00:00:03
Welcome, Deirdre. Did I pronounce your name correctly? You did. Well done. I know that a lot of people struggle with my name, but Deirdre is the.
00:00:13
I guess I call it the Aussie way of saying it, because I know here in the states, Deirdre is the main way that it gets pronounced. Okay, wonderful. It's a lovely name, and I love your accent. So, you're from Australia? I am, yes.
00:00:29
I grew up in Australia. We've been in the states now for almost five years. Yeah. And for those who are not watching this on YouTube, they won't see that there's this lovely sloth next to you. Yeah.
00:00:43
Monty is our mascot. He's our sloth, and he reminds us every day to be intelligently lazy. I wrote down sloth, boss, because I love criminology so much, and we'll just dive right in because I just love your book. I've been reading it copiously, taking notes, and I love the concept of the framework you provide for content strategy and then taking an emerging technology, well, not quite emerging, but AI, and utilizing it so you can share the thousand foot view about what inspired you. Cause I know.
00:01:25
Cause I've been reading the book, but what inspired you? Oh, my gosh. I feel like it's, you know, it's just been, like, a ton of different experiences that we've been having and not really, you know. Cause I think we all go through our own journey, and I feel like every step of the way, I've learned something new that I didn't even know that I was learning at the time, of course. But you look back at it and it's like, oh.
00:01:49
Oh. Like, this was something that I didn't know that I was doing that well, for some reason, almost by accident, started working, or, you know, or I learned something from someone specifically and implemented and was like, wow, this is, like, this is working. So, yeah. So, for me, it was like, it was very much just my journey and has taught me so much about things like content marketing, about, you know, building a list, about converting them. But, yeah, it really started from my even, you know, ten years ago when I started my entrepreneurship journey, which was back in Sydney, Australia, my husband and I had dessert bars.
00:02:30
We started dessert bars, which. So, in hospitality, brick and mortar. And I would say that it is the. I would say it's the hardest type of business to actually start and grow. It was incredibly hard because you're basically in the red before you even open the doors, like, with the amount of rent you have to pay, even while you're getting it fitted out, and then the fit out costs that, you know, run you $100,000.
00:03:00
And for some people, even in the millions, um, you're already in the red. And then it's like, it kind of feels like it's constant catch up since then. So, you know, for us, like, brand new entrepreneurs, we had no idea what we were doing. And I feel like that experience was almost like, um, trial by fire, you know, you just, like, we were just like, we just dove straight in. No background in marketing or anything like that, and we just had to figure things out along the way.
00:03:26
And so that book, honey trap marketing, is kind of almost testament to a lot of the things that we had to figure out ourselves. And we almost stumbled upon and was like, oh, wow, this worked. And for XYZ reasons. And that's kind of almost a compilation of all of those learnings, in a way.
00:03:48
In your book, early on, you mentioned an incident. I thought it was such a revealing scenario where someone endorsed you, but not knowing it was your product. Yes. Yeah. I am not a big, you know, like, I remember in events and stuff, you know, people would be joking about, like, you know, you know, Deirdre, when you become famous and blah, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, please.
00:04:15
Like, that actually freaks me out. There was even a time. So I was working corporate for a little time when. When we started the business, and I was in this meeting room, and I this, and it was people that I was kind of there in my capacity, obviously. I used to work in a bank, and we were waiting for someone to come and someone.
00:04:41
And there were these, like, couple of younger ladies. They had just kind of started, or they were like interns, I would say. And one of them was like, oh, you know, we were just like, you know, chit chatting and as you do. And one of them was like, oh, my gosh, have you guys been to this dessert bar called the chalkboard? It's amazing.
00:05:00
We went there last night and. And I literally, also funny, because Bono as well, my co founder inside of Cap show, we actually met an incorporated in the bank, and she was in that room with me, and she was laughing at me because I was literally, like, shrinking into my chair, like, from almost just like. I don't know what it was. It just like, I think. I don't know whether it's maybe a little bit of impostor syndrome, maybe a little bit of, like, I don't know, like, not wanting to be.
