Shafeekh:-

So with me Zohareis Joining, he is founder of Jalebi.io. And i think Zohare, if you can give just quick intro about yourself and jalebi.io

Zohare:-

Yeah, sure, man.Thank you very much, Shafeekh.It's nice to be on this session with you. Thanks for arranging it. So, my name is Zohare. I am the guy who is single handedly trying to make Jalebi.iocool again, as somebody said about me once. So Jalebi.io basically a restaurantoperating system that is builtwith a twist. We're engineering a product that is inventory first.

So essentially whatwe do as a task for our product is help restaurants to optimize the way thatthey manage and streamline their inventory consumption and financials. So think of it this way. It's a kind of atrusted business advisor in the form of a dynamic technology that understandsyour inventory behavior and consumption and provides you with real timeforecasting, analytics and insight on how to be able to optimize and maximizethe use of that inventory, thereordering and the ROI that youget from turning it into finished products that people buy from you. It's acomplete platform that basically has everything from backup house to front ofhouse. So we've got the point of sale built into the product. So it's acomplete sort of native solution. And what we're doing differently is that ourfocus is really around optimizing food cost and food waste.

We want to sort ofdrive down the restaurant's ability to service orders. Essentially what thatmeans is if it costs the restaurant 35% of the sale, that they're sort of, youknow, competing with you. We want it to cost less money so that they can increase their margins on that sales and without having to increase their cost in use.

Shafeekh:-

Okay, awesome. AndI think when I camefirst to Dubai, we had a call and I said I was a restauranteur beforeand that's how we got connectedand I still remember you were the first to and some of the first few people I contacted were able to give a couple of introductions andit was it's it's like some of the early people that really helped me tonavigate, to start Finanshelsand, and I, I always wonder that,you know, what, what made you to start Jalebi.io. You were running a digital transformation company before, like a digital marketing company before.And I understand that you have then that I know a couple of restaurant products in Pakistan before, butwhat what made you to go back to the restaurant industry and, you know, bringsome sort of products or digital transformation in restaurant industry?

Zohare:-

That's a goodquestion. So, I mean, I think, you know, if you kind of look at my my historywhen I graduated from college in 2004, I came back to Pakistan and I wanted tobuild a B2C product to help restaurants and consumers meet and be able to kindof, you know, sort of share feedback with one another.

We launched aproduct with very lacking technology and very low customer adoption on Internetenabled devices. Internet was a very low used product at that time, was very expensive. So we spent about a gooddecade or so working on this product. I've always had a passion for food ingeneral, not just Egypt, of course, you know, the South Asians we love food, so many cultures you know, food is a very central part of our community.But I think more than that, it's just a personal curiosity. I've always hadabout the relationship that people have with food, especially those people whoare able to turn it into a business. I think I've always been very fascinatedby it. So give you a small example.

One of my wife'saunties is a fantastic baker.She's a published baker. She's actually published a cookbook with, I think, theWall Street Journal or one of these established publications in the US. And shemakes the amazing stuff. She'sa baker and she makes amazing stuff. Even my wife and my wife's mom are verygood at baking. That's especially are they making amazing cakes and things right.

And I've alwaystried to encourage my wife’s auntto sell the stuff that she makes. She makes amazing things like cinnamon rollsand cookies and brownies. And I don't know. Right. I'd really like to upgrade.Right. The kind of stuff that you probably expect to get out of, like a BettyCrocker box, which is essentially really good stuff that's out of the box.

Or maybe somebodywho's a professional baker sees that they might be providing that, but it's notas good. Maybe too much sugar. But anyway, I've always encouraged them, so Ithink I've always kind of had this to make something that's really good and tryand find a way to make more people be able to access it. That's kind of how mybrain is configured, right?

I want to take agood idea and I want it to like scale. I've always had an affinity towardsthat. But that business that product never really succeeded. Pakistan was not theright market for it. So I've been living in the Middle East for now, for aboutmore than a decade, and I met my co-founder a few years back in the pretext ofbuilding that other venture from Pakistan and bringing it here in some weirdcapacity.

