Okay, so, um, it starts with graphic design and the days when there were no computers. Wow. Um, yeah. Wow. For the people out there. Collective. Wow. Um, so graphic design, which is all about, you know, understanding how people work and what people want and consulting, as well as just pure creating an image for people. Right. So graphic design to brand to strategy to then shifting to building um apps iOS apps because suddenly, you know, you can’t just stay on paper anymore and just websites. Yeah. Um, and then shifting into digital transformation. And then now into AI, which was what, almost three years ago when ChatGPT showed up. November twenty two. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think, um, if I look back at what I’ve been doing, the main thing would be that every time there’s been a huge evolution in where our technology is going. Um, graphic design and design is a huge space that gets disrupted. Yeah. Right. It’s big. And I think that you’ve just got to go along with the journey because, you know, can you imagine if I was still on paper, maybe in in paper there are. It’s artisanal, isn’t it? Like I see some people like doing some stuff, maybe not graphic design, but in terms of like writing and their artwork and stuff like that. And poetry. And just like writing it on paper is a unique thing versus just having it spat out or written on computer. So. So that’s a really interesting point, right. So we’ve gone from this kind of like, um, artisan craftsperson to a curator. Right. I think an AI now where you still need to know what looks good, but I think we’re going to be spending more time curating rather than creating. I still think creating from scratch happens. I think it’s amazing. There is hope. Yep, yep. But I think overall more people are curating now. Yeah. And it’s and that expertise is still important. So the, the um, the art director, even though he may not be spending eighty percent of his time in a studio creating imagery with photographers and so forth, he now has to understand what a good image looks like, whether it’s whether it’s, you know, I created or generated or. Yes, I think it’s really shifting, but you still have to know what looks good. Oh, exactly right. The expertise is still important. You said curator there, but like in other industries, it could be. You still need to. You’re more like a project manager. Or in other industries, you’re more like the editor or the manager and stuff. And it is this shifting up of the, um, the the knowledge curve. Like, we don’t I, you know, we use calculators on our devices or spreadsheets. We don’t go out there. And sure, it’s a good skill to learn to know math, but you can get by, um, because you’ve got the tools, but you still, like you said, you still need to know how it works, how it works your but you still have to have that expertise, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think what would be really interesting is, and I know there’s conversations about juniors getting roles in businesses. The question is how do how is it going to change where juniors come in. Or it’s harder for junior to come in? Yeah. To learn. I think that’s going to be interesting because we need to build out their skills. Right. Yeah. How are they going to learn if they don’t get the experience? Yeah. It’s a catch twenty two. Like, is there more that needs to be done from the university side? Is there more that needs to be done from the business side? That entry point, like we can’t just get rid of and not have anyone hired because we’ll all get older and stuff and then no one’s going to do the work. So there has to be like a nice middle ground. But I think it’s got to be collaborative in terms of how it’s worked out. But it’s it’s a conundrum. Yeah. And and where the companies are going to hire juniors, but they’re probably more going to do like middle jobs. I don’t know, I have a joke at home running with my daughter, who’s currently she’s doing civil engineering, right. And they’re learning all about all the core things about civil engineering, how steel works and all that kind of stuff. But I said to her, I know that when you get a job, there’s going to be, um, programs and tools that will calculate that the way that curve is going to break and tense. But but I still am kind of glad that, you know, if it’s right or wrong. Yeah, but will she. Well, how can she get that role to actually? Because maybe they I don’t know, this whole thing is just really interesting. It is a scary kind of time. And, you know, it’s certainly something we want to dive into. And I guess, you know, being, um, at the forefront of what, uh, you know, you’ve got your family. And so you’re seeing what the, the juniors in your family, you’re thinking of, like a workplace that your kids, but also like clients as well, that are starting to embrace this kind of stuff. Yeah. And the work that you’re doing with Frey. Yeah. Um, and, uh, if you can just give us, like, a high level. What is Frey? What is, um, wakey wakey as well, so that we can just, uh, set the scene as to, like, you know, where where you’re from, like, what are you doing now? Basically, yeah. So we’ve had a really, um, look, it’s been a really, really awesome journey from starting, which was, um, two years ago to now. And because of what we could do with generative AI, we just went, this is going to change the way everyone works. So