00:05:31
I don't know what. I actually don't know what it was specifically, but it was just this moment I remember when I just wanted to, like, sink into the floor and, and disappear. And it's such a counterintuitive thing, because most people feel so much pride when, you know, when you're building something. And it's not that I didn't feel. I felt immensely proud, but in a way, it was almost like maybe I just felt like I didn't deserve it for some reason.
00:05:57
Or like I was, you know, it just, it was literally felt like an out of body experience in that moment when, you know, someone was like. And then Bona was like, oh, it's actually, you know, Deirdre's store. Like, she's the founder, the co founder. And they, like, all looked at me and I was like, oh, my gosh, I hate that kind of tension. And I'm like, uh huh.
00:06:21
So should we just get started? It was so bizarre. I feel for you because I know that. And you've mentioned in your book that you've experienced feeling introverted. Now, were you working full time while building that other business?
00:06:40
Yeah. Yeah. So for the first couple of years, I was still working full time. My husband was in the business full time. And so we just, yeah, we just had to make it work.
00:06:49
And that was kind of like, because, as I said, we were, like, in the red, you know, not even opening day. So, like, in a way, I kind of had to work to at least even just be able for us to live until the business got to a point where you could kind of sustain, sustain us as well. And I believe there are so many analogies that I think you can apply from that first business and how years later, it transpired into your book honey trap. And I just, you know, I see all these metaphors in my head, but absolutely love the details of the book, particularly given the fact that developing content takes so much time and there's a strategy behind it. And I zeroed in on a couple of words, and then I poked around on your website.
00:07:39
I'm like, aha. She thinks like I do at times, because your website, you list your favorite books. Yes. One of them is atomic habit. And in atomic habit, they use this concept of structure and systems in place.
00:07:53
And then early in your book, you mentioned that as well. I'm like, I love this, the way this woman is thinking. Thank you. Yeah, it really, really resonated with me. And it was actually Bonner who's first mentioned it to me about the whole concept of, like, like, we all aspire to something which is totally human like, and we should be, but we get so caught up, I think, in, in that, that we forget that we need to actually be creating these, the, I guess the systems of foundations in place and continuously raising that.
00:08:29
And we forget to do that all the time. Right. Because, and I don't know about you, because I know for me for sure. Cause I'm very, very future focused. I'm like my eyes always on and get so excited about the possibilities and the opportunities and, you know, things like that.
00:08:42
That, that's what I'm always running towards and that's what I'm always driving to that I forget that, like I'm probably leaving, you know, just mess behind me. That kind of needs to be cleaned up. And, and I think that's, that's the problem. That's when I was like, oh, I actually need to a slow down. And this is kind of almost where the concept of intelligently lazy and sloth boss comes in.
00:09:05
It's like we actually have to build those foundations, be really solid because if we can't, if we forget about those. And again, everyone uses like the analogy of a house and things like that, where if you don't have those really good foundations built, then it just can crumble literally into pieces. So it's so, so true for me. And I need to keep reminding myself of it because I am such a, you know, but like the fact that, yeah, we can, we, we always will fall to the level of our systems. And so that's always what I have going on.
00:09:40
It's like, okay, how do we just keep building those systems? Just keep building those systems, because as we keep building them and if we can raise that level, could you imagine just like how, like, the world, the world is at oyster at that point? Yeah, absolutely. And there's multiple things in play with the system you've put together in the framework. One of them I particularly appreciate is that your framework allows people to create a story, because while I love to write every day after day of writing and trying to get content out, it's hard to be strategic in my writing all the time.
00:10:19
Yes. I love how you, in one of the pages in here, you even break it down into mental models and showing how to approach your writing. And you have that in your software, which is open in the background because I've been using to create content. So I think there's just an incredible blend. And the convergence of it at this time in history is interesting.
00:10:46
Explosion of AI. Yes. And as I was sharing with you before we started, some of my podcast listeners may not necessarily be solopreneurs or in technology or many are and are looking for ways to bring in the technology while there's, you know, the debate, like, are we still going to remain ethical or is it mindful? So perhaps you can, or is it even legal? Yeah, so, oh, my gosh, I, yeah, I'm always having this debate with myself, which is, you know, because, like, I actually learned about AI.
