SaaS Dads S2/E14: He Quit Amazon to Build With His Wife… Now They're Raising Two Kids and Multiple SaaS Products

Raheem: Our kids are growing into, in some ways a very hard environment where they're going to be competing with these things which are going to be magnitude is smarter than them. November and early December 2024 is when I decided that I'm just going to quit and work full time with Rohin on this. Uh, and it's been, it's been a very interesting journey since then having, I don't regret every, any bit of it. Her mom was given three months to live. Two and a half months later we were married.

Gary: If parent is hard, good, good job. Means you care about it, I think. Welcome to SAS Dads, where we scale SaaS without sacrificing family. All right, so welcome back for another SAS Dads. And we are here today with Canal Jorah. How are you, mate?

Raheem: I am very well, Gary, thanks for having me. How are you?

Gary: Very good, mate. Now people, I would say people do know who you are, but probably know your wife a bit better because your wife is normally in the front and center a bit more Raheem. Um, and you guys run Brand Pod and I had a conversation about this before. You're the brains behind the Brand Pod. She's the beauty up the front. I know you're coming up, doing a little talking.

Raheem: She's the brains and the beauty. Like that and the beauty. She's the brains.

Gary: Very good, mate. Um, so Brand Pod and you have a few things on there which we can talk about in a minute. But you Two also have two children. So you've got a little boy who's 11 and a little girl who's eight and a half.

Raheem: Yes, we, our hands are full. Two.

Gary: Yeah. So your hands are full. You've got two kids, both working together, building. Not one sass. You've got multiple sass. Building a brand, building, building products, looking after clients, team, all those things. Let's talk about how we do it, mate, because this is what we're about.

Raheem: Right? Yeah.

Gary: What does a typical day look like for you running your business as you run it at the moment?

Raheem: So it's actually, uh, an interesting question because my day looks actually very different from Rohin over the last couple of weeks. Our days are similar, but typically I tend to get up. I either tend to get up much earlier than her or I tend to work late night. So my typical day would be wake up, help with, uh, get the kids up, uh, both of us help get them ready, ship them out to school for the day and then usually we'll have um, a stand up call with the team and then both of us will get into whatever we're doing. My day would be looking at some new thing that I'm adding to either Rampart or Haiti by. Or one of the new things that I started, which is security. I have one of those things. And so most of my day just goes with either doing some tech architecture or adding new features, looking at, reviewing some code. We have a couple of developers on our team as well, reviewing their code. And then eventually we get to around four when the two little monsters come back. Becomes a little harder to work after that. And so we. Yeah, so you try and find. We put effort in trying to find some time to spend with them and then it's dinner and kind of wrap up. Spend some time with each other talking about. We try not to talk about work, but so far we have failed. I would say nine and a half out of ten times. About.

Gary: That's really hard. What else do you talk about when you're like, you're working together, you've got kids together, you spend so much time together. There isn't actually a lot outside of that because what else have you done? Your day is. Me and my wife, we don't work together. She has her own business, I've got my business. But we get up in the morning, same thing. It's like dealing with our son, getting him off to school. One of us will drop him off and then one of us will pick him up and then we come home and then we're at home. So we're dealing with dinner and then how was your day? And you just want to talk about work because there's not a lot else has happened generally. But that's. That's adult life. Right? That's adulting.

Raheem: I know, but it's not very exciting. Adulting isn't exciting. It's the routine. You just keep doing the routine and trying to keep getting slightly better at doing the routine. And that's pretty much it.

Gary: I think that's it. But also, like, I take a bit of a viewpoint on it with adulting and go. But I made this. At the end of the day, like, you talk about kids. We chose to have a kid. Nobody made us. And it wasn't an accident. We actually tried really hard to have our child. We went through years of IVF and all kinds of things. Right. So a very definitive decision. Um, so I always try to remember that when he's driving me crazy, because, I mean, love him to death. He is a good kid. Kids are kids. Right. Uh, always try to remember that. And our businesses we built our businesses. No one put us into this position. We've done that to ourselves. So there's always a time to step back, I feel, and just reflect there's no one to blame for this but me. You've got to take ownership of the whole thing.

Raheem: Right?

Gary: If you can do that, then you just go, that's how it is. I built this and if I don't like it then maybe I should build something else.

Raheem: Yeah. For me it was interesting because I was working at Amazon when um, so you know that we have another before brand part. We had Hedi y and I was still a, uh, senior software engineer at Amazon when I started coding. Hey, and that was an interesting year and a half. But I was doing two things. I had a full time job at Amazon and it was mornings, nights, weekends, which was heavy. And then November and early December 2024 is when I decided that I'm just going to quit and work full time with Rohin on this. Um, um, and it's been, it's been a very interesting journey since then having say, quitting a stable salary, everything. Every month you get a certain amount and it covers everything from there to, oh, we're just gonna jump head in to both of us working on the same thing. It's been a, uh, very interesting year and a half since I've quit. I don't regret every, any bit of it. There are times like, why did I do that? But if I had to do that all over again, I would do that almost exactly the same way. I have thoroughly enjoyed the year, uh, and a half of being my own boss or actually technically Raheem's the boss.

Gary: Is Raheem the risk taker? And are you the stability in the relationship? Is it, is that the dynamic? Or if you stayed in work for that stable paycheck, Raheem was already out there.

Raheem: It's sort of a mixed bag. Um, I think for different aspects, different. If for risk taking we, for different parts we take risk, that different person takes risk on those things. But overall I think we balance each other out really well. I tend to be more like, okay, yeah, everything's going to be fine eventually. She tends to be more of, we need to plan things out. Um, but there are times when it's the opposite. Yeah, let's just jump in and try this out and see what happens. She was completely on board when I decided to quit and just join fortnight. And to me that was slightly, um, amusing as well because I think the only, for me, the only, the one person That I thought would not be okay with me quitting a job. Was my own dad. And he was the most excited when I actually quit and just started working full time with this. He was like, this is fantastic, because my bad. My dad has his own. Had his own small business when he was working. He's been a dad a while, and so he was super happy when I finally couldn't. It's like, okay, I'm gonna do my own thing. And his thing is, I don't want you ever going back to a job. It's gonna be hard, but keep at, uh, it. And you'll eventually get to the other side.

