How can a dev shop survive when its clients stop paying?

Joining me as an entrepreneur who was employed at a company that he felt was not necessarily aligned with its customers.

It was a problem that nagged at him until it pushed him to quit his job and start an agency with a different approach to development.

Abeer Raza is the founder of TekRevol, a development agency that scales with its client–even if that means their clients are shrinking. I want to find out how he did it and how he’s getting through this current economic situation.

Abeer Raza

Abeer Raza

TekRevol

Abeer Raza is the founder of TekRevol, a development agency.

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Full Interview Transcript

Andrew Warner: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy, where I interview entrepreneurs for an audience of entrepreneurs who are all eager to do interesting, helpful things in the world and build their businesses along the way. Uh, joining me as an entrepreneur who was employed at a company that he felt was doing well, but not necessarily aligned with its customers.

would you say that’s fair for me to say a beer? Like if you guys, uh, when you were at your job, you guys could do well, even if your customers were not necessarily doing well,

Abeer Raza: Yeah, That’s true. Yeah.

Andrew Warner: how are you feeling about this interview? I feel like I’m making you uncomfortable right from the start,

Abeer Raza: That is a very loaded question.

Andrew Warner: Because you don’t want to say too much about the previous company.

Abeer Raza: That’s correct. It’s just not in the right the approach.

Andrew Warner: Fair enough. You did have a way  to run a company, a way that is more aligned with the way you’d like to work. And so you decided you wanted to create your own company fair.

Abeer Raza: Yes, that’s correct.

Andrew Warner: All right. Um, I will continue to make you feel uncomfortable. I can imagine, but it’s still all worth it because by the end of this interview, people will see how you went from a guy who had a job and  no company to a guy who has a company.

And now we’ll find out how you’re giving other people jobs, the person whose voice you just heard, his name is a beer rasa. He is the

Andrew: cofounder

Andrew Warner: of tech. Revolver. It is a digital solutions company for businesses. They build all kinds of tech solutions, apps, sites, marketing. We’ll talk about all that. And I specifically like to hear about the AI based mentor that he created for one of his clients, and we can do it.

Thanks to two phenomenal sponsors. The first, if you’re building a business, starting a business from scratch, or I already have one you need hosting and HostGator, we’ll give you inexpensive hosting that will just be incredibly. Good. I’m trying not to over promise, not say this is going to save your life and change it.

It’s good. I’m going to tell you about them later, and I’m also gonna tell you why. If you’re hiring developers, you gotta check out top towel, but first a beer good to have here in the interest of continuing to make you feel uncomfortable and regretting ever doing this interview with me, I’m going to ask you, what was your revenue last year to give us a sense of size?

Abeer Raza: Um, I think we’ve closed about a three point $2 billion in revenue throughout the different companies that are.

Andrew Warner: And one of the examples that you gave me before we got started was that AR personal mentor, , which organization hired you guys to do that.

Abeer Raza: Um, that was nearest of California, San Francisco. And, um, we built the work. It was an AR based mentor was Martika works with mentor seminar too. , uh, Alexa or

Andrew Warner: Oh voice. Got it. And it was supposed to do the, what.

Abeer Raza: So it was supposed to help, midwife. So go through, uh, the delivery process so this was deployed in Kenya and, uh, the idea of, and the product was that these midwives to not have the facilities,  hospitals or doctors around them and you’re delivering babies.

So they have this problem, which is PPX, um, postpartum, um, Uh, , hemorrhaging, which, um, causes what our child, are defects or, uh, fatalities. So this product is actually something that would help them, um,  fight to that by having a virtual mentor that would help them deliver.

Andrew Warner: Wait, why don’t we do university of California pay. They paid you to do this. Why?

Abeer Raza: um, they got a grant for building something like this that wouldn’t help, uh, globally. So their clients are, um, people like and UNICEF bill and Melinda Gates foundation that would fund this, uh, to like next step, which is using AI and other components.

