The Highs and Lows of Entrepreneurship with 5x Founder, Barry Sahu (Founder of Mason)

Speaker A: All right, welcome back to Megamind. My name is Evan and today I'm joined by Barry or Barada, however you prefer. Bharata Sahu who comes all the way from India. He is a serial entrepreneur. Uh, he is knee deep in the world of technology and marketing and right now he's the founder and CEO of Mason where he spent roughly the last four years and he'll tell you all about very shortly. But their elevator pitch in one sentence is that they disrupt the e commerce and retail space by using AI to accelerate sales for e comm and retail brands. So uh, that is full of buzzwords and very exciting and we'll unpack what it actually means very shortly. But currently There are over 8,000 brands who are uh, working with and growing thanks to Mason. Names like Ugg, Boots and Sketches are two of the big ones that caught my eye. But if we wind back the clock, Barry, you've, I may have actually lost count here, but I think it was five businesses you founded over your journey. So very much fitting the definition of serial entrepreneur. So I would love to officially welcome you to the show. Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker B: Uh, thank you Owen for having me here. I'm excited to be here and talk to you. I mean uh, uh, what I like to do is that uh, I like to build things and I think the businesses part come along the way of building things because get them out uh, to people. So it's been a very exciting journey building and sharing with folks. Uh, uh, and I'm looking forward to a chat here today.

Speaker A: Likewise. So let's start with your journey then. As a multiple time founder who has usually been in the tech and E commerce space or adjacent to it, what's the journey been like? Walk me back to Barry. When he was just getting started in his career. What motivated you to want to start your own business? And then I'd love if you could give me just a quick overview of where you were at different stages along the journey and how you got to where you are today.

Speaker B: So I kind of, I mean I started out as a usual engineer who liked to build things and uh, if I rewind the clock back from when I started my whole entrepreneurship journey was really me getting bored. Being in a corporate career, I had spent time out there, seen what had to be done out there, and as bored as hell, I just didn't know whether this was the right thing for me anymore. Uh, and incidentally, India was at a very uh, evolving time in terms of entire startup journey. I had seen it kind of Grow up right from the scratch when we really had the first real breakouts from India, the likes of Flipkart, uh, coming over from India. And that was back then when I really thought that, hey, you know what, I could also try out something on my own. Internet was bubbling as a space. We'd gone past that whole, uh, downturn, the 2001, 2002 downturn, uh, the crash, the dot com crash, and then post that, things pick back up. And I thought, you know, it would be a good time to start something in the technology space, bring it out as products. Uh, GitHub had come along the way, Stack overflow, uh, had come along the way back then. And so we thought that there were not enough Internet products coming out of India. And that was really the aha for me to kind of jump out from my corporate career and try out something on my own. Uh, the first, uh, startups were really, I would say, very challenging, uh, because we didn't have too much of a support ecosystem out here. Uh, everything had to be done out from scratch, right from how do you find capital to how do you find customers? Never had a playbook out there. And while there had been more mature ecosystems in the valley over here in India, it was still a very nascent ecosystem. And we had to got to find out all of those right from scratch. So if I dial the clock back, I'd say back then the startup and the Internet ecosystem looked very different to where it is today in India, where there's a lot more vibrant economy, a lot more, uh, startups coming out of here. And you'd see a startup every other day kind of launching out here, at least in Bangalore, which is the startup hub of India. So, so, so that's been one of those very, uh, interesting times for me to kind of get started off on my own personal journey now over the years, what obviously caught my eye was that, uh, you know, uh, I love to build things, but I obviously love to build things that people want. Uh, uh, and uh, along the way it was about, uh, shifting that mindset from things that I want to build to building things that others want. And how do you go through that whole discovery phase of uh, figuring out what people want. And that has been kind of an evolution for me personally in terms of how I have gone about building over the years. Uh, and over the years obviously the products have matured, the kind of things that we have built has, uh, mature. The kind of companies that we are running now has matured. And so, so those have been more evolutionary phases. But that's really been some of those aha uh moments for me personally as I've gone about uh building uh up some of these products along the way. Yeah.