Gary: Yeah, that means a lot when you've got support from, you know, your parents or family. Let's just go back a little bit, though, right? So let's go. I wanna go back a bit to more of the beginning of time, so to speak, for you and Raheem, because you both grew up in India. So you. You grew up in India and you moved to the states about 20 years ago. Roughly the two of you or not together, you move separately?

Raheem: Yeah, separately. Yeah.

Gary: So how old were you when you left India?

Raheem: So finally, the first time I went out of India for work was actually to Australia. I was working at GM Holden for about six months. I, uh, was 25 the first time I left. I think did her master's here from San Francisco, and she came in around, um, 2000. She also came to us around 2005. So both of us left India about the same time. Just opposite direction. She flew west. I flew east to Australia for about six, seven months.

Gary: Were you guys together then as a couple? You didn't know each other? This was separate.

Raheem: Okay, no. Yeah, separate ways. We actually met on a dating website.

Gary: Oh, okay.

Raheem: Yeah.

Gary: Yeah.

Raheem: Moved to us for. I used to work for an Indian software development software service company, Web Pro Technologies. And so I was part of the CRM group there. And it was always. You had to go on site to the customer site, so it would be either going to Australia somewhere in Europe or US and so it would always be go there for about six months, come back for another couple of months, and then back to some other plant. And then eventually I got tired of the whole back and forth between the two ends of the world and decided to find something in the Bay Area and found a job there and moved there. And that kind of set down. Set the whole thing of me actually meeting Ravine.

Gary: Okay, so you're in the Bay Area doing your job. She's in the Bay Area. Me and her doing her job. You both just happen to be from India. So I guess that's a pretty good common thing in place as well. You both sort of immigrants to a new country. So I think that's like me and my wife, we're both immigrants to Australia and I'm from England, she's from Ireland. So gives you some commonality. And I think people that have done that as well have, um, like common goals aligned. As in you just want to change something about your life, whatever it might be for the better, you call it for the better, but you go, hey, I feel like I want to do something different. So that gives you something really in common. And you mentioned you met on a dating app. Dating website. How long ago was that?

Raheem: Yeah, so we met in 2011.

Gary: Okay.

Raheem: M. And so we. It was weird. So I actually moved to the bay area in 2008. I was in the US back and forth for a few years before that. And she'd been based out of the area for a while. And it was weird how my. The apartment that I was staying in was just two blocks from her office and her best friend's boyfriend actually lived literally above my apartment. So it was one of those things where we've. I'm 100% sure we've crossed paths multiple times before we met. Never really noticed each other. We hung around, worked on the same area, but never really met till the Internet made us meet.

Gary: That's funny. I feel like I missed out on the whole Internet dating thing because I met my now wife in 2002. I think it was when we first got together and we actually just celebrated our 17 year anniversary. Wedding anniversary this weekend. Just gone. So we married for 17.

Raheem: Thank you.

Gary: So married for 17 years. We were together for eight years before this must be 2001. Actually, I think that we met 2001, 2002, give or take. Um, she'll know. Internet dating and all that was just coming out at that time. The Internet was just. The Internet was a thing and people were just figuring out what to do with it. And Internet dating was a thing. And chat rooms and stuff. Like people, oh, this is all a bit weird. And Internet dating was still deemed as a little bit strange then. It's what you're going to meet someone online and go for a date. Or they could be a serial killer or a nutter or ax you into pieces. Pieces or something. And um, now it's just that's. That is how people meet and how people date. We did it the old fashioned way. Went to a bar and got drunk. Now you just meet people and arrange a day, which I think has got, I think has got really good qualities to it personally, is that you can put it out there and say, hey, this is who I am. This is what I want. This is what I'm looking for. These are the things I like. And you can match up rather than meeting random people in bars just going, hey, you look nice, fancy a drink kind of thing. That's the way that you used to work out. I actually really think Internet dating is a really cool thing and it's so common now. I'd say yeah, that's how pretty much everybody meets now online at this point.

Raheem: I don't think I, the group that I, we hang out, uh, with, I don't think I know anyone who has not met or who's met the old fashioned way. I have friends from India who met the old fashioned way. They're this spouse the old fashioned way. But everyone that I meet right now, everyone's. Yeah, we met on, we met on Tinder or Match or something else. And everyone seems to be. That seems to be the de facto way that people meet now.

Gary: Yeah. And so you guys have met online, you're dating in San Francisco area. All your family still back in India? Do you have any family in the US at that time or even at this time now?

Raheem: All of my family is back in India. I have a cousin sister that I'm very close to who lives up here in Seattle. All of my family is back in India. Rohin has some extended family that's in the Bay Area or East coast parts of us. Our dad's back in India.

Gary: Okay. That's definitely a challenge growing up. Well, getting married, then having kids and you miss that family support, right? You don't have any of that.

Raheem: You do. We do that. That. We used to go back home once a year. At least once a year with kids and the age that they are in at, uh, it just becomes hard because the time difference is so horrible at this point that it takes the kids 10 days to get over their jet lag. And so then there's always that a little bit of push and pull between. Well, this like one side says, well, we didn't get to spend as much time as the, with the kids this time, then the other side. So yeah, we also didn't get. So they all of that happened. So it is hard. But, um, that part is hard. Not having family around and not having that support. It is hard.

Gary: Yeah. So when you got, did you get married back In India, did you go back because you got more family there or did you get married in the States?

Raheem: We actually had a ceremony at both places. So when we met. So I said that we met on the dating website, but our courtship was very short. When we met, Rohin's mom, uh, was actually very sick. She had been diagnosed with stage four cancer that metastasized. So a week after we met, like our first date, a week after that, her mom was given three months to live. And so it was like, yeah. Her point was like, I don't think I'm mentally in a frame to date somebody and be in a relationship. And my side was like, if our mom doesn't have that much time, maybe we should see if we can get things done quickly. So we met and then two and a half months later we were married. So we had the first ceremony here in the U.S. so her mom could attend that. And then I was very close to my grandmother. She was old and she couldn't travel. So then a month later we flew back to India and we had another wedding ceremony over there. So we got married twice.

Gary: You actually did the full ceremony? Both.

Raheem: We did the full ceremony. Okay. Twice. Yeah.

Gary: Yeah. Nice. Me and my wife did a similar thing. So we got married in Australia because all our, uh, friends here, like, we've been here for a long time, so that's where all our friends were. But my wife, being Irish, has a massive extended family of cousins and uncles and aunties and stuff in Ireland. So we went back to Ireland and I have a very small family. So we went to Ireland because she has a massive family there. And my small family came over to Ireland and we didn't do a ceremony, but we just did a big party basically and we put on the wedding clothes again and just had a big party with everyone there. So we didn't get married twice, but we had two parties, which was pretty cool. Um, so that was good.

