Pritika Mehta: Solving Consumer Problems, Product Development, and Entrepreneurship

Aqeel: You just have this incredible journey thus far. You're not even, you have so much to go as well. Like I feel like you're still, you're still in the hitting your strides these days. That's what I wanted to hear about. Like you've done some work with your community, you know your native hometowns. Mm-hmm.

Aqeel: There's some crazy stuff with yc and then your studies is very rigorous. And you're still just very present and like active, and you have this SF chapter right now, and the second, like this, this new startup, so mm-hmm. It's like everybody, it's like the way you do it is you're very community oriented about it too.

Aqeel: You're very inclusive. So I just kind of wanted to like, take a big step back. I just wanted to go into like your, you were just starting a story. Mm-hmm. So I'd love to, I'd love to go from there. Sure.

Pritika: So, yeah, so I, I'll share when I, you know, I started coding when I was, uh, fairly young. And I used to paint, so I always enjoyed the moment.

Pritika: When I used to create something from scratch, it used to be like, oh, I had this empty canvas and after two weeks I have something so beautifully made and we put it on our living rooms wall and people would come and appreciate it. You know, that euphoria that came with building stuff. So very early on in my life, I had a sense that I'll be building.

Pritika: Stuff. Uh, and honestly people ask me why you decided to be an entrepreneur. I just feel like maybe it was natural to me. Uh, my dad is a businessman. I've never seen, uh, weekends at my home. It's always like, if you're working, you should be super passionate about it. Yeah. And that is what I always wanted to figure out, like, what is that one thing I can do day in, day out?

Pritika: And my personal philosophy was, I cannot work for like, you know, 30 years down the line. How about I compress those 30 years into maybe five years and do my work and then rest for a while? Yeah. And then go on to my next adventure. Right. So, yeah, that, that is how I, that has been my mindset since the very gli, since I was a kid.

Pritika: And that has led me to different adventures, uh, throughout my life. So yeah, when it comes to community, I learned it's always like you, when you are doing something, you're not doing it alone. It's always, you know, the people, people around you that when you win, you don't win alone. You, your story is made up of so many different people around it and it's always good to like, give back like, because there are so many people who helped me on my way.

Pritika: Yeah. Why should I stop me, myself helping others on the wave? They, if I could help in any way, be it like, Anything, be it tech, be it art, be it finding, you know, the right career, uh, for themselves, be it anything. It's always like the world is community. Yeah. Like we should always be involved with it. And I think, I don't consider myself as a quota who sits on the corner and just code.

Pritika: I am more like I sit with people. I, so I want to solve their problems using tech. So I'm that kind of a person.

Aqeel: How did you discover, you know, the world of coding in itself? It was in your early teen years. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Um, and I'm assuming you've had a lot of spare time and your family's typically working a lot.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Uh, were you, were you not involved with the family business but you, you had time to do with your studies or paint? Oh, yes. You have time to

Pritika: tinker? Oh, I had a lot of time when I was growing up, so I remember when we got our computer first, um, at our home. It was like, Oh, I can do so much. And I discovered HT mlcss and just like basic coding stuff.

Pritika: Yeah. And I used to learn, I used to teach myself online, so it was like I had a lot of time in hand and that's the reason why I, I spent a lot of time doing maths coding and not, I think these are things I enjoyed. Yeah.

Aqeel: Wow. Wow. What did, uh, what did career options for you look like, uh, in those teenage years?

Aqeel: Like they're, you probably have your own. View on things, and I'm sure your community, your local friend group was a little bit thinking a little different at the time, uh, and your parents had, must have had some opinions, right?

Pritika: Yeah. So that's a funny story because like everybody had it clear in their head, oh, I want to do, uh, I want to be a doctor, I want to be an engineer.

Pritika: But for me, I just, I was really good at maths, like high level calculus and all that stuff. So I knew if I want to succeed in something, it has to do something with math. Got it. And that's the reason even after engineering, I chose, um, machine learning as my masters. Like I did my masters in AI because in my head I knew like if I wanna succeed, if it's like, if I wanna work onto something, I want to be the best in it.

Pritika: Yes. And I understood very clearly, very early in my life that maths is my strong point. Yeah. So I should take that. You know, something that involves a lot of math, a lot of these things as my career.