Now, Covid happened in between, so we couldn't reallybuild that, but we knew we wanted to work together and we both have big lovefor food. He loved cooking as well. He's like, a good cook. And I think becausehis experience with the entertainer, we have this tremendous fascination to tryand do something on the B2Bside because we felt that was a much better opportunity.

And so we sure didsome workshop came up with a few ideas and you know, two plus years later, herewe are finally with a good product that's starting to get some traction in themarket. But I think, you know, it's really just the final frontier. As I wasspeaking to somebody the other day who is an expert in the F&B landscape, they said you're basically touching the final frontier for F&B and you know, I mean, everyone's kind oftouched on delivery and aggregation and demand side.

There's a lot ofstuff happening on the supply side. But, you know, for restaurant operations,then optimization of cost is an area that is still in its infancy andeveryone's kind of waiting on the sidelines to see who kind of breaks that. AndI'm happy to say that we've got some pretty innovative stuff that we've beenworking on the last few months that I think could really transform the way thatpeople view us.

So let's see.Fingers crossed.

Shafeekh:-

Yes. So I thinkmostly for restaurants, the most important thing is, is the cost of goods sold(COGS) or Food cost. Right. If they'reable to, because restaurants always run on very thin margin, say I do. We havea couple of restaurants as friends and I was a restauranteur before. So if you lose the grip on foot cost, then you lost the controlof the business basically.

Zohare:- Yeah

Shafeekh:-

So this issomething very interesting which I also caught my eyes when I was came Dubai.I was searching on a couple ofstartups that are from UAE andthat so you know I got in touch with your basically to understand what you doin terms of for restaurant industry.One thing I always admired about youis that, you know how like building a product from Middle East is super hard, like, you know, because it'sa pure tech business and Finanshels is like more of a tech-enabledservice. We can make revenue from dayone so there is a significant advantage. I don't have that level of risk appetitein my belly to go and build a product from day one and wait for 1 – 1 1/2 yearsbuilding the product and, you know, pumping all the funds to manage it. So Ialways admire how you manage this sort of, you know, long game bringing aproduct especially from Middle Eat where generally access to funding is notthat great compared to other regions so how is it progressing so far?

I think I think youare able to make a couple of tractions so how do you keep up with it you know,the patience. That's that's a basic thing, right?

Zohare:-

it's extremelydifficult. You know, that's the easiest way to put it. There are two thingsthat you cannot expedite. One is reputation building, which is a very big partof how you're able to acquire any tangible interest in being able to raise thefunds that you need to raise. And the second part of that is execution. Justthinking about a product or building a product company, the hardest thing aboutthe two is that once you've established your reputation as somebody who iscommitted to what you're doing without having to talk about it so much asshort, then people start to notice you in a different way. The key is to keepleveraging your own improved reputation by touching base with people so thatthey sync up with where you are in your journey.

And that actuallyhelps them kind of notice you at those different milestones of your journey sothat you can then kind of leverage their support at different capacities. Andit's not necessary that people just give you money to support you. There'smany, many other ways, but there's the whole process behind this and I canbreak that down for you in terms of what it's been like for me.

But the second partof our execution is really critical because there's just big need in the marketalways we have, you know, everyone has ideas. We all know this now. So we don'tneed to kind of beat that, that our ideas are very easy to come by. Theexecution is the hard part, but I think there's a third component there that isactually probably equally or even more important than the first two, the ideaand the execution, which very few people talk about, if ever, is the sort ofthe capability of the executing team.

So the ability foryou to execute depends not just on your ability to understand the problem, tohave a vision and to be able to build a roadmap or process for breaking it downand keeping it right. Even if you're being very scrappy and doing ten jobs atonce. But the true test is really in the hardest times when you don't haveresources, when you don't have money, we don't have time, but you only haveyourself and your skill, right?

There's a lot ofself-doubt. There's a lot of imposter syndrome. There's a lot of, you know,challenge from the market, a lot of negativity that people will present youwith, people who will challenge and question your need to exist as a founder interms of what you're trying to build. Right. There's a lot of existential sortof reason why people would just give up.

And this isprobably one of the darkest reasons why people actually end up giving up. And Ithink that getting to this point requires a lot of perseverance and a lot ofpatience and a lot of, you know, self-motivation and self-confidence and thingsthat don't necessarily have to come from reading a Tony Robbins book, forexample. But is, you know, something that I remind myself and my founders by isyou didn't get here by accident.