we jumped in saying we need to really understand how it can change and how it’s going to affect companies because we come from digital transformation backgrounds, consulting backgrounds and design backgrounds. So, um, we still do, um, some consulting. Um, and that’s been what you said. It’s been really interesting, I think, to talk about what we’re seeing now versus what we saw two years ago and what’s happening, I think I think there’s a shift. Um, but the other thing, too, is also how people like us, um, startups, small business, whatever you want to call us can actually get products out in the market, which is completely different to, yeah, three years ago, where, you know, or whatever the model was, you know, got to find a tech lead, got to get a tech founder. And I’m not saying that tech founders aren’t important anymore, but you can now build without having to have a tech founder and get your product and market tested to see if people actually want it. And then and that whole idea of build while you’re flying, um, and that’s, that’s a huge shift. So Friday we will do consulting for companies that are really interested in wanting to, um, ah, augment their processes. And we all know why, because of the efficiencies, um, freeing up people to do better work as well as we’ll do proof of concepts. Um, we’ll do service designs, understand that. And then on top of that, we also have another product we called Wakey Wakey sales. Um, and that is an SMS AI assistant that will SMS. Yeah. So it will turbocharge. Well it’s SMS, it’ll be email soon and it’ll be voice SMS because people answer to SMS, right. No one really picks up calls. Um, but and most people ignore emails. So it’s a very effective, um, channel. Uh, but that was one example of where we could see a really strong need. It was a really awesome fit for what I could do and can do now. Um, and we just knew that a lot of small businesses need that help. So that’s one of our big focuses is smaller companies, SMEs that we know need a lot of help to uplift what they can do with the resources that they have, which is usually limited. It’s interesting because that kind of, um, that kind of company, first of all, just going back to the SMS stuff, like Arturo and I, my colleague in Los Angeles, we have this belief that unless we’re we’re talking to people about doing deals and like working with them via like WhatsApp or telegram or something, it’s harder to because like at least at least we can have like a nice, easy conversation that isn’t so formal with the email. Sure, we’ll have contracts, we’ll go through things in terms of things that need to be sent via email. But in terms of just having conversations about the projects, it’s so much easier to just have a text based one. Yeah. And if there’s a tool out there that I can just SMS with, like I’m certainly interested in all of that. So we should show people that. But then the other thing is in terms of like the types of businesses that you’re working with, like, yeah, there’s there’s big businesses. And this used to be the only the domain of big businesses to get change like this. Well, if you can now rapidly prototype, develop and bring solutions to market as a smaller entity in your industry, the whole game changes. Yeah. So I think what you just said was exactly right. Now small businesses have the tools and the ability to have the same capability as large organizations, which before they couldn’t. And they’re not expensive, right? They’re like twenty dollars per month. Um, us. Um, but you have access to those tools now. I think the difference is, um, where I think where we can like what you’re like, what you do, not centralized. And what we do is that we’re focused on it. Right? Most small businesses don’t have the time, though, and I think that’s the difference. They’re they’re they are working because they do whatever they do, whether they’re, um, procurement consultants, uh, specialists or whether they’re even, um, even when it comes to like, uh, one of our customers, for example, he does, um, pest control right now. He, he uses wakey wakey sales to get all his bookings for his customers. Yeah, because one, he doesn’t have the time and two, it scales him because he’s only like a one one guy to guy business. So I think the main difference here is that he can now have access to that. But he doesn’t have necessarily have the time to do it himself. I think there’s businesses that will some of them, maybe they’re a bit larger and they’ll invest in resources to focus on it. But I think a lot of companies right now don’t. Um, and that’s where I think we can help people, um, because we can say, look, we can help you here, we can help you create this, we can do these sales for you. And you don’t have to lift a finger, but you’ll get the benefit of it, basically. Yeah. I think that’s the that’s the real key there. It’s finding the balance that works right for the company. Some will have more involvement in this process and be able to get more hands on with the AI. And yeah, um, others it’s going to be a little bit different. They want to just focus on other things and um, offset that with a group that or services that can provide that. We’re going to get more into um, uh, details about fry, wakey wakey and other, you know, things in terms of AI adoption trends with my colleague Chris. So I’ll hand over to him now. Okay. See ya. All right. I hope