Raheem: We ended up having the full thing on both sides, the full ceremony, the rituals, everything. First in the U.S. in San Francisco, and then a month later flew back to Delhi where most of my family is there. And so we didn't get the whole ritual, ritualistic ceremony all over again.

Gary: Does India do the like the three day wedding ceremony with like the whole

Raheem: five day wedding ceremony? It's not.

Gary: It goes on a bit.

Raheem: You have so many pre parties to the actual party, right? And it's always so my family is from Delhi, but they're like part Punjabi, part Rajasthani and the whole Punjabi part of that is that they are very loud. So my extended family is very loud and they love having a good time. And so typical Indian Punjabi weddings are like, you have four or five different parties before the actual wedding ceremony, and then there's another reception right after that. So we did the whole thing. We didn't do all of that in. In the US we just did the, um, wedding ceremony. And then the same night we had the reception thing. But when went back to Delhi, I. Extended families get. We're gonna. This is the first. I was the first guy on my slide to get married in a very long while. So they were like a large part of the family was. Had been waiting, okay, we're gonna wait for the next one, the next generation to start getting married. And so it was. They've been waiting for a while and they didn't want to give up the whole chance to have a big fat Indian wedding. So, yeah, it was like three, four days of different functions, different parties. It was fun.

Gary: Uh, uh, I know just the two parties we had were great fun. That's two days. So I can imagine every four or five days it would be just heaps of fun to hang out with everybody. It's really good. Everybody's there to see you and congratulate you. It's really nice. Like mini celebrities for a little while.

Raheem: You are. In some ways it's great. In some ways, I can't wait for this to be over because for the wedding ceremony, you're basically standing up. I don't know if you've seen or been to an Indian wedding. You're just standing at a stage and then there's this whole line of people who walk up to you and you stand there, you smile, get a picture taken and they walk away. And the next person can. And the next person after. Sometimes, okay, I'm just gonna go to the dance floor or go get something to eat or drink. You guys can take a picture by yourself.

Gary: It's like the red carpet treatment pretty much. Uh, so you got married and you had the discussion. Obviously you want to have kids, so you've got. You've got two kids. How was fatherhood for you? What sort of things did you guys think about when you were going to have kids?

Raheem: When we first got married, we. It was. We didn't really think about having kids right away. So zeal was just happened. Our boy happened. But then our daughter was very much planned. And Rohin's grown up as a single child. I have a younger brother and then large extended family, very close cousins. So I'VE grown up in a large family and she's. I don't want our kid to grow the same way that I. It becomes a little lonely not having a sibling. And I was like, siblings are overrated. They keep having the fight all the time. It's like, there's a lot of levels, so. But there's lots of fighting also. But we were. Once we had the first one, we were very sure that we were going to have a second one as well. So we had Zeal and then, okay, we're gonna wait for a couple of years, three years, and then have, uh, the second one. So we waited. That was funny. It was in Zeal's second birthday, he was like. We asked him, what do you want for your birthday? I want a baby sister. And we ended up having a girl. So he got his birthday wish as a younger baby sister, and that's how just spend that. And it's been, um. He asked me, how has fatherhood been for me? And when Zeal was born, actually, Rohin bought this little block for me which said, fatherhood, it's the hardest job that you're ever gonna love. And I think those words are very true. It is hard, but it's also. There are times and you have a boy, there are times when it's like, I don't know what's wrong with my child. Why can't they just be like a regular person? And then there are, uh, times like, okay, I have the most angelic child in the history of children. And so it's a see saw between that. But it is. I wouldn't change it. I get frustrated. But then I wouldn't change this experience. It's been the most fulfilling experience so far.

Gary: Yeah, I think it's one of the. It's such a big job as such a big job. And there's.

Raheem: I don't.

Gary: I don't know. There are other things you can do, obviously, but it's one of them. Biggest things you can do. To grow as a human is to manage, grow and guide another human into life, basically, and then through that life, right. If you are conscious around it, some people just have kids and then just whatever. There's not everybody. There's people that just don't take it seriously in some way.

Raheem: Right.

Gary: They just kind of go, yeah, just kids, whatever, throw them around. But, um, yeah, if you really are focused on it. And I think I read this the other day. It said, um. What was it they said? They said, if parenting is hard, if you're finding parenting hard, that Means you're doing a good job because you're actually working at it. Right. There's nothing in this life that doesn't take hard work to get a reward from.

Raheem: Right?

Gary: Building a business, building a company, building your SaaS, managing a team. All those things are hard work because you want them to be done well. So if parenting is hard work, it means that you're putting in the effort because you want it to be done well. Whatever that means for you as a parent. Right? But it means that you're actually consciously trying really hard. So if parent is hard, good. Good job means you care about it.

Raheem: I think you're doing it right. I keep saying this. Um, that for me, it was like the day I hear my child say, I hate you, it's like, that's validation that I'm doing the right thing, that that's fine. At some point, they'll say it. And if they say it, at some point, that means I'm doing the right thing. Yeah.

Gary: At this point in the time when they love you by bedtime.

Raheem: Exactly. I was just having a. I hate your conversations. My daughter, she's. Okay, I need to wash your hair. You need to get into the showers. No, you told me that. I told you that you need to wash my hair yesterday, but you weren't there. So now I am hungry. I was like, you have to get it done, otherwise you're not getting your donut that you're waiting for. I hate you. That's like, okay, that's fine. We'll talk about five minutes later. Washing her hairs. Daddy, you are so sweet. And this is. It just happens all the time.