This is a statementthat I use quite a lot, is that wherever you are in your life at this verymoment that you check in with yourself, you did not get here by accident. Lifegave you a path. You chose to take certain actions to get yourself to thispoint. And so you are here by virtue of the choices that you've made in yourlife.

And so it is not anaccident. And if it's not an accident, that means that there is a lot thatyou've accumulated and built up in yourself to be able to persevere through thehardest of times, you just need to remind yourself that you're actually as goodas you think you are. Maybe even better. Building a product is hard.

It takes time. Youknew this always. I think one thing that I was certain about was I did not wantto build a product or build a company, a product company, rather than buildsomething that people did not need. Right? And it's very easy to have a greatidea that you think five people have signed off on it to go off and spend a fewhundred thousand dollars that you've raised, you know, with great difficultyyou're able to acquire from investors.

But I think thebest way to do it is to take your time and to do as much discovery as you can,just ask as many questions, no matter how silly they might seem to try andunderstand where the gaps are. Because a lot of times the market doesn't evenknow what the gap is. You know, investors don't know what the gaps are, foundersdon't know what the gaps are.  Even thebusinesses that we are trying to impact don't know what the gaps are becauseit's all the gaps for any one party. Yes. There'd be somebody already solvingfor it. Right. But I think the hardest thing about building a product companyis when you decide that you want to commit a product strategy to buildingsomething is having understood what the missing link is, what the gap isbetween.

What I mean isknowledge about something else and what isn't being spoken about. So it's likewhat's in between the line, right? I think the ability to do an investigativecustomer discovery process that does not break you is probably the mostimportant, valuable part of building a journey. Because if it was easy forpeople to enter into a market, then you'd have a lot of, you know, sort ofactivity in that space.

Food is complicatedand, you know, it's I think one of the reasons why we love the space,especially around understanding inventory as a core product, is it's socomplicated because it bridges this very complex relationship between food, moneyand between operating and and it's so dynamic and there's such a factor oftension, a sense of urgency that needs to be implemented, that it's not likeyou can put numbers into an Excel sheet and think this must prevent themselves.There is decay factor, there's shelf life, there is mismanagement and debts.And, you know, there are all these variables and factors that just gounaccounted for and they all have a dollar value attached to them. And that'swhat we're trying to really spend our time learning and understanding withoutmaking it complicated.

Shafeekh:-

I think, you know,mostly like I was asking, like I met a guy very recently and I asked him like,you know, he works for one of the tech companies here in Middle East. So Iasked him, “Whom do you hire first?” And if you want to build a product and yousell, they're not a CPO, you'll go for a CTO and then find the problems in sodeep, like if you if you have to build the product, first do hell of a researchand it's like four by five of the time goes into the search, speak to yourcustomer, really see what problems they are facing and take as much as interviews.  And I think when I heard about Jalebi mostlywhat I heard that you know you have taken hundreds plus restaurant interviewsso far I think maybe more than that 300+. So yeah.

Zohare:-

By now, yeah, forsure I've lost count.

Shafeekh:-

So what's it like,one advice at somebody who's building a product like you don't have beenbuilding their product from day one. And this is one of the things I noticed.But what's it like, you know, sort of say if you're building a product, theyday, how do you do it?

Zohare:-

I think the firstand the most practical thing I would say is don't start building the productand don't jump into building a product company without really thoroughly inyour gut believing that you have enough material evidence to move in thatdirection. And it's not how you feel about the evidence. It's about how othersrespond to your understanding of the problem.

If you have tospend more effort in trying to convince people about the nature of the problemand less time on how you're going to solve the problem, it means that theyhaven't understood the problem or there isn't really something that they feelof the pain. So it's not so much that you can say, okay, I've understood theproblem.

So here it is. Theproblem is going to be complex too. So I think the first thing I would say istransition slowly. Don't expect that what you think you're going to do exactlywhat you're going to end up doing. It took us over two years to actually cometo a product strategy that we now are implementing, Okay. Before we startedbuilding something.

