How Shlome Baum Built, Scaled & Sold His Company to Microsoft - Episode 243

Welcome to another episode of the Let's Talk Business podcast. Today in studio we have Schlloy Mabam, a technology entrepreneur and founder of Field One, a field service management software company that was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 and became part of the Microsoft Dynamic 365 field service offering. Following the acquisition, Schlomma spent years inside Microsoft, giving him the unique experience of seeing businesses from both sides, building a company from the ground up and then operating within one of the largest technology companies in the world. Today, Schlomman is back in the entrepreneurial seat with Eminet, a internet filter technology focused on creating smarter, faster, and frictionless filtering experience for Clalistro. Scholma, thank you so much for joining me in studio today. >> Thank you for having me. We got to know you a couple of months ago as you were introducing Emmunet behind the scene and Barasham will be able to work together last couple of months and bringing the filter to Cli and I appreciate the opportunity. I know we spoke many times in the past about your story and you said I'm a shy person. I'm behind the scenes and I've heard about your story in the past and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be the first for a sitdown interview to hear a little bit more about your story. >> Absolute pleasure. It was it was just an honor likewise to work with you. It's been an awesome experience throughout and I think the the experiences and the outcome is kind of starting to uh materialize in the market out there and uh we're hearing an extremely positive vibe uh out of this uh incredible effort. >> Thank you. So for our audience um they're used to my podcast and I like to ask good questions. Um at least I try to ask good questions and the reason is because I love to learn as well from from interviewing. So you have a a very very vast amount of experience in in the journey that you had. Um so I'm going to dive deep into some of those experiences and see what other people listening to this could learn from. I want to start with the field one experience. Um tell me more. You woke up one day. I'm going to build a a software. I'm looking for something where I'm going to be able to exit. I'm looking to solve a problem. Tell us a little bit about that. >> Sure. Uh so actually it didn't start out with me building a specific software. It started out with me doing custom one-off projects for lots of different clients uh from tuition systems to gamach to um voting systems, you name it. Uh many of them are still kind of running out there successfully. Um however, you know, custom software are one-off projects. Customer are willing to pay that much uh for that effort. They just want to get off uh to the races with their project. not necessarily willing to invest and spend to make the me the best experience possible. And personally, and I think that that probably speaks a lot to my essence, I like to um take things that are chaotic, complicated, uh negative experiences and turn them into delight in a way that people actually thrive and and appreciate using those experiences. And that basically is what drove me to create or want to create a project where I could pour in all of my um passion uh for and uh basically I I just you know a friend of mine an IT technician walked up to me and mentioned you know he was describing his kind of day in life and how chaotic it is and your negative experiences he's been looking for software and that kind of got me thinking and um as I was kind of trying to make sense of the IT's life. I then realized that uh the kind of routines or the life cycle is applicable way beyond just it. It's applicable to a vast array of industries out there. Um ultimately I looked at it as a service related product where you go and you got to help customers with uh assets that they have. Assets can be you know many many things. It could be a computer, but at the same time, it could be your washer at home, your dryer, your fridge, or it could be from a company or business perspective, could be a huge copier, it could be a cat scan, it could be a nuclear power plant, there could be many different types of things, ships or what have you. Um, that ultimately make up the uh service space or the service industry at the time. There was no connotation or specific name to it, which is today coined as field service management. Uh but ultimately I I saw that as a very vast uh opportunity uh to double down on and and I I basically said that's my that's my future. That's how the journey started. >> Got it. So I I need to dive in a little deeper if you may. So um nobody wakes up one morning and says I want to become a programmer. I want to start developing stuff. Um it's some sometimes it it's an DNA of a person and comes out of two places. One is sometimes a person is very geeky and that's the natural tendency. Okay, let me start programming coding and and breaking stuff or it comes out sometimes out of curiosity. The person is a curious person and and it says why is this being doing this done this way so many years? Let me figure out a better way of doing it. What in your upbringing and what type of person were you before that that you decided all of a sudden I'm becoming a programmer? Uh I think it's a combination of factors. Um I am a tinkerer. I am I'm a vivid reader. Uh and I do like to understand things at its core. Uh so I think that's that's probably one trait. Um I think uh adding on top of that uh it was like it was a light bulb for me at some point. I was like doing on the side. I was in colonos on the side. So uh I was doing uh layout of spurum like complicated spurum that have like you know specific needs that are beyond a typical word processor. Uh and it was like a a fairly kind of unique application. It was not necessarily user friendly. Uh and I had many many things that I wanted to do and I discovered there's this concept of plugins over there. it was just a scripted language and I like vividly remember that moment where I kind of studied that language and I I started like making a little code or a change and like suddenly I see oh my god it's like it really changed many things and that would that was for me like a real eye openener um it it like fascinated me just with this little tiny apostrophe or dash you could basically like change dramatically things uh I said to myself that's my future so I think that for me was probably the light bulb. Uh you know then I I I kind of transformed that into my own kind of thing as I was building like laying out this firm and I had to do billing uh for my clients. I was like starting to do um like small project to track my hours and and kind of build the customers and so on. So that kind of initiated my journey. I don't ask your question. >> Yeah, sure. And and and did you go to any formal um um programming classes to learn it or you learned self-thought? >> So it's interesting. And I actually we I did start that I'm uh kind of going at a C++ class that was one language that's that's being used then and still used today. Uh I actually met over there a very close friend of mine Aaron Rubelt which happens to be ended up being an employee at field one and now still employed at Microsoft a very exceptional engineer. Um but you know we basically we were sitting in that class and we became close friends but nevertheless we never really kind of ventured into it or took it any further. So we we never really had any formal training on on what we did other than that that little class which was local in where I live. Uh it was a fairly short uh circuit. >> Got it. So I I want to I want to go in a little bit um to the field one business. Um, so there's also like as you mentioned, you started off doing these these small one-off projects and we see it a lot in the creative space and the development space. A lot of founders have that background that they did some web development and this and that and all of a sudden they found a niche and then started building towards that market. Um, you mentioned before about that you you saw a need in the space that wasn't yet a category but you saw a need in the space. I want to understand from a entrepreneur from a vision perspective and and was it from the get-go that okay this is a huge opportunity we're going to build this big and seem eventually exit or was it building for one customer at a time and and and eventually that whole process of maybe potentially somebody will be interested in buying us >> I don't think I if I want to be honest that I looked at it as an acquisition or an exit perspective uh with that kind of mindset Uh I started out um first of all understanding the space really deeply looking broadly what's out there and how we can be differentiated. Um uh I was looking it to I was looking for it to be a kind of successful journey but not necessarily at that scale I would say. Um but to your question if it was to one specific customer I'm very much about um delight and to me delight basically means at the beginning for sure like one customer at a time understanding the needs evolving with that customer um I've done this time and time again and that's basically my guidance like before scaling in fact I I I I would probably be the first one to admit that I think we actually went a little bit too fast at the beginning uh and we launched into the bigger market. You know, I have many uh people coming to me now for advice and asking like, "Hey, I want to go into the larger market." And my answer is always like, "Who said first of all uh that that's good for you?" Number two, >> if you're ready. >> Exactly. If you're ready and