Speaker A: What was your first company?

Speaker B: Well uh, you know the first company was actually with a few friends uh together and we had built out uh what I would say wasn't um travel uh um aggregator for uh trips uh for doing trips uh across India. And we uh. Back then I used to um, bike quite a lot uh and I had uh written up the himlers uh on bikes and we said that you know what, we didn't have enough information about going on all these trails together. And so we launched out this uh travel startup which would basically aggregate all the different trips across India into a website. And it made it easy to find but uh, there was no purchase by. I mean obviously it's a great product in terms of where you want to use it yourself and there's a lot of people maybe like you would find it useful but there's not enough monetization that can be done back in those days. And so we yeah we saw that we could not find the right traction for it and we decided to wind that down. So that was one the one that I remember post that was one something that where I jumped out to this uh solar startup. I it was called Novogreen. Uh we're building out this uh low cost solar refrigerator for uh villages in uh villages and remote places where they could basically they lacked vaccines, they lack medicines which could be stored. And because of that there was a lot of uh folks who would basically fall sick who did not have access to medical care and what we wanted to sustaining uh refrigerant generator which could basically be manufactured and which would use solar energy. So you basically did not need power grid because power grid was not accessible uh back then uh across the country um again uh, uh we launched a prototype of the product. Uh the challenge was distribution with that and the manufacturing setup needed to scale it up. So did that for uh where we lost a prototype out, we kind of patented it out and then we kind of uh winded that up. But that was what I would say my first two real startups along the way where I kind of started out.

Speaker A: Yeah it's a very admirable idea. The second one in particular. But also what stands out is that it's so different to your first idea which tells me that you're someone who just wants to try different things and see how they go. But you did mention that you launched and it was Exciting and the product was great, but you didn't have that demand, so you weren't really able to scale it where you wanted to be, which is totally fine. And I actually love that you're saying this because it allows us to understand that failure is a good thing because it allows us to then find the next thing that we're meant to be doing. So when you say that you launched these first two businesses and you didn't have the, didn't have the demand. Now fast forward to Mason, which as I said earlier, has over 8,000 brands you're working with and some of them are very big name brands as well. How did you know that Mason was going to be successful? And how did you know that there was the demand for the product? And maybe before we jump into that, just give, give us an idea of what actually is the product.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I give a nutshell. I think you kind of encapsulated it. Well, Mason is a commerce engine, uh, for brands and retailers to help them improve conversions in the store. Plain and simple. We help you understand consumer behavior and create hyper personalized, uh, journeys within your storefronts. And obviously that's everything from what you're browsing, what you're buying. We help you make it hyper personalized for consumers. That's about, uh, improves conversions for merchants and brands today. Uh, but before I get down into how we started Mason, I think it goes down to your question about demand. The first, before we even wrote our first line of code at Mason, before we even built any shell of the product at Mason, before we even designed a screen, we first vetted the demand, whether this was even a need of the uh, and that was really the first starting point for Mason, for us.

Speaker A: And you know, and how did, how did you do that?