Gary: Every other day, my son says. I said, okay, cool, man. I said, I always just say, cool, mate. I still love you, so let's get this done. Yeah, that's what I say every time he says. I go, come on, still love you. Let's get it done. Let's move on. Um, how do your kids get on? You said earlier about Raheem was a single child, you had siblings, and she was saying, oh, I didn't want. I want our child to grow up the same way I did because it's a little bit lonely, and your, like, siblings are a bit overrated. I can relate to that because we have one child, and that's through choice, but almost an enforced choice in a way for us, because it was a very long journey for us to have our son, uh, through ivf. And by the time we'd got him, had him, we've been through so many rounds of ivf, we could have gone again, but it looked like I was 42 by the time my son was born. So I was like 42. There's no way I'm starting this again. Right now I need at least a two to three year break, so that makes me 45. Um, my wife then was 38, I think. Yes, she'd be 30, 38, 39 by the time he was born. She's the one emotionally, you both go through it, but she's the one who's physically gone through all the treatment, everything as well. So, uh, emotionally I didn't want to go through it physically. I didn't want her to have to go through everything again. So we made the choice to go, hey, we're just not doing this again. We're going to stop here. Be thankful for the one that we've got because it's taken us so long to get here. But, uh, I see that with our son and we talked about it. Would you like a sibling? And he says yes because he does get a bit lonely sometimes. You become the playmate as the parents, basically. But mostly that's me because he's a boy, so he wants to hang with me. But again, siblings can be a bit overrated. Um, I don't have a great relationship with my sister. My wife is away from her. She's got two brothers. It's not like they're hanging out all the time. So how do your kids get on? Are you managing a good relationship between them?

Raheem: They have a fantastic. They absolutely love each other to death. They will, they'll have their moments where they're going to fight and shout at each other or throw something, have a physical fight, whatever. But they absolutely love each other. So zeal was because he always wanted a, uh, baby sister. He has been very protective of her sometimes to the point is, okay, you're not her dad, don't be a dad. Just you're an older brother. Just stick to your job of being an older brother. It's okay to tease her at times. So now that he's getting to his pre tweens, um, there's more of that where he's gonna pull her leg and do that. But he's very love search that and is very protective of her. On the other side, Kaya, she sort of hero worships him. So anything that he's doing, she's got to do that. She was never into video games. He got into video games. Now, uh, she's in the video game. She was never into soccer. He got into soccer. Now she's into soccer so she kind of hero worships him. They have absolutely love, adore each other.

Gary: Have you worked at that relationship with them and for them as well to kind of let them know that, hey, this is your sibling, this should be your friend as well. You guys have got to get on because you're going to be there for each other.

Raheem: Yeah, a little bit. We have told them, um, this thing that you'll have friends in other best friends or whatever, but nobody's going to be there for you like your sibling is. There is this whole experience that you go through life which only your sibling is going to understand, especially around your parents, grandparents, which friends and other people not and best friends and stuff. They, if you're lucky, you'll get an actual best friend that kind of is a true friend and sticks with you, but you'll always have your siblings. So, um, we've told that but I don't think we've needed to push that message too hard on them. They've just, right from the very beginning they've just been, they've had a very close bond and that just continues to grow. They're always trying to involve each other with stuff that they do. There are times when they need a break, like all people need break from other and even that they're close to, but for the most part they want to do stuff together.

Gary: Okay, and do your kids understand they're like eight, uh and a half and eleven old enough to understand the Internet and things that are going on. Do they get not involved as in working in your business, but they involved in a way that they understand what you guys are doing and building a, uh, little bit.

Raheem: Yes. More so now. So last level of when we went to Dallas, we took both kids with us. We don't have family here, so it can't leave them. Both of us had to be there, so we took both of them. Gaia actually was at our booth. We had a booth. So she was at the booth from 10 in the morning to 9pm every day. She got tired at the end, but she was a trooper. She would go around, try and pull people in, ask them what they needed, then hand out flyers, take a picture with them. So she actually got a lot of people into our booth. Our son at that point was more sitting in the room playing video games all day long. But now he's more interested in what we do. He's our uh, pseudo in house tester. So he goes through a lot of. When we add new features to Brandbot, it's Easy to hand it over to him. And, okay, he has an account, so he's going to play around with it, see what he understands, what he doesn't. And so we get a little bit of feedback. So both of them understand what we're doing right now with the software being a software offering as a SaaS product. And so it is. It's nice that they understand what they're doing and they're showing more interest in being involved in that part.

Gary: That's awesome. So you literally try and make it child's play for your system, and it is simple to use. I've played with your software, been on some courses with you guys, and run through Brandify, your new one, and how that works, and you can reach out for podcasts, you can set up all your branding, get your brand voice, all of that stuff. Like, it's a really cool thing. We've talked to Raheem before, and we have webinars with her about it. So you guys are building some really cool stuff, uh, people, because we're in this world now of AI, and I talk about this quite a bit as well. I agree with you guys and Raheem and the philosophy that you guys have around that personal brand. I think it's really important in this space of AI now, is it going to keep being. I don't know. I believe it will. Don't know. Nobody knows who knows what's going on? Like, all these videos are becoming more and more realistic and all that stuff right now. But I feel personally that that human connection and that human touch is still really valuable, and people want to know who is behind something, and you guys are helping people to do that with the products you're doing. Um, so. So with that building your vibe coding, you're in the AI space. Where do you see all of that going with AI and the fact that you guys are doing the same thing as well and focusing towards a personal brand, but also pushing AI at the same time? Because I know you do a lot of that with vibe coding. And, yeah, it's a dichotomy, right?

Raheem: It is, it is. I just want to go back to your point on. Before I answer this about, um, that human touch. I think it's even more important today than it has been that human connection that you have with other people. Because like you said, with AI, it's so easy to just mass produce content and then push it out everywhere. Some of that is good content. A lot of that is slop. But people, more and more people are craving for a genuine Human connection. Because as it becomes, as AI becomes better and that video and the voice and the content looks more and more like it's been. It sounds human. Um, the problem that I see that's going to happen with that is even regular stuff that's just written by human will, people will start assuming that it's AI generated content. And so there will be. I, I see that there will be AI fatigue for a while. There's a lot of excitement with stuff that's happening and that'll go up and then there'll be AI fatigue because everything, everyone's going to just get bombarded with only AI generated stuff, and they'll create that human connection and there'll be a backlash. We'll go back to. And that's where the whole personal branding piece comes at. Um, what we do with AI and personal branding, as much as it sounds like a dichotomy, is that we're not trying to replace you at all. In fact, we don't want to replace you as your story. What you've done, the why behind what you do is important and people need to know about that. And so we are providing, using AI as tools to help you get that message out. And I'll give you a personal example of that as the story GPT, which right now it's a custom GPT. We're pushing it into the platform where basically have a conversation and it helps you extract your story. That has been really popular with people because a lot of people like, okay, I didn't know that was pretty deep. And those messages that are coming out, we're helping the amplifier. Um, we're using AI to amplify that. The outreach of that. We're not replacing your message with AI. Ah, versus using AI to bring more of your personality and your story into everything that you push out. Even. I'll take an example with, um, what we do with podcast outreach. Typically, what you'll see with AI generated emails is it'll just be, hey, this is what I do. I'd love to be on your podcast. Whatever, it's all about me. What we're doing is because we go through or make you go through this process of understanding your own story and extracting everything that matters to you. We're then having an organic connection between some part of you that resonates with that particular podcast host. And then that's where the whole email pitch comes from. And while it's AI generated, we were very strong proponents of. You guys need to review and then make sure that your personality is still in there. And we bring, we have tools that brings that personality in, but that's how we're pushing it out. So that's how we're making it work right now.