and and and I always like if you have a niche and you're local. In fact, I I argue you first like penetrate that market really well, understand the audience real well, and I think at that point it's going to be almost natural to expand from that. But out of the gate, um I I I'm a big believer of getting things right uh at first and I'm trying to apply these learnings now at the minute. >> Got it. um every every business after a acquisition um you know obviously it you know we say okay it was successful it succeeded with an exit and so on and so forth and we'll get to that piece of the eventually in the in the interview but obviously how much time was it from when you started literally had the first customer till actually you exited um a field one >> uh I would say roughly 9 years or so probably 2006 is when we kind of had our first customer. >> Mhm. >> Um and and 2015 was the acquisition. So a a total of about nine years. >> Okay. So it wasn't an overnight success, so to speak. >> Absolutely not. Absolutely not. >> What what have you learned in that process? what type of setbacks did you have in this journey that you learned and kept on building on and not giving up while and the reason I'm asking is um so many of the listeners that are listen to to this show um they have these ideas they start building and they don't give it the proper time to actually build it out and if there's one stumbling block all of a sudden they quit already I always say this not not every stumbling block is a reason to quit you know listeners not every stumbling block is a reason to quit and with software and even general businesses it could be a service business anything you know things don't work out the day one like it takes time what could you share from that journey throughout the process were there times you said you know what maybe we're not going to get where we want to be or maybe it's not even something that the the market wants or or needs >> I mean one I can give you a laundry list of those um uh it was it I definitely went through pretty much the same share of setbacks good days and and not in perhaps ugly days. Uh but um I think presverance is is actually an ingredient uh that's that's almost impossible to reach heights without uh for most people. Um so you know I can go through a laundry list from financials to uh to HR to um uh to product to uh sales. uh you know the journey was definitely not as smooth. >> Okay. So let's start even technology because sometimes you you're building something to do custom layout or to time your own time is one thing. Now all of a sudden this is now outside people on the field using it bugs issues challenges. Was the technology built on the proper grounds from day one? Was it did you have to go through the cycle multiple times to get the product where it needs to be? >> Uh I I mean absolutely but I think technology is a great one. So we started out at the time like development probably started out in 2005 or somewhere around that time frame. Uh it was at the innings of the internet. Uh browsers were just just you know just a vehicle but it was just flat pages. It was really nothing. So it was almost a natural although we did had like you know we were debating browser versus desktop but I remember like you know we went desktop all in. It was a thin client. It was very professional actually. I'm still proud of that. It's still being used. Um, but that was a great one because over a couple of years, the evolution of of the browser was just something we couldn't skip. Uh, and transitioning to browser was not an easy uh was not an easy task. But I think also to the point uh that you're asking if we we kind of had setbacks, it was probably even more difficult than that because we had the conditions out there in the road going in and out of network. Remember you're talking in 20067 where coverage was not necessarily as prevalent as it is today. uh and you know you had to lose connection so we had to kind of remain kind of operational um in the field people fat finger type of thing you have the gloves and everything and making an experience that that doesn't get in the way it was you know as as every software product we were going through our share of of challenges but I think what I uh what I actually deeply believe in is the vast majority of time challenges you can turn into opportunities if you don't if done right. I think um and and and we did it multiple times. You know, you take a frustrated customer, you work with them, and you kind of evolve, listen intently to what's going on, fix it quickly. Um most people uh actually ultimately uh grock on that and and and eventually actually become fans. And we have many many many evidence during during all these years where have I applied where I've applied it. setbacks is just a part of the journey that you have to accept as part of it is as part of your as part of getting anywhere. >> Uh the way I look at it and the way we always say it at Microsoft is a a a mistake is is not called a mistake if it's done once and maybe twice. It's called learning. Past that. That's when that's when it becomes a problem. So um I I don't see as issues as a setback but more as a learning experience to evolve. >> Got it. Um would you say like like you mentioned before like a lot of people in technology come to for advice here and there. Do you see a pattern of people trying g trying to give up prior to the product being really mature enough to to to accelerate? >> It's very common. Sometimes it's it's not necessarily because they're trying to go fast simply. Sometimes it's a matter of of economics and and and you know they're just trying to make me meets end. >> Um and sometimes yes sometimes it's premature. they just don't understand really well the customer and they haven't really taught out that like go to market they haven't really taught out uh where they want to ultimately reach and and it's all these difficult questions which is hard to entertain in particular when uh a lot of times I see that and you might see that as well a lot of times I see business owners go into a business something they or even the technology stack they choose because they're kind of close to it they like it they they enjoy it and they have the belief or even just dream that hey if I do then naturally everyone does >> and and and it's I I think it's a huge mistake and and that's where customer obsession empathy really comes in. I I always encourage people and sometimes it's a hard it's kind of a thin line that I have to walk in particular with with kind of founders because I have to kind of watch they shouldn't be discouraged but sometimes because people you know are ambitious and they and they they ultimately will break through barriers. So discouraging is probably not the right thing but like putting them like on on kind of on a thin line to make sure that they're still uh kind of passionate and excited of what they do but yet you know take seriously what happens in a year and two years and three years from now. they shouldn't get burned like like many others have. I think is like a a thin line to walk. >> Um let's speak about another topic which is um very important is sometimes you you you like have that proper product and great market fit and all of a sudden you get those clients because they don't have a lot of options. Have you faced direct competition in the space that you also had to um maneuver throughout building the business? >> Oh yeah. I mean it we were not a slam dunk for sure. We uh although at the beginning when we started out >> it was absolutely not a mature market. It was not defined well and the players it was just an ugly mess. It was very chaotic. But as time evolved uh we ultimately um bumped up to many many competitors, some with deep pockets, uh strong investments that we have to had to get against uh up to. Um and we held multiple kind of value um uh kind of things that that ultimately um uh were were things that that that were in our favor. Um, but I think the one that stood out time and again, I'm going to mention it a number of times, is the customer empathy. Um, because, you know, we listened very intently to what the customer wants, but not what they say. And there's a huge distinction there because it's about the objective that the customer wants to ultimately get to rather than the how or what they tell you they they want. they would describe you, hey, put me this or make me this field or add this button or what have you. And you know, more often than not, that's not necessarily the most optimal approach both even for them, but also for the broader and how it interacts and integrates with the entire product. So, we we we took what they wanted really seriously. So, when they described the how, we kind of kind of not just push back, but just try to understand ultimately what they want to get out and and took it from there. The re the reason I'm asking is because um most small business owners start at disadvantage because in most in most categories there is real players with deep pockets that are there and I want I want to see what else have you learned in that experience that will still set you apart. Um, so you mentioned the deep empathy for a client, which is amazing. And I think there's always an there's always a segment of of the market that will go for that versus, you know, small versus big big business. Is there anything else that you were able to um say that you were at an advantage being a small company versus the big the big competitions in the space? Um when the question is small versus big I think absolutely there is an immense amount of opportunity. Uh although it's not applicable always to every customer but uh more often than not a c a small company can run faster um