00:11:32
So even back in banking, in my corporate days, which was like, more than a decade ago, I actually got introduced to AI because I was in the innovation team. It was a newly formed innovation team for the bank. And my whole remit, like my individual remit, was to actually explore emerging technologies and the application to the bank. So I was looking at things like AI. I was looking at things like blockchain.
00:11:53
And even then, this was like, more than a decade ago. Obviously, AI was a thing. And not many people know that. They all think that AI was invented with chat GPT, but, you know, AI wasn't even back then. And that there was like, the power of it really came to be when you had specific use cases.
00:12:17
And then that was really what I was doing. I was, you know, really working with people in the various divisions in the bank to be like, hey, what could a specific use case be where we can implement AI? So that's like my introduction to it. And then when, you know, fast forward. And I was, you know, in about, gosh, I've losing track of time.
00:12:35
Three to four years ago, I had actually started my coaching business. Wait, what is it now, 2024? Yeah, about four years ago, I started my coaching business, and that was when I had my first podcast. And I, I made that mistake, which I think a lot of people who podcast can, you know, can empathize with. This is like, we think sometimes that the act of pressing publish is the be all and end all to our content marketing.
00:13:02
Like, that was like what I had thought back then. I didn't know any better. I was like, I had a mentor who was like, you've got to start publishing. You've got to show your expertise. I was like, okay, well, a podcast seems relatively simple enough to do.
00:13:13
That can be the one thing that I focus on. And then after a few weeks, I realized that the act of pressing publish was not actually the end of my marketing efforts. It was actually the beginning. And I had to actually then promote the fact that I had this podcast that I had this episode that went live and, and being who I am. Like, I can sometimes I'm such a nerd.
00:13:40
About things that I can go really, really probably too deep about things. So it got to the point, like, I went down this rabbit hole. So my whole team and I were basically, what we were doing was we were publishing the podcast each week and then we were like, on all of the social media channels, literally all of them, and all of the different platforms, and we were just, I was like, we just, we need to pop, like, share the content. We need to publish your content. I was creating TikToks every other day.
00:14:05
I was creating Instagram reels. I was, and it was all different because I wanted it to be original content for those platforms. And it literally, that period of time, like, literally burnt my team and I out. And so I was like, I went from like, it's like zero to 100. I went from like, not really doing anything to going like, yeah, I'm going to be on every platform, like every day, like multiple times a day to then being like, you know what?
00:14:31
This thing is not working. I'm just going to like, nope. I'm just going to cut it and like, and basically take a break. And that's, um, that's what we did. And, and I use that time to really think about, like, there's got to be a better way to do this.
00:14:45
And that was when, you know, full circle moment. It was like, oh, this is a I thing that I actually know quite a bit about because, and not from like so much a technical perspective, but definitely from an application, like a use case perspective. And the more that I thought about it, the more I started getting really excited because I was like this, you know, when we talk about use cases for AI, like, this is a perfect use case. So this was end of 2021 that I was thinking about this. And then it was in 2022 that, you know, we started really going deep and meaningfully building this software out, which was the first iteration of capture.
00:15:27
But I always knew as well with whatever that I was going to do that it had to be strategic. So to your point about like that, it's this great blend of, you know, the strategy that I talk about with the software. I am so, I'm such a big believer that anything that we do has to have a strategy behind it because that's what I didn't do when I was, like, burning myself in my team. I was just like, my strategy was literally, I just have to be everywhere, right? My strategy was the whole Gary Vee content domination.
00:15:58
You've just got to be on every platform all the time and, you know, people will find you that was literally the starting end of my strategy. And it was like, that did not work. It, it, yeah, it was. So I would highly recommend that one followed that particular strategy. But I really took the time to talk to social media experts and sales experts and just like, and content experts and being like, what are the core pieces that actually work?
00:16:28
And not just work in content, but also work on different platforms? Um, and that was really how I, you know, how I developed the content, how you trap mental models, you know, really talking to specifically sales experts, actually, because you know that everything that we do is selling of some kind, right? Like, even when we're trying to get someone to listen to a podcast episode or to watch a piece of content, we're still having to sell the thing, um, to get people to stop the scroll or, you know, whatever. So I, so it was kind of a bland of sales and marketing that the content honey trap models came about. And then as it pertains to the actual platforms, talking to a lot of social media experts and going, okay, well, what actually works?