Andrew Warner: Got it. Okay. And so what you did was, do you give them the speaker two or they use one of the echo devices from Apple, from Amazon. Excuse me.

Abeer Raza: Oh, we built it on the Android tablets.

Andrew Warner: Okay.

And so they could just continuously talk to the device while they’re giving, while they’re helping a mother give birth.

Abeer Raza: Yes. And the device takes an input like, uh, their temperature, their, um, you know, um, any issues that they’re having

Andrew Warner: Wow. You know what else I’m going to say? Wow. About it just occurred to me to look up what time it is, where you are. Is it 3:23 AM.

Abeer Raza: Yeah.

Andrew Warner: moly. You’re in Pakistan. Now,

Abeer Raza: That’s correct.

Andrew Warner: even though you’re a San Francisco, San Francisco based ordinarily US-based

Abeer Raza: Yes. So I travel a lot. So mostly wherever the work takes me, but generally I’m in Newark, which is where our head offices.

Andrew Warner: Wow. I am so appreciative that you would be here and record with me this time of day. Thank you. What’s the business or what’s the job that you had before you started tech level.

Abeer Raza: I’m not as working as a consultant in that a private equity firm, I’m working on the technology side, developing solutions, you know, um, creating efficiencies and stuff like that.

Andrew Warner: Okay. And then w how did that lead you to start your own business?

Abeer Raza: it was, , just one of those things that were so stuck in my head that I’ve always had that in me where, um, I’ve always looked at things and then like this could be done better or, the nagging sensation that I should do something about it. So it kept on nagging at me until it became too much.

And I decided to quit a job that I had in Houston and, uh,  moved back to Karachi and set up a company and leave my really cushy job.

Andrew Warner: Tell me like how comfortable life used to be.

Abeer Raza: You know, when you’re not paying for business expenses out of pocket.

Andrew Warner: Yeah. Like when you go into a hotel room and not think, should I get the drink from the bar, have it delivered or just walk myself over to the liquor store. That’s that’s the difference. As an entrepreneur, I walk myself. You don’t drink. Do you? I walk myself to the liquor store.

Abeer Raza: That’s cool. No, I don’t drink,

Andrew Warner: No, I saw it in your eyes. As I said, liquor, I said, I should have come up with a better example. I should have said chips.

I’ll tell you, this is how cheap I am. We have a times rented me a thousand dollars, $1,500 a night suite for three nights so that I could have meetings. I see your eyes blinking, as I say it’s so we can have meetings with partners who will eventually do business with us. It always feels shocking, but it does pay off.

So we do it until it didn’t and I stop. We’ll use like an Instacart to have all the food delivered for the meetings and just pack it into the refrigerator myself. Or I will go to the liquor store and bring that bottle of whiskey. She said that I could have it so I could present it to people. It’s a, it’s maybe saving 20 bucks when you’re spending 4,500 for the night, but I’m an entrepreneur.

Every dollar comes back to me. Um, If I save it. So I get the difference between having that cushy job and going off on your own. Why did you go back to Pakistan instead of sticking in the U S.

Abeer Raza: basically we had to build a base of operations,  so we had to, relocate for a bit, and then obviously I was on a visa. So you know that, so that’s that. Um, I think it took us, uh, any year, two scale from one employee to doctor 30, um, in that time.

And that’s when, know, I decided to, I have to move the operations back to California and then scale from there.

Andrew Warner: , what’s the vision for the business? When you said I’m going to go start my own company. What was the idea?

Abeer Raza: Um, the idea was for us to, um, build the business that, uh, , scales with its clients, um, instead of just treating, banging as a project based, um, you know, engagement. So we’ve had clients that have  been with us since the time we opened trout, um, two years ago

Andrew Warner: But isn’t that what every consultant company wants, they want a client that’s going to keep on working with them so that they get to know each other and that frankly, so they have consistent, dependable revenue. Isn’t that the same thing everyone wants. What’s the difference between what you had in mind versus what you were doing and others are doing.

