Hi, everyone. My name is Patrick Akio, and if you're interested in rapid AI product development, this episode is for you. Joining me today is Nick Gustin. He has many years of experience in banking and shifted his focus to this tech field specifically for AI and products. He's building up many of them. And the question is, how does he do that? Listening to find out.
Enjoy. I've always said that and I, I think I'm very biased, but within this tech field or tech domain, knowledge is being shared effortlessly. When people think of a solution or when they've solved an interesting problem, they don't hold it to themselves, right? The next thing they do is share it somewhere online, in a blog form, content or on YouTube or on a conference, indeed with as many people as possible. And I've never seen it from a different perspective or different industry.
What is kind of your view in your past experience versus what you see now in the tech field? I yeah, you're actually almost, almost told it the way how people communicate in tech industry, frankly, and I'm not flattering anyone, but I'm sure that some of guys would would know themselves in my words. It's made me so much interested in the tag from the day one when I started to to dive in the way how people share knowledge and how transparent and open they are.
And they find this is very different from many other industries. And again, so I worked for 18 years in banking and in banking you're exposed to many industries. So effectively I worked not only in banking but also in trade, in global trade, in oil trade, in seeds trade and soft commodities, in construction of I was constructing even big farms, salmon factories, so you name it. That's a lot, yeah.
A lot of different things and and you are in touch with different sectors of economy and again, everywhere people share knowledge but the speed and the amount of this information, which is a valuable and speed of sharing knowledge I found in in tech community just amazing when I first started and we can go to a practical example, not to be very theoretical my my first code was 35 lines long and I just copy paste it from someone.
Of course, everyone does that And and again, I came to to the idea that I want to start coding and then I thought I, I want to, I had two ideas. I need to start using AI and I want to code. So and then I thought, OK, I will code something around AI with AI. So what a what a brilliant idea. Yeah. And and then I do remember several weeks, like, yeah, up to two weeks, I didn't know what I'm going to do.
I was calling my friends and saying, look, there is this Chat GPTF thing, Maybe you heard about it in it can code, it can produce a lot of interest in it, can generate a lot of information. But what should I ask it? So what would you ask? What, what, what should be the case which we're solving together? A lot of my friends, they just said, yeah, I would. I don't know, just write a poem or something like this is not interesting to to write a poem, write a poem.
A person can do it to write a programme, but what programme should be about? I don't want to write in your YouTube on your windows, but I want to write something. And then I came to YouTube. I watched a normal, I just, I was typing use cases of GPT coding something like this. So just, you know, keywords which should bring me. Yeah, I was watching a lot of videos and then one guy actually shared, he said, oh, by the way, you can create your own GPT charts in Telegram. And this is how.
And then it was like 40 minutes long video and where he was explaining step by step how you do it, but with the source code. And then you could copy this source code. And this is this was for me the the 1st and the starting point. I said, oh, I can create my own chat bot in, in, in Telegram, which will be AI powered. And I, I just took idea of the guy took his code which he shared publicly said, yeah, you can play around. I started with these 35 lines
and then a load. I was asking also YouTube to help me when I was meeting problems in, in my development beside reading articles. At some point it had to be beside speaking to ChatGPT itself and asking it to explain me line by line what's happening here. I was using also said YouTube podcast. And then effectively my code grew from 35 lines to 5000 lines
within half a year. And all of this was done because people were able to share the knowledge with the newcomer in the way that I didn't even have to know. Knock the door, call, call someone. It was all a valuable for me. You just need to know where to to look for it, where to ask. That's beautiful. Sorry I'm I might be a little bit long in my I'll I'll try. No worries. I'm curious though because you said this idea of I want to do something with code and AI
seemed interesting. I want to do something with AI, so pairing them makes sense, especially with your history. 18 years in banking, it's nothing to scoff at. Where did those ideas kind of pop up? The story I think would be most interesting to start with where it's plugged in into my mind. So as, as we briefly discussed in the beginning, that speaking with people in airplanes and airports is a little bit of my hobby, I would say.
And even when I feel tired or, you know, sometimes I might be feel depressed because you have to travel. You are leaving your family, you're going somewhere, you'll meet some strange people, you know, and you, you're not always sure what will be there. You're not every time flying to vacation, This is what I would say.
And but then I, I said before I, I tried to put myself to the situation where in my mind I say, yeah, it's your time, try to speak, make this journey a little bit more fun and interesting. And I was flying from Istanbul to Vienna to one conference. And there was a guy sitting next to me and we, he was very friendly. We just started to chit chat. He was from robotics and I was in banking at this time and I was already in my mind having this idea that I need to make sabbatical pause.
So I, I will, my career grew very rapidly and fast, but they reached not only external but also internal ceilings in, in my head. And they thought it's, it's, I was 38 years old, it was two years ago, I'm 40 now and it's time when I need to take a pause and I need, I can and I should step back a little bit, breathe out and see what's happening. So you cannot be always in a race.
And the, and the I said I was very long time in a very active race in banking, growing my career, growing businesses, working in different countries, doing fantastic projects. And I need to say I like banking. Of course I, I love banking. So there is nothing in the banking which wouldn't interest me or almost which I wouldn't touch myself with my hands. And then we meet this guy and he's the same, but from robotics. And we start to speak. He asks me what is in banking.
I tell him about all the problem, all the geopolitical, all the, all the problems which have in banks right now because because of their regulator, so my, my, my core thing. So and then he tells me about robotics and also how these machine, why some robots are coloured in yellow, some in blue. It it makes sense and and I
forgot many of things. I still have my notes in my telephone, but the and he tells me also how what are the next steps in robotics when when the home cleaner will appear? And then he says, yeah, this is all interesting. But the most interesting thing what appeared just a couple of months ago is cha GPT OK. And well, surprised me says, yeah, it's growing like, I don't know at this time, like 5 million users a week or something.
OK, this is cool. But for me, frankly speaking, this is, yeah, it's, it's it. It doesn't really mean that this is a great thing. It means that people like it. But as they like it, they might stop liking it. And then I ask, but what can it do? So what is the value there? And then he tells me, yeah, these can generate things. And also he mentions and code. And this is where I think the neurons in my head started to
talk to each other. For years I was having this idea to learn Python. But as a banker, active banker, you never have time for this. And then I think, oh, I'm thinking to take a pause in my career and not to get rusted during this pause and to have a look what's happening in banking and to come back. I can spend some time on on doing something. And this is where I thought I will learn Python. Nice.