that was the ground. What? You just stepped. Oh, it was fair. You made a funny sound. Testing, testing. Do you want this? I just got mine. All right, I’ll leave this here. All yours. Oh, you can leave your laptop. Yeah. Because. Ah. Oh. Thanks, man. Right. Thanks, man. All right, so is it just one or two? Uh, just one and two, my friend. Okay, cool. It’s one recording. Two. Stop! No. Two. One. Two. Camera. No, we’re all right. I could have three four set up, but I didn’t. I didn’t have three four. No, I didn’t, I didn’t set up looking good. Okay, cool. I got some B-roll. Please continue. Wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey wakey shaky. So wakey wakey is a song that my daughter sings. Oh, really? It’s like it’s some sort of kid’s song. Well, it’s called wakey wakey because it wakes up your dormant cells and leads, I love it. There you go. A bit of fun. Like bio bit fun. It’s a bit of fun. Awesome. Uh, cool. Let’s go. Thank you for the handover, Mark. Charmaine. So awesome to have a chat with you. I kind of feel a bit special. I get you both separately as well. Separately? Individual? Uh, but, uh, almost like magic. Yeah, yeah. Exactly right. Are you gonna just drop and transition? Here we are. Two separate. We’re the same person, actually. We’re just blended. Blended skin colour, height, height, size, everything. Um, the reason I’m so excited to have a have a chat with you, especially, is because, uh, you and I share a very similar sort of career. Yeah. Sort of, So in terms of what we love to do, CJ is a big part of the world that we. Yeah. And obviously bringing AI into the types of things that we’re doing and um, in our work life or our customers for our client. Um, so yeah like really appreciate you coming in. I know that’s an exciting space for that whole area, isn’t it? Like with time, so many things happening, so much just can’t keep up. And it’s whether it’s if you’re on the ethical side of things or the change that’s happening in business or the individuals. We had a, um, this morning, we went to a coffee meet up, which does every second Friday now, which you’ve been to a couple of those and was with a, uh, a company actually hosted it for us. They got you for life, which is all around, um, mental health for for kids and students. Yeah. And the questions that kept coming up that we were looking at was around the ethical appliance of AI and digital, particularly when it comes to children or the impact on their life and their growth. So there’s all these interesting conversations that they’ve kind of always happened throughout the generations of digital and tech, whether it was from, you know, the first computer to the social media through to AI, etc. but it just brings up even deeper questions that you were like, yeah, sure. People form relationships with some of them sometimes, like, yeah, right. Yes. There’s a whole episode just talking about that one. Um, that’s a different episode. I would love to to dive into a bit of a woman ethics or anything, but I’d love to dive into a lot of the stuff that you’re seeing in this space right now, particularly, you know, working with companies and the adoption of AI. Yeah. Um, it’s been very interesting. Yeah. Like, I mean, if you look at it from an Australian perspective, one of the biggest things that we tend to hear is around that resistance, um, particularly when you’re active implementation of, of, of AI, AI tooling models, um, even just individuals learning and utilizing top skill in themselves. What are the like? What are you seeing with a lot of the customers that you. So I think what’s really interesting is the difference between working with customers two years ago. Yeah. And now, um, and, uh, which is I think is a really good thing. So in regards to, um, SMEs, um, I think SMEs have always been very receptive to AI, um, because they’ve got less regulations within their own companies. Right, because they’re smaller. Um, but they also understand the uplift that it can help them with. Um, so we’ve always had really good conversations with smaller companies and them wanting to actually go, oh yeah, I want to try that. I want to do that. What was um, harder was large organisations. Um, and we met, um, arrange everything from banks through to um, government through to um, insurance and so forth. Um, the large organisations in Australia and um, the actual business lead. So that vertical that that business comes from always exceedingly excited about the potential of improving how they do things within their vertical. Right. Always excited. And then and they’ve got all these ideas and and they’re very much as to how can we do this. Um, we end up we ended up in two spots. One would be we would work with a division. So on business area vertical and create a POC. Right. And large organizations were always very comfortable with POCs because they’re sandboxed. They’re ring fenced. Um, and they can test one thing. Um, and what we found though was that once you did the POC and it was and it usually is quite successful, we’ve had a lot of successful ones. Um, the hard part would be then you would slam into compliance or legal. I was going to say, how did that risk that step from, hey, we got this cool concept to then how do we get it to market? To market. All those little things and compliance and risk. Exactly. Legal and fair enough. I get it, because it was, you know, at the