can um add uh stuff or things that customer want quicker and um and ultimately better and more closer to what the customer wanted versus in a large enterprise it it's hard to kind of get traction quick. >> Uh so I think that actually is is a huge advantage that customer customers look at. um sometimes surprised but not necessarily. That's typically not not in a not not a great way. >> You remind me years ago, I'm going back very many years ago, I I I wrote an article. It's the title of the article was I love my junk mail and and actually the concept of that was when you look at your junk mail and you see a piece from American Express for marketing, you know that this probably took eight months to get to your mailbox. went through every every question >> yet it landed in junk mail. >> So not but you as a business owner could have the same same idea for your business tomorrow. >> No, absolutely. And I don't know if you want to get into that now, but I think one of the most impressive and precious things that I actually uh clamored even while I was at Microsoft is just that very fact like how we can go from hero like from zero to hero in in a matter of hours, days. um like you know a customer expresses frustration or really needs something or we see something in the market to kind of leap frog a competitor um we just just get together and just you know come up draft it and and debate it and just go it's like >> and and you know good luck getting that in in enterprise so >> got it so we'll get to the Microsoft part of of the journey so um so obviously field one is growing at at the time nine nine years later 80 years later how how big is the team like what's the story how how like how many ser clients like whatever you could disclose like how big of a company is it in terms of people's service servicing >> so we had two products so as I mentioned we had like a desktop product which we had a lot of customers across the globe uh but it was more geared towards SMB uh at some point on the journey we started getting calls from companies like Schlam it's a public company massive company uh oil and gas like I think they're the largest in oil and has I think at the time they were larger. No, maybe not that like a couple hundred million for sure at the time and they saw a product, loved it, but they like they were like, well, you know, are we going to rely on this tiny New York company? Um, you know, impossible. I can't even go up to my to my higherups and and sell it. But for us, that was eye opening and we said, you know, there is opportunity out there even for larger companies that we were serving. But you know we have to find some path uh to empower them that even if something god forbid happens to oz they shouldn't necessar you know nothing happens. Uh that gave us birth uh to a concept called metadata driven platforms. In essence today if you think salesforce uh you know it allows you to build apps on their platform and the customer can then take it and build on top of it without necessarily having anything or relying anything on you. We shipped a core value ad, a core IP and they built on top of that. So, uh we decided we're going to go uh and build rebuild the product um kind of as an enterprise play uh more focused on enterprise. We had uh we had a we had many customers at the time of the acquisition. I don't know if I want to say numbers but um it was it was you know nice nice enough that um Microsoft uh started seeing us in many many deals. Microsoft was in kind of real a deadlock and and with uh Salesforce, Salesforce was pretty much eating their lunch at the time. Uh and uh on in terms of dynamics, they had dynamic CRM and they had a hard time penetrating the market and suddenly they started bumping us bumping into us in deals. They this field one thing comes up time and time again like who are these folks? So we started becoming close like sales team sales team we were meeting and you know at at trade shows um and I think ultimately it uh what what ended up happening is a very large organization United Technologies uh which is a parent company or at the time was a parent company from multiple large conglomerates like um uh Proud and Whitney Chub uh Odis Elevator a bunch of others ultimately I believe there were like 400,000 uh employees at the time. Uh I think they've merged with a different organization now. So they're no more listed as a parent company. Uh but in essence they saw a product and they um they like what they saw. Specifically Otis Elevator uh initiated the conversation uh which they had us they had my uh top salesperson at the time a young boy uh Dan Gitler which I took out of college um orthodox uh guy lives in Hollywood. Today he's actually the product leader of the field service application. So he's product um uh product manager lead >> at Microsoft >> at Microsoft doing really well. Phenomenal phenomenal guy. Uh we flew him down to Australia and uh um uh UTC basically uh brought to Australia 30 of their units across the globe to basically vet the product and make sure that it actually meets their needs across the organization. >> What to use it? they wanted originally >> correct to use the product. >> Uh after two weeks they came back it like filled all out filled all their gaps and they were like fascinated. >> Um so we had their CTO they wanted to come and visit us uh in New York in our office uh actually a friend of mine we were we became very close at the time uh and he um and we kind of arranged the trip. It was we were a small company. Uh so we were you asked how many people I think we ended uh at the acquisition like 60 employees at the time. However, they were spread across the country and um across multiple different roles and we had the mas actually in Mawa uh and and um and you know it was we had 20 people sitting over there and we felt like you know UTC um CTO coming visiting us. I mean that's a problem. So, uh, we basically tried to arrange a [snorts] visit of him to our larger companies in the tri-state area so we can spend a day there hoping, you know, you won't necessarily show up in our office. Uh, he did. It was insistent. So, um, ultimately we were there and we were sch smoozing and and I I vividly remember he pulled me aside and he said like, Schlomma, like explain this to me. Like, you know, I obviously see what's going on. I I have to go to my CEO. So I have to kind of explain all this but but really I'm trying to understand how in the world we have all these large conglomerates they all use any all of your competitors out there how in the world are you able to fulfill the to fulfill the needs of all our business units when they can't. So I said look I I I can I can give you a response. you know, might be cheesy, but I think it's real. Uh, that we very intently listened to what the customer wants and we tried to think deeply how we could delight that objective and and I think he liked that response um actually and what ended up happening is that that CTO went to uh Bob Stoz who was at the time the senior vice president of Microsoft Dynamics um and said to him, "Look, we um we have to figure this out. you want me to be on Microsoft Dynamics, um you have to secure to make sure that this company is going to survive. We were already warm with Microsoft at the time, but that basically started the conversation um of of an acquisition. >> Wow. Um you remind me of the story. I remember when we started the PEX group, um really early on we were doing like printing services and one day I got an email from a client. We didn't even have an office. We were working out of I I was working out of my house and I had a partner working out of his house and just doing work and we had a mailbox at 199 Lee. I get an email from one of my clients. I'm trying to find your office. I see it's a cell phone store. [laughter] But but but but the other hand is those companies that start off with these beautiful desk, beautiful offices, mahogany desks, you know, that's not the approach like uh that companies need. This is the the scrappy scrappy setup. That's that's usually the the right way of starting off a company. I want to get I want to get back to the acquisition at which point so obviously you mentioned the relationship with the company in Australia and and that was more of trying to use your services. Now we going into maybe somebody wants to buy you and starting a conversation about that. Was this a shocking moment uh all of a sudden that somebody says I might be interested in buying you off or like or was this already like you saw this coming? Um I wouldn't say necessarily that we saw it coming. Um when we started to kind of re uh factor our application on top of Microsoft Dynamics, it was kind of a joke that I made like you know who knows maybe one day Microsoft will acquire us but I wouldn't say that was our uh initiative. We did we did kind of do many things to kind of get close to them but not necessarily to think about an acquisition at the time. However, at the time uh when the acquisition occurred uh we did have other conglomerates that actually made offers uh that we actually when Microsoft started in earns looking at us we had to kind of go into quiet period but we were uh we were actually uh you know entertaining a couple of offers from different players >> which uh which I wanted to ask you because I know that that this is one of the things that um you know there's a there's there's a book and a person that does a lot in the acquisition space that I follow. Um, and one of the things that he's mentioning time and time again when he interviews people that sold their businesses is they I did not take enough time to see what other offers are out there. Sometimes you get so excited about, you know, regardless