I'll I'll spend myself and I was always thinking, should I go to some classes to find some teacher or go to some online courses? A lot of my friends did it, but I I don't like the way how usually these courses are structured because they're not they're not practical enough for. Me. It's very theoretical. Usually and they and they and they keep explaining you like when you go to IT, course they
would say right now. And I understand why they would say let's talk about IT architecture first. Yeah. So like you have a front end, a back end, you have a middle man in sometimes this is where you have your database and you have different days and then after half an hour you listen to a lot of information and you haven't done yet anything. And. For me it was always a little bit difficult, so you need to wait a lot until you're allowed to do something.
Like the gold is later. Yeah, and, and with the charge of it here, I realized I can still pass this. I can, I can stop myself from doing something I don't need. And no one is watching at me. If I fail, I fail. But if I do, I can already generate some product. And, and this is where I came back. I, I, I bought my I I had a more older computer this time. I bought a new laptop at at this time because I wanted to be sure that AII didn't know what does it mean to to have a IGPT
chatbot on my computer. And I wanted to be sure that it will work perfectly that I will not lose any minutes, you know, on additional downtime or waiting time when, when the server responds to something at at this time. And then I started I and then I opened it and I understand. I don't know what to ask. And this is what happened. I started to call my friends and saying. What should I ask? Yeah, exactly. Let's think together. Let's create a great project.
Let and everybody said, Nick, are you insane? Really like you're a banker. What are you asking? What what kind of code in what is a Python? Stop it. So if you want to have a pause, have your pause. Please don't just relax. Basically. Yeah, you, you deserve maybe some, some, some of holidays. Spend it with your family, with your wife, with the kids. So please, so you're, you're not an Elon Musk. And I said, OK, that's your point of view. And then I call somebody else at
some point. Yes I I went to YouTube I found this 35 lines of codes and this is where my journey started. I love that. And it started in a way my family was not really happy at some point in time, because I think after one week, it started from a hobby where you, I, I don't know, one hour, 2 hours a day, ask something. I actually very quickly realized what's a powerful tool I have in my hands. And then also using my business perspective, I realized how many things I can do myself here.
That's I, I actually started to work. I was waking up in the morning, bringing kids to school at kindergarten, then opening laptop at 9:10 AM in the morning and 10:00 PM in the evening. And I'm not joking, every day for a period around like 5-6 months, I was doing this daily and I was coding and coding. At first it was just copy,
paste, copy, paste. Very soon my code grew to more than 200 lines and at this time, I think already 200 lines was not possible to give to Chajibiti and to get the answer. So this is where I came to an idea. OK, now I need to learn code, not only asking proper questions to Chajibiti, but I need to understand what is written here.
And then, you know, like three or four months later, I started to code myself and I started to have a fight with Chajibiti because I'm, I was my front end, for example, was, and for my first projects on Telegram. And they have some libraries which were updated after the latest release of ChatGPT, of
course. And then like, for example, iogram, there is a wonderful library which supports a synchronous approach in, in, in, in, in functions execution and iogram 3 plus chatbot didn't know about it. They knew everything about two and the the the logic, the the the way how you speak with this library differed greatly in some parts. Yeah, newer version. And this is where I even had to to go to to the to the source library. I think this is how it's called
some you, you know this. So I had to find the original description of of this library and then actually to to make myself the code only asking some things from ChatGPT. And when he was giving me I'm saying no, no, no, no, no, right now this function cannot be. Yeah, that's not it. Anymore like this, this tool is is not valuable anymore in this new library. And yeah, so from a technological point of view, I think this is this was my path.
Again, just think, I mean, you started two years ago with this dream of, OK, I'm going to do this, and you actually have done that so far. Yeah, I think back when I saw ChatGPT, first and foremost, there was this whole doom and gloom scenario that our jobs are going to be worthless basically because it can generate anything, code included. And now you, when you've played around with it, you already hit against some of the limitations, right?
And those limitations are constantly being accommodated for. When there's a new major release, then, yeah, it's basically a snapshot of history. And when new libraries or new major versions come out, it doesn't have the knowledge of what is current. It has the knowledge of kind of the history that it's built upon. So that's already one of the limitations. But kind of going into what you know now, where do you see ChatGPT?
I've also never met someone that has started their programming journey with ChatGPT already out there, which is very new and very recent. The ChatGPT, I think it's, it's a great and wonderful tool with what they've done.
And I'm, I'm personally much thankful to open the eye and also from the point of view how they approach this area, because before they did it and I also, I, I, I studied how, how they arranged they have these two funds which are sort of independent that the investors, the financial investors cannot affect on decisions of, of open AI the way how they bring this to to people. And I think they they did a very important, very important present.
I don't want to be very general and to sound to say this. Like idealistic? Idealistic but but inside my heart I genuinely believe that they gave a present to the humanity which humanity will realize within some time. So effectively what they did, they took from big corporates, which which usually right now control the technology development. They took it from them and they gave it to people and allowed people at a very low cost at almost no limits and barriers to test and try.
And then it's only the question to your creativity. And for me it was very clear in the beginning when I had this first code, I understood that there are no limits in how I can use it. Limits mostly in my head and also in my Kindle attitude. So like I right now I have some people who try to follow my example. So I have my friends who now following my path for last two years and they also come and say, Hey, Nick, can we do this together as well and say yes, but you are coding yourself.
And I will explain you how you should use charge BTM and other so. So I will explain you my path because I want to share this with you. You will learn it from your angle, definitely. You will know different things, which even I didn't pick up because we are using our brain to dive in into this area. And even if two people speak into ChatGPT about the same thing, they will most likely get yeah, at least 10 to 20%
different information. Not because ChatGPT hallucinator whatsoever, because the way how we ask questions and how we digest information would be different. Even if it's my close friend or the the colleague with whom I worked for many, many years. So what I'm doing right now, I'm also sharing this with people, with my friends. I have couple of projects which are doing together.
So and my friend, one of my school friends, he was complaining saying, yeah, but I'm not a code that let's do the following you will code and I will just tell us right now. So this is what you need to do. I, I explain you how you use ChatGPT here, I explain you where you can watch some YouTube videos, see if you have a problem. And then you reach to this point when the product is deployed and then you come back and we discuss again and people complaining about this a little bit.