Speaker B: So one of those. And you'd be well aware that especially in the small and medium business ecosystem, in commerce, Shopify is one of those great platforms where uh, it's kind of well adopted across the world. And there's obviously a few others from BigCommerce to Woo to Magento. There's a few other platforms out there. But Shopify has been one of those runaway platforms out there which is very readily accessible. And when we started out, we actually started out by diving deep into some of these platforms and uh, talking to merchants out there and saying that, hey, what's that big problem that you're starting to see today? Not the problem that hey, you've kind of set up your stores with Shopify, you have a ton of apps out there. To help you with different parts of your store. But what's those big problems theory problems that you're starting to see today? Incidentally, they started to resonate with things that we had seen because I had come out of Myntra, which was a fashion, uh, an online fashion, uh,.com for uh, shoppers, uh, in India. It's the de facto fashion destination here in India. Um, and uh, where we are seen over there is that I've seen this stage where there were a lot of brands which are coming online and they needed a lot more help in terms of how do I understand consumers, what kind of experiences would make it take for them, how do I get them to buy? And so there were a lot of these insights that were starting to come in from a bunch of these brands that we spoke with. They actually resonated with what we had seen when we had built out myth. And so what we started to do is connect the dots. Hey, this looks like a real problem today for merchants. Even while merchants are setting up their own independent storefronts, are they able to understand consumers and be able to tailor experiences? That's really at the heart of driving, uh, online sales. And so that, that was basically. So a lot of brands are today able to do marketing off channel, which is your CRMs, and be able to kind of do marketing automation. But within your storefront, it was still this. I had to design my storefront and hope for the best. Right, that somehow customers m would be able to find the right products, be able to find the right offers, be able to find the right boundaries and then be able to buy the product. And that was really the heart of the problem. So, uh, for us, before we even got down to solving the problem, we started to understand the problem well and started to triangulate on whether this was the right problem at all. Ah, so, so that's, that's how we kind of went about it. We spoke with a bunch of them. I remember speaking with about a hundred odd, uh, folks, uh, over a couple of months and it was a lot of different calls across the world. So we did that. And yeah, that, that was an interesting phase for us to kick that, hey, this would be a good problem to solve.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you found your product market fit before you actually built the product, which is essential. And also that correlates to what we've had conversations about on, um, this podcast before with E commerce owners, how they test their product with their audience. Maybe they do a pre sale or they even run some ads to a product that doesn't yet exist to make sure that they actually have the demand. But I'm very curious about the product itself, because one of the ways you're marketing it is that you're saying, wave goodbye to static online stores and say hello to the AI Howard storefront. So tell me if I'm understanding this correctly. Traditionally, you would build a landing page and everyone would be served the same landing page. It would be products, reviews, description, unique selling points, etc. With Mason, is it a case of depending, uh, on my behavior online, what I search, which pages I land on, when I land on your, your landing page, then the product I'm served might be different to somebody else, and the reviews I'm given might be different to somebody else. So is it almost like you have puzzle pieces that come together based on individual data?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, the way that you've, uh, put it together is that, see, the way that shopping happens today is this whole shopping funnel. In some sense, we have got this Amazon, uh, is what, coming up about 30 years, I would say, and we still got the same shopping funnel. There's a homepage, there's a list page, there's a product details page, there's a card, there's a checkout, and it's that entire consumer journey. Yeah, but the shop has changed. It's 30 years since there's been a generational shift, if not a couple of generation shifts since then. You pass the boomer to the millennials, to the Zenzis. Now shopping and the shopping. And what has happened is that as the shopping funnel is shocked, the expectations of shoppers have also changed. They expect that I can shop at the instant that I see something. I don't want this whole journey in itself, that's number one. The second bit of it is that I want everything about me. It's no longer about access. Back when Amazon started, it was honestly speaking about access to products, because otherwise we had to go find out which were the right products across shops and so on. It was pretty much a very tedious, uh, effort. But over the years, what has happened is that consumers have had access across the Internet with different kinds of shops. Now it's no longer about access. It's about, does this product meet my needs?

Speaker A: Really?

