Speaker 1: This is the Startup Still Say podcast. Thank you for
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Speaker 2: Hell everyone, welcome to another brand new episode of Startups.
Speaker 2: They'll say, this is Anthony Pracassi, your host is always
Speaker 2: I am here joined by Sebastian Sulma, currently the co
Speaker 2: founder of Quid. He joins us from Mexico City. Actually, Sebastian,
Speaker 2: you're my first guest from Mexico and that part of
Speaker 2: the world, so welcome. And before Sebastian introduces himself, I
Speaker 2: mean I've found sebastian background to be super fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's a global citizen right now he's in Mexico, but
Speaker 2: he's traveled to all different parts of the world, worn
Speaker 2: multiple different hats. And what he's doing now is a Quid,
Speaker 2: which is a security focused company, which he'll tell us
Speaker 2: more about. But let's hear from Sebastian himself about background
Speaker 2: and what what did what brought him to quit. So Sebastian,
Speaker 2: welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hi Anthony, great to be here. So I'm actually Czech,
Speaker 1: Mexican Chexican. I've lived my whole life between very safe
Speaker 1: Europe and unfortunately, let's safe Latin America, but beautiful of course,
Speaker 1: hence what we're working on at QUIT, which i'll talk
Speaker 1: about a bit later. My career started very young and
Speaker 1: entrepreneur since I can remember. I always loved buying and
Speaker 1: selling all sorts of stuff and had a big, a
Speaker 1: pretty decent import expert company when I was a teen.
Speaker 1: We sold over all sorts of stuff all the way
Speaker 1: from watches to merchandising, and and then I went to
Speaker 1: explored a couple of businesses in all sorts from from
Speaker 1: liquor to all sorts of electronics products, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: then I well studied and went into venture. I spent
Speaker 1: two and a half years in venture, helped to build
Speaker 1: a VC fund, raised a bunch of money, invested in
Speaker 1: over forty companies myself, and that was a lot of
Speaker 1: fun and I really enjoyed doing that. But then, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to turn to what my heart was telling me,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're here today.
Speaker 2: Excellent, as I rightly said, I mean fascinating background checksicon
Speaker 2: is the term that I've never heard of before, so
Speaker 2: I should get into that. So thanks to your parents,
Speaker 2: I guess, you know, so let's maybe start there, Sebastian,
Speaker 2: how much of your blended culture has kind of influenced
Speaker 2: you in who you are? You said, you know, you
Speaker 2: had a family business even when you were a teen.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming the roots started growing back then into what
Speaker 2: you wanted to do. There was a lot of childhood
Speaker 2: focused to me now, influences from your childhood rather to
Speaker 2: who you are. Can you share anything that you can
Speaker 2: remember as to what your influences were?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sure, so no, I'm absolutely very very grateful
Speaker 1: and pactful to my right, I speak all the languages
Speaker 1: next to them, and thanks to their efforts, and like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, very grateful. I think you know,
Speaker 1: what influenced me the most is really really the contrast
Speaker 1: you know between those two cultures, Latin American cultures. Mexican
Speaker 1: culture is a very warm culture. It's a culture where
Speaker 1: you know, people on the street are very friendly and
Speaker 1: the food is incredible, right, and everyone's like, you know,
Speaker 1: very warm. It's a very relationship driven, right and versus
Speaker 1: you know, Czech Republic in Central and Eastern Europe, they're
Speaker 1: also a relationship driven, but it's a bit colder, right,
Speaker 1: Like people don't smile necessarily, right, and the nonverbal language
Speaker 1: is quite a bit different, right. So that helps a lot,
Speaker 1: right in the business context to understand that it's not
Speaker 1: meant meant in a negative way.
