#458: Should medical education let AI in?

Speaker A: There are platforms that are propping up people have never heard of before that already have a question bank of 5000 questions. Whereas we've manually written 1200 questions over the space of a, ah, year. It's very likely those are AI generated questions.

Speaker B: In a world of AI, the one who has the edge is the one who is human. And that, that is the usp. Hey everybody. This week, uh, this is going to be a fun one. I've got Yasser with me who is uh, pharmacist, barista, founder, CEO of Microfarm. Um, dude, you, you've got such an awesome background. Everything that you're doing I find fascinating. I love your content, uh, and I'm looking forward to talking about loads of that with you. So welcome to healthet podcast. How you doing, sir?

Speaker A: I'm good, thanks for having me.

Speaker B: You're very welcome. Whereabouts are you speaking to us from today?

Speaker A: Uh, Wimbledon, London.

Speaker B: Very nice. Is that home for you? Looks like you're in a hotel. Looks glorious.

Speaker A: No, this is part nursery, part office.

Speaker B: I did wonder, is that, is that a crib behind you? How old you look? How old's your little one gonna be?

Speaker A: Two.

Speaker B: Two.

Speaker A: Ah. Ah.

Speaker B: Amazing. I've got an 18 month old currently, so, uh, not too dissimilar. I'm, I sort of feel like I'm getting into the fun part with him now. Um, and his little personality is really growing and he's grabbing my hand and dragging me towards stuff in the house, normally the tv, um, which is not ideal but uh, it's super fun. It's super fun, I absolutely love it. But um, yeah, you've got an eye for design, mate. Your house looks glorious. Um, or your nursery in your house looks glorious. Um, so, yeah, so listen, I'm uh, excited to hear this. Your story is fascinating. Um, from yeah, pharmacy to uh, to microfarm and yeah, serving your creative desires, um, through barista work and stuff as well. So why don't you start at the beginning, man? How does, how does your story start?

Speaker A: Yeah, so, um, I initially, uh, I started studying pharmacy in 2012. Um, so I've been a pharmacist for nine years now. Um, and I initially worked in community for my training. Yeah. And then I moved to a hospital role, uh, because I found that to be. I uh, really like the fact that you can manage patients clinically in an environment where you can see their blood test results. You can um, have a lot more input in terms of patient care. Um, so worked my way up uh, over the last nine years. So I Worked from being a rotational junior pharmacist which was, and I always speak about this was £13 an hour for. Wow. Yes. Uh, worked my way up to being an advanced specialist pharmacist. Um, alongside that, around five years ago I was offered a position where it was a split position working as a specialist antimicrobial pharmacist and also working as a lecturer, um, at Demott University.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: And that was the same university I studied. Studied, uh, at. So I worked alongside the lecturers that taught me.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: And essentially this is where I had the idea of creating a social media page. Um, the idea behind the social media page was I was completely new to the antimicrobial field and I thought I can use the posts that I create for essentially for it to be a way that I revise. So I'll revise a topic, um, so a certain bacteria for example and the infections that it causes and I create a post around that and then share it on Instagram. It was around the same time as Covid and a lot of content creators that you find started during COVID and that's primarily because they had a lot more time at home. The name of Microfarm, uh, because people often ask me where it came from, is a combination of microbiology and pharmacy, which is why it's called microfarm. Um, and I started making these posts. The idea behind it was I was inspired by Khan Academy, Uh, I Khan Academy when I was studying and I was like we could do something like that in the pharmacy space. Um, and I just started making these posts with no obligation or no vision of what's going to come from it. Um, and I started to realize that I ran out of microbiology content very quickly. So it expanded way beyond uh, even though the name's called microfarm, it expanded way beyond microbiology because a lot of pharmacy students and training pharmacists, uh, struggle with a wide range of different topics. So I just started making content five years ago and then realized about a year or two into uh, that this could operate as a business. Um, I could start to provide training, uh, uh, material for a trainee pharmacist. So training pharmacists are ah, uh, pharmacists that have completed. They've graduated at university but they've got training. Yeah and they've got a national registration exam. The reason why I targeted that group of training pharmacists is because one, the stakes are really high, uh, and two, it's a national exam. So if I was trying to cater for different universities I realized curriculums are different, uh, the way teaching is delivered is different at different universities. So I thought, let me position myself to teach people for an exam that would be the same for all people, uh, that are sitting the exam, uh, in the uk. So that's where I, uh, started uh, my business. And I think one of the things that probably caught your attention was, uh, last year I realized, uh, I was at a position where, uh, the income that I was receiving from the business was the same as my specialist pharmacist role alongside lecturing. Uh, and I had to make the decision of do I continue with both, um, or do I let go of one or the other? Um, one of the things, there's two things I was really struggling with. Uh, one, I became a dad. And as you know, that changes a lot of things, uh, in terms of the time that you get to spend with your little one and two, just that lack of flexibility, uh, that you have whilst working. Uh, so I know this would resonate to a lot of people in the healthcare space. Uh, but, um, during that time where I was trying to make that decision, uh, my dad got diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. And um, it was a, like, it was a bit of a shock of a diagnosis. And my dad said to me, do you know what, let's go, let's go away next week, um, let's go somewhere, we'll chill, forget about the diagnosis. And I know my clinic needs six weeks notice for me to just take a couple of days off, uh, and just to find cover for that clinic was like, it was a real battle just to get those few days off. And I understand it from the hospital's perspective, right, it's one week before, uh, covering six patients life, but from just uh, like what my life was like and the fact that I didn't actually need to work because the salaries were mirrored on both sides. It was a choice. That's where I was like, there's times like this where I just want that flexibility. I don't mind working 40, 50 hours a week, but I want to do it around free drop off and pick up. I want to do it around family, uh, just wanting to chill with you. And the fact that I have that option when not many people have that option is where I was like, I'm going to give my notice and now, um, and I'll see how it goes, uh, for that was a year ago and I was like, if I'm really struggling, um, in terms of financially or in terms of my ability to deliver teaching, then I'll, I'll jump back in, but it's been a year and I, I don't think I'm going to jump back in anytime soon.

Speaker B: Thanks, Shasta. Great story. Um, I've got, I've got so many questions. It's so, it's, it's so relatable. The first thing I relate massively to is, is teaching in the Khan Academy. So I did, um, I did a, uh, post gr. What was it, post graduate certificate in Educa. I don't know, postgraduate diploma, I think I did in, in clinical education, um, uh, at ah, ucl. And I loved it. And I love teaching. I, I think it's so unbelievably rewarding. It's just something about it that I even, even just teaching. I remember teaching one of my friends how to play tennis and, or how to play tennis, like, you know, better than he was, uh, in the first year of uni. And like, even that was just incredible. It was just incredibly rewarding just seeing people get better at, uh, something that they really enjoy and that you're part of that. There's something about teaching that I just think is, is so awesome. But I also, I also remember the Khan Academy. Khan Academy was unbelievable. Like, I don't know whether it's still going or anything, but I can remember. Is it still going?