Abeer Raza: You’re right. Um, that’s pretty much what they read himself and company would do, but, uh, um, the only differences that they would drop the client, as soon as they’re out of funds, we don’t do that. we were generally skilled with the clients in the sentence that we will stick around with them when they’re going through tough times, we promote them just like we’re promoting ourselves.

Andrew Warner: Alright, I gotta ask you a personal question. Then. Now the economy is doing worse. Companies are backing way. Does it hurt you on a personal level to have them back away from you when your vision was? I will stick with them even if they can’t afford me for a little bit. Does it hurt you on a personal level?

It will hurt me.

Abeer Raza: Um, it does. Um, . So, you know, having resources off shore kind of helps them dive because we know where our costs are, not that high in terms of variable., and, um, ,

um, we understand that, uh, when the time comes, be it two months from now or three months now, when things is better or you’re going to be in a much better position because we’re the ones that have to be stuck around with them. We’re the ones actually kept going, went on other people’s stuff.

Andrew Warner: Do for them?

Abeer Raza: It was through referral and, uh, we basically go, they, um, auto leasing solution for them.

Andrew Warner: auto leasing solution.

Abeer Raza: yeah, an online auto leasing solution,  they’re based out of Florida , they  do like auto leasing, um, for. Uh, consumers,  like, uh, Michael Oz is declined and it’s called Oz leasing. It’s, uh, the first, uh, auto leasing online solution that was ever there. And they’ve done pretty well so far.

Andrew Warner: So they didn’t have any way for people to get auto leasing online or what was it that you guys did that they didn’t have before?

Abeer Raza: the running a traditional, um, car leasing, um, um, you know, um, shop and then they essentially change their model to provide leasing online instead, so people can select their cars. Um, so like their payment terms and kind of just go through the entire process of making the deposit and everything.

Andrew Warner: And so then if I look at your website from 2015, before you officially launched. On the site. There’s like a bunch of, yeah. It’s red bull Avis, uh, McDonald HSBC are those, I’m guessing what those are our clients you work with before. Right. Got it. All right. And so you weren’t doing any work on the side while you were offering even instant quotes on the site? Back in 2015, it was just

Abeer Raza: No.

Yeah, exactly. Um,

Andrew Warner: And you said, look, I launched the site. Everything’s up and running. I still didn’t get any customers. I still didn’t really build a business. It’s time for me to go do this thing and take a risk and leave the country, even if that’s what it takes.

Abeer Raza: Yeah,  I build the site and everything is there, but I’m not really making any effort even to get the business. So I need to like,

Andrew Warner: And is this like a burn, the ship situation where you said I’m going to absolutely quit and then force myself to get a customer? Or did you get a customer first?

Abeer Raza: We got a few customers first. Um, I actually switched to the company full time. I went through a part time situation because I had a lot of engagements that I could not go leave. So I actually joined the company full time, um, back in, I think, March or February of 2018.

Yep. Nuts. When we  had, I think, uh, , five or six employees.

Andrew Warner: And then the first customer that you guys got was from a referral who made the referral,

Abeer Raza: It was a win for a previous partner. And so he dropped out,  after six months.

Andrew Warner: uh, so you built the app first, the mobile version

for us.

Abeer Raza: No, we build the website first.    the mobile version and it’s, um, it’s not there yet. It’s going to come out over the next

Andrew Warner: how was it going back to Pakistan? What did you miss the most? I remember going to Argentina and.  I remember people telling you’ll get to a place where you come back, live in the U S and you’re going to miss the Argentine food. And boy did I, it was like little random things like the media.

Those are a little croissants that they serve you. They’re tiny little things. And the coffee that they hate for you to take to go was just such a good way to start the day. You think I’d miss the steak? I kinda missed that little touch of starting the day with these 25 cent media. Alunas what was it that you missed about going back when you went , back to Pakistan from the U S.

Abeer Raza: The activities. in Blaxland to do,

Andrew Warner: Like what type of activities?