Speaker 2: And that's when I said, let's blame it on the
Speaker 2: weather and both the places right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And my father he is a finance
Speaker 1: guy and my mom is a designer. You never, you know,
Speaker 1: driven me towards being an entrepreneur. I guess it's something
Speaker 1: I was more or less born with. And the taking
Speaker 1: you know, big risks and going all in, that's something
Speaker 1: I've uh, I've been inspired by online, not really not
Speaker 1: really there, got it?
Speaker 2: Got it? Okay, So you you obviously started off there.
Speaker 2: But when it came to studying and growing up, I mean,
Speaker 2: what did you eventually choose to study before you actually
Speaker 2: moved on to you know, investing and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did that a very neutral agree, business management.
Speaker 1: I like engineering, and I've always thinker it around, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that's where my my talent was. I'm
Speaker 1: more of a business guy than than an engineer.
Speaker 2: Got it. Got it? So, giving you a background Sebastian.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you spend a lot of time in
Speaker 2: both parts of the world or I mean, so tell
Speaker 2: us about that. How is that life?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, so our tech team is based mainly in
Speaker 1: the Czech Republic. We'll they have one person supporting the
Speaker 1: time zone and everything, and it's it's it's good because
Speaker 1: the Church Republic has a lot of great technical talent,
Speaker 1: a lot of value for money, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: been inflated by US prices like Mexico, right. And it's
Speaker 1: also I think a place where people have understood already
Speaker 1: what having equity in a company means, right, because there
Speaker 1: have been a couple of success stories, whereas in Latin,
Speaker 1: even though the culture towards equity, people will always tend
Speaker 1: to go for cash. Right. That's my personal experience, at
Speaker 1: least from what I've what I've seen and observed. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so right after you did your college, I mean
Speaker 2: I see that you have a little bit of a
Speaker 2: stint with y Combinator as well, I mean are and
Speaker 2: then obviously you mentioned about the venture side of things.
Speaker 2: So how is that? I mean, you know, working with startups,
Speaker 2: working with you know, investors, scouting startups, and you also
Speaker 2: said earlier, you invested in party plus startups yourself. What
Speaker 2: was that experience, like, I mean, and what kind of
Speaker 2: do you want to say? Okay, enough of this, enough
Speaker 2: of putting my own money into other people's pockets. Let's
Speaker 2: let's start quid where you know, I want to build
Speaker 2: something on my own.
Speaker 1: No, I love venture and I look forward to getting
Speaker 1: back to it one day. I think it's super exciting.
Speaker 1: I love it because you know, you get to meet
Speaker 1: super interesting people, people that are solving real problems, not
Speaker 1: made up problems. And that's where I think it gets exciting,
Speaker 1: like things that really improve someone's life. And I'd say
Speaker 1: that there's the best form of charity from my perspective,
Speaker 1: right to create a business that will benefit humanity overall. Right,
Speaker 1: And you know, while I was focused primarily on developing markets,
Speaker 1: So the interesting part was that an interesting upside, Right,
Speaker 1: we could take the startups early on, invest smaller checks,
Speaker 1: their impact with those checks, and then ultimately also help
Speaker 1: them a lot more thanks to our connections. Right, So
Speaker 1: it was not just investing. It was a lot of
Speaker 1: helping intro introducing them to other investors, et cetera, Right,
Speaker 1: helping them build their teams and stuff, and that was
Speaker 1: super satisfying. Right after, after a while, you know, I
Speaker 1: saw that there is you know, not as many as
Speaker 1: many real problems, right, and that's why we're building Quid. Right.
Speaker 1: Security has been something that's been always on my mind. Right,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's been I have a very very hard
Speaker 1: personal experience there. So my one of my family members
Speaker 1: got chat dead in their own apartment, and you at
Speaker 1: least bite having a traditional security system, right and cameras
Speaker 1: they the system didn't prevent that from happening, right. It
Speaker 1: really really frustrated me. Right, So security was one of
Speaker 1: my focus areas invested in a couple of companies in
Speaker 1: the space, and but I didn't see anyone, you know,
Speaker 1: taking and building this one big, you know, market defining company, uh,
Speaker 1: that that would that will really change all those lives, right,
Speaker 1: which is what I always looked at for as an investor.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, so that's why that's why we decided
Speaker 1: to build.