Speaker A: Growing?

Speaker B: I can remember using it for anesthetic exam stuff and, um. Oh, what an unbelievable resource yeah, that has been for me in my life. Um, but yeah, I really relate to this. My question is, when it comes to. You said your salary, you got to a point where your salary was kind of equalizing what you were making, um, from pharmacy, what, what were your revenue streams at that point and how did you build them up, like really practically now just thinking, like, there'll be people listening that have got side hustles or they've, they're trying to think about other things. And I think this decision is a really interesting one for people in healthcare because it, uh, it comes with, I think, a lot of mixed emotions for people. There's a lot of elation and I speak for myself, right, There's a lot like elation and joy that you've, that you've created something or are, ah, creating something that is making money and you've done that. And that's, that's incredible. But then when it starts to, um, encroach on, well, I've got to give up my license, which is what it was for me, um, a lot of guilt started coming in of, like, previously I'd have, I'd have been shouting it from the rooftop. So then when it got really real, like guilt started to creep in and it became like a more complicated decision than I think what it actually was for me. And I know that's, that's true of other people, but I'm just interested on that. How, how did you build, how did you build that up? Um, quite practically. And then, and then how was. I mean, you mentioned that decision was forced in some ways and a few forcing functions in there, but. Yeah, talk me through that. And the decision to. The decision to jump.

Speaker A: Yeah. So from a practical perspective, in terms of revenue, um, my main source income was at the point where I was about to leave. So I initially told you I started creating content and I started with selling one ebook, selling one webinar. That was the start of it. Now we've got, um, an entire learning, learning management system that has 500 videos, 1200 questions and study guides for all of their notes, uh, for the registration exam. So people don't have to write their own notes as well. So we cover everything from all the therapeutic areas that need to be covered for the exam, including their notes and the practice questions that they need for the exam.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we've got to a position where, uh, once I started offering this, essentially a premium product, um, I wanted people to be confident in that premium product. So what I said is if you complete the course and you don't pass the exam, you get all your money back.

Speaker B: So that. I love that.

Speaker A: Yeah. So that's the point where I was like, we. I'm confident enough with this product that I know it's, it will be my strongest revenue stream. It. The, the memberships in terms of the platform make up about 90 to 95% of my revenue. Um, a lot of people may be listening, content creators. So currently I have, uh, 200,000 followers on all social media platforms, which sounds great. And for someone that's not got a following, probably thinks I'm making a killing in that area. But there's so many different stipulations for you to make revenue on social media platforms that I'm, I'm getting close to nothing in terms of revenue. Um, my biggest platform is TikTok. Uh, TikTok only gives you income from what they consider. Uh, not all views are considered, uh, monetizable.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you could reach a million people and they'll say only 80,000 of those views are money. You get money from, uh, that's the. So that's the first thing and the second thing is it has to be longer than a minute. Students love videos that are, uh, less than a minute. So I strike, I cater for both. But ultimately my income from social media is close to about £50amonth. And if your idea is. Yeah, and this was my idea initially, Joe, when you look at Khan Academy and he runs on A one, he runs on revenue that he gains from that and sponsorships and donations. And that model is just extremely hard, uh, for it to work. And that's the reason why training, like I charge all my courses, uh, but to have that non profit model, um, is extremely difficult. So most of my revenue comes from the people that I teach. Uh, I'm very risk averse. So, um, there was a, there's been times like before I left, three years before I left in the, in those three years I've had like three or four times where I've had the opportunity to leave the NHS altogether. And I was just terrified. Terrified of, and I'll address this in the, in the latter question, terrified of leaving practice, uh, naturally, which a lot of people are, particularly when you're teaching. Um, and I was also terrified of, uh, in terms of the income. So I needed enough of a buffer, uh, to know that I will be comfortable, particularly when you've got a family as well. So that, uh, buffer for me was, was my salary being matched with my net profit. And that's after I pay everyone that teaches on the platform. Because I've got 25 pharmacists that teach on the platform. If after I paid everyone, after I've paid for everything, is my net profit matching my salary. And that's the point I left.

Speaker B: Yeah. So what, like your take home being the same is what you're essentially getting to there. It's so interesting. And thanks for saying that by the way, that you were terrified. I guess that is also what I didn't say there as well. That the kind of the way that you go through medicine and you're taught that medicine is everything and I'm sure it's the same in every clinical profession, right. That um, everyone around you is like, you can't leave, like you can't leave. And then you think, oh God, yeah.

Speaker A: And.

Speaker B: But it's everything to you, isn't it? And you don't know anything else out in the real world. You don't know what's possible and you don't know that actually most people in life are carrying this risk of jobs being made redundant or all of this sort of stuff. It's Crazy. And I feel like I'm risk averse too. And people don't often identify that in my story, but I'm always holding onto the next branch before I let go. Ah, the current one. And that's why is my take home the same is, does net profit equal salary? That's incredibly relatable. But back to what you said about uh, the followers and not being able to monetize directly. I think this is a fascinating conversation because you're right, people look at large followings and they will always assume that that is how you're making money. I think though they're, and then when they realize, oh, it's not, they're like, oh, well, there's no point making a big following then. But there is because that following is your distribution. You are building a distribution network for your messages and in those messages you can place things that add value to people and if you do that, you can then charge fairly for those things that add value to people. And that is then, then how you make your money. And people are talking about, you know, creator led product businesses and all this sort of stuff. It's, you know, it's essentially the same thing is that you, you create this distribution network, you figure out what that audience wants and then you can sell products to them. Um, I know there are like, almost like product or venture studios being cropping up with, with this kind of model and all that sorts of stuff, but I, I, I think that that really is important to call out. Um, and, and do you find, do you find yourself wanting to grow that audience for that distribution? Do you find yourself wanting to grow that audience at all? What are you, where's your sort of focus now? Where do you feel is the bottleneck now that you're trying to tackle and what are you trying to achieve, going forwards with it all?

Speaker A: Yeah, very good question. And um, it's something that I think about like every day. So yeah, so there's a real bottleneck in terms of the platform. And I'll tell you why there's a real bottleneck. Bottleneck. Um, that's because there's only 3,000, roughly 3,000 people sitting the June assessment and 1,000 people, uh, sitting the November assessment. That's 4,000 people a year is my target audience. And I've been through enough business accelerators to know that, ah, any one time I'm teaching about 20% of the UK audience.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Um, and that's amazing. Which is amazing. But at the same time a lot of those mentors say, listen mate, like it's not like getting above 20% of your target market is. At some point you're kidding yourself, right? Like there's, there's new businesses coming. There's like 10 new businesses looking for the same target audience every year. Um, so I'm always conscious of that. I'm always worried of that. I'm always trying to deliver more for essentially the same price just because I'm so worried about competition. Um, and at the same time I realized that if I'm going to focus all of my energy, uh, on the platform without having a backup plan, um, that's when, uh, I could fall into some problems. Because if I don't grow, my audience is. My audience is 200,000 people. There's 4,000 people taking the exam every year. Clearly I've got a larger audience than my target market. Only about 15, 20% of that target market actually purchase some purchases, something from me. So I'm not catering for a large portion of my followers. That's the first thing. And there's definitely a reason for me to grow my following. So a large focus this year has been to improve the quality of the content. Um, and m. Uh, just uh, like you, uh, my wife just joined my business. Um, so she was working full time. Uh, and of course working full time. Uh, she was working for Laura Ashley actually. So a lot of people didn't know that Laura Ashley is still there, is still surviving. It just has a much smaller team. Uh, but she was really working with the full time aspect and they needed someone full time for that role. Um, so she's joined the business part time, but she, because she's got that creative vision, she does all of the editing now. Uh, so I'm very conscious of growing that audience. Um, I don't worry so much about what I'm going to do once that audience, like what I do with that audience in terms of, um, I think

Speaker B: the opportunity will show itself.