Speaker B: It. Does this product really make sense for me? Does it really service whether, if it's a skincare product, is it for my skin? If it's a fashion product, do I look good in it? If it's a sneak, where am I going to wear it? Can I Wear it for my run or do I wear it for going to outer party? So I need to figure out whether this fits into my lifestyle. And so, honestly speaking, what consumers are also expecting is that the store actually talks to, that talks about me. Rather than a store which is built for your products, what we are doing is we are helping you solve that. And like you said, the way to kind of solve that is to instead of design that whole storefront, we're saying that there's like this product banner. Uh, there's maybe some details, there's maybe some reviews, there's maybe some content about additional content about the sizing of the product. It's really about ensuring that can create a product experience that's about the customer and for the customer by understanding on the first, uh, point, what has the customer been looking for? What has the customer been browsing? What does the customer interacted with earlier? What has the customer purchased earlier? So there's all of these different signals. And we as customers, by the way, also are very willing to share our information. We want to tell you that, hey, I need. I. I want white shirts, because that's what I like. Number one, I would probably be looking to go to office. I go to office often, so often recommend me white shirts for work right in the evening. I want something that I can match up this white chat with so that I can go out with my friends. It's a Friday, so I, I need you to have that contact. So if I'm browsing, I expect that you as a brand understand all of this and I'm willing to share this with you. But now, even if I'm sharing this with you, I able to tailor that experience back for me is really where the conversion or whether I want to purchase from you. And that's really what we help do with Mason. The way that we help do is, as you explained, there are building blocks for all of these from whether it's reviews, whether it's your product images, whether it's your product content, whether it's, uh, whether it's your product sizes, whether it's the kind of products that they go together with, that all of these are building blocks, as we call them. And what we do is that our AI engine really understands consumer intent, then generates this experience and stitches this whole experience together on the floor. So instead of you having to go design a store, the store gets designed on the fly for the customer is how we kind of call it. And that's really the AI engine.

Speaker A: I'll be honest, it sounds amazing. I Haven't heard of anything quite like it before. So I am excited to give it a test a little bit more afterwards. But, uh, let's take a step back because ultimately for Mason or any E commerce software to be successful, you need to understand what does success look like. And in this case it's about conversion optimization. Right. Everything that Mason does is to help customers be more likely to buy. So from your perspective, Barry, forgetting about all of the AI and forgetting about all of the tech, what are the most important things that uh, we as brand owners need to be considering that are uh, going to help our customers purchase, uh, and make it easy for them to purchase?

Speaker B: Yeah. So I said you hit upon two different cards out there. What's important for um, brands today? One in terms of implementation, but also what's important for brands in terms of how do I measure success? Is it conversion? Uh, is it improving conversion? Because there are multiple ways that you can look at success. One is that of course I'm finding the right set of customers for my brand, otherwise I'll have returns. Customers just don't like my products. They m. May be not the right products. Right. So that's, that's one way to look at it. The second way is that once I have the right set of customers coming into my store, are they able to find the right products, which is the discovery, the discovery part of it, and eventually lead to a purchase and that's really the conversion part of it. So there's the conversion improvement that you look at. Are they buying enough of it, which is your basket size, typically what you call in your, so your AOVs are there right out. And the third bit of it, which is your margins, because oftentimes when you're running a commerce business, you have your supply side at, ah, where you're procuring your products, where you're manufacturing new products at a certain cost, then you've got to market it and then you have kind of got a margin on top of it. And sometimes you've got to market with offers, with promotions that you've got to bring to customers so that they find those right deals. Because we also love deals when you want to purchase products. So the whole point really is that there's uh, multiple kinds of impact that a brand needs to look at across the customer journey, which is finding the right kind of customers, helping them discover those right kind of products, increasing conversions by showing them the relevant products, improving margins on all of those by helping you discover the right kind of offers and promotions that you're most likely to purchase at and uh, improving the basket size where you're upselling and cross selling and showing them the right products that will go well together. Say if I'm looking for a white shirt, it's more likely than not that you can find me something that's going to match with this if you, if you know my tastes. Right. So, so those are the kind of ways for brands today to say that how effective a conversion solution or how effective an AI solution that really can drive this will look like for my store. These are the kind of metrics that we also try to put in front of brands today. Now in terms of the kind of things to do, I always tend to think, see there's no silver bullet out for you to kind of uh, look at it the way to look at it. But, but uh, also it's pretty simple in terms of how it works. The system isn't too complex in terms of how it works, but there's again technical bullet here. The real thing is that if you understand consumers deeply, you can sell to consumers at uh, the end of the day. Every, before every purchase there's an interaction. Before every purchase there's an engagement. You don't buy on your, you don't go find someone that you're going to take home on your first date. That's the way to look at it. You got to take somebody who you dated for a while, you've got to talk with them for a while. You have had those copies, you have spoken with them and you've uh, understood them for a while before take them home. Right? And that's really where you kind of the matching happens. It just happens, accelerated, but the cycle still is the same. And that's really the heart of OS sales in commerce happens, is that if you understand consumers well and if you're able to get them the relevant experiences, then you can drive that sale, uh, for the customer. And so the heart of it is about understanding customers. By looking at every part of your funnel, wherever your data is streaming from, whether it's at the top of the funnel where you're looking at more engagement or discovery data, or at the bottom of the funnel where you're looking at transaction data, you've got to kind of bring it all together to create these unified consumer profiles. And then on top of that, what you've got to see is that can I now use this understanding to deliver that experience? Right, Experience. That's the second part of it. And oftentimes we see that these are disconnected pieces and that's where the loss today in those conversion funnels today happen is that what the way we try to plug it today is that hey, we can design an optimal store experience and you know, most people would love it. That's, that's the way that you go about. Whereas the modern data driven way would say that hey, we understand customers and everybody has their own nuance of it about how what they would love, what they would like and so can we now bring it all together is basically where these engines really play a role. I would obviously love to hear from you as well because you've been doing a bunch of it on the marketing side of things where you've seen also within commerce. How do you kind of see it? Uh, uh, just kind of see a different way in which merchants are engaging and what's working and what's not.