Speaker 2: It with Yeah, yeah, that's thanks for sharing the background.
Speaker 2: I mean I was gonna ask you, I mean, was
Speaker 2: there a personal influence? I Mean I didn't imagine it
Speaker 2: will be a sad one, but I mean, you know
Speaker 2: here we are, right, I mean, you know that's that's
Speaker 2: your inspiration every day, to prevent those sort of things
Speaker 2: from happening, not only in your part of the world,
Speaker 2: but I mean elsewhere as well. So let's deep dive
Speaker 2: into cred itself. I mean, you know, so you saw
Speaker 2: this tragic incident happen in your household, and you know,
Speaker 2: obviously there's so many different hardware manufacturing security providers out there,
Speaker 2: and you already said, you know, I mean it's not preventing.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's almost a ditterent. For example, and
Speaker 2: I have a home security system in my house as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, for the most part, I mean
Speaker 2: we open, we we when the alarm is on, we
Speaker 2: we we kill it and say it not to call
Speaker 2: the cops or whatnot. I mean, you know, that's that's
Speaker 2: the only thing. I mean, you know, people can pay,
Speaker 2: for example, switch off your power supply from outside. I mean,
Speaker 2: the security system just just goes off. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: nobody can do anything right. So again, I mean, given
Speaker 2: that the market is kind of much filled with units,
Speaker 2: whether it's from this part of the world or Asia,
Speaker 2: it is so many people out there. I mean, what
Speaker 2: did you set out to do as your vision with
Speaker 2: quit and I mean especially focused on the demographic that
Speaker 2: you're going after, Sebastian, what will be a right?
Speaker 1: So the vision is to prevent Fred from happening and
Speaker 1: to make security accessible, right, And I believe if this
Speaker 1: cannot be achieved with a great IoT product or with
Speaker 1: the same professional product that we've been selling over the
Speaker 1: last one hundred and fifty years. So literally, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you take a look at what ADT stands for,
Speaker 1: do you know what it sounds for? Just a good question?
Speaker 2: Is it detection something an.
Speaker 1: American American district telegraph? Right? It tells you a lot
Speaker 1: about you know, the age of the company, right. And
Speaker 1: it goes all the way back, you know, to the
Speaker 1: first alarm systems in New York City being implemented and
Speaker 1: directly being connected to the police stations with a trick wire. Right.
Speaker 1: And when you think of the censor of today, right,
Speaker 1: the modern sensor of today, right, which are in the
Speaker 1: vast majority of traditional security systems, it's very similar rights
Speaker 1: this trick wire, which is not folk proof, right. It
Speaker 1: results in ninety nine plus percent of alarms actually being
Speaker 1: false positives. Right, So it's just not a real alarm.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, so so so you know due to you know,
Speaker 3: eighty percent can be can be prevented and twenty percent
Speaker 3: is the hard heart stuff.
Speaker 1: Right. So right when we when we started quit, right,
Speaker 1: the last thing we wanted to do is hardware. We me,
Speaker 1: coming from a VC background, you know, hardware is hard, right,
Speaker 1: that's always you know what you hear, what you see,
Speaker 1: and you try, you know to prevent it those and
Speaker 1: then and then you know, unless it's like something you know,
Speaker 1: more simple to build and very very very direct. But
Speaker 1: then again, you know, like can you do real innovation
Speaker 1: without doing the hard work, like I'm talking about life
Speaker 1: changing real innovation, right, And we very quickly found out,
Speaker 1: you know, after getting access to SKI and s d
Speaker 1: ks and all this stuff from all the manufacturers, right,
Speaker 1: we really in detail try to make it work, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately we didn't improve the experience in the in the
Speaker 1: way we needed to write to actually you know, achieve
Speaker 1: our mission. And that's why, you know, for my past
Speaker 1: I reached out to a bunch of contexts that unfortunately
Speaker 1: had and that's how we how we started doing our
Speaker 1: own own devices right where you know, the devices are
Speaker 1: a lot faster in terms of reaction, right, it enables
Speaker 1: us to do a lot more stuff and to provide
Speaker 1: this this great experience that actually prevent scream from company.