who wants to buy you, but if there is usually if there's one person interested, big chance that there's others as well, unless it's a very very unique fit between that those two companies. So you you did go through the process of of of of listening to other offers and the and while you were entertaining that >> I I wouldn't say that we have done enough of that. I I I probably regret that collectively we haven't spent more time but I think there was a lot of allure and and and um you know Microsoft definitely uh represented a very uh good opportunity both uh from an outcome perspective but also from you know the future of the employees that we looked at uh quite a lot. Uh so that's something we we took into consideration. Um but yeah, I I think if if uh you know, in hindsight, we we we probably might have spent more time. Um >> from when you heard the first time this concept of maybe potentially somebody's interested in buying uh in particular Microsoft till actually you closed that deal, like what type of how long of a period of time is that? >> Uh that was one one of my uh most challenging and and and difficult uh timelines. Um uh let's see. um probably took like a total of five months, four to five months. uh many of of those months were grueling due diligence uh on every aspect that you can imagine which I think it's important to point out that if you do not have literally um a brutal sense of honesty from the get-go uh like literally when you found your company and then then most you know you're going to have a hard time uh uh kind of you know reaching that point the due diligence just you know you go through Perkus Koi sits in you and it's like every element is like from HR to contracts to sales to code to what have you. It it's not um you're reminding me actually of a very fascinating scary and and uh story that we had. You know, I don't think I I shared it a lot publicly, but basically we were postcontract, so everyone knew about the deal. We actually wanted to keep the deal confidential. Microsoft said like no way. Um and uh basically it was passed like it was in the streets and we haven't closed yet. There were a number of uh there were a number of of outstanding items that we had to close on. >> One of them were we had we had used a uh kind of third party software uh engineering team in Ukraine that we've kind of outsourced work to and we had we had with them uh 31 engineers to be precise. uh and we already kind of terminated the contract like a year or two before that but Microsoft was not satisfied enough with the agreement. We had a fairly strong agreement with them but from Microsoft it was not enough. They wanted every single engineer to actually sign off that they have nothing with the code and what have you. So they didn't want to take a chance. So um I go ahead I reach out to my point of contact at that company and I told him what's happening. Um he started he kind of started playing CEO's in vacation and all kinds of all kinds of nonsense and um a day and another day goes by and and Microsoft insistent if there is one a line item we're going to forego it's that line item uh if this does not if we cannot resolve it then there's no closing. >> So uh we were like you know they're just ignoring they have no incentive to uh to do anything. what do we what do we do over here? Um, so I I I remember I mean Basham it came to me like I I I remember that there was a large company I'll actually say the name publicly because you know they were so generous in how they dealt with it. Uh Adorama they were also using that organization uh I have an uncle that's kind of in the management team over there reached out. So they were like so forthcoming, so helpful. I basically said to them, "Look, if it could happen to me, it can happen to you uh one day." And I basically said to the company, "If you do not give u the documents that he wants, we're going to terminate our contract." >> Oh, wow. >> Uh within I remember I was like >> absolutely um for nothing. They didn't ask for anything. No favor like just you know for just the goodness of their heart. Um, and basically, uh, I remember I was like in in in in airport in Heway airport at the time when they kind of agreed and and I I got the email that they the CEO sent in the sent in the signature. So, they kind of cleared our path to closing. But the days when this was ongoing, the amount of stress was just absolutely um enormous. >> So, >> I want to I want to throw in something. You know, I I I I feel deeply about it. You know, we can sit here and talk all kinds of techniques, ideas, things that happened. I am absolutely certain if there was no dishaya, there was no way, no chance uh something like that would have happened. There was so many obstacles along the way that could have gone completely in a different way than it ended up being. You cannot predict your smartness, your skill, nothing. Whatever you apply, there's no replacement. If there's no, it's not going to work. And and it's not I'm just not saying it as just you know just as a disclaimer type of thing. It is real. If you do not have that it's not going to work. So >> 100% and I appreciate you mentioning it. Um I I do want to just pause a second on this and I think uh we have so much to cover but uh we'll cover everything. This this is fascinating is you mentioned something that I also witnessed and during the COVID era when there was aggregators buying off Amazon brands. I've been a little bit involved in that space and I've seen deals fall apart last minute for nonsense just because the recklessness of the entrepreneur, the business owner when they opened up or they were doing business not knowing that potentially like a trademark letting a trademark fall apart like and all of a sudden well we can't take the brand if the trademark is not is not part of your brand or well like a information from the vendor like trying to at that time it was like I remember one of them they were trying to go through the tariffs and they saw that they brought in stuff with the wrong wrong code. They said this is a liability on us. We can't take the liability unless we put money in escrow. So I think for our listeners I think it's a very important um a very important point that that if potentially you have something like this in the mind for long term even just selling it to another ye anybody like forget about the Microsofts of the world is at one point is due diligence. You know there's a joke out there that the concept of due diligence. Some people don't do diligent. So do diligence. So most most companies now sometimes even I I guess you were probably in Microsoft there was also like a third party like they bring in like third parties the whole purpose is just to try to destroy the deal if they find anything. >> Yeah. So I would actually argue that it's independent of an acquisition, independent of an exit. Uh I think having your book you do ducks in a row I think is an absolute uh necessity >> just you know even if you just think you would need investment down the road or you know let's say if if if it's a partnership obviously but if even if it's a family and you need to kind of ultimately involve your kids or whatever uh ultimately if it goes out of your hand uh you know it becomes a little bit more of a mom and pop it becomes a bit more than that uh then uh honesty proper book tracking and so one is is is absolutely um P 0. >> Yeah. Um it reminds me that Sha Freriedman was one of the podcast that I had earlier and he said a quote which made some some viral moments in the in the bookkeeping and accounting space. He said, "I've never found a business that is successful that doesn't have proper books." >> So cool. He said, "I don't say every book, every business that has proper books is successful, but I've not a successful business that doesn't have proper books." >> True. >> Got it. >> Okay. So, you have those those brutal five months, you close. Um, and we are holding there. Um, now I know that some some businesses out there when Microsoft, any big company buys off, the numbers are pretty public. In this case, it wasn't. Um, obviously now with AI, people are trying to, you know, to compare it to others. Is this part of the deal? >> Um, not necessarily, but yeah, I would I would prefer uh no disclosure. >> Okay. So, so we're not we're not making breaking news over here to share what that purchase. >> Absolutely not. >> Got it. Question is obviously you staying on and running the team is part of the deal. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. and and this is a an employment on goodwill or this is tied to actual the the transaction for a certain period of time >> for legal purposes I I think uh it's saying um you know at goodwill although there was a non-compete uh and I had to stay in a you know a period of time but uh it was still employment at will it was just a a clause uh in the agreement >> got it so we'll get to the the experience in Microsoft but I want to ask first a fundamental question uh which is a mingan you know, probably some of the team members were as well. You mentioned before another friend of yours that that are as part of the team and working at Microsoft. Um, is the is the culture set up to be to be acceptance of all of all walks of lives? Is this something that you have to you know navigate in the process to to be comfortable there? >> Yeah. Uh, so that's a good good question. So, so first of all, we had a couple of Ingalite we had, I think, how much? I think we had five, six or something like that. >> Uh most of them are still there. >> Um I I'll be totally honest with you. I actually taught uh that I'm going to stay as long as as needed and I was pretty confident that I'm going to have a hard time uh that I'm going to have a hard time being accepted or just feeling comfortable. Uh to my absolute um surprise in a positive way, uh that was absolutely not the case. Uh Microsoft is is very much a company of culture in a very positive way. Company of acceptance, diversity, and I mean I don't mean diversity the way it's it's out there. I mean diversity in in thoughts and perspectives and and experiences is absolutely something that the CEO is just >> gang buster on. >> Uh and it's not just in words, it's it's actually in real life. I can attest to that. Um I don't think uh like I I've had an experience where from a company culture perspective I was made feel um unaccepted or even yet like you know made feel uncomfortable for our uniquenesses for schedules and other things that I might be different you know unique experiences of individuals might somewhat differ at times not necessarily um always existent but I think from a pure overall culture perspective to the point I I'll actually share a personal story. So, um, after the acquisition, uh, the Microsoft CEO called me to an event. There was like a high class event at the Sanadia that's like 80 miles north of of Seattle where all top Microsoft brass meet on a yearly basis. All company plans, secrets is is basically discussed at that event. It was a very very special experience. So, Microsoft invited, they they basically said, "I'll fly you in kosher everything, whatever he want or what have you." And um so they they invited me over there and I I came on and I was like smooing with a couple of founders that were also acquired and and a couple of Microsoft executives. Uh so we were just like chatting and uh the CEO walks in. So everyone kind of gets up and and whatever. So he must have felt that I'm comfortable. I'm I'm uncomfortable. I'm different than everyone else. There's a whole crowd smoozing and he just lands and hey, welcome Shalom. Nice to see you or whatever and just walks by. just shows that level of empathy that that you know he he expresses and actually practices in in real life. >> Got it. So let's get let's get a little bit more um for our listeners a little bit more practical in terms of in terms of what what you've learned being with Microsoft. Um and the reason I'm asking is there's always this um you know especially somebody's in technology they're you know they're idling the companies that are big in technology. Yeah. somebody's in sportsware they're you know or a big Amazon seller and so on and so forth. Um what have you found out there? Um obviously what's p what what we could share in terms of you know there's this expression is small companies small pressure big company big pressure you know it's just a matter of of of size is is it run very very different very unexpected to what you have thought is it run more or less as a small company with more systems more processes more legal but or or like how does decision- making happening is it still humans to humans like what's happening there that that you feel that you learned that you weren't expecting? >> So, um unexpected in many many different ways. I would say some uh some very positive, some maybe less so. Uh I would say the first and foremost like learning that I've had being 11 years there that people are people. Um all the values that we talk about as entrepreneurs as as founders are equally applicable across the board. treating people uh properly, uh growth mindset and you know so on and so forth. Everything honesty, transparency, um just working well with others and rigor whatever anything we talk about is universal. Uh we're all kind of the same. We're all kind of human beings and treating uh treating people in in the proper way is is absolutely a fundamental uh requirement across the board. uh and I think it actually starts and ends there uh to be totally honest. Uh but at this at the very same time um there are a lot of differences. So some of the things I've learned a tremendous amount in terms of you know employee hierarchy efficiency from an HR perspective there's an immense amount of thought that goes in how to approach um uh people how to approach uh kind of all the comps uh just the kind of the politics and everything like you know there's there's a ton that I've learned uh and observed over the years on that front um I think from a systems perspective at the Beginning when I joined I was actually very surprised that we as field one were actually more efficient and we brought to bear learnings that Microsoft learned from us in many different ways. Um like for example our deployment process of the product I was like very adamant no human element no human touch for anything it's just a click of a button and everything needs to happen completely autonomously. I'm very much about like autonomous behavior because humans are humans. Mistakes appear to happen. Absolutely. You could be the most efficient and the most um structured person but you know you're going to make mistakes. So systems and autonomy is like for me like absolute um requirement. Uh and you know when I originally joined Microsoft in particular in the team that I joined uh I wouldn't I wouldn't call it uh that it had that level of efficiency. Um and it evolved a lot over time. I think today Microsoft is a very very mature organization. Obviously depends a little bit by the team. It's not like truly universal but uh Microsoft has a tremendous amount of um I would say there are vertical processes but there's also horizontal. So certain um requirements legal standards and what have you are all horizontal that you need to kind of adhere to and there's like very structured uh uh kind of processes in place that are very mature. Um and and likewise I think uh probably one of the things that I admired most is my learnings on what I call incident management. I can talk like a whole a whole day like how that kind of matters. I've used a lot of learnings from there even as it applies to Yiddish guy is like very fascinating uh intel uh that can be taken over there. Uh but at the end of the day, people are people. Uh and uh I would say the people that are higher up share the attributes that founders share. There's a reason Microsoft pay so much. It's to retain talent uh that are ambitious rather than going off and building their own. Um so uh there's there's a lot but at the same time the very same time a large company stays a large company and there's that fast a large company can move uh without kind of you can't bypass bureaucracy you can't bypass standards you can bypass you know so these are kind of evil um um kind of you know outcomes that that ultimately uh is is uh basically every large company struggles with. Mhm. So, so you mentioned before um one of the advantage of a small company is they could act they could they could make change fast and they can implement fast. Um would you say after being 11 years in Microsoft you picked up certain things that works at their advantage based on the lens they see the the knowledge they have the money they have the structure that they have it works to their advantage and any shape or form? Uh absolutely there's no doubt and and and maybe even potentially in a negative way because you can get away with not necessarily having perfection because just by by virtue that you're a conglomer you you know people will be more forgiving that the experience is maybe not as delightful as they would have expected from a a uh startup uh where the kind of where the forgiving rate is probably less than a large conglomer and also because a lot of it is is due to the relationship of of kind of CIOS to to kind of you know VPs and so so it's it's a little bit more top down often than bottoms up versus a founders a an entrepreneur typically is bottoms up driven where you have kind of an employee at a lower level picking up something that really delights their day or really transforms how they operate and then they start kind of get pushing higher up that that kind of broadens the influence. So uh I think absolutely large organizations stand a a and and on top of that think about like they have access to an immense amount of data. Yeah. >> Uh an immense amount of research. They could very quickly recruit a tremendous amount of of audiences to learn uh to learn what people really want. So uh without a doubt large companies have an advantage uh over and obviously um having deep pockets but you know people don't understand people think large companies work like you know it's it's it's all a large pot. Teams work in isolation. you get budget. It's not like you can you can basically do whatever you want. >> So you worked there for 11 years. I know from from the conversations we had and and and on your LinkedIn profile that you moved out of the field one position to Power Apps and then different other positions. I guess I just I want to close this chapter with one question. Um it's a very common thing um of of people that sell their businesses. Um and there's um the book Good to Great. I mentioned it before um interviewing a lot of um founders that sold their businesses even they had opportunities to stay on after a very short period of time they had to move on they couldn't see what they're doing to their product especially if it comes into a big organization all of a sudden bureaucracy or changes or people that don't know enough about the industry. Um, how were you able to to um sit around for so long? Is was was maybe they they treated the product differently or maybe just uh um look the other side? >> Good question. I I I I don't think I'm I'm much different than others. I I've had the same um kind of, you know, uh feelings, similar feelings. Uh in many many cases, it was just interesting given that I've been there for so long. Uh