Speaker A: Well, for me, I like to look at CRO optimizing for conversions fundamentally at the landing page or the point of sale. And yes, I understand that it is a journey to get them to that point, but ultimately that's where they're clicking the buy button or not clicking the buy button. So there are a few things that I would say are almost no brainers, and that is to have obvious call to action above the fold. It's to have your classic benefits over features. It's just to have the copy that speaks the language that your audience speaks. Not to talk at them, but to have copy that creates a sense of a feeling. Uh, have a minimal navigation menu so people don't have the options to click elsewhere. Eliminate distractions and make it really, really clear what you want to do. So those are a few tips that I would give generally speaking, but I would love to also hear from you. Like let's, let's say that is your checklist. What are the 10 things that you experiment with?

Speaker B: Yeah, so these are great points that you spoke about and I usually try to take them back and try to think about them in terms of these things. About reducing friction, you spoke about eliminating distractions. Not too many buttons for you to click on. Having a clear call to action which is visible. So you're kind of eliminating the friction in the same in some sense. Right. Making the copy and the benefit about the customer, which is really about personalization.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: When you talk about benefits over features, you're really talking about personalization. What matters to me is how does it make sense for my life. It's not about what your product has in terms of features, but how does it fit into my life. So we are talking about personalization out there. So when you speak about this, it really resonates with what we actually bring to the table in terms of where we are speaking a little bit uh, earlier about how do we really solve this conversion challenge and how do you make this. It's really about creating frictionless experiences that are about you. Simple math right now. The building blocks of those frictionless experiences and about you are of course things like this let you speak about. It's about what kind of content makes sense for you, which is your visual imagery, which is, has got to be striking. It has got to make sense for somebody to really kind of want this product. Because today we buy because we want things. It's no longer because we just need them anymore. So you want to create desire. So we've got to make exciting content for them. You've got to make uh, the uh, content that speaks to them, which is by understanding, hey, like if I'm somebody who's a night owl versus somebody who's a more early riser, I can change my content to be able to suit. And today we have access to tools, today we have access to generative content that can help you with that. But obviously keeping in mind that we don't just want to lean in on that, we want to ensure that we bring in also the human touch about it, right? The human voice to be able to speak to them. And so bringing those abilities, which is the ability to kind of create content that really talks speaks for why it's useful for them, creates a sense of desire for them and then making the whole shopping journey frictionless. Which is like not only CTAs, I would say, but also like what matters in terms of is it your add to cart or is it your checkout? If it's your checkout, can I ensure that we have your uh, customer data filled in prior? If you have shopped with me before, almost have a logged in experience for you, right? So those are the pieces that you have. Then there's also these parts. You know, shopping does not happen. Like you said in the first by, it's oftentimes I'll go look at something, then I'll go look somewhere else. I'll check out on Instagram, maybe I'll check on TikTok, I'll see a video, I'll jump in and then I'll complete the purchase. Right? So when I come back to the store, you've also got to ensure that you pick me up back from where I came from. Whether it's your CRM where I Click that, uh, email or whether it's from TikTok. You've got to understand where I've come in from and show me the right experience at that point in time. And that's, that's really what we help you do, which is like all of these building blocks, sticks stitched together on the fly again.

