still in the laboratory and there was no consumer facing platform at all. So we started really early and then we started building this AI platform for maritime. And then we learned that as much as you build, you have to pay attention to the market. Right. Because you can think of yourself as smart, you can build a very robust platform that can perform well, but that's, you can cheer for your, your own self all you want. But what's important is does the market react? Does it want your product, does it need your product? And also very important, do you hear what the market is talking about, what they're asking for, what they can afford to pay and are you smart enough to respond to that? Right. Because there's no point trying to stonewall and say I'm smarter than the market. Yeah.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: So for someone. Absolutely. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that as well. But for one of our viewers or listeners here who are listening you and hearing you for the first time, how would you explain what exactly you do and why does it matter? In under a minute for me, sure.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: So what we do is we are a vertically integrated AI company, specifically started in the maritime, but now we are making consumer facing products. We are intuit AI. We started touching a little bit on quantum computing. We are learning that fast. We are not there with any products yet, but we are working on it. So we again, the Most fascinating and most important part for us is to listen to the market, be humble and be ready to turn on a dime, to face what the consumer wants and deliver on time and under budget. That's what we want to do. Fantastic.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: And, you know, you've talked about looking at the world through an economic and technical lens. What do you mean by that?
[00:03:27] Speaker B: All right, so for like the last 10 years, economics have changed, technology has changed, each has changed the other.
So economic economics has the power of the people, has the power of the globe when it comes to global economics, and it has the power of the politicians behind them that can change the landscape. But at the same time, tremendous changes in technology did pay attention to economics. But at the same time, they made such powerful changes within the technology itself that had a direct impact on people. And then slowly, slowly, as it began to impact more than one and began to impact a village and then a country and then the world, economics changed as well. Right. And then economics began to catch up to technology.
But technology has been growing faster than at a rate that then economics can keep up with. So that's why you see a slight discontent and a slight disparity between how economics is keeping up versus how fast technology is changing and people asking the government and for changes so that people can keep up with the changes that technology is making. So, and we also, at a time where, if you look at technology itself, hardware and software both are really doing well together and each is counting on the other to deliver fantastic products. So we are living at a very profound time in history.
The industrial revolution started off something. Now, this revolution, perhaps the artificial intelligence revolution, is also very, very powerful. It is impacting economics, and therefore governments are forced to change their response to it. So, very important moment of our lives.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, and I want to talk to you more in depth about AI in a minute. But before we go there, I want to delve into your history a little bit. You know, you've been in business a long time now, and as you say, technology has changed, business has changed. Over those years, what would you say has worked really well in expediting the growth of your company?
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Okay, a few things. I would say two things. One is learning, learning, learning. I read copious amounts daily to learn what the market wants. What? And also anticipate what the market wants and make products exactly. To match what the market wants and whether. And in any company, everybody wants margins, everybody wants specific units of return. So within the company itself, there is a sales process that I have to undertake and sell certain factors within the company and tell people, look, here are opportunities, how we approach opportunities, and this will be the most probable outcome. Right. So probability plays a large role in convincing client and also convincing the people within the company. So it's a very fine balancing act, quite difficult to pull off, but it is necessary to pull off because you can't promise something to the client that the company can't deliver and at the same time you can't promise something to the company that the client is not interested in or it's something else. So keeping both in balance is very difficult to do, but has, has to be done and if executed properly, that's where we constantly are and we constantly want to be.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Nish.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: So when it actually comes to the tech companies today, what we're hearing time and time again is that predominantly they tend to be, like you say, product led, service led. This is what we do, this is what, we have this out there. But everyone's beginning to sound the same now. How have you been managed to stand out amongst a very, very. I mean, I know you're in a very niche market as well, but have you managed to, what strategies have you used to stand out above all the competition and get your message out there?