beginning, there was a lot of, um, you know, not a deeper understanding. Most everyone was learning, right? We were all kind of learning and I think, um, division leaders like areas and people in verticals were excited and saw the potential, but they understood, too, that they couldn’t do it outside of the regulatory or compliance areas of their business, the companies that they work for. But what I’m seeing now, which is really interesting, is, um, we are now having, um, conversations with some of these really large organizations, and they’re really open to it now. It’s and and when I say large, I mean, you know, probably a hundred maybe fifty employees, one hundred through to the larger ones, um, because I think, I don’t know, is it because they’re just everyone what shifts that mindset? What is. Yeah. I think, um, I think one, um, there’s a couple of things. And I’d be interested to see if you agree. One is that I think they realize that because we’re, we’re almost three years in, that if they don’t do it, they’re going to fall behind. Right. And I’ve talked to a bank as well in Australia and they’ve actually got their own team internally now, their own team that is exploring AI and actually implementing it in really specific areas in their business. Um, so I think they’re getting more internal teams that are doing that. But at the same time, I am hearing about other companies where there is no AI at all in the business. Right. But I think it’s slowly shifting into. Right. We we know we need to start looking at it, but how do we do it in a smart and safe way? Yeah. So what we’re finding now is that the the companies that we’ve been talking to, we are getting past the POC. Whereas before it was really difficult to there was huge reticence. Um, you still have to do all the, um, you know, I’ve got to go through this data security clearance, still have to answer all these questions and so forth. Um, because which is fair. You know, if you’re building tech, you need to be able to build tech properly. Um, but that hasn’t stopped it. They’ve gone. Okay, well, let’s see how it goes. And I think that’s a huge shift. Um, in organizations. Whereas before it was like. No. And which is why we changed our shift from large organizations to small organizations because we went, hang on, why are we why are we fighting when there’s this group here that actually want it? Yeah. Are you finding that too? Is that something that you’re seeing as well? Oh, definitely. Um, I mean, I mean, traditionally speaking, the smaller businesses, I’ve always been able to pivot a lot faster. Um, you know, especially if you’re a startup or into that scale up realm, um, and SMEs, you know, they tend to be a little bit more, a little bit less, but still able to pivot and move around things. But once you get into the big yeah, in big corporate settings, that resistance, the particularly in certain industry types where there is a lot of risk around data. And, you know, if you’re looking at finance and legal, for example, risk and compliance, um, is, you know, I spoke to someone the other day and the person who’s uh, works in legal for these a lot of these organizations. The lawyer himself and he’s like, I wouldn’t touch finance with a four foot pole. Yeah. Purely because of the amount of compliance. Yeah, yeah. That needs to be put in place to it and that. So that is definitely a big part in it. I think some of the shift is also because of finally, if you look at some of the big players that there, you know, like the Salesforces and oh, they are doing it because they’re all doing it. A lot of them are now have access to these tools that they didn’t before. So that risk kind of drops because they’ve already passed through their protocols. They’re getting the AI add ons from the tools that currently are. Exactly. So as long as you’re within the frameworks that that they already have approval for, it tends to be you would tend to take that step a little bit faster, a little bit easier. So what I what I find really exciting is that we’re currently working for a company, for example, which is it’s an SME. Yeah. Um, they’re not they’re not small by any means, but they’re not like a large organization, but they’re actually looking to augment all their processes that are very, very manual with AI and they’re looking to do it end to end. Now that’s. And it’s not just like one point. They really want to do it end to end because they can actually see. They really want to remove all the players from there. Well they want to build their own teams. Well, I mean, it’s a joke. No, it’s very manual. So what? So it’s almost like allowing their teams to do better work and service their customers better. Because at the moment, I think it’s almost like the bulk of the time of their, their teams, their their their employees, their staff are actually just doing all the manual work because because of inherent in the systems that they’ve always had. Very much so. Whereas what we’re helping them is uplift what that employee does. So there’s so much that we can augment so that you take away all these manual, you know, input of one field to another and manual checking. Um, so that the AI does the bulk of that. Um, obviously there’s going to always have to be a human, a human in the loop comment. But always And for the really key points right. So when invoices go out or when quotes go out, or the really key