00:17:12
And we all get, it's so seductive to think about the algorithm. We really just want to beat the algorithm. That used to very much be my language until I realized talking to people like Katie Brinkley from next step, social communication stuff about how she thinks about, and it's like, it's actually not about beating the algorithm. Or I should say, if you are looking to beat the algorithm, the simplest way to do that is actually to have empathy for your audience and to create content for them, which is actually not that mind, when you, when I say it like that, it's like, duh, of course that's, you know, and I used to hear all these, you know, it was like, be social on social media. That's what it's there for.
00:17:54
But, and it's like, okay, great, but what does that actually mean in practice? Like, what does that really boil down to? And it wasn't until I started implementing things like Katie's four pro social media strategy that it started making sense as to what that actually meant. And it's strategies like that that we've actually baked into capture and shilpa, I don't know, because I think you're on cap show 2.0. We literally just launched capture next gen, or at least spoke about it.
00:18:22
We're launching the beta tomorrow. And inside of caption next gen, it has Katie's four post social media strategy baked into it. It's got content hunting traps baked into it. It's got all of these marketing tools and strategies baked into it, because I am such a big believer that if we're going to leverage AI, we have to leverage AI with a strategy and with a purpose, not just to mindlessly, as I call it, content vomit on the Internet. And that comes down to us still maintaining our humaneness throughout the process, which is why I'm so passionate about, you know, even the starting point for cap show was, hey, it's going to anchor in content that you create as the human.
00:19:08
It's not going to. It's not one of those things where you prompt to be like, yeah, I want to talk about this topic. And then it just scripts something out for you. Like, that's not leveraging your experience and your stories and, you know, your memories and things like that. Like, that's where the power comes in to.
00:19:25
Because why else are we creating content if not to create a connection with the people that we're trying to talk to? And the connection comes from our stories, and it comes from people knowing about us. And I think, in a way, I look back at even that story I told about people being like, oh, the chalkboard is yours. And I'm, like, shrinking in my chair. I need to lean in.
00:19:46
Like, I learned through the process. I look back at that Deirdre, and I'm like, wow, she was so scared of telling her story, of being just who she is. She was so scared of that. And it's like, that's actually what makes us human. That's actually what creates a connection.
00:20:03
Right? And we have to lean into that if we want to actually create content that is going to like, like the whole, the AI ness that is kind of proliferating. Makes sense. Absolutely. Because I know that in your book and in your writing, you've talked about understanding the pain.
00:20:36
Oh, I lost you there for a moment. I could always record this. Yes, I can hear you. Okay. The face is frozen, unfortunately.
00:20:46
Oh, you're back. Okay, I'll edit this out.
00:20:53
What was I saying? Taking people from awareness to action, but where you may be different, so their gap or their pain and you identifying the gap or pain and allowing them to recognize that. I get it, that ordinary or common pain, but then you're taking. You're then holding their hand. But that process can be a big cognitive load, and your technology is allowing people, it's not like a plug and play.
00:21:27
Like you were saying, you do need to do your due diligence. But yes, I wrote a couple of LinkedIn articles just yesterday, and I was like, oh, that came out good.
00:21:41
Thank you, Shilpa. And I can tell you that with capture next gen, it's going to be even simpler because what's coming, just to give you a little bit of background, because I don't know. Shilpa, are you in our community, in our Facebook community? I am, and I may have shared this with you, but my background is in user experience. So your co founder did.
00:22:03
Yes. Bona Bona may have me look at your software tomorrow. Oh, amazing. Okay, you're gonna. Yeah, that's super cool.
00:22:14
And so one of the things that we. Okay, so can I tell the story behind capture next gen and, like, kind of what happened with capture and stuff? Yeah. Okay, great. So when we.
00:22:28
So we launched capture in July of 2022, I'm like, losing dates. It's 20. Yeah. And so it was before chat GPT and everything came out. We were literally the first, especially in the podcasting space, to do what it is that we do.