Abeer Raza: like I was into rock climbing. I was into like, uh, hiking and stuff like that. Um, just basically going out, um, over the weekend to like a different city would make a different culture altogether and just, , get to see stuff here in crouch.

You don’t, how much do you have the cinema,  and then food. That’s it?

Andrew Warner: you know what I grew up in New York and I didn’t even know that that existed until I got to California. And then I realized, Hey, there’s a world outside of the office building. It was like hiking paths and climbing Pat and people actually do it. They don’t just. You know, say they’re going to do it so they can have a good meeting somewhere.

They actually do it and they care about it.

I get it.

. Okay. I just saw there’s a YouTube video that had like 3 million views. I went to see what it is, cause it had something to do with cycling and I’m kind of into bike. I’m into bike riding, but not mountain biking. It’s about an indoor mountain biking track. It’s like this gigantic mountain biking track everywhere you look, you could do jumps and go over this and get into this like wooden elevator with your bike.

And then you have to come out the other side without falling down. It’s like, where else in the world do you get to see this?

Abeer Raza: Exactly. Exactly. Wait, so is this, like, you can have any interests that you can, you can like dancing and you can take dancing lessons and get really

good at, or do  it’s pretty cool. I think. And , generally the people there nice and they’re extremely, engaging and they’re a lot less of, restrictions.

So yeah, it’s, it’s fun. It’s just so much more fun, I guess.

Andrew Warner: Alright, I’m gonna take a moment to talk about my first sponsor. And then we’ll talk about how you ended up getting more customers. My first sponsor is a company called HostGator. You know, that already look, I just talked to Noah Kagan. And one of the things that he told me is everybody’s got to cut the meaningless meaningless expenses out of their business right now.

Well, you know what, if you’re already paying for hosting and it’s too expensive, that’s an easy, no brainer transition. Just go to hostgator.com/mixergy. They’ll make it super easy for you to migrate your site over to them. And then they’ll give you. An incredibly low price, just sign up with hostgator.com/mixergy to get the lowest price they have available.

And then they’ll work with you to migrate your site over. If you’re not happy, they’ve got a money back guarantee, but I’m going to tell you going to be happy. I’ve been a customer of theirs for a long time, and I like the pricing as much as I like the service you can’t be. And then you forget that you’re even with them, hostgator.com/mixergy, throwing that slash mixer do@theendgetsyouthatsuperlowpricehostgator.com slash Mixergy.

Okay. How’d you get the rest of your customers? What was it that was working for you in the early days to get new business?

Abeer Raza: um, the rest of the customers that we got were basically through communities and fiber and places like that

Well, there wasn’t there wasn’t fiber back then. It was more like freelancer and

Andrew Warner: Yeah.

And you were taking

those, those build a website type projects.

Abeer Raza: We had to, like, you have to start somewhere. We, we try like a telemarketing. Initially we tried email campaigns. We tried social media. Um, we tried a lot of different strategies. In fact, we still keep on trying like other strategies. I had my first today, We had like nine, uh, attendees, but the second until the end.

So that was cool.  so we keep trying different strategies and view piles on different customers and different strategies. The ROI from it invested a little bit in paid marketing and

Andrew Warner: So when you were using that, when you were using the freelance sites, what services did you say you were going to do? Build websites?

Abeer Raza: Yeah, websites,  marketing solutions, uh, applications.

Andrew Warner: That’s a pretty broad collection of services, everything from building an app to building a simple website and marketing,

that was it.

Abeer Raza: Well, now we offer a PR though, I write for business words and, uh, you know,

Andrew Warner: I saw when I was looking you up, that you’re doing that, you’re doing some writing, but isn’t that a lot of different, random things to be combining together for customers on Upwork. And then you’ve got to hire developers to build apps. I saw your eyebrows go up. As I said, you’ve got to hire developers to build apps.

You’ve got to hire web designers to design it’s.

Why are you saying no?