Aqeel: That's how I chose. Yeah. And so how do you become the, the difference between 90% and 99 percentiles huge, right?

Aqeel: How would you become the best in something or you, like, what did you do different with your learning approach mm-hmm. At the time to like hit that ambition?

Pritika: So with me it's always been, if I'm into something, I'm so much into it. Like it's like 24 7, I'm thinking about it. I am figuring out the right thing.

Pritika: So, uh, yes. I think my parents always encourage me that whatever you do, be the best in it because what's the point of being third or fourth? You need to be enough. If you are spending your energy into something, give your a hundred percent because nothing comes out of 60%. We can't just give you a hundred percent focus, focus, focus.

Pritika: I think focus is the key.

Aqeel: Did you spend time on that meta skill set of like how to learn or how to focus? Did you feel like,

Pritika: I think having Indian parents put so much pressure on you that it comes naturally, right? Right. You have to score a hundred, you have to score a hundred in everything you do. So I think maybe just, I was blessed with, um, Indian parents and them telling me to be the best.

Pritika: Gotcha, gotcha.

Aqeel: Makes, okay. This is amazing. Tell me about the journeys of, um, from the studies. Right. What were you thinking at that point in time? Like, what were you thinking about career-wise? Was entrepreneurship at the forefront in your brain at that time? Were you thinking about art? Like, so when, because the world was your oyster at that point?

Aqeel: Yeah. So you were pretty ahead of the curve for AI at the time?

Pritika: Uh, yeah. I, I was doing like AI eight years ago as well when we used to. Room, all these models in Mac Lab and our spend, uh, the whole day training one small subset of data. So that was a crazy time. I think we have, you know, we are way ahead now.

Pritika: Yeah. So, um, when, when it comes to, um, sorry, what was your first

Aqeel: question? It was just like when you were finishing up your studies, what, what was in your head in terms of like, what's next? Like, how are you even thinking about career?

Pritika: So when, you know, when it comes to startups, startups became like sexy. A while ago, but at that point of time, I always knew I want to build something of my own.

Pritika: And even in college, I was not thinking here, I want to start some startup. But I used to look around and solve problems. Like, uh, I built this startup with my friend, uh, in college. It was like, uh, give, um, give me a present. So it was like we, we would build customized cards and, you know, deliver, uh, these presents on Mother's Day or Father's Day and all that stuff.

Pritika: Uh, buy me a present, sorry, what's the name? So, I think I was always involved in something or the other happening and I always wanted to be like, Hey, oh, there is some nice project happening. Let me be a part of it. I always used to jump, uh, on anything that's exciting happening there. So it wasn't like entrepreneurship, but it was always like, Hey, can I build something that millions of people will use in their life?

Pritika: So that was my mindset, like, can I create something that can be so magical? But people should be like, oh wow. And yeah. Yeah.

Aqeel: That's How are you thinking to reach millions at the time, like to get to that level? So that's distribution as we talk about these days. Ha, haha. That's distribution. Thinking about that, but how did you go about having it?

Aqeel: Oh,

Pritika: when I was doing like, uh, things in earlier stage, it was like, yes, we did know about distribution and how, you know, different marketing channels and all that stuff. It was like, oh, if we'll build our best product and people are gonna like it and do it. But obviously as, as you know, as my journey has been into entrepreneurship for quite a few, uh, years now, things, things are different.

Pritika: You need to understand product is one part, but how do you excite people? Uh, across the world to use your product is another magic. So, wow. That, that is something I learned. Uh, you know, how to build that distribution channel, what is the right distribution channel for the right kind of product so that, that has some, uh, that is something I've

Aqeel: learned.

Aqeel: What's so, could you share that insight, like how did you go about, is, is there like a formulaic process for identifying these things? So

Pritika: clearly, uh, as Paul Graham says, there's something people want. Okay, and then find where those people are. Perfect is my simple strategy. Like if you are building something in e-commerce, you need to find people, you know what you are building, what are they doing currently, if you are selling yoga pants, you know who, who's gonna be your buyer?