Speaker A: Exactly. And over the past few years, like huge opportunities have shown up. Um, so as a result of me building that audience, I've worked with CeraVe, I've worked with La Roche Posay. Um, I've worked with TikTok. Uh, I was invited to TikTok Paris as well. So those opportunities will arise if I just make sure I'm not neglecting the content.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I actually saw you on stage, um, in uh, the TikTok office that time as well. Um, loads that I can ask you about here, dude. Um, firstly, I think, and just going back to something else you said earlier as well. The, the Money back if you don't pass your exams thing is interesting because I think as, as evidence based creatures, um, in health care, we, we sort of want and need something that is like, okay, what's the. How can I separate myself from the pack here and give someone some proof and some evidence that, that I am okay? This is a good thing for them. I am trying my best and I think that is a really nice way of doing it. Because my question was actually going to be, there's loads of people that do courses and education like, what, what do you think makes this stand out to the tuner? 20%. I actually think, you know, that is in part because of the money back thing, but it's going to be massively, in part because of your content as well. And what I've noticed as well with content is that, you know, what is this? 450 odd episodes. That's uh, 450 hours, probably closer to 6, 700 hours of content. And you can't hide your morality and your ethics and your integrity behind 500 hours of you talking online like, it's there, it's there. And especially with the AI tools now. I just wonder like, someone's going to run, I think about this the other day, right? Someone's going to run a prompt that's like, can you look at all the episodes of Blah's podcast and just make a list of all the things that could get them canceled?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What Petrified that I've like said something in like episode three that is now like completely off. Um, but as I say, there's, there's no, there's no getting away from it. That you creating that content and being so visible. And it's funny that you say about your wife being the editor. I can remember that. I think there's a, I remember a video that you, that I saw of you guys. And maybe not in like a car or something or to do with a car with your wife editing. Were you calling out that she was the editor or something like that. And I did think at the time I was like, oh, nice, like they're working together. Um, and just on that, like, I'm gonna say congratulations that you're working with your wife, because I have found it, uh, wonderful working with Jessica. And it's funny because I don't know if you've started to get this, but people, the most common thing people will say to you is, well, they'll breathe in through their teeth. As soon as you say it, they'll go, oh, I couldn't Work with my wife. I'm like, okay, I can and I am and it's great. So like, and it, they always say it with this air of like, you must argue all the time. Do you know me? Like, oh, you work with your wife. Like, that must be, uh, that must be, uh, like what? Go on, finish the sentence. Give me some insight of what your relationship's like. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's not easy. And yes, you disagree. But you know what? Like, I, I think when you, when you have a good day and a good week and a good month and a good year, and it's with your wife in your business and you get to see your wife, um, at work doing what she's really good at, I think there's so many wonderful parts to it. But how, how have you found working with your wife?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly the same as you. And I get those comments all the time. Um, and why gather is people don't like spending time with the other half. If you don't like spending time with the other half and you look forward to going to Iraq, then, then it probably isn't going to work out. So if you actually enjoy spending time with your other half, then it's going to be, uh, pretty much the same in terms of, uh, there's not going to be a massive difference. But yeah, if you're like coming home after work and sitting in your car for another 15 minutes to have another 15 minutes of a break from home life, then it probably won't work out. Uh, so yeah, I think it, tell, it tells you a lot about the other person than it does about your own life.

Speaker B: Um, yes, I think, I think so. I think so. Do you know, one of the, one of the, one of the best things about it is for me is when there is a conference abroad, when there's a conference abroad, you both get to go. And so you don't have that moment of like getting back to the hotel room alone or like, you haven't got to call your family, you gotta go on FaceTime, you gotta see your kid. That like, everyone's there. And that's what I really have loved about it, that we can actually really lean in like as he, you know, as a family with a little one, we can all go and all that sorts of stuff. It's actually like really nice. Um, but yes, it's interesting what it tells you about the evil. And look, a lot of it is ingest, like as people are saying. Yeah, they're kind of playing on a stereotype, right? I think I. I do think, though, a lot of people would be able to do it that perhaps think they wouldn't. Um, from what. From what I've heard, and I sort of hear people. No, you definitely could. Like, honestly, you could. And, you know, you find a way to communicate and you find a way to disagree professionally because you have to. Um, and that actually turns around and serves the relationship as well, we found. But, um. Yeah, anyway, um, love that, uh, question. You obviously setting this up, uh, and running it alongside what you were doing in pharmacy. Were you. Would you have described yourself as businessy in inverted commas?

Speaker A: Were you.

Speaker B: Were you someone who always had an entrepreneurial idea? Were you selling your homework work as a school kid? Were you doing. Were you, you know, selling sweets and stuff? Like, were you, Were you that kid? Like, were you, Were you doing that stuff? Or. Or was it that you just saw a love for education, saw a problem to solve and then went after it that way? Like, what way round is it for you?

Speaker A: Um, for me, it was a bit of both. So, like, when I was at school, I was definitely, um, I was definitely, ah, selling a lot of things. So I was one of the first, uh, students to bring, uh, I had MP3 players shipped from China, so one of the first people. So no one really knew what MP3 player was. Um, and I was selling them at school, uh, for £20. Uh, yeah. So.

Speaker B: Oh, my God, you must have made good. You made good money. It depends what your gross margin was, but you made good money there.

Speaker A: They cost me £12 and, uh, 30% of them came back because they broke. Probably not a good business model.

Speaker B: Uh, but yeah, you, with your integrity, you probably gave them the money back, didn't you?

Speaker A: You probably.

Speaker B: Yeah, you did. Of course you did.

Speaker A: I did. Because they live, Some of them live right next door.

Speaker B: They literally know where you live.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, so, yeah, in terms of. I used to enjoy that. I used to enjoy selling things on ebay as well. Yeah, my sister has always been like that. So my sister has always, uh, sold things on ebay. Um, so as a business of a lot of tech products and I used to work alongside her, so I used to be like the handyman that does the collections of the stock, because a lot of the stock used to come from suppliers in London and we were based in Leicester. So I used to do the traveling for that. I used to do a lot of the packing of the orders for that. So I've always enjoyed that. The, uh, the education side, it was never intended to be a Business. I just, uh, initially I had the naive mindset that the, and this is what everyone thinks, that the ad revenue itself would pay for everything I'm doing online. And like I said, I realized that it's a very tough business model. So that's when I thought, let me use my, like, maybe business acumen to start selling products. Um, but yeah, it was, I'd say, a combination of both.