Shafeekh:-

That's quiteinteresting. And how do you see like coming back to like building the company Ithink you were part of Techstars and like like you're able to secure a coupleof angels on board raised some fund. So how did it get started? What's youradvice if somebody is, you know, start raising funds, how does it work?

Zohare:-

But again, it comesdown to like patience. And we got rejected by Techstars in the previous year.We've been rejected by Y Combinator twice previously, Techstars took us inbecause they really liked the way the two had come together. So, you know, toyour previous point about hiring CPO before you hire CTO, I completely agreewith that. And I think that in terms of building your leadership team or yourfounding team, if you're the person, if you're the visionary, if you're theperson with the vision, then you're going to typically be the first person inthe room.

Right? It could bethat you've already got your founding team with you. You might not even realizeit, or you might be building this with your co-founders, like the dream one.And I sort of came up with the, you know, the the focus shift in terms of whatwe were going to do with Geneva or to create really be, you know, essentiallytogether.

It was kind ofloosely based on a lot of different experiences and ideas that we had and wekind of started it together. But the product person actually helped the visionpersons structure and shape an idea and then understand how to create theright. It's that go into the market to understand where the problems arebecause the CTO, as important as they are, they need blueprints and direction.

They don't needopen ended questions and general ideas because they can't work with them. Theycan't write a line of code that is based on, Oh, I'd like something that doessomething like this that doesn't work. They need a very product specificproduct requirement document or, you know, some sort of a guide that veryexplicitly explaining is an epic or a story which basically says this is ascenario where the problems are the problem.

Here's a specificway that we can solve that. And here's a sector feature that we need to be ableto build on, right? So it's like, you know, an architect can make out of thedrawing, you know, that's like your product person. But then a contractor isgoing to take those drawings and turn them into a building, right?

That's just foryou. And so getting into arguments with that was a long process. It took us ayear. We applied again. We got accepted the second time. That was kind of thefirst. Well, there was the second institutional. Yes. We got the first one wasfrom Sheryl. Cheryl, I was kind of the first institution to sort of take astand and accept within a program.

There was money onthe table. We didn't dig it. But we are very grateful for the support thatthey've continuously extended us since then. Being a part of that community hasbeen incredible and that really kind of validated us that then I think allowedTechstars to fail to find these guys look like they're doing somethinginteresting and then getting into the program then obviously validated us.

But you have toremember that getting into these things is just a matter of applying the timingand the appetite for the others to bring you in because of where you are,because they also need to feel like your it's not just about you getting into aprogram. It's about, are you in the right? Are you a diamond in the rough?

That's rock enoughthat they can punish you just enough to be able to take enough credit tobenefit from your success and for you to be able to benefit from their support.Right. It's a give and take. It's not a one sided thing. And so you have to bejust rough enough for them to be able to apply a few tweaks and makingsignificantly better than you as it were, after 15 weeks.

And that basicallyreally proved itself because the day we graduated, we already had two angelinvestors who had already committed to us before the program and through theprogram. And over the next six months, we were then able to secure aboutanother, I think, 17 or 18 investors that we most of whom we closed in lessthan a three month period, which was fairly positive then we closed them fasterthan that.

But we were able tobring in the money over that three month period. And today we're actually goingback to some of our existing investors and asking them to reinvest and some ofthem have already committed. I just got off a call with somebody today, this morningand you know, I'm very excited about when somebody sees what you're doing andthey think that what you're doing has value and it's showing growth.

It goes back to myearlier point about your ability to execute. Is communicating that execution inthe right way in like bite sized pieces is also giving a people a feeling ofbeing part of the journey. You know, it's not like showing up three monthslater and saying, look at all the amazing things we've done and then going backinto a hole and then disappearing.

Right? You've gotto incrementally keep feeding the market, feeding your team, feeding, and youhave to make people who are closer to the business be more special by getting upclose information faster than the rest of the people, because it makes themfeel like they have an insider edge. And that helps build up that excitement,that FOMO, because then they want to recommend you to their friends to bringthem on board as well.

Right. And it'sjust about kind of creating these layers and cycles of growth. It's a perpetualprocess and it takes a lot of energy. So we were able to raise money from angelinvestors. Most of them were Saudi Arabian investors. And now we're raising asecond round of funding. So, you know, I think that now we'll be able to seelike really how well we can implement that same strategy.