But after some months, I see how inspired they become because we start to discuss here problems of architecture, of cloud architecture. And the person says, yeah, but I'm, I'm, I'm just a school teacher. I, I would never expect myself to know these words now. And I think this is a big thing which ChatGPT brings. US interesting. And this role should remain. So answering your question, what's what's coming next? I don't see chargeability as a, you know, like a utility.
It's more it's it's, it's a source of information, which by the way is not always correct at the at the last instance, but but it gives you a very solid parts and blocks of information which you might be missing in the way that you can digest because every time you generate the question. And when you get the answer, it is tailored for your answer, tailored for your, for your question. And that's why you can learn, I think from ChatGPT much faster.
You, you cannot learn everything from ChatGPT. But it in, in my case and in case of people with whom I, I wouldn't say consult, I'm, I'm, I'm sharing this knowledge. It gives like 60% of information which you need to, to develop your own projects easily. Yeah, 40% you need to gain yourself. You need to speak to people, you need to go to conferences. So you need to be active, proactive, can do. Attitude is extremely important.
My favorite thing is that when we start sometimes the project we discuss, so let's do this and this and then yeah, but this is impossible. And say, yes, this is impossible. And This is why it's so interesting. It's impossible not because it's, I don't know, against physics law. It's impossible only because we don't know how to do it. And it means if we don't know how to do it, we can understand, we can get this information and then it will become possible.
I really admire that can do attitude. And I was actually thinking back to a conversation I had a few days ago because from CVA we get time to share knowledge, we get a few hours of consultancy and I started a project which is basically like split wise. Split wise, you start a group, you do payments and then eventually you can split the bill of all the payments you've done. And I've used it on many holidays. It's very nice, but currency conversion, it doesn't do, it
has some limitations. So I thought, OK, let me build it myself. It's fun. I'll try it on new technology and I usually don't do that. So I found people that are really good at starting better than me. So I get an easier kind of job starting. But already then we talked about kind of database migrations and schemas and kind of the essence of it. We haven't actually started. I feel like the skill of executing and not actually just leaving your ideas to rest is becoming more and more
important. And I was having this chat with one of my friends and he says I have many ideas. But then I think of the feasibility of those ideas. And if I don't think they're feasible or if I see competition has already had a big market share, then I don't execute on those ideas whatsoever. And then I don't end up executing at all actually, because I haven't found an idea that I think is worth executing and I have a hard time starting.
I have many ideas. I don't have the same limitation where I think of feasibility, yet I don't execute. And then I see people like you and more and more people pop up that really hone their craft in executing and doing many projects and learning on the fly, and I think that's fascinating. Thank you. Thank you for this. But it also comes of course with
a with a price. First of all, it's a very interesting how one of my colleagues, Ben, he called it when I told him it was one of my early introductions. Some people introduced me to to this wonderful guy and he is for a long time in VC area in venture capital. And I told him, look, Vanna, I cannot what do you do? And they say I cannot tell you what I do because I'm not doing one thing. I'm running in parallel the project like on on retail market.
I have this chatbot which is now used by 10s of thousands of people and it's keeping growing like 4000 per month. I have AI tutor to help originally my daughter to to pass her exams in order for her to have additional tutor to the real human beings which can speak with her 24/7 if she
needed. I'm also at at this time I'm having this personalisation marketing tool which I developed like a best offer which is developed which is defined by AI. Based on your previous correspondence, I'm having this idea of building a chat bots for websites just instantly within minutes and not paying for developments and and waiting weeks and months then and then he says, yeah, OK Nick, so this is called a spaghetti approach. Is. It OK, what is this?
And he says this spaghetti approach is when you take spaghetti out of the plate, throw to the wall and see what sticks and see what sticks, what falls, that falls, what sticks, what that sticks. And and you carry on this. And this is one way to do the to, to formulate this. Another one again from I, I get some inspirations in my life. I read the history of all key developers in in this world. And sometimes many times I was rereading.
Yeah, of course, like Steve Jobs is is I was, I was personally upset when when he died because I realised that there is no chance in my life to meet him in person until he was alive.
I had this feeling that, yeah, we have from even though I was in banking, but I was reading about him a lot because you can see in the product, when you hold the product, you can see the person behind it. And if you see how the product evolves, you're, and especially when you're from industry, like I was connected also from banking to production, how difficult it is to to create such things.
You have gazillions of people whom we need to explain what they should do. You need to control this. And for me, of course, everything goes with with in Apple, with Steve Jobs and with the team which he was able to to assemble. There is this theory about A&B people, which we can speak a little bit later, but another example would be Leonardo da Vinci. So I I was, yeah, we all know he is so brilliant, etcetera. But then I I once read and then listened again about him a
podcast. And it was during the time when I haven't this spaghetti approach, when I realized he was also having a spaghetti approach. Because if you go through all the things which he was doing, he succeeded only in 10% of he finished like 10% of his project. There is an enormous amount of things which he started. He tried it and it was not bad project. He just at some point of time re
prioritised. He said, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing the 16 Capella. I think he even did it twice in, in, in, in his, he was stopping and then coming back after some time. And I think when you develop in something, it's it's a good approach. Looking again, a little bit of my example and resonating what I'm saying, I leaved all this not only from positive side that it sounds so bright and wonderful, but also from
negative side. I had idea of this news aggregator in my mind and this is where I get deeper to AI to embeddings. You know, embeddings is a is a fantastic topic. So which is extremely hard to understand if you're not technical guy myself. And I'm I'm open to say this, it took me I think more than a month just to digest the concept of 1000 dimensional universe and multi multi universe corporation which is happening inside
embeddings. After I I sort of understood it, I said OK, now I need to test and try and they again locked up myself. I was already coding and said I will write a wonderful tool. I will create and use aggregator. It will read all the newest with the help of opening eye and they appear. I can vectorise almost everything in this world, all the information in the real time.
And I will aggregate the news. I will understand that the same news is published here, in, in Netherlands, in, in Germany, in Switzerland, in China, wherever. And I will understand what are the similarities between this news and differences. And then I had idea that's GPT, another GPT agent will come and will rewrite this news in the comprehensive manner, keeping only most important information, take it out bias, eliminate manipulation, etcetera. I and I tried to do it myself.