Speaker A: Okay, that was great. So I was looking for a few nuggets of wisdom that we could almost add to this imaginary checklist. And I gave a couple such as call to actions above the fold, and then you gave some more, which were striking. Imagery being one.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: And auto filling details being another. Are there any other really simple principles that come to mind that people should try?

Speaker B: So one of those other things is of course about reviews. Trust. Trust is one of those very important factors where even when purchasing products, nobody wants to be in a shop where they are the first guy shopping, let's put it that way, right? Unless I know you, I'm not buying from you. And that's really where you've got to get me. So trust is a super important factor showcasing the right kind of reviews. And it's not just all positive reviews. Oftentimes I'm also put off if I just see positive reviews because then I go hunting for the negative reviews where why are there no negative reviews about this product? It can't be that it fits everybody. So people want authenticity. So oftentimes bringing that authenticity in messaging is super important, especially in the review section. Uh, in the benefits section, you already alluded to that you speak more about benefits, but keep the benefits personalized is very super important because you've got to understand that customers are willing to engage with you by sharing information about the tastes. If you can bring that language back into your benefits, that's super helpful because it tells me how it fits me. So these are the areas that I would say double click on. Um, images that really talk to me, content that speaks to me, which is your product benefits centered around the choices that I have. Uh, your reviews. Trust and reviews which are authentic don't just show positive, but also showcase areas where you might have fallen and also address when customers drop a review. Don't just leave it hanging. Talk to customers. Use that as an opportunity to talk to customers. Which means that you can bring in your effort to how you've responded back to the views, whether it's positive or negative. It's really a great opportunity for you to highlight that you engage with your customers. And those are the pieces that I think really drive conversions.

Speaker A: Those are all Fantastic points. And the only one that I would add to that is when you're speaking about the imagery, make sure it's relatable. So that means understanding your target market. And if your target market is mums in their 30s and 40s, then in your imagery show mums in their 30s and forties using the products because it allows the viewer, uh, to imagine themselves using your product. And that will open up a whole can of worms here. But that is how UGC became such a popular means of marketing. All right, Barry. Well, we've had a lot of great insights into inversion optimization and the whole consumer journey. But I want to pivot this conversation a little bit more towards you, someone who has had a track record of starting businesses, some that didn't work out, some that did. It's all part of the entrepreneurial journey. But I really want to understand from your perspective what have been some of the biggest challenges along your journey as an entrepreneur. Because to those people listening to this, whether they be business owners or ambitious people who are working for other businesses, they're going to probably experience similar challenges along their journey. So walk me through what have been some of the highs and some of the lows.

Speaker B: You know, uh, if you're biting into entrepreneurship, and I always like to tell that to your entrepreneurs, is, um, it's always going to be ups and down and probably have ah, more downs than sometimes those ups. But the thing is that entrepreneurship is also about this journey, uh, that you have not just the destination that you're going to be. That uh, get that million into your bank, get that, maybe get that $10 million, 100 million dollar, um, investment for yourself.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: It's got to be this journey that you enjoy of building and getting things out. And I think that's also super valuable. And during those points in time, it's not going to be fun oftentimes because you're right in the middle of things, you're doing stuff, you probably don't have enough time, uh, and you probably don't have uh, enough people who can help you with along the way in your early days. And so it's always going to be that challenge. The fact is that if you embrace it, oftentimes you find things that uh, I've always found things in life, um, a lot more enjoyable, enjoyable once you spend some time or making some effort to get them. If you don't have an effort to get anything, you really don't enjoy it too much. And that's really been about it. So, uh, some of my best memories in life. And some of the best incidents that I recall have always been things which have been a little harder to get. And that really makes it fun. And entrepreneurship is one of those things. Building a successful startup, a successful company, unless it comes in with a little bit of a friction, you really don't enjoy the path to getting there. You're still chasing something that's difficult and that's one foundationally where we are wired now from that perspective, where have been those low points? I think there have been a few of them along the way. I mean, um, shutting down things is always hard, especially as an entrepreneur. You often, and I'll go back to, for most founders who are starting off, uh, doing the first startups, don't get married into the startup where you think the product is the only thing in your life. There are things beyond the product, There are things beyond the company. The people around you, they care about you and make time for them beyond just the thing that you immerse yourself into. Oftentimes you forget that along the way. And that's tough because sometimes getting, uh, those people back is a lot tougher than building another company.