Gary: Yeah, so it's like using AI to optimize what you're doing and improve it and not replace it at the end of the day. Um, which is, which is a distinct difference at the end of the day. But it's certainly helped to speed up things as well. And then I know you're big on this as well, because there's a lot of vibe coding going on. That's the thing at the moment. Right. And I see so many people, they're vibe coding this and I'm coding that. A lot of the time I see it, I was like, okay, that's great, but are, uh, you getting customers from it or doing anything? And security, that's a big thing as well. And I know that you're big on that. Like the security people vibe coding these things, but not considering what are security risks, the security holes of all that, how do we manage that stuff with all this AI vibe coding, and that's

Raheem: docked at a couple of places at Filter Tool for helping with that also. But it is, uh, that security part is a thing that I've been passionate about for a very long time. When I was at Amazon, Amazon has an internal. You would think that all software engineers at Amazon Google would know about security. They don't. Super majority of them, they just write code like everyone else writes code. So they had an internal, um, program called Security Certifier. It was a volunteer thing. You would volunteer, you would get trained. You were responsible for certifying internal Amazon services. Anything that, if you buy something, an internal volunteer Security Certifier has gone through and checked everything in that app, uh, code to make sure that service is secure enough and can handle the scale and keep the customer data safe. So I've just been passionate about. It's a very interesting topic, but I've also just been passionate about how that part is known by so few that people don't consider it. And white coding in general just uses insecure code. And the reason for that is that it's just been trained on billions of lines of code written by people who did not write secure code. So it's optimized for you direct to do something. It's just optimized to generate code quickly versus generate secure code quickly. And so it's very. Today it's security is even more critical because the barrier to create something like just take an idea and execute on it and create some tangible output and app of from that is so low today you could do most mini apps over a weekend. But the barrier to having something that's secure and will run the way it's supposed to run every time has never been higher because of that. And it's not that these people who are white coding are intentionally creating insecure apps, it's just you don't know what you don't know and so you're not, that's not something that you're an expert and you're not going to think of those things. And so it's super, super critical for people who are white coding before they push that out and start gathering customer information to have somebody, even if it's cloud code or something like that, just ask it to do a uh, security review. But before you launch it's very critical to have somebody who knows or has dealt with security do a quick review of your app and see where it is.

Gary: What about. I, uh, don't want to turn this into a full clawed code security test, but I've got here so I'm going to ask you the question. There's agents that you can put into Claude code for all kinds of things and even like for pen testing, but people don't know what that is like penetration testing. Like a security expert will go in and test your code and try to hack into it. So there is claude code agents that are trained on pen testing. So um, but they're separate. Right? So that's a separate expert. Do you think that they're any good if you bring those in and then put them into your app to.

Raheem: Right, they are. I and I highly recommend anyone who's using cloud code, especially because cloud code, the way it's designed with the whole skills is if you create a skill for let's say just looking at security issues that are prevalent in UI code and then have a separate one for database and APIs. And then like you said, a pen test skill plot code will automatically take care of calling those at the right point in your workflow. Um, and, and they are really useful. They will help you get from no security to added security. Um, the thing that I talk about with the security is that there's no such thing as an unhackable app. Doesn't exist, never will. Given enough time, every single app can be hacked. What you do with these layers is just you're adding multiple layers and what you're doing is making it not worth somebody's while. To spend the time in trying to break into your app. And so to your point, with cloud code, if you just search for security skills, you'll find a bunch of open source repositories with some skill over there. And you should absolutely start with that. What I still say is that it's not a substitute unless you have somebody on your team who knows a little bit about security. It's not a substitute for human review. And ah, the reason for that is like I use cloud code every single day. I've done that for the last almost year. And what happens is I'll tell it, follow these principles and write code and I'll write that code. When it first starts writing that code, it actually follows that and after some time it's going to stop following that. But if I don't ask it, have you done this correctly? It'll just say yeah, everything's fine. And that part hallucination, context rod thing that happens where it's answers correctly so confidently for such a large percentage of time that when it confidently says something false, you just assume that it's correct. And that's where the human review comes in. You should absolutely still use these things. And then it'll get you from like when we have a tool that creates the security of your app, uh, from A which is perfect to F and you failed. So it'll get you from F to D or a C and then from that B to A is some is the place where you would want to engage somebody who knows something about security or a software engineer who's been working on this for a while. And so that just using those skills will get you from F to B plus. And that last mile you can have a human quickly review it and get that done and just have a safe app to launch with.

Gary: Yeah, it's an incredible time where we've got like the smartest tools on earth that are actually really dumb. And what I mean by that is I'll use a simple example for I'm not heavily into coding. I use AI for various things.

Raheem: Right.

Gary: One of the things I've used it for a lot lately is to build presentations. So I've taken old presentations I've done and I'm putting them into menace and saying, hey, make this better. Here's our brand codes. It's got a nice style and it's putting them out. But once it's done the presentation I'll go through it and then go, uh, okay, these are the changes I need to make. So I've got five changes for you to make on slide one, replace that image there. On slide two, you need to update the heading to this. On slide three, do that. Slide four, do that. Slide five, do that. Whatever it might be, go. And then 10 minutes later, it says, here you go, it's done. And again, it's very confident. It says, hey, it's done, but I have to go back and review it. And so many times you'll go back and go, hang on a minute. I told you on slide two to replace that image with this image. And it hasn't done it. So you go back, you go, all right, slide two and three, you didn't do the things I told you to do. Please go and do them. And it will go back and it will change. Oh, you're absolutely right. I missed that. Sorry. Let me do it again. So that's what I mean by.

Raheem: Right. Yeah.