I did it myself, but I locked up like for three months. It was extremely difficult. And I had this feeling, oh, I need to be faster, faster, faster. And then January this year, I stop. I I say, yeah, now the product is live and there are several disappointments. First of all, no one needs it because no one knows about it. And for me to bring it to people, it takes even much more effort than to develop,
especially when I'm alone. The second thing together with me, there were multiple teams run in the same way. And they were not bankers for lunch coding. They were data engineers. They were machine learning specialists. They were programmers for 20 plus years. And there were multiple teams and they were developing the same product I was developing.
But in their view, yeah. And I, I, this is where I again realised that it's very important to do things faster to bring and to, if you're building not a project for yourself, but a product which should be available in the market, you need to bring it to the market as fast as possible because most likely while you're doing this, you will lose some time. The second thing is always team up, find people, find partners because this will save a lot of time.
There are smart and wonderful people. Maybe if you discuss with them, they would like to join you. And then together you can do it not even 2 times faster, but 3, five times faster. And I learned this lesson with this project which I had. It's still it it's wonderful project. Everybody who looked at it says it's wow, it's so cool, but it it's not popular at the moment and I understand what needs to be done further to improve it.
But for me, the most and the biggest value from that project was not only knowing the first one would be knowing about vectorization. Now I use it in many other projects and this is fantastic tool within AI universe. But the other thing is I understood I need to team up and this is where I came outside and I started to grow faster my social network in in technology and they started to invite
partners. And when I speak to potential partners, for me, this can do attitude is extremely important. Of course, we discuss and then one of one of the great guys with whom I work here says we, we are partners. We're equal in we know every project which we do. We say we're, we're, we're even here. And I like a lot what what he says. He always time I says, look, can we can, we can we do this and that? And he says, yes, we can, but I don't know how yet. And and this is for me every
time I'm fantastic. I said, Robert, you're, you're, you're great. Like because this is also my approach. If it's theoretically not contradicting physics law, yes, we can. But the only thing, yeah, I just don't know. And it means that I will invest my time, I will spend, I will speak to people, I will get this knowledge. I will test and try and I will. I will. I will get to this point. Speed is and especially nowadays, kind of the name of the game in the industry from
what I've seen. And because that is so a friend of mine recommended this podcast episode with Lex Friedman. It's very recent and this Dutch guy called Peter Levels. I was checking it out actually before our conversation and I still have to listen through this full conversation, that podcast episode. But I followed the guy on Twitter actually quite a lot. He was one of the first people that I saw actually apply AI in a piece of software that he built. This was before ChatGPT came
out. You could take a picture of your living room and you could basically with AI, you could have a different style of living room for you, right? The furniture would rearrange. You could say, OK, I want it in a Western style. And you would actually see that style applied. And I played around with it when I just got live, I don't know how, but somewhere through Reddit maybe, I came upon it and I immediately showed it to my friends and we thought, OK, this is really cool.
Within a week, there was a paywall. You could only do it within a few days or you could only have so many attempts in a day and then you would have to pay. And he expanded on it and I think he did that by having something live. It was already very tangible. It worked. Basically super simple idea. Take a picture of your living room. It's a redecorator. You don't have to have a person that says, OK, you can do it in this style. You can just play around with it and you see the result.
And then all of a sudden you had to pay for it. And it worked. People paid for it because they were like, OK, it was working before or I heard about it and now I have to pay. OK, I'll do it. I want actually see if this works out. And apparently he's built up many projects. Out of 100 projects, he's built up 95%. Never actually made it because the idea wasn't feasible or people didn't want to spend their money on that idea.
And only he says when there's a people actually want to put their money down is when your idea is feasible. And those five ideas that he had, one of them was the one I explained. There's four more are very interesting. And then I listened because this is what my friend told me actually further down the episode, he's going to break down technology wise how he does it. And everything is super bare
bones. Everything is from like a technology of 15 years ago because he's super effective at it and he can go faster than anyone else with those technologies, right? If you're most comfortable with that technology, then you go really fast. You can test your assumptions really quickly. And I'm like comparing that to what we use nowadays, especially like serious a consultancy organization.
We make a lot of enterprise grade software, but that also requires a certain level of risk appetite, right? Companies don't want their software to be risky. The risk appetite is usually very look very much lower because of branding, because of image. It needs to be resilient software. And with that level of quality, you have to have a bigger time investment. And then I compare that to this one guy who lives not even in a home base in the Netherlands anymore. He lives in Portugal.
He's lived in 150 countries on his couch, creating projects, developing software and going way faster than companies can. I'm like, man, should that be the way to go when you're actually developing your ideas and your startups? I feel like it should be because speed really matters apparently. Yeah, I, I, I totally agree. Speed matters a lot. And again this is from also from the example which which you gave that a person came to this idea that you need to develop it as
fast as possible. Also from from projects which which I was doing. There are two two things which are popping up in my mind in this regards. The first one, I would like also to share the live hack which I recently got from one of, I can say this is a professor from IMD and I met with him for coffee. And IIMD is a Business School in, in, in Switzerland, in Lausanne and a great guy, Jim.
And we had a coffee and I told him, look, Jim, I have this idea of yeah, instant development of chat boards of web advisors. And I already know that it's possible to do that. It can be developed any chat boards right now, me and my partner, we can develop within two up to 10 minutes just using the information from the website and we can teach the model simultaneously how to answer the question. So we can make it hallucination as limited as possible.
We can very make it very peculiar and it would actually replace the person and but we're still in final stage. And I said, look, my plan is the following. I want to go very fast. And Oh yeah, tell me, what do you mean in the past? And I said it was in in end of July, this discussion this year, yeah. And then he said, yeah, so tell me what is fast? And they said fast for me is the following that 8th of August, we finalize the products better tests.
So it's full life. We plummet, we bring it to the market, we share it on all social media. I spend my money on on bringing this to people. We have our first 100 clients and together with first 100 clients, I go to investors and I propose them to bring something up to 1,000,000. And we spend it exclusively on the marketing because we we need to also to make sure that this will be used by by people and they need it. And then he said, no, this is very slow.
And he said, yeah, but why? And he told me a very good thing, which I think a lot of guys who are developing tech projects right now and want to do products should use. So he told me, do the marketing before the product, don't wait until it's done. You can actually build a marketing campaign right now having a 200 bucks in your pocket with the help of Meta and Google ads.