Speaker A: I think that's really powerful and a message that many people do need to hear and be reminded of. But for you, uh, what can you do outside of work? Or how do you find that balance? As someone who is so motivated and ambitious to keep building your things, how can you ensure that you personally stay, stay balanced and, and relaxed and we're able to maintain relationships and everything outside of work?

Speaker B: Yes, one of those things is finding times, uh, time blocking yourself for things that matter. And I think like with anything in life, you've got to find time for things that matter to you. If your health matters to you, find time for that. If relationships matter to you, find time for them. If your kids matter to you, find time for them. If your work matters, you find time for them for it. Right? If learning matters to you, find time for it. And it's all of those things, right? So you've got to make time for things that matter to you, and that's really how you can make sense of it. For me personally, I found that, uh, I've been somebody who both likes to go for a run at times as well as, uh, meditate at times. And so for me, keeping those two things have helped me make stock about what things matter to me and reflect back on that. Oftentimes you do a balance of, uh, working out and taking some time, uh, downtime with meditation. It helps you think back on what really matters and then you can time slot for yourself. Uh, but again, like I said, it's a balance. You don't find it on day one. And obviously I would, I would be. If you, if I were telling it, I'd be lying if I said that I found the perfect balance either. But I try my best, I try to make it uh, time for things around me, for the things that matter for people around me. And that's, that's how I'm trying to make sense of this.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that answer as well. And you mentioned learning briefly. Is, is that something that you put a lot of emphasis on personally? Because I know in the world of innovation and technology everything is moving at a million miles a minute. So you do need to actively be on top of what is happening. So where do you look for learning and inspiration?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I actually tend to uh, uh, look at it from a slight. I see that learning is all around you. You're learning from your colleagues, you're learning from the people that you work with, you're learning from your customers. You're learning by doing active learning and looking at reading, uh, stuff that matters to you. So I think learning is all around you. And honestly speaking, this whole uh, I think it's a previous generational notion that learning used to happen within schools and colleges. I think learning happens in life schools and colleges is this places for you to learn at, much like work is a place for you to learn at. So the best way to kind of do is to kind of really embrace that learning part and go embrace learning. So I think in technology or with everything else, for me it's personally also been able to shift roles. Earlier I was a technology builder to. Becoming a founder requires you to adapt, uh, and require new skills from your understanding consumers to being able to interact with them, to be able to ah, uh, make them see the value of your products and to help you design how those products will manifest. So I think I've had to pick up a few skills. They all required active learning on my part. But the important part of it is that um, understanding that to learn something you've got to like something. That's, that's the bit that you've got to. So the first part of it is that if you resist it, learning is always going to be hard. If you start liking the things that you do, I think learning becomes a lot more easier because then your uh, learning feels like fun, work feels like play. And I've always tried to look at work from that aspect. Hey, it's an extension of the play that we do in our life.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: And so if you do that, things become a lot more easier for you to, uh, do. In fact, that's the reason a lot of the games today where we pick up new skills, they make it fun for you to play. And so it's very important for you to embrace that sense of fun around learning. Personally, I have indexed on, uh, I follow a bunch of people both on Twitter, uh, I read a bunch of articles, I read books by the Russan. It's gone down a little lesser these days. But, um, but I think there's all different places where I kind of do that, that, that really helps me, uh, pick up my learning. And learning has also got to be an active space when you talk about learning. Learning can't just be consumption with. The best way to learn is to practice. So even when you read about something, even if something piques your interest, the best way to kind of do it is to actually put it in practice and maybe try out a small project for yourself. For me, Saturdays and Sundays are really about the tinkering on new things that I've picked up and trying out small, different projects. They might not see the light of day, but it helps me learn about a particular topic, whether it's on marketing, whether it's on sales, where I'm talking to someone, whether it's on design, where I'm trying out a few things, or whether it's on a new tech, where I'm trying out a new library. So I think it's all a piecemeal of whether I can think around with things and learn about.