Pritika: Who are you building it for? If you know that part, you know where your distribution is. Okay? Like for butternut, I know who are the adopters. These people are on Twitter, on Product Hunt or LinkedIn. That's my distribution channel for e-commerce. People are on, uh, Instagram or Facebook. Those are my distribution channels.

Pritika: Yeah. So it's the kind of product you are building. You sh you should understand your audience from day one. Gotcha. And even though no, nobody's perfect from day one, you should continuously talk to your customer like. Don't wait for the right product to launch, build something, go talk to your users. They will point you in the right direction.

Pritika: They will tell you whether they even want it and whether they'll even pay for it. Like what's the point? Spending two years building something and you going to the market and people are like, mm, I don't even need it. So build something, launch it. Understand your customers. That's, that's where the magic is.

Aqeel: That's amazing. So what about the person who has zero users, zero product, zero distribution, zero followers, whatever it might be. And they're passionate about particular space. Are you breaking down, finding out where sort of this audience lives online? Mm-hmm. Or, um, yeah. So because at the end of day, it's like there's gonna be a lot of iterations, a lot of cycles, a lot of like going through the ringer and what it might take to make the thing work.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. And make the thing scalable, make the thing great as you say. Um, what is the person sitting at home being able to do? Right. And I have my own take on this, uh, which I'm

Pritika: happy to share. Please, why not? Would love to hear your take first.

Aqeel: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, I agree with everything you're saying.

Aqeel: I think some things that folks overlook now are the fact that newer platforms, uh, where like there's discussions for the target audience happening is better cuz these folks are now engaging in terms of like common threads on Reddit. Mm-hmm. And, and you can find like very niche discord servers for anything.

Aqeel: Or slacks, right? Yeah. Like there's like 10,000 people say you find build a dev tool. Look. This could be like a fan group for like every dev tool of like 10 to 50,000 folks are in there. And that might be a free way to just post like, Hey, I'm thinking about this thing. Or maybe you, you did prototype a demo of some sort of video that you can share.

Aqeel: Or there's like something you can test. You can probably get a hundred users for free by just posting the right server on a, like on Discord. Mm-hmm. Like, and then she's doing the thing for free online cuz you found it as a link in a Reddit threads. Right. And stuff like this is what I would do with when you're at zero stage, all you have is time.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Uh, and maybe, and passion, like that's what I would do right now. Especially since you can like whip up MVPs very quickly these days. Mm-hmm. You can test a concept like live with your actual users, I argue pretty quick. Mm-hmm. Um, it's amazing that, uh, but there's this difference between like the hundred users to, like you said, like having millions of people using your product that you were saying was your original ambition.

Aqeel: Um, I'd argue like. You've done a very good job at hitting these leverage points to scale and some virality there with butternut, but, um, yeah, it's to there, there's something there with like, there's an inertia to start. Yes. But the same force that goes from zero to one and pushing the boulder airplay again, the ball rolling.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. You still need to keep that force going to make the thing hit. Million million.

Pritika: See, yes. Whenever you start something, you always have this version of, oh, you know, I want millions of people using my product. Yeah. But when you start, you don't want, oh, I launched shit tonight and I, I'm gonna have millions of users, uh, tomorrow.

Pritika: It's, it's a very gradual process. First is figuring out your path from zero to one. As you said, getting your first a hundred users Yeah. Is the path. And online has definitely made it much easier for everyone. So, as you said, I agree with what you said. You need to first figure out your first a hundred users and you build something.

Pritika: I think what, what people sometimes they hesitate launching their product is they are fearful of rejection or what people will say about it. Uh, but as a founder, you should keep those things aside and just launch, get at least a hundred people to try your product. You will get the stats. Gotcha. Yeah. So I agree with you.

Pritika: Don't think about millions of users from day one. Think of hundred users, thousand users, 10,000 users, then the ball will start rolling and millions are not gonna be like

Aqeel: far. This is amazing. So when you were exploring ideas, cuz you already knew you wanted to do something. Mm-hmm. How did you go about finding what it was to work on?

Pritika: It's a combination of what I am passionate about and secondly what the world needs. As you know, I'm very deeply involved with community at every level. Yeah. I enjoy talking. To people. I enjoy understanding their problems, be it in software, in hardware, in their personal life. I would say as an entrepreneur, I try to find every, any and every area where I can solve something, whether with tech, whether without tech.