And you can just simply test, make a market feed test before you spend all your time and effort on building the project and even on the raising funds from investors and then reporting to these investors and then going via all these pilots and circles, which you'll have to go anyway.
And I like this idea. I don't think that he expected me to be that quick, but within one week I started this campaign in both in Meta and in Google. And yeah, within three weeks we already knew in which countries this product is needed. And this gave us and also it gave us insight on how much cost one client on we've shown, we have shown our ad to one and a half million of people in four countries.
We have measured the click through rate and then it was all leading to our landing page website where we were describing that we are in early stage and this is what you will get as soon as we will finish. So leave us contact details and as soon as it's done, we will we will share with you your robots and then you can create this chat bots instantly we're on on our portal. But all of this was done and we have tested this idea much before we actually developed the
finalized idea. And I think this is one of the again, life hacks which developers should use. It costed me a little bit more than 200 because again, I wanted to go to slightly bigger scale. So, but yeah, within a couple of grands you can run a real marketing campaign and you can understand is your product needed anywhere in in the in the world or or not. Yeah, which is a must.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, before building, if you can get those insights for me, this is interesting, right, Because I see people create these ideas and all of a sudden your business background becomes very relevant and you also have the marketing because you need to understand what market you're in and if there's an actual need for it.
And then you also need the execution skills more so on the software development, because you actually have to create something that is able to go live and might be able to go evolve and. You need to be able to understand what bugs might pop up and be able to fix it because customers are customers and customers need to be happy. Otherwise your product is just doomed with how social media nowadays can kind of transfer in reputation and brand.
So it's a whole lot that you need to understand. That's why I really like that you said, OK, pair up with people that have knowledge of certain domains. You can do it together. I think that is great advice and you can also amp each other up with this can do attitude, yet still it feels like you need a lot of skills in one basket to actually succeed in the end. Yeah. And chemistry with this teaming up again in, in my life and in banking, I was responsible for building teams.
And right now I, I gave myself even a harder task. I decided to build a team not of my team, but team of partners. So people who are much cleverer, smarter and even more capable in, in certain areas than I am. And that we work together on projects driven by idea and together such teams, it's much more difficult because even now people sometimes they they come and they say, yeah, can we work together? But I would like to have a salary.
I would like to have a paycheck. So can can we can we agree that like I'm I'm ready to bring all my effort and which is which is very true. A lot of smart and bright people. But with, with such attitude, when you're, it's, it's for me, it's always a question that you have to bring something before you, you take something. And with all the partners and, and my good friends with whom we could create something together, it was exactly the opposite.
At first we exactly like I said, that we bring something into and none of us ask anything for, for the return. And then we see what we have already done together. We think what we can do further. And from this we move. It's not that. I think especially on the early stage, people like to, you know, and they had the results multiple times when you have a group of guys and say, oh, do we have this wonderful idea? Oh, yeah, this will be a Unihorn. Yeah.
And then people always just start, yeah, I want to have 30% of shares of. This Unihorn it starts. And they start to divide things and split things which do not exist. And they very fast in this cases become demotivated because as you said, I, I think you even put it very mildly. Any product has bugs. There is no, and there is no possibility.
I, I don't believe that there are coders, programmers or anyone who can deliver the product from the first hand without any errors, without any bugs. You know, is it a bug or a feature? Sometimes my my favorite part, another my favorite part is this demos when everything works and then you come to your first client, yeah, or a friend or whoever and say this is wonderful, this is how it works and say, wow, fantastic. And yes, you can look and you and then it doesn't work.
Yeah, a beautiful. Demo effect, yeah, with my chat board, I had this even in in front of my group, London Business called group. I sent to them look, I started to call, they developed this chat board and and said Oh yeah. And then I sent the link and then again, my lessons are learned. So when I send the link, they ask me something that's all like, you know, colour could be different. And they said, I thought to myself, Oh yeah, it's a good idea.
It's a good idea the colour. And they immediately changed the colour in the prom version and accidentally I broke something and then the whole board. Just stopped on yeah. And and then fifty people, they open and say naked. Actually one of them or two told me that it doesn't work. All the others just made just and and and and you have to go via. So you need to learn the lesson. Never do changes in prom version and better release the new rollouts during night, so when you have less users.
Yeah and and yeah, never do anything ad hoc. Try to do some tests before you even you are certain and you're sure that this is how it should work. Yeah, if you want, they can tell another example of. I have one question before we get into that because you mentioned people coming together and already talking about kind of the slice of the pie that is this product. How many shares or what have you?
I've seen people and they were really good friends of mine go into business together and I learned this very late because we didn't stay in touch. COVID happened. It just, I'm really bad at staying in touch with some people. But I had dinner with one of the guys and he said we actually started the business, me and the other friend, basically it was the three of us going into uni. And he said it went really well. And then we had a decision on
how to expand. And he basically said it's going to be this way. And the other guy didn't agree. And he said it's going to be this way. Otherwise I'm, I'm going to stop basically like very much my way or the highway to a point where the other guy just said, OK, just buy me out and I'll leave. And I'm like, man, these guys are really good friends. I was part of that same friend group. It's a shame to see that happen. I said, are you still friends with him?
He says absolutely not. Like I felt stabbed in the back basically. So from this story where friends start up something and it fails, I've heard that multiple times kind of on this podcast or off this podcast. And it makes sense then that people kind of defend themselves and say, OK, this is kind of the arrangement. You have a way bigger business background than I have. So how do you figure out kind of the minimum requirements to actually start operating? Or should that be anything from
your view? Or how do you then team up with people to make sure that doesn't happen? It's a very interesting combination which I came across again within examining the examples of good companies and failed companies. And I think it's it's very interesting. At least I shared it with some people and they said, yeah, this, this is something we should have known before we started our startup.
The you need to be both you, you need to when you start thing and especially you're in in the position of the founder, 1 of founders. You need to be on the one side, very trustworthy yourself also put a lot of trust into your partners. So it should be unconditional trust in order to go together. And that's why this can do
attitude. That's why for me it's always and for I think for all the successful which which I know companies and and the projects which I know about, it was always we trust that each of us would bring the best which we could into the project. But the other side should be unfortunately very corporate. So you should from the day one, you should agree who is doing what in the company and who is the leader and final decision maker.