Speaker A: Learn to love learning. I think that's such a cool way to look at it because for many people the idea of learning is sitting down with books and reading everything. But I think that what really resonates with what you said for me is that what works for someone else may not be fun for you. Someone else may like to read, you may like to listen to podcasts, or someone else may like to do courses and you may like to go to networking events. So just as you would do testing for your landing pages, do testing for your own learning and see what really excites you and follow that path. I really like that approach. But Barry, let's move on to one last thing before we wrap up because we're almost out of time. At the end of every episode, I like to do a few rapid fire questions. So I'll hit you with these and just try to keep your answers short and sweet and don't overthink it. Just whatever comes to mind first. Awesome. Well, first one off the list is if you could go back in time to before you started Mason, what advice would you give to yourself?

Speaker B: Um, I'll just say that, uh, focus a lot more on talking, uh, more to customers. I think, uh, 100 is still not enough. I think it's basically getting a lot more understanding of customers. That's what I would say.

Speaker A: Yeah. You mentioned before that you read a lot of articles, you follow a lot of people on Twitter, but what is your number one resource if you were to share this with the audience?

Speaker B: Number one source off. Uh, I, I didn't catch the question.

Speaker A: Your number one resource, like whether it's a book you've read or a podcast you listen to or someone you follow, who's your. Yeah, who or what is your number one source of information? Yeah.

Speaker B: So I'll say. Well, Hooperman is somebody who I listen to quite a lot, uh, on the podcast side, um, on the reading of content and following content these days because, uh, in the AI space, there's a ton of content being put out there. Karpathi's content is really excellent. It is said he put out how to build out the GPT2, and that's really superb content that he writes out there. And there's a few more people that I follow on, uh, AI blogs, but that list can go on. I, ah, have like a whole list out there. So if you want, I can share it out and maybe you can share it over with folks in your network, uh, and put it out here.

Speaker A: Yeah, send it to me afterwards and I'll put it in the show notes. Last question, Barry, is if you could give one final piece of advice to entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their businesses or even just to grow themselves on a personal level, what are your final words of wisdom?

Speaker B: I'd say keep it fun, keep it light. I mean, life is all about also enjoying as you build things, uh, enjoying as you get to your success. The best way to do it is to keep it fun. So make learning, whether it's learning, building or launching, keep it fun for yourself. And I think the rest fall in place.

Speaker A: Hell yeah, man, I love that. That's awesome. If someone wants to chat to you, learn more about Mason or just your journey, how can they connect?

Speaker B: I'm on LinkedIn. Uh, I sometimes post out there. I'm on Twitter. Uh, so you can hit me up on both of those. Uh, so, yeah, I think hit me up on those.

Speaker A: Beautiful. Well, Mary, thank you so much for joining me today. It was awesome to chat about not just Mason but your whole entrepreneurial journey and I really appreciate the way that you look at the world and the importance of having balance and fun. I think that that is something that we often forget because we're so focused on growth and money and just getting to that next level. So it is a nice refresher to hear that.

Speaker B: Uh, thank you. Thank you Evan for having me. It's great chatting up with you and I'd love to talk again.

Speaker A: No thank you. Let's do uh it. Thank you mate. And to everyone listening, thank you for tuning in. Obviously subscribe if you haven't already and if you have someone you think would really benefit from hearing Barry talk or someone who you think could experiment with Mason as a platform to see if that helps their conversion rate, send this episode to them. And thanks again for tuning in. Thanks for tuning into the Megaminds podcast.