I can tell youafter a few months.

Shafeekh:-

I think one of theone of the things that we really focus on the market or the classical season, so,what's your strategy basically?

Zohare:-

So our go to marketstrategy is a bit different than what a lot of people expect. So one thing werealized was that building a product like ours is quite a complex proposition.It buys a lot of resources. You also alluded to earlier in the call, so youknow, you have to be able to kind of move at different stages and be able tokind of move into different milestones of those stages as well.

Right. So you haveto kind of create new channels. So as you're moving forward, you have to openup new, new activity that we reached the point where we first launched aprivate beta. It was really to kind of help people understand that we're makingprogress about six months later, we launched a public beta, which was basicallya commercially viable product, which is very early days.

Back in November,we got one paying customer onboard. Then in December we got two, and then inJanuary we got four and so and so forth. So, you know, we had like 100% growthmonth on month with very small numbers. But you know, we had a pipeline ofpeople. We had people who had been working with us over the years.

So it really kindof helped us to accumulate this whole sort of traction element. But I thinkthat the the ability for us to really kind of get to this stage was it was justthe factor of building a product and getting it to the right stage where weknew that we needed to push ourselves into the next thing.

So today where weare, you know, we're basically advocating a commercially viable product andwe're getting people to pay to use that product. So it's like a pilot product,pilot activity that people are paying for essentially. But we don't position itas a pilot because it sounds great. Early stage, right? We want to tell peoplethat we've got a good enough product that people can either switch tocompletely if their risk appetite is high, good enough, but they co-create withus.

But then our needto be able to rapidly improve that product has really taken shape. Like, Imean, every two weeks the product is in a new shape, new new light, and thatreally excites people a lot. So far we are operating in Saudi Arabia, in Omanand UAE, and we have a through some very strong partnerships, we're opening upPakistan and we're opening up Egypt and Morocco, Tunisia.

We're going to bein six markets by the end of this year, seven markets actually by the end ofthis year. And then next year going to be. So we want to double our presenceand market reach. We're not looking at number of customers going into the tensof thousands. You know, actually, what we want to do is because we realize thatour ideal customer profile exists in many markets, not necessarily inconcentration in one market.

And we are a puresize product that has no hardware limitation. And so essentially anybody canuse our product anywhere. We have a product that we can already support,multi-language capability. We can actually the user, believe it or not, can puttheir own language set into the system and roll out a new language interface in5 minutes. That's just one of the really crazy things that we can do right now.

So we've actuallybuilt Multi-language Support, which is essentially decentralized, so any usercan create any language that they want by basically building the database withall they need to do is put in the, the, the translated content, upload a file andit'll create a new experience for them instantly. And that's it, you know. Sowe can support, you know, any African country, any Asian country, any LatinAmerican or European country, any language requirements is not a limitation forus.

So we've basicallybuilt the product to scale from the very core. And, you know, through some goodpartnerships, we'll be able to accelerate the access to the product veryquickly.

Shafeekh:-

I think I think oneof the things that, if any startup come from model is if they can go global,that can be a great competitive advantage. Companies coming from heregenerally, right? So yeah,

Zohare:-

SAS product, right.So I mean, what's the point of a software as a service if you're not able tokind of, cannot look beyond geographical boundaries? Right. I mean, this is onething that I find quite unusual is that in this market, especially when you'retrying to raise money from people, is how they want you to be focused on onegeography. You know, build great in one geography. It's like but there's awhole world of potential customers. How do I know that my best customers aresitting in West Africa right now?

And just because wedon't have a language capability here, language capabilities are you know, wehave a point of sale, customer interest from Latin America, 4000 customerswhere we were power or somebody's point of sale and become their entire back ofhouse. Okay. I mean, you know, and that's like we don't need to fly there toroll out the product.

It's all doneonline. We're actually building out a way for restaurants to be able to onboardin 30 minutes using some of an automation that we've built out. So there's somecrazy stuff that we're able to do that basically. I don't want people to dependon me to use. I thought that's basically really what I want to do.