points still really need a person to check. But I think maybe in like six months time after they’ve gotten used to it, they may maybe checking less because they can see that consistently it’s working well, right? Or it’s not working well or whatever it is. Right? So that’s a testing phase. Um, but that’s really exciting because they’re not just whereas the POCs were just like one really small aspect within a process. Um, we’re beginning to see that companies want to have that end to end process. So they want to have it all mapped up and going, well, how can we actually fix this as opposed to just that one bit? Because you fix that one bit, it’s still broken downstream and upstream. So exactly. So are these POCs are these things that they’re implementing? Are we talking like they’re implementing digital solutions or you’ve talked about workflows or agents as well? It basically is. Um, so yeah, it depends. It just completely depends on what’s required to actually help them. Right? So we always start off with, um, you know, understanding the experience, which is a service design service blueprint, because that gives you that whole connection between what a customer is, um, feeling and what kind of service they’re getting and how is it connected to the whole back end systems and what, um, teams do inside. So I’m sure you know about service blueprints. We had a big we had a chat. Oh, we love service blueprints. Um, but then once we’ve mapped that out, we can actually then go, well, what is the solution? What is it that this team member needs to do a better job, a more efficient job, and actually spend less time being really manual, right. So it’s also that whole workshop stuff, right? This is design. So you’re working with them. You’re getting solutions with them. You’re identifying all that and all that’s still really important. And yeah sure I get AI to help me. Right. I mean, it cuts out, um, you know, a lot of the labor up front, right? So you can get the first draft really well or, you know, the before the first draft, but you still need to spend the time to review and make sure it’s correct. Right. Because because, you know, it’ll give you an awesome stuff. But it goes, oh hang on, I can cut out three steps, you know. So you still need that understanding expertise. Yeah. But it’s it’s it’s a digital ends up being a. Digital solution that’s AI augmented but based on what is required to solve the problem. And then of course we work with partners like Mark and his team, um, to, to find that solution. Sneaky plug there Mark. Yeah I did. Was that good? That’s that good? Yeah. Sounds good to me. The, um, do you think there is an easier way for these larger organizations to be able to get past that POC phase into product launch ready? Is there something that they could be doing differently to facilitate that? Oh, geez. Whether it’s in relation to the processes that. Yeah, that you obviously facilitate with smaller organizations. Or do we think it’s something that just innately won’t change. And I think it’s going to change. I do think it’s going to change. Um, I also and look, I think I don’t know, every single organization. I do think there’s an interesting, um, uh, I think people are still very much focused on the, the actual UI interface. Right. The actual interface of something. And that’s and obviously that’s really important because if you’re selling, you know, any, any business, the interface to your customers is really important. The first thing you see. Right. Yeah. And and I think there’s a lot of emphasis over the last ten years about, you know, the getting the most the best experience you use, the best user experience, the best interface and all that kind of stuff. Um, because you want to make it easy to sell and make it, um, very, um, easy to understand. And, you know, you don’t have to think about it. You just press buttons and you know what you’re doing, right? But I the one thing I do find interesting is that that to me now is almost becoming a bit of a commodity, you know, because a bolt and because the lovable because of base forty four right now there’s plugs. But you know, even anyone can now create an interface. Now, it doesn’t mean that that interface is a SaaS products. It’s the what’s the pending thing that everyone keeps talking about. Yeah, but but the thing is, just because those products can create a beautiful looking interface doesn’t necessarily mean that it works well. Right? So you still need the expertise, but I think, um, it’s what I hope that that lends to is that people are beginning to move away from the interface only and thinking about how people work. Right? Because AI isn’t just about pressing a button, right? This whole this generative AI augmentation is about how people work. So it’s not just how your customers press buttons, it’s actually how customers get your experience from point A to B to C to D to E, so you can fix the interface as much as you want, which is really easy now, right, in comparison to before. But if you don’t have that process at the beginning, right, they’re going to struggle at E! It’s like the classic, um, uh, the classic kind of bank experience where, you know, you cancel an account in your bank, but it only knows the one account. It doesn’t know about all the other accounts you have. So you’re like, I canceled an account. Oh, no. You only cancel this savings account. Right? So, like, that’s