Speaker B: M. Nice. But look what's common in that story. You, you had that as part of your nature. That I've learned from a lot of pot entrepreneurs on here. They, they've got some sort of selling background in them somewhere as a kid. But also you, you, you, you know, you sailed close to an entrepreneur in your sister who was doing this. And you'll have learned from her. Uh, what's she doing now?

Speaker A: Out of interest, is she, yes, she does a different. Every five years in her life is doing something different. So she is studying, uh, accounting right now and she's got four children. So, yeah, she's always doing something different.

Speaker B: Interesting. She, she sounds like an entrepreneur. Um, you're bootstrapping your company. Now, that might have been a decision. It might be something that you're actively batting away people that want to invest in what you're doing. It might be that you might do that in future. I, I, I don't know. But I'm interested in the way that this business is financed. Now you do, you make this elusive thing called profit, which is amazing. Anyone that operates in healthcare technology and anything in between, to, to be profitable is a very wonderful and privileged position to be in. And so, as you say, your net profit equaling your, uh, take home when you made the decision to jump out, that is an unbelievable thing to have achieved. And so congratulations, first of all on doing that. I know how difficult that is. Um, but I'm interested in what the journey is like now for the business model and the financing of it and what you want to achieve. Because some people would be, would turn around to you and go, okay, cool, you've got this platform, you've got this education universe, um, that you've created along with content. Actually, if you took a million quid and hired a load of people, set up this team that did this, that and the other, and like, people could draw a decent plan for you that, that could, I don't know, 10x this business in two years, or if you spoke to Alex Hormozi, I'm sure he'd be telling you to do X, Y, Z with it. Um, but how do you feel about the growth of it? What are you looking to do? Are you, are you looking to raise money? Have you ever looked to do that? Uh, would you um, or are you the other thing that's pretty elusive. Are you just happy? Do you have enough?

Speaker A: Yeah. So it's, it's. I've considered everything that you've spoken about so I, I never did. So initially I was bootstrapping because I never knew any other way. So that's the first thing. And I was extremely lean in terms of anything. Um, like I said to you, I'm very risk averse. So when I started this business just paying for 200 pound editing software, I, I was umming and ring for two months over this right. And now like I'm probably spending like £10,000 on soft just software every year. Yeah. So yeah, I was very much ah, risk averse initially. Um, and bootstrapping because I never knew any other way. A thing that I did which was quite different is when I started going to these, um, I went to a lot of business accelerators and that's when I started seeing oh my God, there's another way in terms of some people haven't developed, they've got an idea for a product or they've got such a good plan for a product that people are investing before they've even delivered the product. Um, and some of these uh, people, founders were, their salary was from the investment money and they haven't delivered the product yet. So uh, that's when I started to realize like there is another side to the way this business uh, works. Um, I wouldn't. So for me that business, that model didn't work. And I'll tell you why that model didn't work. And that's because my target market is relatively small, right? So my main priority is to keep a very lean business. My main expense is the staff and the expertise that I bring in. And this is something that makes me different from other providers. Uh, so we do charge a premium price for the product but the reason why we charge a premium price is we have a team of 25 people and if you don't pass, you get your money back. Right. Um, so a lot of my competitors have one person delivering the entire uh, program. From my understanding all businesses in this realm, in this, where we're delivering to this target market, all of these businesses are bootstrapped. And the reason is, is if I raised money. So I asked myself this question when I was in these business accelerators and I had to deliver these pitches, uh to invest. So these practice pitches to investors, I really struggled with the slide where I said what am I going to do with this money?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And this is where like even when we were doing these practice pitches, the, with this Dragons and Zen style, I would get ripped to shreds when, when I had this slide because they, they could clearly see I had no plan for the money. And the reason for that is I can completely, and I, I speak to developers all the time. I could completely change the way the platform looks. It can be like this life changing, amazing education platform. However, the amount I'm spending on that, for me to get that back in terms of revenue for this small target market that I'm going for is almost impossible. So I could do it that route. I could make a completely change the way the platform works, have a corresponding app for it. I just don't have the, the market for it or the need for it. So that's the reason why my main priority right now is to have a very lean business. Um, because of that target market, I have considered expanding to pharmacy students. Um, in terms of the platform. One of the challenges for pharmacy students, and this is one of the things that founders get wrong, um, is they create such a brilliant solution for that struggling pharmacy student. But they didn't ask that pharmacy student whether they. Yet you're struggling with your studies. I could create a platform for you that's extremely helpful. Are you willing to spend 200 pounds a year for this platform? And they'll say no way. Like are you willing to spend £20? No. So you're creating a, uh, product that's very expensive for an audience that's not willing to spend. Yeah. Um, so this, what I found in terms of offering something pharmacy students is I started all the notes that I was telling you about the digital notes I had for training pharmacists. I started creating physical study guides. So I've got a range of physical study guides for pharmacy students that costs around £10. And that's a way that I've added another revenue stream. But again as lean as possible in terms of business. If I find a target market that has a problem that they're willing to spend thousands on, that's when I think, um, and I need to develop product that would cost me 50,000 or 70,000 or 100,000 to create, that's what I'd be worried more about. Um, investment. But if I, right now, if I don't know what to do with your m. The money that you invest in me 100, I'm gonna bootstrap.

Speaker B: Well, of course. And you're already profitable, so you're accumulating a war chest if you need it, you're taking out the business, what you need to live. And yeah, the rest just sits in there as basically investment money. Anyway you're in, but you're, you're the one investing in it. And also you, you retain your freedom as well and you retain that sense of freedom because you know, an investor, an investor comes on. It depends what type of investor. Obviously it depends also you don't necessarily need to take on equity. You could take on debt. But um, there's different ways obviously of taking money into the, into the business. But ultimately if you, if you were to take to, if you were to sell some equity in the business and now you've got someone, you've got a board now you, you'd assume, um, you've now got report to that board or you got someone to report to. They, they, they might have in the terms of the investment that you can't make a decision on a hire that cost more than 75k without asking them. And now all of a sudden you've got, you know, you, you now also. And here's the thing as well, that, that I've, you know, noted that's really practical about this. You can't just, you just can't issue yourself a dividend as carefree as you used to. Either you've now got this other person that you're going to have to make a buying transfer to or at least asks. And now, now have you got to actually pull more salary? Because you can't just issue dividends and then what does that do for your tax? And like all that sort of stuff matters. Like, and this is the thing about bootstrapping, isn't it? That uh, there's so much I think about bootstrapping that doesn't get talked about. I know so much more. I run a bootstrap business like that, you know, I mean people know this sort of sizes. But like, I feel like I still know more about, about how to run a company that's raised VC money than I do a bootstrapped, uh, company because of the, just the different things that you have to think about like that, you know, once you got other people on the account table, issuing dividends is very different. Do you then have to take more salary? Well, actually, yeah. And that changes tax. So it's, it's, it's really strange. I mean, how, how have you found. I'm interested actually. Like, did you Get. Did the accelerators help you bootstrap? Did the accelerators teach you anything about bootstrapping? Did they talk about the challenges? Did they talk about how to run your personal finances at the same time as your business finances? Because when you're bootstrapping, it's one thing. Was that, Was that any of that ever talked about or discussed?