Speaker 2: Got it? So maybe we can go onto the hood
Speaker 2: a little bit, Sebastian, I mean, so I totally support
Speaker 2: the vision make it accessible and prevent this from happening.
Speaker 2: What are you doing differently? I mean you did say
Speaker 2: you try to not get into the hardware, but I
Speaker 2: mean you do have some hardware sort of companies right now,
Speaker 2: So can you talk a little bit about what is
Speaker 2: the offering and what what happens? Let's say, I mean,
Speaker 2: or if I need to set it up in my house,
Speaker 2: how do I go about doing it?
Speaker 1: Yep RT. So the way it works today right is
Speaker 1: we do we do have a complete set of devices.
Speaker 1: It's twelve skaus, so we govern essentially everything you know,
Speaker 1: all the way from smart access to the actual video
Speaker 1: monitoring right to sensors, et cetera. For you to be
Speaker 1: able to live in one app right and not have
Speaker 1: to leave leave that ecosystem. Then you know, the core
Speaker 1: component here is the combination of AI and humans. So
Speaker 1: we contextually understand what's going on in a location, whether
Speaker 1: it's a home or business. We understand if it's you
Speaker 1: entering your home or if it's a potential intruder. And
Speaker 1: if we see the moment that there is a in
Speaker 1: the moment that we see that the potential intrusion is
Speaker 1: about to happen or is ongoing right before you enter
Speaker 1: your parameter, essentially, right, we immediately activate and learn. We'll
Speaker 1: let you know and when in a couple of seconds
Speaker 1: someone from our monitoring center connects and take a look
Speaker 1: at what's going on. Right in the monitoring center, you know,
Speaker 1: the same thing, right, they see who the property members are.
Speaker 1: They only get access to the cameras you allow right
Speaker 1: within the protocol. And essentially there they have this modern
Speaker 1: right VMS and ticketing system which allows them to take
Speaker 1: action really fast. Firstly prevent right and then send help
Speaker 1: as fast as possible if it's needed. Right. So I
Speaker 1: think I think that's really where you know our edulized.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not just a company doing nice devices
Speaker 1: or a nice app, right, or have the AI vision
Speaker 1: component right, which is which is super important and it
Speaker 1: being fast. Right, we also have this VMS and service stack, right.
Speaker 1: So it's a very complex product, right, it took us
Speaker 1: a lot of time to develop a lot more than
Speaker 1: we wanted to right and right now the service is
Speaker 1: only available in Mexico, but because you're a front, we
Speaker 1: can send you some to test out and it will
Speaker 1: unfortunately not be connected to a monitoring center yet but soon.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm curious to see some demos of this
Speaker 2: and see the whole AI part of it in action,
Speaker 2: which is which will be pretty cool. So I mean,
Speaker 2: how has that option been so far, Sebastian, I mean,
Speaker 2: but what stage is the company in. What's the early
Speaker 2: feedback that you're getting from early adopters?