Abeer Raza: We didn’t scale everything to at the start. We just, we initially started with freelancers. Um, I know like .  all the tech people in crouching pretty much. So we would, uh, you know, all sorts of projects and project manage ourselves the entire thing, and then the rhythm.

And then once. So we started building on retainers and clients and engagements and referrals. That’s when we started scaling up and

Andrew Warner: Ah, got it. Got it. Okay. So it was basically you project managing a lot of different or your company doing it, a lot of different projects and you were then farming it out to freelancers. What was your vision for this thing? There are tons of companies who are already doing this by the time you got out by 20, 2018, there were low loads of companies on Upwork.

There are loads of companies online.  what was your vision for where this company was going to go?

Abeer Raza: I think for us, um, it was to create something  from which we can pivot into product development and partnership with the clients and, uh, um, different navigations. So recently we partnered with a, um, ER. Um, product where we’re actually, um, raising series a . for it. Um, so yeah, that was literally what I wanted to do from day one, find partners, find engagements, find ways to which we can, um, push out products and solutions and  , generate revenue from that.

So we had to build the base  of developers and designers that we would have in the house

Andrew Warner: what’s the big hit that worked for you for getting new customers.

Abeer Raza: relationships I’ve pretty much, um, met personally  I think about 15 clients that we shared a few with that,  we’ve

Andrew Warner: Where you’re targeting them or saying, look, this is the customer I want, I’m going to go out and have a meal with them. I’m going to send a gift. Is that right?

What’s the process that worked best for you for getting customers for your agency.

Abeer Raza: the best process that works for us is, um, like Google, PPC

Andrew Warner: a Google ad or a search engine, optimized blog post gets people to your site who are interested in hiring,

Abeer Raza: and then.

they would, uh, you know, look us up and essentially Phillip the inquiry and then we’d get in touch with them. Um, the most lucrative one, however, in terms of,  the  the most ROI and the higher value is referrals. , but, it’s not scalable.

You can’t really, um, put a number on it. You can track it. And then we just started testing out meetups. Um, like physically conducting meetups and, uh, you know, um, meeting up people in networking events and stuff like that, and that sort of thing with, for us as well. So um, what I would say is , our strategy is  evolving as the time goes by we’re learning new things.

So, um, our marketing mix is changing. It’s, it’s pretty dynamic initially used to be, um, more focused on communities and SEO. Um, and then it started becoming a little bit of PPC and then it started evolving towards, uh, through meetups and networking lens.

Andrew Warner: You told our producer, One of the things that did not work for us was just going down market, looking for smaller customers, lower price point. I heard that was one of your failures.

Abeer Raza: yeah.  um, initially um, while we were, um, getting customers from, um, these, uh, websites like oDesk and freelancer. Um, we would get a lot of customers. The volume was, was pretty good because our, , work was good , but the customers that we would get were, um, you know, they would, the idea would be that we would give you the surface.

And once you know that our service is good enough and we can upsell you or like work on something else came when, um, you know, they would still have that same freelancer. Mentality, even when you’re delivering high quality services for them. , um, and  they know that, we’re not the only efficiency, then it will be a very, very one sided relationship.

Andrew Warner: And you’re very expendable at that point.

Abeer Raza: yeah, that was a problem. And that’s one of the reasons why we shifted away from communities.

Smaller projects that would never

Andrew Warner: What’s an example of a customer that you, even to this point, you look back and you know, , this was a big mistake that customer isn’t indicative of how much of a mistake it was. Don’t tell me the name, but describe it. I want to understand what that was like.

Abeer Raza: That’s

Andrew Warner: Really, even in that. Okay. Alright. Then I’m gonna tell everyone about my second sponsor. It is a company. If you’re hiring developers, you got to go check them out. It’s called top talent. And if you hire from top tile.com/mixergy, they’ll give you 80 hours of top tile developer credit. When you pay for your first 80 hours, that’s top T a l.com/mixergy.