some people came in, they know better, we're going to rearchitect or whatever. you know, fast forward a couple of years later, they they ultimately realized that, hey, this was absolutely a wrong move and it's back to square one uh where we started. So, that was a nice uh kind of a nice smile. Uh but I did not stay with the product uh indefinitely. I I uh worked with that team for about two years. We saw uh Basham like a tremendous amount of growth like hockey stick growth right out of the gate. uh and uh it's you know I think today we're talking a little bit you know you're talking 11 years later but it's being it's basically hosting like field service is all about managing assets as I mentioned uh today it's managing more than a billion assets across the globe um it is generating more than a half a million work orders every single day um >> there are tens of thousands of professionals you know studying the innings of the product and learning which which you know I I would lie if I say it doesn't give me an immense amount of passion and knowing that so many people are living off uh an idea um to uh to to something that's empowering so many people. Uh I can't say the number of users but it's ginormous. Um so >> how does it feel like if you look back and he said you know what I remember my office in Ma where I started off I remember these conversations early conversations you know all these challenges we we spoke about before and thinking in a quiet moment that thousands of people are using the product on a daily basis like what type of feeling is that >> incredibly fulfilling incredibly fulfilling >> got it so I want to move on to what we're actually um what you're actually doing No, >> so let me actually close the loop. So from there I moved after two years I got bored with field service. Uh rinse and repeat it's just not for me. Uh so I ended up uh joining the power apps team ultimately being the chief architect uh of that product. The product is is used uh by millions and millions of users. I believe lastly when I saw it's like 60 million or 50 million uh ma that's monthly active users um and from there I moved on to the power platform um also serving as architect um which is basically power apps but all its adjacent products which is power automate and and a couple of others working on the admin side of the house. So um that's uh that's basically uh where uh where I focused last. Mhm. So, um I got to know you about the new venture Amunit. um you know when I I think now that I I heard the full story I think it ties in very much because the frictionless the customer delight and the approach that you had and I think we had a lot of these conversations offline which is worth mentioning is that um your introduction to the filter space is um you were invited by by the satmere to be part of the you know the board of overseeing the technology and in and in in that in what's happening on that field. >> Yeah. So actually it didn't nothing existed at that point at least in Ala. So um >> uh we co-ounded we co-founded entity um May Gross with me and um ultimately uh I've been extremely active over the last 15 years alongside me joined a little bit later Joel Epstein from Fabwood CEO of Fablewood. We both have a very strong emphasis on customer uh customer empathy customer obsession. >> Mh. Um at the time we researched we kind of took inventory of all the products out there both u Jewish and non-Jewish filters and we ultimately decided that for our our audiences there's one particular product uh that uh we would we would go with um so that gave me a lot of intel and learnings but um over the years I've developed a a very deep understanding on the space we invested a tremendous amount in gather so for people that don't know so the organization is called together and um we invested a tremendous amount of effort and energy on having the best customer experience. I believe it is actually perceived as such. Um you know we have an entire um like a whole fleet of high machine picking up phones and speaking the language of of you know end users and quickly resolving them. I'm very proud of that uh of that ambition. >> Well ju just for the forum to to make sure that we understand it correctly. together is is not is not a filter company is basically an organization that could be helps you put on the right filters based on what what needs to be done based on the cahillo based on what your needs are. >> Correct. Thanks for the clarification. So yes um so we just serve as an organization that basically helps putting on filters and sets the baseline policies that our kahill basically that the dian that we work with has established. um and we apply those those rules to the product that we use that we basically acquire and use it for our customers. So yeah, that's the distinction there. >> Got it. So you saw a void in the market. Um obviously um um you saw a void in the market similar to what you saw um years ago with field one. You saw the void in the market. Um what is really the void that you saw? And I know that this is, you know, obviously listening now to I don't even know I I lost track on how how long we're going, but we're going till the end. I need to hear the full story. Um, but this is a mission, you know. Um, my understanding is that you left a job in Microsoft, whatever, a career in Microsoft or a follow-up, whatever it is it's called. um just to be able to fulfill this mission and and build this fully to make sure that that no device is left behind if fil the the frictionless filter should not be an issue. Um um it should be not be the reason you know for not having a filter on your phone or device whatever it is um where where where is the void that you felt in the market? >> Uh it's probably more than one. So >> okay >> um I think I basically represent myself as an end user myself. I've been using my filters on my devices and uh likewise uh I've served uh understanding the organizations listening to customers IT providers. So I think I have the full gamut of understanding of of difficulties that that KL has been kind of going through and over the years I've developed a perspective on how I think uh filters are supposed to work and the reason for those are actually multiffold. So number one and and that's that was for me almost like a nightmare uh privacy and security. I was literally afraid one day I I wake up and there's an article in the New York Times that basically says that you know Shalom Bam architect at at Microsoft uh is exposing uh people's uh people's uh user traffic uh and and and let me be let me be absolutely clear like from a getter perspective and I'm sure other organizations as well do their very best to kind of you know isolate environments and and do whatever they can but inherently how the architecture is built just so in layman's terms to explain A filter works as follows. Without a filter, you just type into your browser chase.com, for example, to open up your bank account. The browser goes to finds where the server is, which could be in Texas or anywhere, finds this IP address >> at it. It basically sends the request. There's an established security trust between the browser and Chase that says, "Yeah, I am Chlo. Uh, I you provide your authentication like your password, username password. It gives you back your bank account information and uh you have it back to your browser. All good. What happens when a filter kind of comes along is that the filter becomes the man-in-the-middle as it's called literally technically um you basically establish a server that sits in between you and Chase. What you tell your browser is you no more go and make the request to Texas to Chase's website in Texas. You're going to make the request to that proxy it's called or server in the middle. That server is going to be the one that actually makes the call in your behalf. It's going to get your data, your bank balance. It's going to analyze does the content actually pass policy. If not or violates and if it does not obviously it blocks you. The brows the proxy says to your browser, hey, you cannot you cannot basically cannot be found. >> That's effectively how how filters are, you know, work in in in layman's terms. now and and and it's not universal exactly but most prominent filters work that way. There are, you know, nuances depending on the product, depending on the type, a picture, not picture, but but just for for all intents and purposes, that's that's at a very high level. Now that effectively means that you're up to trust anything that goes through that you want to see which is whatever you have emails bank accounts and and and whatever um to go through that middleware. >> Now does anyone look at that server? Probably no. We in Gather have instilled a very very rigorous and and kind of processdriven approach. there only one or two people that actually have access to those servers. And I've personally pushed that we only retain logs uh of visits to only 24 hours so we can we can service customers if they have an issue which is the whole purpose of of of you know having the logs in the first place. Um, but for all intents and purposes, your privacy is up to a third party to control and and you know, we're not talking about Microsoft, we're not talking about um Google, we're talking about, you know, small companies uh that I'm sure everyone tries to do your best, but you're ultimately handing the keys and and the trust to those providers. Uh, and I I was, you know, freaking out, uh, hoping I won't wake up one day. there's, you know, some bad actor ultimately gaining access to that server and just mining and dining off of off people's content and ultimately break. Now, you know, if some providers are good at security, meaning some filter