Speaker A: Very much. Uh, so I actually, I was part of, uh, a Barclays accelerator. I was part of a few accelerators with founder vine as well.

Speaker B: Eagle Labs. The Barclays one.

Speaker A: Yes, it was. Yeah, it was. It was actually one they did in collaboration with Plexel. Um, it was Barclays, Eagle Labs with Plexa. That was good. There's one that is tiny, uh, in terms of relative size, and that was Leicester startups. Um, because I was living in Leicester at the time. Yeah, that was fantastic. Like, it was interesting. It was fantastic. Um, they're really, they're really early on in terms of. I was probably the fifth or sixth core cohort.

Speaker B: Amazing.

Speaker A: They spoke about, um, loads of different things that. So they spoke about how to, uh, get an AI agent to manage the customer service side of things. And I'm still using the things that they taught me to this day. So I've taught, uh, an AI agent about. Ended up teaching over the past year, about a thousand different scenarios of questions trainee pharmacists may ask. Amazing. And those questions are being answered while I sleep. Um, so, like, uh, that's one of the things I struggle with in terms of customer service. I. Today I can have 15 queries, tomorrow I can have one. How do I hire someone for that? So, um, exactly that. So the, the tools that I've learned from those, um, startup, uh, accelerators. Fantastic. Funding is like one component, but they do realize a lot of companies will end up bootstrapping. M. I think a lot of, uh, time is spent, which is very good. A lot of time is spent of seeing whether or not your product works. Um, and sometimes someone could tell me what their MVP is. And I already know, like, the business model is not going to work. So sometimes the product's great. But. So someone, uh, spoke to me about their product recently and they said, uh, and you probably see this in the medic world. They said a lot of health care professionals have WhatsApp groups where they're asking people about, oh, these are the, these are the kind of situations I'm facing in practice. What do you. What advice would you give? And they're giving actual advice in these WhatsApp groups. Right. Which it. And one of the challenges they said with this WhatsApp group model is you have no idea who's giving you that advice and they're giving you clinical advice. So their idea was to. They've developed an app, but alongside the app, one, you have to put your registration number alongside your name and any advice you give is attached to your registration number. Again, the idea is fantastic. There's two. I was like, there's two glaringly obvious problems. As soon as I tell you, James, give me your GMC number and advice. You are not going to give me advice, especially for free, or I'll give

Speaker B: you a very different GMC number. But that's a very different.

Speaker A: Exactly. So they. One, that no one would give you advice on that platform. They will stick to the WhatsApp. The. The WhatsApp, the terrible idea of a WhatsApp group, but they will stick to that because they're not identifiable. And two, you are now asking people who are using this free service to pay for your membership. Because he said, I want a membership model. And again, the solution is fantastic. Even the GPHC who managed the registration said, this is a fantastic idea. But whether or not people will pay for that solution, completely different story.

Speaker B: M. You mentioned AI, um, AI Agent doing your customer service. Obviously the AI conversation is just changing every day at the moment. Um, I'm interested in where you're at with it. You've got 25 people doing stuff in your company. Um, you've got a lot of tech infrastructure in, in terms of the platform that it's built on. You're getting a lot of data through in terms of usage and all that sort of stuff. There are lots of. And you mentioned customer service agent. There are clearly a, uh, lot of different ways that you can use AI to vibe code this, that and the other for different ways that your stuff can turn up. And even thinking about students, you know, my mind just went to, okay, well what can we pull and get out to students? That's actually largely AI based in its build. That would then bring people into your ecosystem, not cost you anything. Like all of that stuff starts crossing into my mind. But I'm interested in how you feel about it. It's quite overwhelming, I imagine, because, um, yours is probably one of those businesses where people are like, oh, you should use it for this, you should use it for this, you should use it for this. And actually a lot of what your brand seems to be is. It feels very. You like, it's a very personal thing. I think a lot of people's relationship to you and your company. And I've spoken to pharmacists, by the way, who use your stuff, who speak incredibly highly of you, um, like incredibly highly of you, as if, you know, as if you're best friends with them kind of thing because of what you've managed to do for them through the things that you've built. That is a wonderful thing that you do not ever want to dilute with any AI nonsense. Um, but yeah, so I'm interested in kind of how you feel about building AI into what you do.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's very limited. So in terms of, and I tackle, like, I'm dealing with this every, uh, like every day I'm thinking about the worries around this and the worry is, is there are platforms that are propping up that people have never heard of before that already have a question bank of 5000 questions, whereas we've manually written 1200 questions over the space of a year. And to me it's very likely those are AI generated questions. So none of the content is AI generated. And the reason I've been worried about this, because I know there is something that's going to come up on the market that will have far more content than we deliver, but it's going to be AI generated. And the way I've tackled with this is the, the way for me to stay unique is to, for me to. So AI can do great things in terms of question writing, ideation, all that. Uh, and maybe these people are final checking this stuff before it goes up. Maybe they're not. That's another problem altogether because there could be a lot of errors in those. Like I see myself, there's a lot of errors in those questions. That's one thing I thought the best way for me to approach this as a founder, uh, in the education space, if one thing that those AI platforms will never do and they can't is do face to face teaching. Right. Because I say online teaching. So if I lean into video creation and webinar delivery, right now we're delivering, just to give you some perspective, we're delivering a webinar, a date leading up to the exam. Yeah. So after this session I, and after this session I said, I've got some time. I literally said to my students an hour ago, I've got some time to deliver a session. Do you want to attend a free webinar? Uh, in the past, and um, I'm not joking with you, in the past hour, 180 people signed up. Yeah. So like, as long as I can really lean into live delivery Yeah, I will have an edge over.

Speaker B: And your in person events by the way, which I've written down here as well.