Speaker 1: Yea, so we are. We've raised about eight hundred thousand
Speaker 1: to date. How we have a functioning product and service
Speaker 1: right and we're still calling it being up because we're
Speaker 1: by perfectionists in that sense, but we should, we should
Speaker 1: have the full version coming out very very soon in
Speaker 1: this quarter. And what stage are we in? Well, we
Speaker 1: are alive in Mexico and we have about dirty customers
Speaker 1: right now. Most of them are businesses that are piloting
Speaker 1: right our solution for several of their locations to bring
Speaker 1: it out to hundreds. And I'd say Mexico is a
Speaker 1: great place to be doing that because even though Mexican
Speaker 1: customers are more demanding on the service level per se,
Speaker 1: they're they're less demanding on the product level, right. So
Speaker 1: it's not like they're going to sue you if you know,
Speaker 1: a button doesn't work properly, right and you don't get
Speaker 1: a response, right, which is it can be a life
Speaker 1: or life that you know, threatening kind of situation.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So of course this is super important for us. That's
Speaker 1: why that's why we're holding back, let's say, on growth
Speaker 1: to other countries directly on their our platform, right, which
Speaker 1: is quick.
Speaker 2: Quick, where are you doing the manufacturing of the hardware?
Speaker 1: Meanly in Asia?
Speaker 2: So okay, yeah, got it right now.
Speaker 1: I'd love to I'd love to work with Mexican manufacturers.
Speaker 1: The thing is that the technology is not here and
Speaker 1: the prices are not here, right, or we're open to
Speaker 1: other other places, but it's just where we found fund Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I understand. I mean, you know, especially
Speaker 2: with your vision to make it accessible to people, I mean,
Speaker 2: you need to figure out buying balance between you know,
Speaker 2: what you put into your hardware and I mean how
Speaker 2: how does that whole package become accessive? So the other
Speaker 2: question I had on the product itself Sebastianism. I mean,
Speaker 2: is it like self install or for businesses? I mean
Speaker 2: you guys do the install as well.
Speaker 1: You can self install it, but we in Mexico do everything.
Speaker 1: So we have a network of installer partners that we've trained,
Speaker 1: and essentially we're three sixties kind of solution, right, So
Speaker 1: you could say customers appreciate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. So, first of all, on Quid,
Speaker 2: I mean, congratulations on the launch and the growth. I
Speaker 2: mean it feels like a really important startup. I mean
Speaker 2: especially considering I mean the crime rate and everything you
Speaker 2: see on TV. So hopefully Quid comes in as a
Speaker 2: big factor to help bring that down and help people
Speaker 2: be safe. But I want to go back to a
Speaker 2: little bit Sebastian to your days as a venture guy,
Speaker 2: if you will, and obviously you already mentioned it. I
Speaker 2: mean you mean, you meet so many people with the
Speaker 2: real purpose behind there start up, solving for real world problems.
Speaker 2: And given that this show it kind of talks about
Speaker 2: both sides of the coin, both founders and investors, I
Speaker 2: mean I want to hear from you about any big
Speaker 2: takeaways or learnings that you had round meetings with those
Speaker 2: founders about you know do's and don'ts that you tried
Speaker 2: to kind of bring into Quid and said, Okay, I
Speaker 2: mean I will not be like that particular founder if
Speaker 2: you will, or you know, here are my learnings that
Speaker 2: I'm putting into my real life or my startup. I mean,
Speaker 2: any anything that you can think of as big takeaways
Speaker 2: from your career as a VC, right.
Speaker 1: I mean the first I'm gonna mention, it's really it's
Speaker 1: really hard, right, Like what we're doing at Quid is
Speaker 1: the hardest thing I've done in my life by far, right,
Speaker 1: And I think evaluating that that as hard as you
Speaker 1: can is very very important, right, because I think Jensen
Speaker 1: hunts at something quite quite interesting, right, he said, you
Speaker 1: know the superpower founders is that right, you don't know
Speaker 1: how hard it is, and we'll get the superpower is
Speaker 1: that we keep lying to ourselves, right, And that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're doing it's freaking crazy, right, then, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd say the other aspect is as validated as hard
Speaker 1: as as as much as you can. I think one
Speaker 1: of our mistakes is we had very early on we
Speaker 1: had over ten thousand customers signed up, right, And which
Speaker 1: is which is amazing, Right, this SELP does raise and everything.