So, and it's coming a lot from management from yeah, from this is this is something which they teach in every business call. Like I'm, I'm trying to remember any good comparison example, but maybe it would be like, you know, when people try to survive and on the boat in in the ocean and how they behave, how they split the resources, what they do, how they arrange their routine. So this is a start up
effectively, yes. So if you're in the middle of the ocean and you have limited resources, you have absolute uncertainty around you. The worst thing which can happen that everybody has their own opinion on what they should do in this situation, chances for everyone to die extremely high. And I will not bring right now a lot of stat statistics, but I'm sure that everyone can Google and check. And this is the usual conclusion.
So starting with all the trust, with all the respect to each other, you should always agree, OK, Within our team, we're all equals. But strategic decisions, how we behave, how we do it is under this guy. And I have some projects where I have to lead. I have some projects where I said, yeah, I step out. I take from this leading position, I take this.
I have an interesting project where I have a risk control role, which I think I'm doing perfectly, but we have another guy who is really responsible for direction where we go. And for me it's nothing about agor or like having my own vision. I have my own vision. But in our start up in that particular project, we have agreed that he's the boss and two other guys. We, we all have three of us, we're doing something and we all have our area of control and competence.
But all the decisions, final decisions should be taken by by one guy and then and then we can do another project. It's it's a different, this is where I say, guys, I know that you are maybe smarter than me here, but look at this is a project where I think we need to give the leading role to me and I will, I will guide us through using all my knowledge through all the problems, but we shouldn't have a situation. A friend of mine from Lisbon called me recently.
I started my blogs about I, I like to share some knowledge, some some ideas which I have and tactical knowledge. And he signed up in Telegram and he then he said, oh, Nick, you're doing this. So he called me and appeared that he's also in start up area. They made some see some several rounds already of fundraising for the project.
It's blockchain related. So they started here like four years ago something and he told me that one of the biggest problem they have that in the beginning they have agreed that there is one guy who is CEO, but they also said despite his CEO, every of us have 25% voting rights. Oh yeah. Equal divide. And he says we're in a deadlock for last two years. And you know, blockchain had it's rise and it had it false.
And, and right now it's a very difficult area, especially when you have funds from investors and you need to deliver something. Oh yeah, you need to not to pivot. You need to spin, spin around like, like a like a crazy to find a way you how to deploy your, your idea in the reality. And these guys, he said. We, we cannot do anything. You can't move them. Yeah, because every time we say we try together and they say, yeah, everyone have the right to vote, every one of us.
And that's why. Yeah, if you have an idea, persuade all the three guys. There are four people, as I remember, persuade all the three people that this is a good idea. And then everybody's coming from their angle. And then, yeah, such, such start-ups will will not fly. And this is, again, doesn't matter.
Is it a start up? Is it a large corporate that no matter how you trust each other and you value each other relationship, you always should have somebody who is as a leader and otherwise other people should trust him and give him this responsibility? How do you do that then? Because you said in some projects you have this leadership role, right and you fought for it and probably you have that then there, but in other I. Suggested I I didn't never fight it it.
Suggests that in the end it resulted in you having that position. And for other projects you don't have it right. But you still. I mean, I would put myself in that situation. And I love challenging things. I love ideas, but I also love even more decision making and executing. Yeah. So I could have it with me. I could have it with someone else. But if it is with someone else, I'm going to be very sharp and I'm going to be very vigilant to still make sure that we're doing
the right thing, right. And if we fail, I'm not going to challenge the decision that was made. But I will make sure that we reflect and we learn from those mistakes, because otherwise it's useless making mistakes.
Absolutely. So then I would be a bit more vigilant in those positions and I because I haven't done that, I'm not sure if I were to be able to let go in that way, how how do you do that with not having the leadership position that's in the other projects compared to the one where you do have? I think this is where we are coming to the to the area of ergo and this is what a lot of smart people have a problem with. And I also had had, yeah, I think I don't have much more the
problem with this. So when when you understand that you can deliver things, when you have this feeling, you know, it's one of the problems of this is coming from behavioural economy. Even I'm, I'm having, I'm taking a lot of my backpack of banking and finance and economy. So you have there this even it's a part of a science of behavioural economy where you try to predict what's happening to the market based on how individuals within this market
behave. And there you have some biases like hot hand bias, like like for example, if the person is a basketball player is hitting five time 3 score, what would you say? What is the probability of him getting the score 6th, getting the three score sixth time in a row? Yeah, it depends how you do probability. If he's on fire, it's likely. But if I look at it from a probability standpoint, the probability is less and less, you know, the more he does it
back-to-back. So, but what, what, what do you say that? What do you, what do you bet that's you see, he's definitely on fire. Like everybody says, wow, wow. And he's scoring and scoring. And then comes the pivotal moment. It should be #6 would you say he hits the score? And my, my optimist side would say yes, yeah, yeah. But likely it's not the truth. And and and the second part is is more correct. So there is no such thing as a
hot hand there. There is indeed some preconditions which led to the situation that he won and they can affect partially that he will hit the next one. So for example, like defence line will be depressed because they saw him already several times hit in the score scoring and they will be depressed because they think Oh yeah again. But if they're not depressed, it means it's a new situation from zero and there shouldn't be such
thing as a being on fire. And we're now like coming to to the people who are trying to develop and things sometimes we fall into this bias. We think, oh, we succeeded in this small project, always succeeded in this big project or we made such a wonderful career there. We first of all, we are awesome. We are uncoppable. Yeah. So we are fire, we are
irresplicable, etcetera. And with the life circle, I think it's very important at some point to stop yourself and just say why am I thinking So what is really happening on this basketball match? How does the do I still see the defence line, these people? Do I still see my partners? Maybe my team has changed already and there are much stronger guys next to me and I shouldn't be scoring.
I should give a pass to them because the other team is also developing and many people, and I think it's also connected with the age. So from this 30 to 40 years, this is where usually old people are on fire. So we already have knowledge, we have ability and we have a lot of life power to deliver this. And this is where people think, yeah, I'm unstoppable. I I can do everything.
But all of us, yeah, all of us, all of people who want to to develop things, we think that this is coming because we are so unique. And I think it's very important to to from time to time to stop and to ask yourself what is happening around you. Never think that you are unique. Never think that you are on fire, because on fire doesn't exist. It was previously conditions which led to your success. Try to understand these conditions and try to multiply them and bring them into your
new projects. Don't think they're just popping up somewhere. You will, you will do this. And this is what comes with the with the teams and projects from my view. And This is why for me, it's not not a problem. I think I've been to different teams where I was sometimes forced to go to the to the position of not, not a frontline. Yeah, sometimes I was forced to go to the front line when indeed I was resistant. I was saying I don't want to be
a leader of this. And and then I was No, no, no, it's, it's, it's you. You are taking the responsibility and, and, and, and decision and decisions also.