Speaker A: Yes, yeah, absolutely. And uh, in terms of why do moving forward, the closest thing I, I feel I can sort of dip my toe into is having a, a model that learns from the content that we have on the platform where you can essentially one ask an AI model, ah, AI agent to ask you questions based on the stuff that you've learned.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Utilizing the stuff on the platform. Yeah. But honestly I think that's as far as I'm going to go because that's the one thing that gives me an edge compared to all of the other platforms that are using AI that I,

Speaker B: I couldn't agree more. The thing that really uh, the thing that really resonates for me there is the notion of in a world of AI, the one who has the edge is the one who is human and that is the usp. And I think that for me Yasser is like the bet. I think that's the most incredible thing that you've managed to do with your brand is that it, it all just feels very you. And it's so funny the amount of people that if I had a, if I had a pound for every time someone had said to me, you need to divorce your personal brand from uh, from the Sonx brand because you know you're never going to be able to sell Sonics and da da, da. I'm like, firstly like, okay, thank you for the unsolicited advice. Like any, anything else that you want to tell me that I'm doing badly in your opinion, like a good one, like I don't know why that's come up but, but okay, fine, thank you. So that's the first thing. The second thing is there are so many assumptions baked into what you've just said that means that I would even be receptive to this sentence, let alone care about it. And I think there have been times where, and I think because I live in the very venture backed startup world, like the default is grow a startup to exit, take on multiple investment rounds and get the exit. Get the ah, like everything's like plan for exit. And it's funny like I feel like I've been caught up in that and we've done a lot of lifestyle architecture which actually I can talk to you about as well. Bootstrapping and Jessica and I, we've even sat down like in the last week and talked about this in, in really kind of granular detail about like, you know, how, how do we want our life to look. What does our life look like? And we've talked about exit, we've talked about would we ever sell some X? I'm not saying we would sell some X for 100 billion quid. Um, but, but, you know, could you get to a point of getting to a million EBITDA sell for 8 to 10, like, maybe like that's, that's in, that's, you know, within reach. But then, then the question is like, okay, well, what do you do beyond that? You've lost the thing that gave you identity. You've lost your anchor into the health tech system. You can't just like, you've, you've, you've lost a huge part of you. And actually it's incredibly painful to get to a million EBITDA from where we are now. Like that there's. And you want to go through that for a thing that then. And it's kind of, I don't know, we've had to go through this process of really kind of understanding ourselves and getting to know that. And the plot twist is like, at the moment, and things can change at the moment. I don't feel that I need to divorce my personal brand for somex because it inhibits me at sale. That's actually completely irrelevant to me right now. And I look at you and what you've built and it reminds me of all the times where people have said to me that one thing they like is that I'm close to it. One thing that they like is that it's me that they see on the calls and as part of it and doing their strategy and all the rest of it. And actually, do you really want to do this really hard thing to divorce that which may or may not lead to any more success? But actually, uh, it's just a strange one. But as I say, the reason I explain all that, man, is because I think it's quite inspiring the way that you've done things and, um, and speaking to you now. It's kind of stuck with me that I'm going to think about it after we've chatted, um, and look at it. Because I do think that, as I say, the people I spoke to just, they love you, man. People in your community love you. It's awesome.

Speaker A: So leading on to everything you just said, uh, is very relevant. So, um, early on in microfarms, like sort of initiation, when we were about two years in. Yeah, um, I wanted to work with a much larger competitor. Um, so there's an opportunity for us to work together and. But they were really struggling with the fact that I had a business at the time that was in the same space. So they offered to buy microfarm. Interesting. But it was very much intertwined with my personal brand.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and I just couldn't see it working for that very reason. I think one of the largest things that people lean into and the reason why people come to microphone is, uh, some people will message me and they shouldn't be like this. But like, one of the guys was messaging me yesterday and he said, are you delivering last night's webinar? And I said, no, not me. He said that I'll leave it. There's. There's that mentality. Right. It's like, if you're not there, um, I'm not interested. And it just doesn't work for the person that purchases it. I understand that that may be a problem, but I don't see it as a problem right now. Um, and, and even if, if there was ever something that I would want to build, uh, in order to exit, it's not this. I, like, I, I want this to stay with me. Or I would rather just close it down. Like, either it's. It's me as the face of it or I close it down. I can't, I can't envision someone else being the face of it. So as far as this venture goes, I don't see a need to exit. So I'll carry on with the way it is.

Speaker B: Love it. Um, in person events. Let's talk about this for a second. Because I'm obviously in the comms marketing world and I see trends come and go. We're entering a phase now very, very, very acutely. I think this is coming into such sharp focus. To me, the events have gone from like, oh, uh, there's always an event. I roll. They're always free. They're always an add on, um, to people. I mean, I can cite three calls this week and it's only Wednesday so far of people coming to, like, jumping on a, you know, discovery call with us and going, I want to run an event with Sonax because you get the right people in the room. I get to, I get all the content, I get to speak to all the right people, blah, blah, blah, like, and people. If honestly, it feels like in the last genuinely, like last few weeks that this is, this has really come into sharp focus for people that. Hold on a minute. In a post AI world where digital content is commoditized, how do we build real connection with people so that they trust what we say. Oh, we've got to do it in person. Oh, who owns the distribution network for my audience? Cool. I'll go to them and do an event with them. And that's where we've started to come in for a few of these people. And it's honestly is fascinating to me just how much it's gone up in value. And I think one thing that I really like about it from my perspective, and I'd love to hear your perspective, is that it's a, it's a part of it that I really enjoy. And when it comes to bootstrapping a business, one of the absolute beautiful things about bootstrapping a business is not having a board, investors, people telling you what to do. You can in some part lifestyle architect your way into a week that you just enjoy. This is something that I just enjoy. Uh, but also it seems to be valuable to people now. So I'm going for a position of doing events always for free at our own cost. It comes on the P and L as marketing in the costs line to actually now it's less a cost center and actually becoming a revenue center. Like that's, that's really interesting to me. But the, but the beauty of it, I suppose from my perspective is that that has come from just doing the right thing, I. E. Knowing that events have always been valuable when you do them right. So doing the reps and learning how to do them right and then now being able to lean in, which is really nice. And obviously being a content creator as well and talking and sharpening that craft has just put me in the right place at the right time. It seems like you're leaning into in person events as well, um, which I find just as fascinating with everything that you could be doing. And so I'm interested in how you feel about in person events and why that's being added to your kind of strategy.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, uh, in terms of in person events, I've done a few throughout the, the five years. Uh, and you've probably seen that I've done a lot more now. Yeah, the re. Yeah. The reason is I've always struggled in terms of. So it's the finances behind events. Right. I've always struggled with getting a nice place in London where I can hold the event for so venue was a difficult uh, thing and we didn't touch on this the whole episode which I'll touch on now. When I left my role as uh, a pharmacist, my cousin Sarah said to me, he's opening up a Specialty coffee shop in London.

Speaker B: This is wild.