providers are decent at security, others less so. Um so you're ultimately uh beholden to a third party for both uh private information and also some kind of security >> let alone kind of you know talking about getting certification or when you talk about HIPPA when you're talking about you know different compliances that needs to that's at play uh where this becomes a real uh kind of challenge. >> So does this make sense? This is the cause for the speed issues also because it goes through a proxy so everything has a delay. Um uh yes for the most part. So uh it definitely introduces another hop kind of in the traffic as it's called. Uh some providers invest a lot in having great servers so to kind of minimize the latency. Uh but it definitely introduces another another player uh here in the traffic. Um absolutely. Uh it's not just that. Uh so so it's privacy security and think about these hopes that really get in the way. like you know you go to amazon.com and you open it up and it's like this hop check constant comes on you're like what the heck is going on the reality is from Amazon's perspective if you think about it it's this proxy that actually makes the request the same the same proxy same IP address so from from their perspective it's the same person that's trying to intrude and they're thinking is this a denial of service attack DOS attack or is this a real human which is why they're trying to validate it with with the ka so those are the type of things and experiences that's seen that does not talk to the actual economics economic burden that this introduces on filter companies. Now you got to monitor a bunch of servers, expensive servers, make sure uptime and SLA is is is right up to snuff and so on and so forth. Got to have backup and load balancing and and all kinds of things that put a tremendous burden on those filter companies to uh to maintain. >> So to me uh if I wouldn't have been able to solve those challenges at the core, uh I I'm not sure I would have even gotten into it. Um so uh that's that's you know for me I believe that there is an opportunity to actually take these massive servers GPUs and there's opportunity to replace that and having all of those running uh on your device um desktop I was like hesitant if it's possible mobile but here I am on this tiny jelly herz I actually have it running >> uh there's almost zero uh resource um kind of hurt um that uh that that is visible from an end user perspective including including battery definitely not more than any other filter out there. >> Wow. So so basically this is um um reimagined from the ground up as far as as far as the technology side. >> I I do know that obviously there um there's been some breakthrough technology in terms of features. I want to touch on a couple of them. Um I know that um one of the things that uh you know from a from a aesthetic perspective you put a a huge emphasis on on how photos are if photos are blocked how they are blocked and and could you speak a little bit about that? >> Sure. So to me actually gashmas is rough in a sense. Uh if if people if people just you know um have a negative reaction to it it's a problem right there. So ultimately our goal and I want to speak if if if you give me a permission a little bit later about where we are. >> Uh but that's ultimately our goal. Uh so speaking about specifically about picture painting um the things that I that I disliked uh in the past it always felt like you know the skin painting you're just taking a cup of paint and you just you know smudging it on in an image and it just you know it didn't feel tasteful. um let alone I was like wondering is that is that really the experience that um uh that we want for example. So one of the things we looked at and we tried to to really double down is gender detection. Not always not everyone is is necessarily interested in in kind of putting skin painting on on males or females or whatever depending depending your gender and you know it it it it kind of pained me that you know you have to kind of you know accept the the absolute uh membar uh on that experience. So the things that we we look to improve is gender detection. I think we're like 95% there. Ironically, when it comes to like uh Yiddish persona, specifically rebas with Shamls and beard, it still could use some work. It detects sometimes as as as a female. Uh that's some work that we're working on. Uh you know, there are other times like tiny images. Uh we still have some work to do. But in overall um I'm I'm pretty pleased one with the gender detection. to um we have taken an approach that skin which has been the case they basically looked at at at that kind of you know um uh like human skin and we said like here for example shouldn't be different like so when we say skin it basically includes human here which dilutes the impact of the image tremendously. We also uh looked at uh kind of upleveling. So we have here a lot of people complain that hey you know it's still uh even when the skin is painted it still leaves a lot to desire in terms of for some people and they're really um conscious about uh about kind of you know about that. They said no it's still there's still opportunity or room for improvement. So we came up with this concept the full body um kind of painting or contour where we have this beautiful um kind of paint that that basically tries to when you compare you contrast and compare the images of the existing filters to what we offer particularly when it's full body it's like night and day uh for those that are concerned about that. Um and on top of that I think uh it's the statics that we paid a little bit attention to. So instead of just putting some smudge flat um um tune on it, we basically came up with this notion where we take cues from the image which is we take the colors of the image, the color palette of the image. You stand in a in front of a forest and you have trees, you have trees, you have the brown and the green. So we're taking kind of cues of those images and we're then using that as a a color that we choose to kind of blur and we kind of blur darkly the image that that gives a much more delightful and positive uh effect on it. Uh and and what I would also say is that we're we're we're including that or looking to release soon to take all those advancements that we've uh created for images uh also to video. >> Oh wow. >> So historically it's been video has been like a boolean question block or onblock not necessarily uh knowing hearing or taking into consideration what's playing within those kind of videos. and we've set ourselves we're it's like we're in 15 years or so that videos are out there. Uh it's it's about time to kind of revisit that. Uh so so we're we're hoping to release that uh pretty soon. You know, I think >> when you think about it like just that alone, the image painting, it's one thing if you kind of take a model, do this, slap it on a massive GPU server, but doing that on a user's machine, millisecond level speed, we're pretty kind of proud with how that transpired. And I think the next uh the next um area of investment has been on the core of the actual filter which is um the the content categorization which basically says what you're seeing now on the screen what content is it? Is it something that can be allowed according to your policy or not? Uh and you know people have been asking me the question and I've been kind of dabbling that like if you could throw any text to chat GPT and it tells you precisely what category the content is. Why can't filter do that? Now, in reality, it's much easier said than done, like taking a massive multi- terabyte LLM or multi- gigabyte LLM onto a user's machine, let alone on a mobile, that's just going to bust your machine. So, what we did is we we kind of mimic the concept of what LLM does on how it figures out kind of the the category and we built a very specific model uh again at millisecond level speed to um to do just that. Uh so effectively it's it's it's looking at the content as it is and giving a real time um uh um results or categorization based on what it's seeing and that's inclusive of multiple languages which many filters have been struggling with. You know for all intents and purposes most filters today are made up of third party lists of each URL of what they are. If you go to uh foxnews.com, it's going to be basically it's a news. Uh we're looking live at the actual content right then and there. What what does the content say? Can I give it give it a pass or not? Um there are many other examples we can go into the nuances. But effectively by very take a forum uh instead of just saying forum, it's actually what is this topic being discussed. So it could be any language including our Haishi Yiddish uh which is a big deal. uh no keywords. That doesn't mean we're going to not introduce a concept of keywords. We will introduce a concept concept of keywords where you can basically say you know paint me or smudge certain keywords or paragraphs or even block the page uh if if certain keywords come up. Um but at the basis of it uh we believe the model should be an on the-fly uh an on-fly concept. Um so so so you know that that we think is a is a very very uh ambitious um kind of offering. We're very proud with it. Um you know we have actually just released literally this week released a major update to that. We have had challenges uh in the previous model. There was a bug in how we read the output of the model. Uh we fixed that and we're going to keep on iterating. Uh we're continuously learning. >> Wow. And I I think for our listeners obviously I wanted to just touch the highlights of it and I think um to sum it up because we could speak from the from the technology perspective know I just