00:22:44
And then when chat GPT came about, we looked at the space and we were like, that was when we really kind of had a bit of reckoning, not so much from a business perspective, but from almost a moral perspective, to be like, what? As AI, as AI software founders in this space, like, what responsibility do we have to, again, like, not just help people proliferate AI, like generic, you know, I think we all know when we're reading AI content. And so that's kind of how capture 2.0 came about. And the design behind it was to make it as flexible within boundaries. So it was still anchored in the, you know, the main content that the human created.
00:23:30
So the podcast episode or the YouTube video or whatever that is still anchored in that. But it gave more options. It allowed people to play around with the structure of what it was that they were creating, things like that. That was the whole purpose behind 2.0. What we didn't realize, we didn't realize a few things.
00:23:50
Quite a lot of things, actually, being first time software founders, we really didn't do well on design things. And I'm sure she'll be, as a ux, you're probably looking at going, what we build and going like, this is a mess. And it, you know, it really, it really is a mess. So we had a ton of design oversights. We were, we were sprinting so hard at building that we actually didn't go back.
00:24:15
And, you know, I want to talk about foundation systems. Like, this is literally, you know, when I talk about being that entrepreneur who's so forward focused and being like, oh, my gosh, I'm getting so excited about all of these new things, like, let's just build, build, build. And not to take the time to pause and listen to our development team saying like, hey, by the way, we need time to go and clean the code. We need time to actually, you know, because we've just been sprinting since we first launched back in July 2022. And, you know, that has created this ecosystem where it's like, there's a lot of bugs, there's a lot of things that are happening there that's, you know, it's not designed to do that, obviously.
00:24:55
So we learned those things from a product perspective. And what we also learned from a user perspective was that we thought that the value that people derived from CAPTCHA was going to be in the breadth of content marketing assets that we could help them create. So, you know, capture 2.0, it helps them just for a context for people listening to this. It helps basically our users upload their audio, their audio video file and in, you know, under ten minutes, it creates their title and description. It creates social media posts for all the different social media platforms.
00:25:30
It creates emails and LinkedIn newsletter articles, blog posts. It identifies sound bites, it identifies quotes. It has a short form script generator. Like, it does a lot of things. And I always had thought that that was what people derived value from.
00:25:47
So I was constantly like, okay, well, what's the next thing that we're going to help people create? And people, what I started hearing from people was that they get really excited when they found capture. They were like, oh my gosh, you can help me be everywhere all at once at the same time right now. And at the time, because I was getting swept up in the excitement, I was like, yeah, we can. We really can.
00:26:08
Until it got to the point where people would then turn around and be like, I am actually not getting any value from your software because I'm just so overwhelmed. Like, there's too much here I can't keep up with the amount that I'm public. It actually started making people feel bad, like it had the opposite effect because, and what I realized, and I spoke about this at Cap show beans live in January, actually. But like, I realized that people were, what we had ended up doing as cap show was we who actually enabling people, breaking these micro commitments to themselves. Right?
00:26:45
And what I mean by that is because people would look at the software and they'd be like, oh my gosh, okay, well, now I can be on social media every single day and I can email every week and I can create a blog post every week. And those were these commitments that they were essentially making to themselves to be like, yep, I'm going to be consistent on social media in this way and I'm going to be consistent my blogging in this way, etcetera. And, and we had enabled that because we could show, we showed them the possibility because it is possible. But it's also a lot of work still, even when you have AI a tool to help you do that, that it's still a lot of work to actually, you know, to make that a, to make that happen, but then to also be really intentional on those platforms that you decide to be on. And so for all of those various reasons.
00:27:30
So, you know, I mentioned product things that we were learning. I mentioned, you know, user things that we were learning, like, you know, these, these almost deeply rooted issues that we were starting to create for people. Like, and we just totally stepped back and we had this, like, you know, come to Jesus moment of like, this is not okay, like, we need to do something about this. And so end of last year, we actually decided to rebuild from the ground up and we reimagined what it was that CAPtcHA was here to do and what it could help with it, how it was going to do that. And my one thing that I wanted to, that is like our guiding stuff, if you will.