Gary: And that's what I mean by it's so smart but so dumb at the same time that we still have to check it. And I find that in some ways I get some work done so much faster than I could personally, but also gives me a whole bunch more work because I have to micromanage and check my AI so I can have it running doing all these things. But yeah, I've got to go back

Raheem: and check it all that. That is so true in that you get a lot more done, but you also get a lot more work with that. The problem people who get just a lot done and don't get more work are the ones who are not going back and verifying that what it hasn't done, what it said it's done, the verification. It's almost like you have a very smart person with ADHD and they'll just forget about what they were supposed to do. And they'll do what they do. They do what they. When they were doing it correctly, they do it brilliantly, and then they forget what they're doing, and then they'll do a bunch of other things. And yeah, I'm done, but they're not. And I, uh, I keep saying trust but verify. And you're going to have to continue more and more of that with AI. Trust but verify it is. We do live in extremely interesting times. And what AI uh can do and then what it just forgets to do.

Gary: Yeah. And it's changing all the time. And, uh, at some point it will get better and then it will grab all that instruction. It'll be. It will get better and better over time. Right. And what we've seen it change in the last few months to where it is today is an incredible leaps. Right. So who knows what it'll be like in 12 months, two years, three years, five years.

Raheem: Right.

Gary: We actually just really don't know. Um, does that give you concern for your children's future? We used to have kids and what we used to. I haven't had kids before, but traditionally parents have kids. Okay, you, they go to school, they learn skills at school with the idea of going into a trade or a profession or whatever that might be. I don't know what the future looks like for my son anymore. Do you think about that for your kids? What do you think they're going to do?

Raheem: We do all the time. We've had this conversation multiple times. I've had this with Rohin, I've had this with my best friend. His kids are about the same age as mine. And we're like, our kids are growing into in some ways a very hard environment where they're going to be competing with these things which are going to be magnitude smarter than them. And for us it, it was like, okay, you could do certain things if you had an aptitude for something and you would just do that. And your value in terms of the commercial viability comes from your skills around that. But now pretty much all, everything that we're doing, I will be able to take over. I had long discussions around what I think is the most critical skill that kids need to develop to still be able to be valuable in society 10, 15 years from now. And for me, I think it's a skill set that's always been relevant throughout history. This to me is the bigger impact than the Industrial Revolution. Tools came out and people used to do a ton of things manually and then tools came out and you had to be resilient. And critical thought and resilience is, in my opinion, going to be key for kids who actually survive and thrive in life versus kids who unfortunately end up having a very frustrating life because they're not there, isn't much for them to do and find that the satisfaction from work that most people get. And so for me, being resilient, being good at critical thought, and being resilient on being able to adapt quickly are, uh, in my opinion, two skills which are supremely critical for kids today.

Gary: Yeah, I would heavily agree with that because we've had the same conversation and I'm sort of, um, come to the same kind of conclusions as you, to be honest. Reading, writing, maths, coding, all that stuff's out. My son's 8 is in the same kind of age bracket as your kids. By the time he gets to high, by the time he gets to high school, he doesn't even know about this stuff right now. He has no idea what's capable at the moment. He just sees ChatGPT as something fun that he can describe a picture to and all these cool graphics for me, he plays with that a little bit. He has no idea of the capabilities of that stuff. If he did. He doesn't like school as he is. He's always saying he doesn't want to be at school. If he realized that there's all these things out there that could just write and answer all his maths for him, he could just take a photo of his maths exam and give it to Chat GPT and tell him all the answers. He would just be like, what am I doing? And I wonder about that too. I wonder about what is he doing? What is he doing at school in terms of the learning and the education system that we've got now? And I honestly think that the main thing he's doing is learning to be resilient and communication and around other people. That's what I think the main thing is that he's doing. And part of that will be like learning critical thinking, problem solving around people. That's the thing. I think he's actually at school for now, not for an education or a traditional education, so to speak. Uh, uh, I really wonder about that a lot of the time going, what is the point? He's doing exams and this, that and the other. Such a waste of time.

Raheem: I think over the next few years as AI takes over pretty much everything, the school curriculum, college curriculum, all of these things will also adapt. I think it's just, it's changing much faster than curriculum and other things can keep up. The change over there can keep up with how quickly technology is changing on AI front. And so they'll. At some point they will figure out how to change school curriculum to. Instead of keeping AI away, they can't keep AI away. Kids will have to learn how to use all of these tools. Otherwise they're just going to.

Gary: They've got to learn to use them. And one other thing as well that I think about, like critical thinking, but I think imagination, like encouraging that imagination. Because right now is the time for imagination. Right was before it's like imagination. Kids are drawing a little picture, go, what are you thinking about? Oh, imagining a forest with a tree and it's got gold apples on it and whatever. Now your imagination is just go in and describe something that you think that you want. It could be a picture, a song, a piece of software, whatever it is, you can go and describe that into AI and get something out. All right. Uh, so I think imagination, like encouraging that, fostering kids imagination is going to be super important because there's stuff that we haven't even thought about yet that's in some child's brain somewhere that they're going to come out with, like Facebook. Did you know, years and years and years ago, Zuckerberg thought about Facebook or alleged. Well, allegedly stole it from someone else's. Their idea or whatever. These ideas that people come up with, they'll be able to come up with ideas and implement them so much faster. And it's the idea that's going to be really important in the future, and then the way to actually implement that. And then depending on where AI is going to be, do you know which tools you've got to string together? Or is there one tool to rule them all that you can say, hey, board code, for example, I want to do this. And it will go away and it will pull in all the different tools that it needs to create the images, the graphics to this, the that, the code, spin it all up on servers.

Raheem: Will it?