[00:07:37] Speaker B: So we do that by having very good relations with the client. Right. And with the client as well. You have to know who your client is. You have to know them at least two layers deep, minimum. It's not, you have to know the decision makers in the C suite, but then you have to know other people below the C suite as well on a minimum. So you have to kind of know what's happening within your client's company. Right. So you have to think the investment of time and relationship building is important. If you think how much can you get out of each relationship in both ways? Right. How like investing that time to know what they want and what are they planning as well. Right. Because we don't want to be caught off guard by a client making some changes every quarter. Right. But then if there are companies like that and they still are good customers, in the context of whether it's profit or anything else, you still have to know them. So what we do is constantly have a very deep and meaningful relationship. That way a better product and service is delivered and then there is less hassle, there is less late night calls, early morning calls. That way, you know, it's a lot of investment at first. Right. But the deeper the relationship with the client, the more efficiency in the development and the Delivery of the product and service.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. So those are things that work. And I love what you're saying about relationships. And it's almost like a forgotten art. Everyone talks about building relationships with their clients, especially in tech, but unfortunately what they do is a forgotten art. They focus on the tech rather than the actual relationship itself. And AI has something to do with that. So just before we get into AI, you know, and we talk about that, what, when it comes to building a business hasn't worked so well. What is it that you've learned in your experiences out there? You thought, you know what, that didn't work very well. I wouldn't wish that on any other company. It's a lesson learned.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: You know, I would say mathematically we fail more than we want. And that is important because that really teaches you to be strong and to have a strong product, to have a strong service, and also to make sure that the team that you have and the team that you build is really well suited for what you have, right? Because it's very, very. The more times you try is the more refinement you get of self, product, service, all that, right? So if people were to say, wow, you did all this? It people are too shy to say how many times it didn't work out. But I would say that it's very important to talk about the failures because that's what actually taught you the lesson of what, what your strength is, what you can have as a better product. So I think it's. That's the most important thing that we learned, that the more we try, the better product and service that we have. And also we learn about what sort of do we need to pursue, Right? Because if you pursue hundreds of clients, you begin to kind of understand what shape and form the client marketplace also has, right? So the faster you learn about who you're serving, you begin to understand why you're serving and how much can they pay and all those things, right? So all that is how many times you try, and the more you try is like super important. But people get very shy. I think as humans, that's just one of the defensive mechanisms that we have about even having, like, great ideas but not actually putting into market. Because rejection is a very difficult psychological condition for humans to face. But it's a very important. Because I think that's not. I think that's what makes us human, right? So in the, in the rest of the animal kingdom, the rest of the animals just have a very binary reaction, right? A lion hunts. If it fails, that's It, Right. But for us humans, we are far more nuanced than that. And that's what makes us different and that's what keeps us safe from the other animals and what has allowed us to build these civilizations. Right. So people who build civilization, people who make a difference. It's a matter of like trying and trying very strategically, you know, because ultimately it's also about allocation of resources. Right. You just can't be throwing around everything and hoping it sticks. Right. This is not about spray and pray. This is about being very strategic. Right. More like a sniper.
Have to practice, practice, practice to get that one good shot. Yeah.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: And I think this is a key thing, isn't like you say, people psychologically don't like failure, they don't like to be judged. And we've got to do that when we run a business. This is how business is run. We've got to put ourselves out there. And I love what you said there. It's a learning lesson. It's not a failure. It's, it's just the way we've got to learn. And the more people we put, we speak to, the more we learn from it, the better we get at it, the better we can serve our clients from it. But that's a really lovely segue into AI because you might be saying, well, what's that got to do with AI? Well, AI is the new buzzword as we speak today. You know, we're at the very, very beginning of AI no matter how powerful we think AI is at the moment. I had a guest on a couple of months ago and they said AI is where the Internet was in 1998. Even I think it was 1996 or 98. So you can see how far we've come across come with the Internet. And we've got all that to do with AI. You and I were talking earlier on about AI agents, you know, and there's a lot of AI agents out there. Could you share some insights into your thoughts on the power of AI agents when it comes to running a business?
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Yes. So agents will accomplish a lot more than what we've ever seen in the context of the agentic power that we are going to give technology.
So a very recent paper spoke about what they're calling the cohesion singularity. So based on the Nobel Prize winning economist Ronald Quays, who spoke about the nature of the firm and why firms exist.
So the question was, if the market is so efficient, why do firms exist? So that was an essay written in 1937. He won. Ronald, quiz goes on to win the Nobel Prize in 1991. So right now what this paper is talking about is they're saying that AI agents, for example, if you have an AI agent and then I have an AI agent and 10,000 more people and billions of more people will have AI agents, agents. And if we give them the permission, for example, to shop, right, they could start talking together by themselves and compare notes and say, hey, you know, we are 10,000 agents who have to purchase this one or two products and at the same price. So instead of going to one retailer, we could easily find the factory and discuss terms with them. Then we can speak to a freight company and then get it delivered to 10,000 households, right? So that is an incredible shift and that no matter what, companies big and small are going to get shaped by it, right?