Speaker A: Yeah. So what I said to, I've always been passionate about coffee, uh, since I was about 16. So I, I've got all the gear at home and, and uh, it probably takes me about 12 minutes just to make one cup of coffee. Um, so I said I'm going to work for you as a barista. Before I considered pharmacy, I want to open a coffee shop, uh, but just never uh, never got around to doing it. Um, I spoke to the, the guy who owns the local coffee shop next to the university, the specialty coffee shop. And I said to him, you know, I wanted to open a coffee shop. He said, what are you studying? I said pharmacy. He said, stick with pharmacy. There's no money in this. So in terms of like I never got around to doing it. I said let me focus on pharmacy. But I was like, I can live the best. It's the best of both worlds. I don't have the responsibility of managing the business but I can literally step in work as a barista. And I was doing, I do that like once a week. What I realized was a better way for me to spend my time as a barista is to essentially do both. So we hold an evening event at the shop. So it's completely closed to the public. Uh, I bring in the people. So we hold two types of events. One we hold for healthcare content creators and the idea behind it is we learn from each other. So it's chilling, networking. I make the coffees, the specialty coffees and the matches for them and I cover the cost of all of it. And what I ask people to do who are much more experienced in the content creation world is share some insights. And uh, it's in terms of, to some extent it's a mess. There's 20 seats and there's 50 people in the room. People are sitting on the floor, people are sitting on top of each other but the value is incredible. And then I do something else. Is the training pharmacist I teach, I limit it to 20 uh, seated tables and I have a pull up projector and I make them coffees and I deliver a one hour teaching uh, session where I go through everything they need to know for the exam. And, and I, to me it's just, it's the enjoyment of bringing those people together in the same room. And uh, even I was at uh, I was at an event yesterday uh, at uh, uh, south by Southwest and there was like a content creation section in Adobe's, uh, like Adobe's corner that I was invited to. And I started to realize, like even these huge brands, the value of just having content creators in the room is just amazing. So I haven't, I haven't nailed that side yet. Like taking on, uh, the cost of all of these events is on me, but I know the value will and the opportunities will open up in, down

Speaker B: the road because everyone else feels the value. And I think that's the thing is that, uh, you're feeling similar to me, that you're feeling that the value of this is definitely here. People are loving it. The business model aside, I agree though. Venue, venue's the biggest issue. Um, a really nice place and we were super lucky, man, that we got to do our events at Google and they came to one of them. We were super lucky to get them there because Google saw the value in it because of the people that we could get in the room. And again, it's just that thing of like, if you just start with good content. And we were. The story behind that, by the way, is that Amber Marie, who worked at Google at the time, came to those event, one of those events when they were at the Health Foundry, like a super small co working space in Waterloo for the health tech stuff. Like they were one of 30, 40 people in the room or two of 30, 40 people in the room. And after Covid, they were like, you want to do this at Google? I was like, oh my goodness, amazing. But again, it was just a focus on good content with a few people because the whole premise was just let me have a chat to a founder, but ask them really honest stuff and like no one can record it, but you can sort of write it up afterwards if you want. Just be sensitive about what you say. And so that allow everyone to be, allow everyone to be relaxed in the room and do the professional thing, but be relaxed. And I think that's the thing is that I'm an introvert by nature. And so I, I don't. I saw your post, by the way, about being south by Southwest and I related to it so much about like everyone's networking. I'm just sat in the corner like, I get it, man, I get it. I think in part that's why I have a podcast because it's sort of one on one and someone has to speak to me like, this is my version of networking. It's just a lot. It takes you seven years to get to 500 people doing it my way. Whereas you could probably knock that out in three networking events if you're slightly better. Yeah, but I Get there eventually. Slow and steady wins the race, etc. Um, but no, I, I totally hear you, man, on that side of things. And I think it's. I think it's fascinating, you know, that you're. I'm learning a lot from you. Even in this conversation about, um, you, you, you see everyone as peers and you just see yourself as having expertise that you're sharing with them. And similarly, you're bringing people that they can share that expertise with you. Because you're on. You're in a different part of the journey when it comes to content creation. For example, you're in a. You're in a. You know, you're further along when it comes to pharmacy. And so you're, you're just paying it back there and paying it forward somewhere else. And I just think that's such a. It's, it's such a nice. It's such, uh, a. Just a nice mentality to have and like, and a really kind of, I don't know, an always on, always learning approach. That just means that you actually have community. Because everyone talks about it, don't they? Everyone wants to build a community. Amount of people that have got in touch with us. Oh, can you just help us build a community of blah? First question I always ask, why do you want a community of blah? Oh, because we want them to buy blah. And you're like, yeah, okay, we need to probably think about why you actually want that. No, no, we just want to sell to them. Like, no, no, no, don't stop saying it out loud. So I said, let's get to a reason why you actually want to build this community. And then obviously it never works, so we never end up doing it. Um, but it's, uh, honestly, it's so funny. But your community looks wonderful.

Speaker A: And it's one of the reasons why, like, a lot of these people have, uh, some of the creators that are on the panel have millions of followers and they've been approached by brands. Like, they'll probably be paid a couple of thousand by brands just to speak on a panel. Why would they do it for free? Right. And it's because it's genuinely. There's nothing attached to that. Right? It's purely. There's the. And I make it. There's nothing I'm gaining from that. So I may get some insights from you, but alongside every other attendee, uh, the whole idea behind it is let's just share some insights with each other. And, uh, like, I was quite worried about calling these large creators to the room I was like, would they come for this free event? Would they speak on a panel for a free event? I've had no problem with creators that work with large brands saying, like, they love this idea and they've always wanted it to be there. So as long as we can keep that essence alive, um, it'll keep going. Love it.

Speaker B: Love it. What is it about making coffee that you enjoy? Is it the process? Is it. Do you find yourself in flow state when you're making them? Like, and what is it about making them? Where does that passion. Where does that passion come from? Where does it live? Or.

Speaker A: Tell me about that. Uh, initially, when I start. First started, I never knew, like, what specialty coffee would taste like. So, uh, I used to. I grew up on Costa, uh, with like, seven sugars to the point that you can't even call it coffee anymore. Um, and when I was about 18, my cousin was like, you need to try this specialty coffee shop in London. And when I had a sip, I could taste, like, I could taste all sorts of, like, it's fruity and I can taste, for some of them, I can taste like this caramel notes. And this is without sugar. And I was like, I had no idea coffee could taste like this. So since then, I've been experimenting with different types of coffees. Ah. And looking at how they're made, uh, and how. So the coffee machine I have at home costs about three grand.

Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Can't wait to see it.

Speaker A: In fact. In fact, this is, uh, there's no space for it on the counter because we live in a flat. I had to buy a new special. Uh, Yeah. A new house. I have to have a new unit just to hold it because the coffee machine using 30 kilograms. So just the wooden box that holds it is 600 pounds. Uh, so. But this is so insane. This machine. You can literally adjust the amount of pressure the coffee machine is delivering whilst the shot of coffee is coming out to take out different notes of coffee. Wow. Uh, like different flavors of coffee. Ah. Outside of those beans. Uh, so I think I'm very passionate in terms of the process. I was very passionate in the process of getting it right. Um, and the, the coffee shop thing was when I was working as a pharmacist, my last job was I was seeing patients in clinic once a week, but writing about. I was an independent prescriber. So I was writing about 3, 400 prescriptions a week. And what I'm doing is I'm checking the bloods of these patients. Checking, uh, they're Doing their monitoring as required, seeing if the dose is still appropriate, prescribing and doing that for, for three days a week. And it was mind numbing.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right. So when I left and I was just. Even if it was just one day a week, uh, where we have this sort of fast paced environment of making coffee and what was happening was we started doing these coffee nights, uh, during Ramadan for Muslims. Like anyone would attend, but it was like coffee at night. The, the idea is insane. Um, but, but of course for someone who's fasting all day, the idea of getting a coffee is like amazing. Right. I haven't had a coffee all day in the like when we're working in that environment, we'd probably serve about 3, 400 people in a 3 hour SP space of time. And uh, I've got like time lapses of me working in that environment. It's exhilarating compared to like when you're sitting in front of a computer for eight hours checking bloods. It just brought out this sort of like I said to my wife, I was like, I, I really like, I, for the first time I enjoyed something that was doing for like four hours in a row. I, I didn't even feel the fact that I was working 4 hours non stop. So it's, it's that I guess it's that feeling um, of working in that fast paced environment. There's an element of that element of passion of coffee. Yeah. Element of talking to people. Um, uh. But yeah, I just really enjoy it.