Gary: I'm sure it will. At a point in time. I don't know when that will be. Yeah, but it will. At a point in time. Will we just have that one tool to rule them all? And there probably will be. There'll probably be several1 tools to rule them all. Google will have one, Facebook are going to have one, whatever it might be. So I don't think there'll be one over one overarching tool, but there'll be multiple tools that will be capable of doing everything. Should we call it? So, yeah, I think that's where we're

Raheem: going to go back to what you were saying about, um, imagination. And I've struggled with this thing that. I think you're right. I totally agree that cultivating that ability to be able to imagine stuff is going to be critical for these kids. The part that I struggle with is that I have personally found that I, when I'm away from technology is when I actually am creative, those ideas flow in when I'm away from technology. With how deeply technology and AI is going to be embedded in everything that our kids do, I wonder how, if they're going to be. It's going to be a much harder process for them to keep that imaginative side alive and grow it. When anything that they. That struggle, that is required to get that. So the way I see it, you need two things to be able to create. If you need space, empty. Empty space in your mind to be able to think about other things. And then you need to be able to struggle with ideas, try and do something. Struggle and make a tweak to it to really get to where you do a creative solution. And I just find that it's. I don't know how that's going to work with AI and technology being that deeply integrated with school curriculum and college and everything. And will they have the space or the opportunity to really disconnect and let that part of their brain really grow and work? And so I keep having those conversations between. Also, I m. Don't know how. What's the best way you can take the tech away from the kids? But today I've tried taking like, my son loves video games a little too much and he'll get involved that in. If I take it away. If you take it away. There's no way. All my. The way I interact with my friends, my. All my entire social life is just playing video games with my friends. And kids don't do anything. A lot of them don't overhear, especially in the US they interact with each other. That social bond is because they're playing video games outside of video games. They don't know what to do with each other. And so taking that deck away from them is in some ways good. But then it was like, I, uh. It'll become socially ostracized because he's not involved in those things. So he's going to start getting left out of things. And that's not what I want as well, but I don't know what the solution for that is.

Gary: No, I wish you did, because that's something. I know that we're heading towards that bridge quickly with our son because we don't let him have tech. Like, he has no iPad. Um, he has limited access to. Even to tv. He can't turn on the TV in our house. There's no remote control. It's all controlled off of my phone or my phone or my wife's phone. So he can't even turn the TV on in our house. Um, we will let him watch YouTube sometimes. Maybe if he's had a really big day at school, he comes back, he's knackered. Once he's done his little chores and made his lunch and stuff, then we go, all right, mate, look, you can sit and watch YouTube while we're making dinner. Just have some downtime. Um, but he has no, no access to do any of that himself. So we keep him off all of that. But exactly what you're saying. I know that time is coming because he's not massively unusual in his class. There are, there's a reasonable portion of other parents at ah, his uh, school or his school that have the same approach as us. The kids don't have iPads and stuff like that. They're keeping off it but uh, it's getting closer to the time where they are all going to be in that space and interact on games. They'll all be in there and that is their chat. And what do we do then? I uh, know and I hear what you're saying. It's like what do you do? I don't know the answer. Because you don't want to be ostracized at school. And if they're the only 1 or 80% of the school, the class are playing in these games and you're making your kid the odd one out, that's not great parenting either because then you'll get your ostracize them at school. So I wish you had the answer mate. If you figured out, let me know

Raheem: as soon as I, I set out everywhere because I think it's really important. It's a struggle for me as a parent. That's the biggest struggle that how do I manage this for my. Because there's in ways that exactly how you guys are. There no screens at all for our kid. But he was going to this preschool where every single other kid had an iPad and they were playing video games. And so there were times when he would come back and he would be a little sad like what happened? Where are you sad? You didn't have a good day? No, I was sitting myself like why wasn't anyone playing with you? Because they were playing video games. Okay.

Gary: I actually Playing video games at school.

Raheem: Yeah, at, at preschool they were. They would play a little bit and then in the evening when they were uh, would bring them back or a weekend if they wanted to hang out together. All of these other kids would be hanging out with the parents but the kids would just be on their iPad or the parents phone and our son would be just be walking around or be by himself because we didn't give him an iPhone or a phone to play on. And so it was hard. I get the um. Especially because we don't have family here. So it's. We don't have that support and I get that thing from parents that it's been a Long day. I just need a little bit of break. And so if I throw the kid in front of the iPad or the TV for a little bit.

Gary: The digital babysitter.

Raheem: Yeah. Yeah. But it's. I wish I could sometimes I feel, I wish we would have stuck with that for longer, but I don't know if you would have had any friends if you'd have stuck with that for longer because every other kid was doing that and he was feeling a little left out. And I'm uh, glad that there are more parents like that in their son's school who are following the same thing. I would my advice, as long as you can stick it with no tech. But then also, once he does get into it, stay away from Roblox. Yes. Yeah, stay away from Roblox.

Gary: That's what I've heard. And yeah, I'm glad it's a conversation at least at uh, uh, our school in we have like little group chats, WhatsApp group chat in the class and all that. And it's a conversation in there that's happening and I think people are becoming more aware of it and yeah, it just, it isn't good for them. It's not good. Definitely not good at that young age. I don't think to be getting in there because they lose their imagination. I spend too much time on YouTube shorts right of an evening I can be like, there's half an hour gone on YouTube shorts. They've got Tick tock brain. It's not good for us and we know that. And it's so hard to pull yourself off it when you get into the rabbit hole. So if you don't know any better and you're young, you're just starting to train yourself into that, that shorts that YouTube brain basically, or TikTok brain.

Raheem: Yeah, there's this huge push here on the US, in US. Not everywhere, but a lot of schooling districts, um, have parents are pushing against. A lot of schools are saying that yeah, everyone has to have a laptop because that's where you're going to do all of your studying and everything. A lot of parents are pushing back on that debt now. We want to go back to the pre tech thing, the tech. It's okay to have tech as part of the curriculum, but not everything should happen on a laptop because a lot of. There's some research that I was reading on. More and more kids have shorter attention spans because they're addicted to these video games where their brains are being wired to be hyper focused for those 10 seconds, 15 seconds because that's what the video game demands. And then things change and then they have to concentrate on something completely different for hype. So they seem to be hyper focused for very short durations. But yeah, we have this thing called Del Mar Son. Why don't you go up and go do this? I'll go up and do one thing and come back and teach you everything. Yeah, what about this? You didn't tell me to do that. And he doesn't remember sometimes that because his brain's just been partially super smart.

Gary: AI.

Raheem: Yeah,

Gary: I did this one thing really well.