And all of this brought me to this understanding every time when you meet with people, you think you try, you know, maybe it's like a consultant in from from this point of view, you try to assess the project, you try to assess people team and assess it independently, like step outside and look at yourself also independently evaluate you versus others.
And then if you want to show off and to show that your agor is and you are the number one, then of course it wouldn't be possible to to take the second and third role. But if you can step out and say, OK, my target, I really want to build Unihorn. I know that on the way to Unihorn, like I, I can see this, I can foresee this. But the Unihorn is even behind this wall. So we don't even, we can't even see it because there is a lot of
things hidden. We need the people of certain scales and I need to have in my team together with me people who would be able to help me and the team to to solve the problem. And if it means that I should step down, then then it's fine. If it means that I should even I don't want, you know, many people also come into another conclusion that it's good to have, you know, like 5% shareholder and they had this as
well. So when people will come into me and say, yeah, look, we want to help, we want to brainstorm with you, but we don't want to take any responsibility. So in a way, yeah. So like, let us be just a minor shareholder there and we'll see here. So like, I'm not risking anything. No. If it's like smoke insurance, yeah, I've heard it. Smoke insurance, Yeah.
And. For me, I, I in the beginning I was even considering, but then I said, no, guys, we're, we're not flying anywhere because it's, it's not the way you, you need to bid every time when you do something. And it's also I'm, well, I'm speaking, I'm, I'm, I think that it's important to mention it's not only about start-ups. I think it's about everything, any project. And in banking it works the same way.
If you want to succeed in banking in your career, it's the same like succeed in start up and and and building a big company, maybe not a Unicorn, but a big one. You need to put your skin into the game and you need to to have this can do attitude and you need to focus on the result, not on yourself. Yeah. So if you can do this, then you will get a lot of good experience. And even if you don't succeed, you will reuse this experience further.
But yeah, as as you said, I also see this and this is very, very cool to see young guys with whom I meet. Sometimes I speak. And recently I also, I'm, I'm meeting now a lot of people and we, we discuss their idea because my thing is the following. I, I have no secrets. I share all my ideas. And if somebody want to take it, I say take it because first of all, most likely you will call me as well to be your partner there. That's good.
And the and the and the second of all, even if we'll do it in parallel, we'll do a different projects. Yeah. And when I share with you, you share also with me. And maybe it will lead me to some ideas which which I didn't think of. So that's why I don't understand people actually who are saying, yeah, I have a lot of ideas and especially in banking, yeah, I have a lot of ideas. But oh gosh. And this is what, you know, no, I no, I don't.
So can we discuss? Like yeah, but I even had situations when people were saying let's sign NDA. Oh really? From the get go. Yeah, that's quick. And I say OK, But actually for me it's also not a problem. I'm not going to share this idea with anyone, but I was also trying to explain to, to to these guys that it, you don't think that you are the smartest, even you were a couple of times before, even you think that your idea could be stolen. It's not you.
And moreover, to succeed right now, especially with new projects, you need to acquire as fast as possible as many talented people to you as possible. And this is not possible without sharing. Start, share, start speaking. And then some people would come to you and say, yeah, let's do this together. I can help you. I really love that perspective.
I think it's, I never realized that like having a hot streak or being on fire is actually just BS and you have to objectively look at, OK, how did that factor into where your success was? And are the circumstances the same? Right. Because you start from scratch every single time. I do understand that if you have that over and over and over again, it can really feed into this ego that you are basically #1 and that you should be in
that leadership position. And I really like that you keep a look at it objectively and see where it's a good fit and see where it's not a good fit and keep it to that. I don't know if it's my upbringing, but I always was raised to be humble, which is also why that probably feeds into imposter syndrome. And things are going well. I'm like, oh, it's probably luck or it wasn't really my factor in
there. So that's maybe the flip side of it. But I have worked with people that do really think that they're the best. And from my standpoint, I could see where they're really good, but I could still see those flaws. And that is really hard to work with. If you have a group with, let's say, all people that want to be #1 then the competition is fierce and decisions cannot be made because everyone wants their decision to win.
And when you have your standpoint with not ego involved at all, I think that's very productive because then you can objectively just have a discussion on the essence rather than on the ego. Yeah. And also you're bringing perspective of what can go wrong, what can go good. And then it's not that you are fighting with some John. He's having his point of view,
you're having yours. And then you're fighting with each other every time you're doing this because you won't succeed in the project or in the company. And if you and we're coming again back to the chemistry, right people. So you should trust, you know, you know, there is a difference between trust and respect. So it's Huck Adizas, 1 of professors from I think he's Harvard professor. He, he didn't invent it, but he formulated this very, very well that respect is when you allow a
person to have his own opinion. And trust is when you believe that your interests are in the heart of the other person. And building a project, building a team, building whatever together requires not respect. It requires trust. So respect means that everybody is inside their bubble and we respect that you're in your bubble, I'm in your. But this is not enough to build something. You need to have trust in each other.
I, I need to wake up in the morning and I know that if I'm doing a project with Patrick, thoughts of my prosperity, of my success, part of Patrick's thoughts as well as my thoughts I about how to make Patrick successful. And, and then we can, we can have a fight on anything. We can say no, the OED is ridiculous. No, your end. But then we're sharing that we're doing this because we are running to the same direction, not because we are fighting with each other.
Yeah, yeah, that makes me think of then also the cause of why many teams fail is just because of this partially ego and just, I think also human nature of greed because it's always going to be there like those discussions of really trusting each other and having each other's best interests at heart. I think that's perfect. When that is not the case, greed pops up or you might be suspicious or skeptical and then
it all comes spiraling down. And people that are friends, like that's where I, I feel like it hurts the most. You have that feeling of trust, right? Because you've been friends before, but then actually financial like incentives come in. By default. And greed pops out and you're like, yeah, that's the hard part. And that's why I think to agree from the day one is very important. Yeah, I really like that.