And I think thatthe opportunity for us to really unlock growth is just a factor of unlockingour mind about how we view what is our product is designed to do.

Shafeekh:-

Yes, this I think Ithink a digital transformation is that full swing now like a lot of these aregetting digitally transformed. So I was I was speaking to Castle in just lastcouple of days ago. We were developing a partnership with them. We have commoncustomers. So it's it's quite fascinating. That's how, you know, like SMEsspace especially like restaurants are getting fully digitalized.

So I think that noboundaries basically to to to do exactly.

Zohare:-

Exactly, exactly.Actually, absolutely.

Shafeekh:-

And just I justhave to question this. Maybe I think we are running out of time if like one islike I think you met a lot of people during this journey. I think you havegreat networks here in the region and like what are the top 2 to 3 addressesthat you brought that keep it in your mind always when you're building thecompany?

Zohare:-

Sorry. Can yourepeat the first part of the question?

Shafeekh:-

Yes.

Zohare:-

So how do you keepup with the pressure of building a product?

Shafeekh:-

No, I was askinglike, how do you like what are the top three addresses that that you got fromthe people you met during this journey? I think you met a lot of people, yeah.

Zohare:-

So absolutely. Thefirst is around advisors and advice generally. My advice on advice is that takeit with a pinch of salt because ultimately you yourself are responsible for thechoices that you action. And so if somebody give you advice, take it with awith a very, very sort of conservative pinch of salt, because people don't knowyour business or your industry the way that you're doing.

You have a muchbigger drive and passion to achieve success. So be very conservative with yourwith the advice that you have given take and dexterity. They taught us to shareexperiences rather than advice, because experiences means this is what I did inthat situation or something like it, rather than this is what you should do inthis situation.

Because when I giveyou advice, it means I'm giving you guidance on what you should do. Therefore,if you struggle with that, then you will always they are going to give mereally bad advice. Instead, you know what the experience might have been morerelevant for them because of certain conditions and so we can switch back. Thesecond thing I would say is that, you know, of course, we're now starting totalk about it a lot more, but there's never enough that you can talk about, youknow, the self-help and mental wellbeing.

It's a big buzzword. A lot of people talk about it, but many, many people don't reallyunderstand what it really means. Being vulnerable is a very big part ofactually being mentally well. Right. Is is not being getting upset. Whensomeone gives you feedback on something, it's actually taking it again, likeadvice, taking feedback with a pinch of salt, but also thinking very clearlyabout how the pattern of feedback is actually starting to give you a shape ofsomething that you might have been missing earlier.

And I think thethird thing would really be that, you know, take care of take care of things athome most founders don't talk about. And this is something that, you know, I'vebeen touching on recently as well. Is that what you do at home and how you copeat home? You know, if you're married with a spouse, if you have kids, if youhave children living in the home, you need to be able to create a start to astop in your day.

Like I've nowstarted finally, after many years taking to day weekend. For the last maybeeight years, I was working on a one day weekend and that too. I'd be workingsometimes, and even on my day off, I'd be on my phone sometimes, you know,simple things. Like my wife told me, Don't be on your phone when you enter thehouse because your son sees you.

And if you don'trespond to him when he says it, you actually react that by ignoring and youdon't realize that in fact, it is. You know, I start I have a good disciplinedin my day time and time is not managed through anything more than just beingvery, very disciplined. And this is something that took me a long time tofigure out.

So, you know,you're having the start and stop is very important. I, I start my day in themorning, get to see my son, you know, walk my dog. I have to be home in time towalk my dog. He becomes a kind of, let's say, a parameter for me. My wife isnot going to walk and she is absolutely.

From day one, shetold me, you want to get a dog, you take care of your freedom and you walk in.And so that becomes a good kind of a checkpoint for me. Of course, there areexceptions, but very rare. And yeah, that's one of the three things that Iwould say I experience and not my advice.

Shafeekh:-

I think this iskind of like distressing you as well in the process, right?

Zohare:-

Yeah. It gives youa chance to kind of stop and check in with your self, right? Like, I mean, Ithink that the walks of the dog are great because they give me about 30 minutesof me time. So, you know, an hour of my time, a day is a luxury for anyentrepreneur being able to concentrate as much productivity as you need towithin a six or six hour window will really help you time frame.