Speaker 1: We didn't ask those customers opinion, right we made We
Speaker 1: made a couple of right bets right on on that.
Speaker 1: And you know, even we didn't convert many of them,
Speaker 1: right like because the willing to having the difference. You know,
Speaker 1: oh hey this is actually quite expensive, right, So so
Speaker 1: always like try to transact as early as possible.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And then another one I'd say, is is team a
Speaker 1: critical right we made even though you know it came
Speaker 1: from a venture background, and the things I'm saying now,
Speaker 1: I sent them to founders and I said, a bunch
Speaker 1: of time, I still make those mistakes right in one
Speaker 1: way or another the founding team. It's just so important
Speaker 1: because you know, we made a couple of wrong choices
Speaker 1: on on the technical side right of the team. I
Speaker 1: think most startups wouldn't have survived what we have. We
Speaker 1: have and today I'm really happy to say, you know
Speaker 1: that we're shipping on a weekly basis, We have a
Speaker 1: weekly demo, we have stuff really to show for and
Speaker 1: and I'd say having that from the beginning, right like,
Speaker 1: especially if you're non technical, like have a demo at
Speaker 1: least once a week, right, if not more with your
Speaker 1: technical team to show them what they're actually progressing on, right, like,
Speaker 1: like actually what they're what they're what they're getting done,
Speaker 1: get into GitHub, understand it, right, because you know, it
Speaker 1: can be quite dangerous, you know, especially if you raise money,
Speaker 1: right and you're like, ah, yeah, sure a twelve months,
Speaker 1: right or have ten months? You know, it can be
Speaker 1: quite easy to disassociate yourself with that, right, especially if
Speaker 1: it's you know, not someone that's built a billion dollar
Speaker 1: plus business before, even if they built big businesses, which
Speaker 1: was in our case, right like they were they were
Speaker 1: unicorn engineers, right, it is engineers from unicorns. But the
Speaker 1: thing is that it's very different to be in an
Speaker 1: enterprise and to be shipping under that than to be
Speaker 1: building everything by yourself, right, even if they had hobby projects,
Speaker 1: et cetera. A lot of things can come in between.
Speaker 1: So I'd say that like focus on results, on transacting
Speaker 1: and try to you know, I think there's two paths
Speaker 1: you can take here. One you can try to raise
Speaker 1: a lot of money, right. Two you don't raise and
Speaker 1: you know, don't have this burden on your shoulders. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it depends very much on the company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, great, great insights. Thanks for shedding, and you
Speaker 2: mentioned team as well. It's back to QUID. I mean
Speaker 2: you did mention earlier you have a team in Mexico
Speaker 2: as well as some folks are. How did you go
Speaker 2: about constructing your team? I mean when you decided to
Speaker 2: build QUID, I mean, did you have a fairly neat
Speaker 2: idea of saying, Okay, these are the people I want
Speaker 2: or you know, I mean you had to build it
Speaker 2: brick by brick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I had some ideas, but it ended up
Speaker 1: being break by brick, right, same thing right, Like, same
Speaker 1: thing with team building, but getting the right people on
Speaker 1: board that's really hard. It's really hard to to to
Speaker 1: sell right, Like in our space. It's not like a
Speaker 1: sass you know, where you get a lead and you're
Speaker 1: like okay, bay here and you link them up, you
Speaker 1: mboard them, boom, right, And this is this is quite complicated,
Speaker 1: and I think because of the complexity of security is
Speaker 1: why many investors shy away from investing in security, which
Speaker 1: I understand, right, because it's because it's very hard for
Speaker 1: smaller teams to execute well in this industry, right, very hard.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's complex, right, you have all these
Speaker 1: moving layers, right, and if you take a look at
Speaker 1: how the security companies have today operate right, like to
Speaker 1: give the specific example in this space, right, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a glued together puzzle kind of thing, right where
Speaker 1: there's missing pieces of the puzzle over the place. And
Speaker 1: I find it insane. You know that that it's still
Speaker 1: it's still works this way. So that's why that's why
Speaker 1: we see such a huge opportunity and building quick come
Speaker 1: and yeah, now that makes sense.