I’m sensing a little bit something coming on from you. And I, I I don’t know what it is. It feels like the business right now is a little bit tougher.  No, you just gave me like this look. No, Andrew.

what’s going on. Cause I know you’re a guy. Who’s got charisma. You’re a guy who’s got like energy. Obviously we’re talking at a  terrible time of day, but what are you? What are you going through right now? What’s your,

Abeer Raza: Um,

yeah, sure. Um, so I don’t think it’s as much as, uh, , what we’re going through right now, but more about, um, the plans that we had in terms of scalability, um, for this. year. So  um, I came back with grouchy after, um, my visit to, uh, New York and then had a stop over in California. Um, so my plans were to , uh, tour Houston, um, tour location in your district, another business with a partnership and, uh, engage a few more clients.

And then, a meetup that we had planned as well to host, uh, And part of why you see, so we had a pretty high profile meetup set up as well. , and then, , the point was can take this to the next level  but, uh, with everything that happened,  we were not expecting so many plants canceling at the last moment. So yeah, that’s pretty much it ,  we have taken a hit, say, um, if the numbers come in, maybe a 50%

Andrew Warner: 50% is sales hit. So this year

could be half of last year, as far as revenue.

Abeer Raza: Well, not this year, hopefully  we’d be able to pick it up. month has been like 50% of the closures that we would generally get.

Andrew Warner: Wow.

Wow.

Abeer Raza: but,  that was to be expected. Um, but you know, having to take like consents backwards from what you were planning to do, kind of,

Andrew Warner: Have you ever had a situation like this where you lost a lot of business at once I’ve interviewed a few entrepreneurs have had big outages that led them to lose a lot of sales or our big setback with a partner that caused them to lose a lot. Do you ever have anything like that

No.

Abeer Raza: Yeah, they can’t really specifically name on certain things. And like, let’s say then our initial partnership resulted in our, um, accountants  suspended and,

Andrew Warner: Oh really?

You mean you and one of your co founders.

Abeer Raza: yeah, yeah. Setback. And there is like an initial days as well, like within the first six months. So

Andrew Warner: on a personal level. How did you get yourself to keep going when your, some of your accounts were getting suspended because of a co founder?

Abeer Raza: , it was where we had already taken the project, right. So we had to deliver, so there was no way to come back from that and we had to keep going. So we invested some more equity on our part, someone capital alarm part to keep things going, keep the lights on. And the idea was for us, which is the, you know, complete the projects and call it quits.

Projects kept coming and the revenue start started flowing again.

Andrew Warner: Do you have anything that you do on a personal level when things get difficult to get yourself, to keep going to stay optimistic enough that you can rally people who work with you?

Abeer Raza: Yeah, , it happens to me a lot actually. Cause I have like these, uh, um, highers and crash Moe’s so , I would have a discussion with the people that I know and, uh, you know, people posted and just go over what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to achieve with this business.

And meditate a little bit as well, and then just refocus myself because at the end of the day, like, we really start this business to make a lot of money.  but we started the business because I wanted to experiment.

I wanted to, uh, you know, do new things, make new businesses, make new products we have so far started , I think six businesses so far with the four of them profitable. Um, and, um, two products that we’re working on apart from that, and two products that we’ve invested in for clients. So yeah.

, I’m trying to remind myself that it’s not the sales, it’s not the clients.  you want to make everybody happy, but  sometimes you’d have clients that just want to stay in happy.  So whenever those times I remind us of that, Hey, I’m still learning a lot more than I could have ever learned.

Andrew Warner: And are you saying that you started,  side businesses or this company?

Spun off a few product

products that stand alone. Like what? I wasn’t able to see anyone. I, when I looked you guys up,

Abeer Raza: Yeah. So there’s a there side of media.

Andrew Warner: what’s the biggest of all of these

Abeer Raza: every working one right now, it’s called start inc.

Andrew Warner: Okay. But that’s one that’s new. Is there one that’s kind of taken off on its own already?