Raheem: Yeah,

Gary: yeah, that's, that's, that is a huge challenge in parenting. And there's no manual for this at all. There's no manual for parenting anyway. And then the stuff that we're going through at the moment for this, we just don't know when it's going and how it's going to affect them. We don't know again, if they, I think they can catch up on tech. I don't think it matters if they're not on tech until they're 14, 15. Yeah, they've got to be on it at some point. I think they can catch up with it that quickly. And it changes so rapidly anyway that if you don't, if you don't start on tech till they're 14, I think they'll be able to pick it up quickly enough anyway. And it's just uh, it's all different. Right. So they, they're not going to miss out by not being on it for a while from a, uh, education point of view. But what are they going to miss out on from a social point of view? Which sounds, uh, like a weird thing to say, but it's exactly what's happening with your son. Right. It's that social aspect that's a big part of their lives and it gives us stuff to talk about as well. They talk about my son, he doesn't have the games, but he knows all about Minecraft. We bought books. So he's got books about Minecraft. So he's read all about it. He'll watch some Minecraft videos. Like I said, Sometimes I watch YouTube and we'll let him watch. He'll watch someone playing Minecraft. So he knows a lot about it. And I know at school they play Minecraft at school in the playground, like imaginary Minecraft that they're building. Ah, whatever. So they'll talk about Minecraft at school. So at least that way we view it from a point of view that if he's watching some Minecraft Videos and he knows about it at least he's interacting. He can talk with the kids that have got access to Minecraft and he's got the right vocabulary around it. He knows what other things, whatever blocks and he knows all the terminology for the different types of stone and Firestone and this, that and the other. At least he can be engaged and involved in the playground play. But there's no, there's definitely no iPads and stuff like that in the playground at the school he goes to they're not allowed like through the whole school. They're not allowed devices through the day at school. They all have to be put away phone even for the older years they will have to be put away their phone smartwatches, they're not allowed any of that on during school hours at all which we really like basically at that school.

Raheem: That's ah it at his current school there there's no phones iPads allowed at all. So that was good. He just came back from a three day camp, the office and fifth grade. So all fifth graders part of the curriculum has had to go out for these three days. Two nice three days and there was no deck allowed at all. And it seemed to do him good. He was quite happy. Came back happier, less tech. Going back to video games as far as games are concerned Minecraft is one of those games which is actually I don't m mind him playing either of our kids playing Minecraft because it kind of fosters creativity. You're building a world, you're building something cool and so you come up with different ideas on how you're going to coordinate strategize with other players who are playing the game as well. That, that one I don't mind him playing but uh, Roblox is one thing that I'm like at uh this point completely dead against that. And that's my advice to every parent. If you're, if your child doesn't know what Roblox is, keep it that way for as long as you can.

Gary: If I've read things about Roadblocks and why shouldn't be in there. What's your opinion on why people shouldn't be letting their kids on Roadblocks?

Raheem: So I've read a few different things. I've actually seen this happen with my own son. There are games, most games are designed like that but Roblox is, it seems like Roblox games are specifically designed to be extra addictive for kids. They've also they're being sued for a bunch of things. One of the things which is really important for most parents is they don't have really good security practices around. There are instances where they've allowed, um, pedophiles to groom kids and meet them. Some kids have been hurt as well. And that to me is, ah, absolute unacceptable thing from any platform at all. So I, I'm not in favor of any platform which allows that. And they're being sued. They have multiple lawsuits against them in the U.S. i personally hope they do get, they go through and they do pay for what that, what they've allowed to happen on their platform. Um, so for me, it's the title games, it's Brain Mush games. There's nothing educate, educational in any of the games that I've seen the kids play. And I've seen, I've played with them and spent some time with them, but I've seen, I would say 15 to 20 different games. Not one of them is worth spending. Even a second one. It's just brainwash. Yeah, it shows up. They. He's aggressive, he's irritable, cranky. After being on Roblox, which I've never really seen him be like that on Minecraft or FIFA or something else. But every time he goes on Roblox, even for 30 minutes, it's complete. It's like a split personality and a completely different kid comes out who's just editable for a very long time after that.

Gary: Yeah, you want to keep your kids secure or safe and secure online and creative. Creative and imagination. Like we talked about before, these are the things that we've got to try and encourage in our kids today with this future that we're running towards quite quickly. All right, mate, well, thank you so much for catching up today. Um, if you got any, have you got any final words of wisdom that you would like to depart on SAS dads out there, on how we manage all these things, of running a business for you, working with your partner as well your wife, Raheem, managing the kids. Like any final departing words that you would like to pass on to SAS

Raheem: dads out there, I think all SAS dads know and strive to do that. But two things that I think my case might be slightly special because I work with my wife, we're running the same business, multiple businesses together, one for the kids. Uh, it's the same thing. You have to actively find time to spend just with them. I know it's. Everyone's working from home, so it becomes harder to shut down your laptop. But we're trying to do this, really, really practice this, that our kids Come back at Wednesday's half day. So we shut down and we've actually been good about that for the last three weeks. They come back at around 2 o' clock and we shut down Wednesday at, ah, 2 o'. Clock. Wednesday is half day for us, so we'll wake up early on or we work after they go to sleep. And then other days we try and shut it down by five, so we have at least a couple of hours with them every day till dinner and then do whatever. For those of you dads who are also working with your partner, I would say very hard to do but find time to talk about something that is not your business.

Gary: Go for a walk.

Raheem: Yeah, go for a walk. Shut down your phone. When you're having. Going on a date night or whatever, just carry one phone and shut it down. Don't carry two phones because you, both of you will be on your phone. Just carry one phone.

Gary: Yeah, yeah. You gotta make a conscious effort to do all these things, right, because it's so easy to just slip back in, the phone beeps and just pick it up. Mate, thank you so much. Say hi to Raheem for me. And also, um, where's the best place for people to find you? We've talked a lot about AI, and then we've talked about the importance of having an online personal brand, which you guys do help with. What's the best place for people to find you? We'll make sure there's some links for all of your cool stuff below here as well. Wherever people are watching this, say you

Raheem: want to reach out to me. There's email. It's kunalrandpot. AI. If I'm also on Facebook, I think my Facebook handle is Askaban. I'm a big Harry Potter fan. Um, so it's Askaban, uh, Facebook. I'll ping you the link to the Facebook page. I am not on. I'm not a very big social media person, so I'm not on Instagram. I am on Instagram, but it's mostly for looking at funny reels and that's about it.

Gary: Fair enough, mate. Ah, yeah. I refuse to use Instagram. I've got Facebook and YouTube and that's it. I refuse to have Instagram. I refuse to put TikTok on my phone because I don't have time.

Raheem: Yeah, seriously, I see a point.

Gary: All right, mate, thank you so much for your time. I will. I'll catch up with you sometime soon, hopefully before. But if not, I'll see you in Dallas, I imagine soon.

Raheem: Yeah. Thank you. For having me. This was a lot of fun.

Gary: Awesome. Thank you so much, Matt.