Speaker B: It sounds, yeah it sounds so similar to when, um, when I was in my, when I was in my 20s and you know you, you'd uh, you come back from a shift in the hospital and, and I mean, yeah, to be honest you've, you've described what Most of an F1's job is. Checking the bloods and writing in the notes basically. I mean that's largely what the F1 role is and just getting, just getting home and like, you know, I was a bit of a bedroom dj. I say a bit of like, yeah, ah, didn't really get out of there but at the same time just me in my headphones just again another relatively repetitive process and definitely, you know, repetitive sound and uh, but whatever it was, I'm just in an absolute flow state and just loving what I'm doing. And then you're right, the hours just tick by and then for whatever stupid reason I then just decided that or was told and got it into my head that I had to be serious now and inverted commas and so I ended up binning the whole music side of my entire personality, which is quite sad. But, um, yeah, it is. What I'm so, I'm so glad that you've got that, man. I'm so glad that you keep that up because I, I, yeah, I think, I think that's awesome. And it just adds such a. I don't know, it just adds such a color and a flavor to what you do. And the fact, and again, the beauty of a bootstrap business, you can build that into what you do. Like, there's no one telling you that that's the wrong thing to do. And you can combine your hobbies, you can combine your interests, you can combine what, what makes you money with what brings you joy into this evening. That actually just gives loads of value to everyone as well. And also as well, I think it's in part a gift to be in service of people as well and to be, to be of service to people. I think, I think that's also a bit of a gift in that as well, that you get to provide for them in that moment. And you know, it's all, it's all on your dollar and you're, they're feeling all this value, but you're, you're doing a physical action for them, which I think as well. You know, if I, if I think back to, you know, when I would DJ at a party, for example, I'd love the fact that I actually have a thing to do. And yeah, I can't be talking like everyone or drinking or the others were doing, but like, I had a role and I had a purpose and that, that, yeah, you don't, uh, know how much you get thanked for it at the time. But at the same time, like, I just felt good about the fact that I was the one providing the service to the whole party and like that. I don't know, it's just nice. It just got me out my own and anxious, not wanting to network head, you know, as well, that I just had a thing to focus on. Um, yeah, but yeah, I absolutely, obviously love that one.

Speaker A: Just to touch on that because I got a lot of, uh. There's a lot of comments, particularly from, uh, people from other countries that were like, just really found. I knew they'd find it odd that I'd work as a barista and they really just didn't like it sit right with them.

Speaker B: But is that because of the, like the, the subservience kind of connotation?

Speaker A: Subservience, uh, expectations of a Pharmacist, you should never do any like, ends. The fact that this, uh, this role is below you is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Something that I gathered.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like uh, ah. Which honestly, as a content creator I loved because. Yeah. They complete what? One, I, I completely disagree with them. Two, thank you for the engagement. So I was like, this is gonna

Speaker B: drive me, isn't it? Like, would you, would you say that to a dj? No. Would you say it to a sommelier? Like sommelier is pretty much the same thing. Like an expert in wine that pours the wine for you and just gets it from the seller. Yeah, that's the same thing. But you wouldn't say it's a smell. Like it's. That's so interesting. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker A: But it's such a spec. Like in terms of coffee making, it's such a spectrum. You can, you can do it terribly and you'd still get away with it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And there's, there's, there is really an art to it. So ah, like just to give you perspective in terms of the, the worries at the coffee shop. So the, Every time we do a shot of coffee, it has to be between a certain number of seconds. That's the first thing. Because if it's, if it's traction, uh, yeah, the extraction in terms of the temperature of the milk, we like it to sit between 60 to 65 degrees. In terms. This is something that's quite interesting. And I never knew this until I started working in a coffee shop. If the door is open for the coffee shop, the humidity from outside affects the grinder.

Speaker B: No way.

Speaker A: And we have to adjust, adjust the grinder throughout the day in order to get the same extraction time.

Speaker B: So you're literally on like your weather app, just checking the human figure out the wind direction and the cloud cover

Speaker A: so there can be a real art to it. And I think that's often missed when people, like some people just do not understand it. Uh, but yeah, it can. It's that essence.

Speaker B: Well, it becomes art. You're right. It becomes art. It is a craft. It becomes art. And I think that's the thing with it, uh, with anything with that many variables that has an output that someone is to be. You know, someone experiences that through one of their senses. In this case taste. It's the same as a painter. It's the same as a dj. It's the same as. And it's the same as any of these things. It becomes a, it becomes an art, becomes a craft. It's like a chef. You're a chef. Like, essentially, you know, it's, it's all of that, it's, it's all of that stuff. And I think it doesn't. The, the belay thing's interesting because it's like, it's not, it's not, um. I don't know how to explain this, but I seem to be pulling this analogy a lot recently, that you wouldn't ask a painter why they paint. You wouldn't say to a hobby, uh, you know, hobby painter or, or, or semi professional, if there is such a thing. Painter. You wouldn't say to any of those people or someone who's being paid to do it. You wouldn't ask them why they did it, or you wouldn't say that like that's below you. You would. They're, they're just, they're painting.

Speaker A: They've.

Speaker B: Their mates paid them a tenor to draw something or they're commissioned to do this thing that hyper, like, it just is what it is and it's. I don't know, uh, I don't know what it is. You're right. Maybe it's the spectrum of things in coffee that perhaps people are just assuming you work in Costa and therefore they're drawing conclusions. But even then, what if that person really enjoys it and it is their art, it is their craft, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's an interesting one to ponder, but, um, I know that I've taken three extra minutes of your time, mate, so I'm going to, I'm going to wrap it up. I'm sure you got many things to do. Um, it's been a pleasure, thank you. I've loved this. If people want to learn more about you or, um, get in touch or learn more about microphone, what's the best way to get in touch with you? You'll find out more.

Speaker A: LinkedIn or microphone on social media platforms? Ah, it's just microphone on all social media platforms. So. And that's farm with a ph.

Speaker B: Yeah. The other micro farm is probably slightly different content but also quite fun to look at. So maybe look at that as well. Uh, Yasa. Absolute pleasure, mate. I've learned a lot. I'm gonna reflect on a lot of what we just talked about and um. Yeah, loved it. Thank you, mate. Thank you.