00:28:17
Well, I have a few guiding stuff, but like, from a, from a product perspective, product just, you know, the one guiding style was like, how do we do this in a way that has, that maintains intelligence at its core? Because if we can, if we can build this in a way that has intelligence at its core, that means that not only are we going to help people with the speed of what it is that they could do, again, like building, helping them build their systems in their, their workflows, but also actually the quality. And so what capture next gen is really built around is, you know, it's got self learning. It's the first of its kind that will have self learning capability, as in when people make edits in the platform, it will automatically learn, and not only their tone of voice, but how they like to write the structures, like the nuances in the language. And it will, it will automatically learn that and apply that.
00:29:09
So our whole aim is that after a period of time, you might not even have to really edit what's in there because it's just learned so much about how you, as the user likes to write, you know, so that's one example. And another example is like, how do we actually leverage, you know, back catalog of content that people are creating to actually then help them with the process of idea generation and, you know, and things like that. Like, we still will never say never, but I think it's going to be highly unlikely that we'll ever get into the, hey, we're going to fully script an episode for you and we're going to have an AI voice recorder for you and things like that. Because to the point of how do we maintain our humanness through this process? That to me, feels like a non negotiable.
00:29:59
To me, a non negotiable is you've got to show up as yourself that, you know, with your stories and your expertise, you've got to show up as yourself. And the way that you connect with your audience is in how you do talk. Like, that's one really, really important part of connection, is, you know, some people don't like the way that I talk because I say a lot of ums and ahs and I. Sometimes I lose my. My train of thought and I go to another, you know, some people don't, don't like that, and that's okay because they're just not going to be my people.
00:30:34
Um, but, you know, the way that we do talk is actually a form of connection that we just don't really think about. And it would be a shame if we outsourced all of that to an AI. Um, that to me is like, yeah, this is where we have to keep our humanness. But that's not to say that we can't leverage AI to help to speed up a lot of the other things that come off the back of that, if that makes sense. So, I'm sorry, I just.
00:31:02
I really went on, but that's kind of the story to next gen. I'm going to go back into this concept of authentic approach to AI, and I think for the most part, we're still trying to figure it out. I mean, it's been around. I have a background in it, but I haven't used it in, like, a long time. Yes, I.
00:31:25
When the whole fad came out of AI, I actually didn't jump on the bandwagon. It wasn't until I saw the value of what things like you provided. Because I think of strategy and mindfulness is somewhat synonymous. If something makes me faster and allow me to spend more time with my family or do things that are for personal reasons, because I remember you saying that in your book as well, like, heart centered approach and knowing your walls, it's going back to your. Why, yes.
00:32:01
So important. And I feel like, I'm constantly doing that. You know, for me, for example, like, an example of even relatively recently coming back to the why or even just figuring out the why is end of last year. It was so funny, you know, when we started on this journey with capture. So I've got, I have two co founders, my husband Ash, and one of my best friends, Bonna.
00:32:21
And so there's three of us. And what's really, really funny is that when we started capture, we never really actually articulated a why. And I don't mean a why from a actually, we didn't articulate any kind of whys, but there are a few whys. Why in terms of, like, why we're helping people. Like, what are we passionate about in terms of solving for?
00:32:45
We kind of knew because obviously we were going down this path, but we never really articulated it. And then the other why was like, why are we individuals as co founders? Why are we in this business for? And because. So for me, I had just.
00:33:01
Because we never articulated or even had a conversation about it. I was just on the software path, you know, where you kind of, like, you hustle and grind, you know, 24 hours a day for this elusive big payout at some point, you know, when you exit. Right? Like, that's kind of the thing that a software found is you just, you feel like you need to be dreaming. Like that's your dream.
00:33:24
That what, that's what you need to be achieving. And it was only like, end of last year that we actually sat down because, you know, again, we were kind of burning out and we sat down and had an honest conversation about, okay, well, what is it that as individuals, we actually want? Like, what kind of life do we want to lead? And it was really like, as a consensus without us, you know, having, like, even spoken about it previously, we all came to the point where actually we want it. We.