Speaker 2: So what's what's next for Quinn Sebastian. What what's the
Speaker 2: next twelve months twenty four months looking like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm happy to say actually that we're living
Speaker 1: off our revenues now, so thanks, it's pretty rare. We
Speaker 1: did over one hundred thousand revenues last year. We're probably
Speaker 1: going to do over one hundred thousand this quarter. Projecting
Speaker 1: well beyond that, you you can you can request my
Speaker 1: deck if you're an investor. And what we're planning is
Speaker 1: this year we're planning to two more devices which are
Speaker 1: going to take take us to the next level really
Speaker 1: like on top global security device level. Another thing is
Speaker 1: we're also probably going to open up more countries this
Speaker 1: year already. So we have a closed deal for the
Speaker 1: Czech Republic with a huge partner to build a big
Speaker 1: challenger there, and we're also working on about half a
Speaker 1: dozen others. Yeah, we're going to raise around soon end
Speaker 1: of this quarter. We're going to raise one and if
Speaker 1: not earlier, and existing investors are committing. So I'm quite
Speaker 1: excited about that. And beyond that, you know, I definitely
Speaker 1: see how we're going to reach beyond a billion dollars
Speaker 1: in nerve Ansota the next ten years. Right, It's going
Speaker 1: to take us longer than we'd like to clearly, but
Speaker 1: a straight face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is awesome. I mean, that is great progress.
Speaker 2: Congratulations to you and your team. I'm sure whoever's looking
Speaker 2: to invest, I mean, this is the great place to invest,
Speaker 2: just based off of your numbers. And speaking of the numbers, Sebastian,
Speaker 2: one of the things I find in a lot of
Speaker 2: startups that do well is a founder lead sales and
Speaker 2: founder lad growth in the early stages. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: there are a bunch of startups that I've seen, I
Speaker 2: mean where the CEO or one of the founders says
Speaker 2: I don't want to be part of sales, I mean,
Speaker 2: leave me behind the scenes and I will take care
Speaker 2: of this. But the most successful ones, at least in
Speaker 2: the early stages, the founders are out there, you know,
Speaker 2: doing road shows on the street, I mean, talking to
Speaker 2: people and selling even before they think of bringing in
Speaker 2: someone to you know, just do sales full time, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, what is your opinion on that sort of concept?
Speaker 2: I mean, has that worked for you? I mean, based
Speaker 2: on what you're saying, it looks like I mean you're
Speaker 2: always out there selling.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, we're out here selling. I'd say it's very
Speaker 1: So I'd take two things. One is, I think it's
Speaker 1: very important for founders to be involved in sales because
Speaker 1: of the product componant. If you want to build a
Speaker 1: great product, right, you need to know what your customers want, right,
Speaker 1: or at least get feedback from them in some form, right,
Speaker 1: So it's quite important to have that. On the other side,
Speaker 1: I do say, like you have to be efficient. Time
Speaker 1: is the most scarce resource, so you have to be
Speaker 1: as efficient as possible. You only have a couple of
Speaker 1: bets you can make. You can everything. No, you should not, right,
Speaker 1: even if you let's say that in that perspective, like
Speaker 1: if you're a founder, try to be very savvy in
Speaker 1: your time. Try to you know, can use AI. Try
Speaker 1: It depends very much on your on your self process. Right.