want to mention it because um last week there was an IT event um where I mean I put up for I I think um about 50 IT companies were there present where you we spoke so much more technical because that's their language for our listeners they want exactly what you said throughout the interview which is they want the experience they don't want to even know that they have a filter. And I think um from a mission perspective, we live in a world that we don't have to say the danger of the internet anymore. Everybody knows that. Um and unfortunately, based on the options out there, we see so many people that if they're forced to put it on on one on one device, be it. But two things happen. One is every time they interact with their phone, that negative experience comes up, which you touched upon before. And then we know there's hundreds of devices most people have today's day and age more than one device that are not having that >> and it's not because they don't want >> correct um now um so people want it the same as with sometimes if it's even a phenom it's economical thing you know there's a cost involved in filters which you shout out to amunet that you introduced a free version of the filter as well so yes it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that the the regular filter has. But if you want to have if you have a secondary device, >> have a baseline >> secondary device, a a device that's not being used every single day. You just want to make sure that the basic filter is on the on the uh that no no device in my house in my possession without a filter. There's this opport this this option as well. But I think um more importantly even businesses um um you know there are companies that are relying on on just their sonic wall or the firewall whatever it's called in technology world and not going with traditional filter companies because they can't just afford another proxy sitting there for whatever reason you mentioned before this is also an option. So um this is also a solution for that. So I I I don't want to go into the more details on the technical side because for our listeners they want to know is this filter something I could get my hands on and is this filter that will be frictionless and and let alone obviously I think we don't have to mention the customer obsession in terms of knowing that this is being built with today's day and age technology um and the human interaction in terms of the customer service what I do want to um speak about which is related to where we are with the product. Um obviously um when you know with full disclosure PEX has been um doing the marketing um for for the product and the ad campaign. >> Phenomenal partner at it. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, and shout out to my team very much invested from the day one. Like I remember going to one of my designers and that particular designer is one that said when he came to work for me, he said that which filter do you have and he paid you I want to pay separately on my computer for additional filter. Um so he was very passionate about the product and he says finally and he's putting you know and the rest of the team they're putting the heart and soul into the project but we've been very much focused because you've been very much about it that people should know that it's early access on the website they see early access. Could you define for our audience why what you call early access and what do what do they need to know about it? >> Yeah. Um so I think maybe uh the word early access is even uh misunderstood out there. I think it's just a name that I took uh out of Microsoft literally. So it's all large companies today be it AI companies or whatever. When you have a product that you feel uh has been beta tested it's been gone through really kind of the very the very very rough edges. Uh you allow others to kind of take advantage of it but with the aim that people actually you see the product in action. So a filter specifically is a very very complex uh project to build but when you build on top of that that it's locally with all types of intricacies and you have so many things kind of going on uh it's inevitable that on some machines it will cause problems with my innate passion to have something that really delights and it's just immersive. I think my motto is it just works. um that's our goal to get to once we reach what we call internally general availability SGA. Uh that's how typically when you go to public and we're released that's how it's it's related to. So when people ask me is it in beta um you know it's it's no more really in beta per se. We have had hundreds of people that actually tested it with so many satisfied users they love it but I would not lie we're not there yet. We're not a GA quality just yet. uh we are looking to get there fairly soon at a very rapid cadence. We're developing very fast but we're also living on top of feedback. So uh that's you know we're not shy, we're not hiding the fact that this is where we are and uh we're looking some people just might not have that patience that opportunity if they have a problem they just you know they just uh drop it and that's absolutely fine. Uh we're we're totally okay with that. Um if you have a if you if you do if someone does have a problem we would love to hear uh what it is because we want to make sure that when we go to GA it is an absolute smooth experience u you know to that kind of phase I think most u most providers most filter providers don't even have the type of flexibility that we have now on our portal uh where you can literally customize everything report cases like in a very kind of immersive way very deeply integrate with the product everything is live you make a change it's instantly. No refreshes, no lists, no nothing. It just works. Um, you know, there are many many many uh other areas that we're very proud and it's just the beginning. What I would say is that ultimately my goal is that our support agents are there for exception cases only. Meaning we want to give all the tools to the end user. First of all, be proactive if there are any issues to avoid that in the first place. If there are issues, we want to empower individuals, business administrators and its that they can solve those problems on their own. And we have a lot of work planned in that front that I'm not necessarily going to talk on right now. Uh but our goal is that our support team uh should have a minimal amount of work. That's ultimately our goal. Uh we feel that our organizations spend in a ginormous amount of money to upkeep filters. literally with every thousand users that gets added, you have to add x amount of bodies to support that and it's just not a sustainable um economic uh pattern. Mhm. So, um yes. So, on the on the filter side is you know I know like throughout the campaign now um I've seen um hundreds of users and I I myself fielded so many questions about the filter and and actually throughout the room um so many people said you know what I I didn't realize I have a device that that's sitting there without without a filter. I had many people saying that unfortunately throughout the summer I I deactivated my filter. it made me made me problems and I want to go now I want to I want to do this again. So yes so I think what you're mentioning is just showing a little bit of the you know the professional infrastructure that you're building because you know without without speaking about others but you have technology out there that never make it to GA like this is the product and you're very very comfortable saying that we constantly want the feedback and constantly will be improving. So, it's amazing to hear and I do want to encourage the listeners if um if you do have a device that needs a filter, never had a filter or you took over the filter, whatever it is, munet.com is the place to check it out. There's the different options and you could download it there. You see that this is a missiondriven company which I want to close out with this question. Um you're sitting here early in the in this in this journey. We've gone through like you mentioned the nine years building field one followed by the projects and then moving into 11 years at Microsoft yet literally left Microsoft to be able to be fully focused on MUNET at this time which is a going from very shy person sitting at the sidelines to something that you're building something for the clal which is public every device every person is interacting with the device. What's that feeling all about? How do you how do you how do you um um you know the the emotions that go through on a daily basis when you find yourself wait a minute what am I doing exactly? >> Um I would be a liar if I would say that it's uh that it's easy but um it's it's definitely you know I I I personally am an introvert at the core. Uh I have I'm a converted semi extrovert you can say but not necessarily you know in front of of the media and things like that. That's definitely not my forte. But um you do you know you do what you got to do. And I I I I feel this mission uh is is you know I think Hashem sent me uh into different experiences all pointing to uh to this mission. Uh there is a tremendous amount of learnings uh that all acrue to what we've been building. I I I honestly feel this entire project is almost a miracle. Um but but here we are and I I I'm willing to do whatever it takes uh to see no no device unfiltered. >> Wow. Shalom. Thank you so much for joining us. I know your time is valuable. That that is why in the name for of our listeners will forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today. It's been a pleasure and I wish you a lot of with Eminet and everything you do will forever be grateful. >> Thank you.