00:33:54
We want to enjoy life, right? I think that's, like, what life is all about. It's actually here to be enjoyed. Not at some point in time, maybe, but, like, now as we're living it. And that just completely changed the trajectory and, and the way of thinking of how we were even approaching cap show, because before it was kind of like, okay, well, we have to do literally everything, all hours to try to get this thing to grow to all of the things.
00:34:22
Whereas now it's like, okay, well, we know that we want to work five days, if not four days a week, if possible. Okay, so how do we have to structure our weeks? What are the ways that we prioritize our efforts and our focus areas so that we actually get the biggest bang for Buck with the. With, you know, the. I say in quotation, least amount of time.
00:34:46
That's not exactly what I mean, but, like, in the. The time that we want to be spending on the business so that we can actually enjoy, you know, our lives. Um, and that is like, you know, when we talk about why it was so illuminating to me, because, a, we had never spoken about it in that way before, but now, having articulated, and to your point, going back to. I don't feel like we were going back to it, but knowing it now, it fundamentally changes a lot in terms of how you approach almost everything, especially business. And that has been a big, big game changer for us.
00:35:23
When we then look at 2024 and what we have coming this year, I actually feel like we have set ourselves up way more for success now, knowing our personal why, you know, in terms of what it is that we're doing this for. So it is so important. And I say it, and it sounds so cliched, you know, even when, you know, when I write it in the book, but it's like, it is so important because literally everything comes off the back of that. Yeah, absolutely. And again, going back to that initial point I had made about atomic, the book that I was telling you about, atomic habits and this concept of systems, putting systems in place and being streamlined, one of the mantras that I repeat almost every day is I will streamline my life personally and emotionally.
00:36:15
Yeah, well done. When you have it figured out, can you let me know? Because it's a journey. I can imagine with all the evolutions of the software and just kind of trying to perfect it. I wouldn't say perfect it, but improve it.
00:36:35
You probably just are on the very journey that you're always talking about as a story. Yeah. Oh, 100%. Like, it has, you know, when people lean into, like, this concept of storytelling, and it. It's almost like you can't hate the journey that you're on.
00:36:54
Like, no matter how. Like, I can tell you, even without. Especially with our first business, like, we had grown the chocolate to, you know, five locations, and that was, like, through sheer brute force. Like, it was painful, you know, painful to the point that sometimes, you know, we. We would be in mediation with a landlord because there were points that we couldn't pay rent, for example, you know, or times like when COVID hit and how we had to.
00:37:22
Like, it was. There was some literally, like, I wish that it was just so stressful. It was, you know, I have gray hairs. Like, premature gray because of that period in time. And, like.
00:37:35
But I. But I can't hate it, you know, because everything that we go through all, like, that whole journey is literally a story to tell. Like, the story that I tell all the time is. And it's like, it was so painful when I was, like, when you're in it. But when we found out that one of our store managers had been stealing from us, you know, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars, like, can you.
00:37:56
Like, that was, you know, on so many levels. Not only was it, like, a financial pain thing, but it was, like, a pain of betrayal and all these things that you're going through at the time, but it's. It's that stuff that actually makes the, like, your stories and experiences so much more rich when you can then share it. And it's. And it's things that people actually do want you to share.
00:38:18
Like, that's the stuff that they connect with, because everyone has had some kind of betrayal or some kind of, you know, financial difficulty or something in their lives that have happened. So I can't hate anything that has happened, good or bad. You know, I was just thinking, though, I mean, isn't it Steve Jobs who said you can only connect the dots backwards? So yours connected to all these stories that became stepping stones for you, including the a type. Yes.
00:38:47
A hundred percent. Yeah. Everything. Everything happens for a reason. I am such a big believer in that.
00:38:53
Yeah. Well, I really enjoyed this conversation. I actually hope I can have you back when you do new software. Yeah, of course. I'd be happy to.
00:39:04
For sure. I'm using it. So great job, and thank you for inspiring me with your book, with your software and your just lovely personality. Oh, thank you, Shilpa. You're so.
00:39:16
You're so kind to say that. And. No, thank you for being on this journey with us. It's such a privilege, I have to say, that people even want to be on this journey with us. So thank.
00:39:27
Course, of course. Thank you so much. And I will see you around, for sure. Thanks, Shilpa.