Speaker 1: If you have a bunch of inbound, that's amazing. If
Speaker 1: you're doing a hardcore outbound, then get some AI tools,
Speaker 1: get help. Consider either you know a great outbound agency
Speaker 1: or higher person right that that knows how to do
Speaker 1: it well. And yeah, i'd say get this you know
Speaker 1: b DR component going. And then and then you know,
Speaker 1: come in into the to the real discussions right where
Speaker 1: you're where you can really bring a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: if you if you're in a stage where you don't
Speaker 1: have the cash and you're figuring it out, let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, do it yourself right, like we've we've done
Speaker 1: everything right, Like yeah that quit. So yeah, we've tried
Speaker 1: it all out.
Speaker 2: Yeah that makes sense. That makes sense. Speaking of AI, Sebastian,
Speaker 2: I mean, you you are using AI heavily. Looks like
Speaker 2: in Quid what sort of AI are you using? Is
Speaker 2: that homegrown? I mean are you adopting some of the
Speaker 2: technologies out there and building it into Quid's products. And
Speaker 2: I mean, and I'm assuming you know there are skeptics
Speaker 2: out there on AI. There are people who are gung
Speaker 2: ho on AI that it might potentially replace us and
Speaker 2: all of that. So it's a two part question. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, what's AI is influence and quid and then
Speaker 2: your general opinion on how AI is reshaping our world
Speaker 2: of technology.
Speaker 1: Right, I'll start with the ladder because I find it
Speaker 1: quite funny. Like in Mexico, we often come across people
Speaker 1: that you know, are like, hey, you know, and how
Speaker 1: can we trust the I you know, when they have
Speaker 1: guards that work twenty four hours a day, right, like
Speaker 1: twenty four to twenty four hour shifts, which you know
Speaker 1: what that means is they sleep on the job, right,
Speaker 1: there is no other way to do it right, or
Speaker 1: they get very distracted if they don't. So I find
Speaker 1: that funny because they're like asking me if they can
Speaker 1: trust a technology that doesn't sleep and you know, works
Speaker 1: twenty four seven versus a person right that you know,
Speaker 1: probably won't catch an intruder coming in if they're sleeping, right.
Speaker 1: So I'd say we're battling that you know, traditional thinking.
Speaker 1: But we definitely see this changing even in a you know,
Speaker 1: traditional country like Mexico where labor force is not necessarily expensive. Right,
Speaker 1: even in Mexico, we're seeing this price demand push. Right.
Speaker 1: Our product is less expensive than having a twenty four
Speaker 1: hour security guard at your door, right, whether it's a
Speaker 1: business or home.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, what we're what we're doing is, of course,
Speaker 1: we're taking everything we can from the open source world.
Speaker 1: I honestly think that it's very very hard to compete
Speaker 1: as any startup with open source components and division space. Right.
Speaker 1: So we are experimenting with several models, you know, especially
Speaker 1: in relation to the contextual understanding, which is which is
Speaker 1: what i'd say it is a core differentiator. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a big difference between hey, understanding if it's a human,
Speaker 1: or understanding if it's a view right entering or if
Speaker 1: it's an actual intruder, and what are the signs of
Speaker 1: that being an intruder and how fast do we need
Speaker 1: to react and all of that it's very very important.
Speaker 1: So for that, we're using what can be called selective
Speaker 1: structured state spased sequence models. And we have a couple,
Speaker 1: you know, more things we're going around with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing, Sebastian. I mean so so
Speaker 2: cool what you guys are doing with quid. I'm so
Speaker 2: glad I ran into you. So I'm going to keep
Speaker 2: track of what you guys are up to. Wish you
Speaker 2: guys well. I'll be a cheerleader here, keep us posted
Speaker 2: on what you're doing next and your next round of fundraising.
Speaker 2: Will be sure to share all your details to to
Speaker 2: our community. But thanks so much Sebastian for jumping on
Speaker 2: startup still Say and sharing a story, a super and
Speaker 2: super awesome one at that, and we should the very best.
Speaker 1: Thanks. Thanks, Anthony, I appreciate your time and having us here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, welcome. Take care of Sebastian.
Speaker 1: You two have a good one.