And and you should do, you could also agree and say that decisions are taken this way and financially in whatever we do, everybody take, I don't know, ten, 1010% and then Patrick take 70%. And people should sign off this from the day one. And then it also sorts the the, the issue that's later on when something pops up.
You're not trying to say, yeah, but we, you know, we had this and I the situation can be that, yeah, I agreed to this 10%, but I thought I would have 50. And now it's developing only because of me. Yeah. And and this is where also the leadership role comes and that there should be always this guy, a person whose response says no guys, I am, I'm like a safeguards of our agreement and this is what we have agreed and This is why we're doing this.
It might be we're coming to the station that it doesn't work, it doesn't fly anymore Then OK, let's re evaluate what what we're doing together. So our project is developing and not developing. And then it's also very easy to find the way, as you said, to buy out or not to buy out or to rearrange and reagree, because this is also it's nothing is set
in stone there. There can be at some point of time that's one team member indeed becomes so valuable and important and he's pushing everything. But if we all have trust in, in our hearts and between the between the partners, everybody would say, yeah, like Mac right now, yeah, or Michael right now is, is actually pushing us further. So, so it's, it's fair because again, we, we, we trust and we also controlled, controlled by
the manager. So you have to have this combination, yeah, of emotional and also bureaucratical that and, and then it, it takes away all the problems, all majority of problems. And what what also I have seen and this correlates with you what you're saying that sometimes people don't even pronounce things, but they think and they spend the valuable resources of thinking of this greedy. Things like doom thinking. Yeah, I I'm doing this. I'm I'm and why I'm not.
And then for years and then people actually die from inside. Yeah, festers and, and, and again, for me, this is one of important things, not only trust and clear agreement, but also of the leader in any team to see that with this guy or with this girl, something is happening wrong and there is something happening in the mind and it's better to speak out and and to help to to close it. Clear the air. Yeah, Yeah, I've really enjoyed this conversation, Nick.
I must say from your journey of starting with software development, rapid AI prototyping and a lot of insights in team building and how you can create chemistry. Before we round off, is there anything you still want to share? 1 One thing which I think I would like people who will listen to this will, will hear is that and, and you, you covered this, but there is also sort of perspective which I found out recently.
Start learning new things. And I hope that somebody who is not coding will listen to us start coding as soon as possible. I was listening to one of the podcasts about again, ancient times how the writing appeared and when it appeared. So it's assumed that I think like 2 + 1000 years ago by Schumer civilization and they were using commas and some some non alphabetic way of writing. And at this time writing was corrupt.
Actually, you would have a farmer, you would have a warrior, you would have, I don't know, a tax guy. You would have some somebody who is who is doing the ceramics, etcetera. And you would have a guy who is writing and for many time it was a unique craft which a unique skill which which people were learning and this was their part of their work. And they see this as a lot of similarity was what's happening right now with coding. I think coding is the same as writing back 2000 years ago.
Right now there are still limited number of people who who know what the Python is, how to how to structure the code, how to write it. But they, I have this feeling when I was listening to this podcast, I had this idea and, and the feeling that actually we are going the same direction right now. Everybody knows alphabet or any or other types of writing. So we all can write by default. Since we go to school, we are taught to do this and I think with coding will happen the same.
So in some time, hopefully not in thousands of years, there will be a situation that everybody would learn maybe Python or similar or any other language as a second or third language. And this would be just obvious that you speak English and also you speak Python. And then when, when, when you're when Patrick asks me like again, Nick, when do we have our podcast? I would reply something like Rand 7, which means that it'll pick any day from from the week and, and we don't.
And it's so much more efficient if we use this also as a language. And this brings a lot of possibilities. So right now what I also my my my experience gave me that you can learn coding very quickly if you are consistent and if you really ask questions and you have some idea in your head and then it brings you so much interesting creative power. You can create products, projects, you can create your own private chat bots.
AI is is is important aspect here or you can yeah, wake up in the morning and say, yeah, I, I will be the next Helen Mask and I will develop Twitter. Yeah, like it's not a rocket science right now. You just need to write a certain amount of code, you need to understand certain architecture, you need to know about certain protection and the control of the of the flows. But this is not the knowledge which is unreachable. This is very reachable knowledge. Yeah, it's out there.
And if you have this in mind and before that you were a banker or a lawyer or you know, I met some consultants hotel who told me as well that yeah, yeah, we don't call it. We really, we don't touch it and they would do it, try it out. And also one of my last advices would be it's always very important how to bring the product and, and your idea as a project to the market. And my overview right now is that you have a web interface which is very easy and fast.
You can develop your own application like with a Swift language for for iOS or you can use such platforms as I hope to that WhatsApp would be one day. But for me it became a telegram. So the platform which gives you this front end and libraries. And actually you don't need to spend even weeks on developing user interface which you can send to your friend. You can easily do this. And my, my perspective here was from the very beginning and still do something quickly, do
something fast. If, if it's just a private project, still show it to someone. And it's very easy to send a Telegram link or even a web page then or wait until somebody will allow you to put it on on the Apple Store or somebody will download it from from from your website and do as simple as possible architecture in the
beginning. And we before that quickly discussed with you that my first database was comma separated value file, of course, which worked perfectly for one of the projects until I had 1000 users there. And then I just said, OK, I have 1000 users. That's a nice problem to have. I need to switch to Postgre SQL. But if I would ask ChatGPT from the very beginning, so give me the proper structure, he would tell me learn Postgre SQL.
It's so smart, it's so good. But I don't need it until I prove that my my my product, my project actually requires this, this type of infrastructure. Yeah. So the idea is, yeah, learn coding. If you already know coding just out of your regular job time, do projects, try them out, send it to your friends, see how it moves. If you think it moves well, go to Google ads and meta ads. Spend 200 bucks. If you don't have it, bring a friend and say this is this is a
great project. Let's each of us spend 100 bucks and we have a split revenue and potential share in this company. Test it on the market, find your market niche and yeah, develop a project, develop a project which can become product and then the company. Because technology, especially empowered by AI bring right now unlimit limitless possibilities
in, in, in this development. And they really want to see more and more people doing, doing this, doing these things and developing their their projects, as you said, for design, for whatever, for hairstyles, for in every sphere. There's so many things which could be done and and people can do this now. Absolutely perfect. Then I'm going to round it off here. Thank you so much for listening. Leave a like if you liked it, let us know in the comments what you thought and thanks again for
listening. We'll see you on the next one.