still a bad experience. So if you want it to be improved in AI augmented, you got to think about that CX as well as the the the whole service design. It’s like what are those connecting systems and so forth. It’s not just augmenting one thing I think. So it’s looking at the overall journey. So it’s not necessarily that they’re gonna be able to break through those walls in any one particular moment, but if they look at the whole experience, they will find better opportunities to slip through and prove that that gets them to the next step. Right. And you know what? I think at the moment? They’ve got the moment they’ve built their first one and they get proof and they get adoption. I think that’s that’s when it changes. And and that’s the risk. That’s the risk. So there is a risk to take a risk to see that you can get through those risks again next time. Yeah. I was talking to, um, um, an innovation lead at a bank. And basically she, she said, um, she was they were doing AI in that bank. Um, and they were very smart about where they started, you know, what was going to be the best thing to showcase AI as well, so they can win. There’s no point not choosing something where you’re going to get a win and where it makes the most sense, and where they’re going to get the highest return as soon as possible. Um, and this one was a contact centre. Right. But it’s but, you know, she’s a service design expert, right? So she understood the whole taking everyone on the journey with her. So it’s still all the same kind of rules apply to digital transformation and change. Um, but I think every step that she took and could prove that that little POC is part of that whole journey. Um, I think every time she did one, it won someone over. And then she got bigger and she wants something. And so I think it’s going to be the same where you do one. And then the rest of the business can see that it works. I think you can start opening up to the story, the journey. Yeah. Things take a little bit longer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s it I like that. Like the the stone, the water to make the ripples. Yeah. Because if it’s successful, I have a story on a flip side, a very similar thing. But like, the opposite scale is, uh, I’ll be careful, because I definitely can’t say brands or people in this situation will get me double. Um, but they were asked to implement similar thing, some kind of AI, because the powers that be were like, no, we need to do this. We need to show it. So the board and investment and all that type of stuff. Yeah. Um, and they’re like create, create an AI chat tool that will go into into this app. Yeah. And they were like, but the customers don’t want that. They just, they don’t like this. They need us to look at this, this and this. We could do better like no, no, no but do that one because that’s going to look more impressive for the people we show. So they went on that journey to to build the thing and then compliance and risk got. And what was supposed to be an agile ends up getting whittled down into this kind of little chat tool that was just. Yeah. So then they became a waste and they couldn’t they couldn’t end up delivering on it. Then again, it comes back to that. Didn’t look at the customer journey, didn’t understand the steps that need to be taken in order to implement. Didn’t understand the needs of the customer or the business and the tools. And you end up creating something that just doesn’t work? No. The other thing too, though, I still I think what’s important too is who your stakeholders that own it. And I actually do think that it needs to be the person at the top has to own the AI vision, because if it’s just somewhere, um, halfway down the hierarchy, you’re not going to get that push. I think the I think the companies that are actually forging ahead with AI eyes because the CEO or the board that that really high level, um, senior person and really up high, um, in the company has got a vision and is actually allowing their company, their employees to do it. I think those are the really interesting companies, right? Because you’re not going to get buy in. It sounds like that one. For example, they didn’t have buy in maybe and someone squeezed it. Yep. Right. And then and then you’re not going to get that win or even outstanding if you’re talking about good innovation. Kind of had an understanding of the proper process and things to consider when someone just goes build the AI tool for the sake of it. Like, no, no, no. Yeah. Um, on that topic, there’s something that’s very interesting, uh, that I love, that I really like that we touched on the other day was around that startup and founder dynamics or the ability for like individuals. Now, if we step away from them to be able to start doing things almost by themselves, which we couldn’t do previously. You know, we always had that terminology around bootstrapping and trying to build a startup, but then you need someone else to support you and build the tools. And, um, it’s now I guess what we discussed was how easy it is for us as individuals to start creating things. Um, you know, we talked about byte coding, businesses testing, creating prices. How far can you get with that now? Um, wow. So I really believe in the, um, build value flying. Build value flying while you fly. Um, I do not make that. I don’t have your water in front of you. Dude, where’s