If you can balanceout what you do, then you can do things like this, like it's, you know, it'sthe middle of the day and I can do a session with you. And while talking toyou, I'm also inspiring ideas in myself that I need to immediately action rightafter this call. I got an investor call immediately after this.

I had one beforethis. I had a talk with a very big partnership before this. So a lot of thingsget done as long as they're moving forward, right. So, you know, think of it aslike, you know, an airplane with a lot of tailwind. Right. As long as you're inthe forward direction and you're facing tremendous resistance.

Yeah, you're good.

Shafeekh:-

I think it's super.

Zohare:-

I guess if therewas a bonus, if there was a bonus, fourth point, I would just say, trustyourself.

Shafeekh:-

Yes, I heard thisvery recently. I was listening a conversation. It was like a face to faceconversation. You know, she met the founder of your story. She met a lot ofgreat people. And she said one thing that, you know, one important thing is aphone, but you need to make sure that you don't get the memo or take your visaor something and then just send it because you reached to peak.

And then then, youknow, you start falling down. If you if you do much not like, you know,focusing on distressing or just not focusing on like not to download.

Zohare:-

Basically, I think,you know, I mean, just on that, I would I would just say one thing that is, youknow, human beings don't operate like cars. We don't have fuel tanks wherewe're out of gas. And then we need to when you get no gas burning out of for manypeople, you don't really know what your limiter, your threshold is.

And if you burnout, it's usually too late. And by the time you figure it out, right. And soyou kind of crumble and then you have to build yourself up again. I burnt out acouple of times and that was my experience with not knowing. And I think it'sabout gradually setting new limits or set of very aggressive limits.

Like, let's say,for example, if you have a health tracker and you say, I want to hit an 8000step target every day, and if you're able to hit the target up target fairlyeasily through the course of your regular behavior, you're not challenging asthey increase the limit to 9000 and keep gradually set to an aggressive limitfirst and then work upwards so that you kind of keep because through thatprocess we're elastic.

Human beings arelike rubber band. Essentially. There is obviously a limit to that elasticity,but you need to also understand that a dry rubber band does not stretch much ofa moist rubber right. And so you need to kind of keep keep pushing andextending your limit because eventually you will actually increase theelasticity of your thumb as well.

And, you know, thatmeans staying physically fit, eating well, meeting with good people, beingaround environments that really encourage you to be yourself and be honest, butalso be positive. Right. I think that positivity for the sake of positivity canactually have adverse effects because you don't realize sometimes you need toaddress the dark horse that you're writing with as well, right?

You need to unlockyour demons and face them and address them so that you can move past them.Because knowing you, knowing your environment is actually a very important partof actually understanding your limits.

As Yeah, I thinkit's, it's about being positive or being negative, you know, even that likecriticizing you are also sometimes, you know, it's, I many times like, oh yeah,you know, meeting him was like speed up my five years. I had like I didn't knowthese things.

So yeah, exactly.

Shafeekh:-

Awesome. I think weare running out of time though, so I think we can wind up the call. If you hadany questions. I need.

Zohare:-

To. You know, man,that's it's been great to talk to you and I wish you the best of luck. Andthank you very much for taking time and reaching out. And I hope that thepeople who watch this are able to really benefit from my experience. And I'malways happy to you know, this is one thing that I really try and do is likemake myself available as possible to people.

So I'm very openabout sharing my booking link with people who want to kind of pick my brainsabout something or get some feedback. Currently, I'm actually helping a coupleof founders who are applying for Techstars with their applications as well. AndI don't charge commission equity or money for these things. I just I want togenuinely pay it forward because it's been a hard struggle for me and I wantother people to benefit from my experience if it can help them save time inachieving more success.

Shafeekh:-

So my thank you.

Zohare:-

Thank you verymuch.

Shafeekh:-

A lot more to inboxafter this call. Thank you. Thank you very much for joining this call andsharing your experience. I think we didn't have this 1 to 1 conversationbefore. We always have to catch up on something or other

Zohare:-

Yeah, exactly. It'sgreat to talk to you again. Thank you very much.

Shafeekh:-

Thank you.