Abeer Raza: not really. Uh, we’re still working on them. Yeah. Um, the two products that I talked to

Andrew Warner: And so when things aren’t going well, you try to focus on the fact that we’ve got these projects. We can, we can build them. Here’s the possibility for that? Am I right?

Abeer Raza: Yeah. And  there’ve been several cases where,  my expectations were met or what I was hoping to achieve with something wasn’t done that generally sends me down like a really depressing spiral. And, uh, I realized that, Hey, it’s not like, this is not my daughter.

Do you like ’em. Um, you know, I’m just looking at everything negatively suddenly because something bad happened. I just have to think about all the successes that we’ve had

Andrew Warner: , when I’m in a down place, I tend to just dismiss them and go, Oh, that wasn’t really big enough. That wasn’t great enough. And then my mind uh,

it just rejects it all.

You find that ever.

Abeer Raza: for sure. Yeah. Um, so the last bar that I had very recently, um, I was in a downward, uh, You know, thing. And then, um, during the same time I had this opportunity to speak at a digital marketing summit in Dubai. So I had to travel for that. And, uh, I spoke at the summit and, uh, you know, I was giving the presentation and like, I knew what I had to say and everything else, and like talk about our culture and stuff like that.

then I realized while I was talking and I was making their presentation that, Hey, we have a lot. and then when I came back, I started talking to people and like having one to one conversations and the staff with 70 modern, easy to do. And that’s when I started realizing that, Hey B, we’ve built something.

Andrew Warner: You know, I feel that too, that when I have a scheduled call with someone, who’s asking me for my help and I’m not feeling great. Just helping them a little bit on a call makes me realize, Oh yeah, I have done all this. And I could see that they’re dying to get where I am, you know, where I’m just kind of peeing on it.

Cause it feels so insignificant. That’s their aspiration. They realize, well, actually that is great. And if I got here, I can go to the next place. It’s, it’s something that I forget, but, um, But it always, when I remember reminds me of this guy who I interviewed, who somehow on a stupid stupid quest ended up getting himself stuck in a rainforest in South America and the collection of bad things that happened to him was just so painful.

I couldn’t stop wincing. Um, And then I said, how’d you get out of it? And he said, somehow I started to like, imagine this girl who was stuck there. And I, I started helping this girl who was stuck there and my little hallucination. And as I helped this girl , who didn’t really exist, except in my mind, I found myself just feeling a little bit stronger.

And then I just stopped being so sorry for myself and stop seeing all the things that I got hurt by and just found a way to get myself out. And then he told the story of how he got out and. I realized that even with, um, if I’m down, even if there isn’t an outside person, the fact that I can take my attention away from my situation to even imagine helping someone else and much better to actually be there to help someone else helps, helps get me out of it.

Abeer Raza: Yeah. So, um, the podcasts that we’re hosting is going to be about, um, how technology can change, uh, can, can actually  potentially changed the world. Um, so we have a few products that we’re working on for clients that are really revolutionary. One of them is a, uh, an application called rooted,

Andrew Warner: Oh, got it. To help veterans. Got it. Okay.

And so you’re trying to say, look, are you highlighting the products that you’re creating and your customers interviewing the clients? Got it. So it’s not just, Hey, look in the random Al outer space world of the internet. There are people who are doing well. It’s, you know, there are people who are doing well through technology. Let’s reconnect with the fact that technology does help and. I’m going to interview the people that I personally, my company’s personally helped.

bring their technology to life. Got it.

All right. Thank you so

much for being on here. How do people sign up? Are subscribed there? Check out the podcast if they want to.

Abeer Raza: tech rebel dash podcast,

and they can go ahead and

Andrew Warner: Alright. Revel is in revolution, right?

Alright, thank you so much for being in here. Um, especially considering the time of day and thank you everyone for being a part of Mixergy. I appreciate the sponsors who made this happen, HostGator and top talent. Thank you both for everyone.

Who should we feature on Mixergy? Let us know who you think would make a great interviewee.

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