your. Get the water, water, boy? On the way. Which one is your water? Your water. Mine’s back there. Yeah. It’s not going to magically appear halfway through the season. I’ll literally leave these conversations in. I want to feels more real, right? Um, this is this is natural. This is natural. Yeah. There’s the big giant, and I just look down and I say, welcome to the sun. Um, yeah. So I think There’s a huge difference now to startups or small. We call ourselves a small business, right? Um, and the reason why we. Well, yeah, we are a startup too, but we’re a small business because I think it’s really different now, because in the past you would have a vision, you have an idea of what you want to build tech that is, um, and you would mock up some screens, whatever PowerPoint or word, um, maybe if you knew Figma, maybe. Right. Um, but then ultimately to even get that in front of potential customers or users or real testers, you would have to go through these rounds of finding yourself a tech resource. How do you do that? Do you get pay someone? Do you find a tech founder to join you? But you always had had to have technical resource. Um, and it took time. So startups would take could take a long time to get where they wanted to go, to even test whether their product is something that someone wants to buy. Um, so, I mean, I was talking I met this, uh, guy at a at a networking event, and this is what he did. He basically because he can now he created a product a month, right? Um, and they’re all really different. They’re all different things that he thought would have a solution, uh, was a solution that someone wanted. And he made one a month. Right now, they weren’t perfect. Um, but they were. But they were MVP’s enough to sell and to market an online. So he basically tested and he said that the sixth one he built, which was month six, was the one where he got a lot of traction. And that’s what his product is right now. Now he basically was building while he was flying. So he created something that he on his own, um, that he could just test in the market and then keep iterating to see what customers want. And then once he knew it was something that had traction, he could then decide what it meant. You know what? What does it mean to scale this? Do I have to do I have to help. Um, like, for example, with wakey wakey sales, we went. We think this is going to be something people want. So we built automation, right? An automation that, um, would push out to customers. Something that works really well didn’t work one hundred percent, but it worked at eighty percent. Um, but then when we did that and we started selling it and basically we got customers and we went, okay, this is awesome. But it’s not a product that’s going to scale because it was automation. And and you can’t stay in the automation. It’s actually automation is quite rock solid right. And with a prompt or just in the background having the SMS conversations. And that’s a prompt where that’s prompt, we keep secret because it’s our prompt. Right. Um, but the automations you could build, you could build it too, right. So but we just went but but this can’t scale. So that was a decision, um, where we went. Well, what are we doing now? Do we want to actually scale it? Um, and now it’s been rebuilt, um, in Python. Um, but we could do it ourselves too, without having to get a whole team of deaths for us. So yeah, bootstrapping, um, and getting there faster. So it’s taken us, I think we, we started in December, so it’s taken us eight months to get some to get more customers and see if it’s something that really fits in the market. Eight months is pretty fast, I would say. Yeah, yeah. To actually have customers. One hundred percent. Yeah. That’s awesome. But that was I’m sure that’s not something I could have done three or four years ago, not three years ago, but four years ago. Um, but even now, right, with things like all those bolt lovable cursor windsurf, all those and even Midjourney and, and all those kind of tools, you can build something as a side hustle while you’re working somewhere, and you can do it yourself and you can test it basically on your own, which is completely changed the landscape of what it means to be a startup. I think even even from a personal perspective, right? Is I mean, again, we had this conversation I was just the other day, I’ve been getting back into exercising, feeling good. Oh, yeah. I was like, you know what? I don’t want to pay for an application. I’m already paying for all these vibe coding tools. Yeah, I’ll just query it and build my own little app. So now now I literally have an AI driven workout app with all my exercises in it mapped out. I don’t have to do anything to open it up on my little domain and boom, my exercise is ready to go. It’s going to talk to you while you’re while you’re at work. Come on. You’re not pushing hard. You’re not pushing hard. Open up the camera. I blocked the camera. Don’t you block that camera? I can see you do it. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I think I think what will be interesting, it’ll be. And it’ll be good to get you on Mark’s point of view is how does that change the VC scene? Yeah, right. What does that mean to VCs? And I think they maybe they’re maybe, you know, asking to get a VC on and ask them. I’d love to know because are they how are they changing what they’re looking for. Are they changing what they’re looking for? And what does that mean going down the track? That’s so true because the investment in digital tech and SaaS products, that’s been the big thing. But now we’re seeing people’s ability to be able to make some of these products, you know, in their own bedrooms. And so what does that mean from an investment? It’s an interesting thing. And what is the moat now as well? Well, I mean you can even talk to it from the perspective of obviously we’re seeing lots of investment into AI products and business and infrastructure. Um, and then if you look at the big players, it’s the investment into the individuals who then build these tools as well. So the money is shifting in terms of what they’re investing in. But I definitely think that it’s going to change even more rapidly over the coming. And there’s lots right? There’s so many. I mean, I haven’t seen a graph of startups lately, but if we compare the number of startups now versus the number of startups five years ago, I don’t know if any of us have. I don’t have that data, but that would be probably insane, right? Very much so. do we need to do another census, particularly overseas? Yeah. Yeah. Don’t know about Australia but yeah, definitely overseas. You’re spot on. Yeah. Um, I’m conscious of time as we’re, um. And I know we’ve got some other interviews and stuff to to plan out. Um, one final, I guess question I’d love to know from you. Like, what are some of the tooling that you’re tooling that’s taking over your life at the moment? What are the things that you’re either excited about now or that you’ve that you’re excited about that’s coming as well? Um, okay. The, uh, I’m currently really excited about, um, doing more automations and internal. Right. So building our own internal automations, um, and it’s that classic thing where I’m, like, going, hang on, why am I doing this? I can build automation to help me do that. But you’re so caught up in the product that we’re doing and consulting that you forget, hey, I can automate these myself. So that’s one thing that we are. What are you using it for? Automations in, um. Look, it’s a bit cheeky. Um, but it depends on, um, you know. Look. N-n-n. Yeah. Um, but at the same time, sometimes I just get a little bit of help from, you know, gpt. Hey, just do this whole animation for me. That’s what it’s there for. But that’s about that. But it’s the awesome first draft, right? It’s it’s. And I think you can do that for anything now. It’s that awesome first draft. Um, and prompting properly. Um, the, the other thing that, um, because we want to automate our marketing more right at the moment it’s just too manual and we’re going, what are we doing? And there’s lots of resources out there to, to help. Right. And lots of people are doing amazing things. Um, the other thing I think I’d love, I’m going to go back into more is the imagery, um, like creating better imagery. Um, I was on Midjourney for a bit on Leonardo, and then I jumped off and now I’m like going, wow, I think if I jump back in, it’s going to be really, really different. Now they’ve got some awesome products, um, results. And the last one is I’ve started working on cursor, which has been really interesting. Um, I do want to try windsurf a bit more because I heard it’s more, uh, it’s better for people like a total non-tech like me. Yeah, because it’s driven towards that. Yeah. Because it’s it’s it’s a matter of a better interface. Um, but I like the idea that there’s still more control and cursor, um, and that that’s an interesting thing, I think. What’s, uh, something that we discussed this whole agentic, um, era, we’re kind of moving into. What I find now is that I got to be careful to stop. Right. And I think, and I’m wondering if windsurf does that, it just runs off and does whatever it wants. Right. Whereas with cursor I’m like, no, no no no no no no no no wait. Let’s let’s start here because I want to see what it’s doing as opposed to running off and making changes everywhere. So the the structure of how do I do that. So I know what it’s doing, um, and what it’s going to change and how it’s changing things. Uh, I think so it’s I think what’s interesting is working out how to control the results and what the inputs that are so that I get what I want. But then sometimes it’s good for fun, right? Serendipity. Wow. What? What showed up? I mean, I mean, and then to your point around how you prompt it is becoming more and more important with like some of the latest updates that are obviously coming out. Exactly. Um, with lots of tools, but that’s really awesome. Um, Charmaine, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you for having me. This has been awesome. Yeah. And, uh. Yeah, we’ll we’d love to have you on for future. I’d love to join episodes, probably with a bit more structure and organization in terms of the setup structure. We like non like structure. We love the chaos. We love the chaos. Yes. Yes. Um, any final words for anything? Um, I think we all need to have one of those. Little the little the little mushy things. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll get you for all your all your guests. We’ll sort that out for the next one. My next toy investment. Like, uh, get a 3D printer and get 3D printer generate Mark this generation. I love it. I love it. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. Okay, cool. Stop signing.