This is like a constant storm water that's going to shake the riverbed far faster than the normal flow of water, right? Because pebbles and the shape of the river, the meandering design of a river is shaped over like hundreds of millions of years of water flowing, right? But just imagine if the water flow was to intensify, then the shape of the river would change faster, right? So likewise, AI agents, given the correct context, will shape human life in every way, from shopping to medical, to legal, to planning holidays, undertaking holidays, childcare, other things. And I believe everything will change.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think absolutely. I think people watching this or listening to this absolutely know that AI is a major changing force out there today. But like you just said, there is. There's so much good to be had out of AI, but there's also things to be worried about. You know, the changing economic flow of how businesses and businesses done and businesses has grown. It can change dramatically. As a founder and as a leader of a company, how.
How are you tackling that to make sure that you are ahead of that curve and not going to be one of the victims of this AI wave?
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Excellent question. So that again goes back to how you build, not just the agent, but everything behind it, right?
So you can meet the challenge head on if there is a specific onslaught against our company. But at the same time, you want to plan and be very specific about that plan so that every little detail of what you want to do and how you want to do is part of the response. Because it would be very foolhardy if you think that this can be resolved by a catch all. This is not a catch all situation. This is not an era where you can be weak. This is an era where the humans must think very deeply Must think very calmly and use their human intelligence into the proper structure for AI. Because as much as we think AI is intelligent, yes, it is intelligent and also by a factor of that it can work without rest. Is probably why it's to a context annoying humans. Humans are still in very much in charge and people should not forget that.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: No, absolutely. And that's the key thing. Be worried about it, be concerned about it. Well, not even worried. So that's probably the wrong way. Just be aware of it and concern and just making sure that you have those elements in place.
So let's talk about the future a little bit. I mean you can see what's coming down the turnpike. What does the next 12 to 24 months look like for you in the growth of your company?
[00:18:16] Speaker B: So we are again anticipating that by 2026, like May, June, there'll be very big changes economically and then that will also change how tech companies and how the markets and how the consumers will change their patterns, change their behavior as opposed to the last 12 months. So we are anticipating and we are preparing that we should have a lot more consumer facing design.
So because like I said, we believe that AI agents will offer a lot more power to an individual. So when you multiply that by a larger amount of people with the stronger buying power by like next 2020, we want to be prepared for it and we want to offer certain products that cater to I would say a pent up demand based on a lack of economic ability right now. But we are looking very specifically at serving the consumer straight on as opposed to like go through other market makers.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense as well. A lot's going to be changing in the next, in the next year. Yeah, I think that, that the bell curve is only just beginning at this particular stage. You know, it is very, very, very interesting times ahead. So Nish, one final question for you. If, if there was a founder or a tech leader that's listening or watching this particular episode, what would be one piece of advice you would want to share with them? One insight that you would want to leave them with and why do you feel that's important?
[00:19:53] Speaker B: I would tell that it's very, very important to remain human. Even if and when artificial intelligence gets super intelligent or general intelligence, they will still be very curious about the humans. If we become boring or if we become scheming or deceitful, none of this is going to work the way we want. The only way we can control our destiny is to be real humans. You know, to have empathy along with intelligence. Because as much as people think that empathy is a weakness, it certainly is not. Like, if you look at, like, the biggest conquerors in the world, they accomplish more by empathy than by brutality. So I think it's very important that we remain human, we increase the relationships globally because technology is certainly lowering the cost for us to reach people, harmonize with people, understand each other. With things like wearable technology, we can literally understand the heartbeat of a human. With the neuralink technology, we can understand thoughts. You know, it's a. So it's very important to understand ourselves and understand each other and to build up a harmonious operating system rather than try to think that we should take a step.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Do you know what? I think that's a fantastic piece of insight to end on. Nish, thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for your insights in what if people would like to get hold of you or chat with you or potentially work with you, what is the best way of doing that?
[00:21:27] Speaker B: LinkedIn would be the best. That will be the best to reach me on LinkedIn. But thank you so much, Gary. I had a wonderful time on your podcast. That's great.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Thank you very much for being with us. So thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for another episode of the Growth Focus podcast. And as per normal, if you've liked something that Nisha said, please make sure you like it. Make sure you comment so other people can pick that up as well. But more importantly, please share. This is about learning from leaders, learning from giants. We can stand on their shoulders and learn from them as well. So until next time, keep learning. But more importantly, be profitable. And we shall see you on the next episode. Bye bye, Sam.