Pritika: So it's just like talking to people, talking to people gives you so much insight into, because you live your own life. You know about one way of living a life. But when you talk to people, there are hundreds of ways of living life and hundreds of things they're using that you have never heard of, or hundred of problems you have never faced.

Pritika: So figuring out what is the next problem gonna be like, figuring out like what are the problems people are facing and is this a messy problem? Or it should not be like, oh, only my two friends are facing this. You know, if you figure out this is one problem, you go talk to other people. You see if they're also having the same problem.

Pritika: So you need to find something that you can work on, uh, scale. And talking to people is like the best way of figuring out what you want to build. And secondly, yes, you should be definitely passionate about what you're building, otherwise you will give up very soon. Yeah.

Aqeel: What was, uh, and do you have an example or a story in the past of something you're working on that you weren't passionate about?

Aqeel: Uh, and the difference of like working with passion versus not passion. Cause maybe they can fit all the criteria numerically, like quantitatively, like scalable problem, cost, replicate is, Zero or marginal. Each unit of production, whatever is free or cheap or whatever. Um, so maybe I'll look everything statistically checks out with the idea, but then you're just not passionate about it.

Aqeel: Did you have an example of building without passion? Building without could, could someone through sheer root fors of just like, yes, I can get to market right now. There's like a million users paying for something. Mm-hmm. I could build something faster, better or cheaper and just capture some, some economical value right now.

Aqeel: Um, but it's just gonna be a grind. Mm-hmm. Um, you could argue, you know, there's something there right now. What, just because of the leverage points of the internet, like you said mm-hmm. That through the skills of entrepreneurship, uh, and development cycles and speed, you could just like apply to something that you don't care about and make dollars.

Pritika: Well, I would say, uh, Uh, you know, I would disagree to the point that there are opportunities in every field. Yeah. And it's like, oh, you know, when you are sitting here, you are working on something, you'll find a hundred more fancier things to work on. Yes. But then would you proceed with it? You will only proceed with it when you are passionate about it, or you think, oh, certain, you know, you have certain skills that align with that problem.

Pritika: So, yeah, in my life, I think, yes, there were many things, uh, that I could have done. Differently or, uh, but I never proceeded with those things because I was never p passionate about those things. Right. Okay.

Aqeel: So you cared so much about the thing that sort of like grass is greener or, or shiny new objects just didn't capture your attention enough to like move elsewhere?

Pritika: I understood. Grass is always greener on the other side. Gotcha. But talk to those people, they'll be like, oh no, you are doing better.

Aqeel: This is amazing. Okay. So you have some stuff that you were doing with the community. Uh, I'm really curious about like, you know, did the opportunities just get involved? Uh, so locally you can do things right?

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Can be active and you're proactive to just corral people, uh, who are like-minded by just like putting stuff out there on the planet in terms of like an in-person effort, and this is just like operations and logistical work and like messaging and coordinating and whatever. Things like being a TEDx Global ambassador.

Aqeel: I, I'm curious to know, did, was that like a necessary component to being like a software entrepreneur today? Versus somebody who can just, like we just talked about, you can get a hundred users from, from your home mm-hmm. Uh, for your product. Uh, so I'm curious, like, you know, why, why community? Um, does it, you know, I'm sure in your life you've made everything correlate and sort of coi coincide, like kind of congregate in your life.

Aqeel: Like, you know, from family, community, relationships to business partnerships and everything, it's all come together now. Mm-hmm. To create your day to day. Um, but some folks maybe they're just like, ah, I don't wanna like, put on events. Mm-hmm. I wanna like speak. Out event. It's like so much of that, uh, especially if you're like chat G B T or you know, you have AI friends or whatever, maybe you're just like, look, Uhhuh, I

Pritika: don't need any of this.

Pritika: Yeah. So funny story, like yes, uh, I've given, you know, a TEDx stock. Now I'm a global ambassador for Ted. But uh, like a few years ago I used to like shake going on the stage. My legs used to shake, so I was, I had that stage fright, but. In my mind, I always knew like, I have to get over it and I have to do something about it.

Pritika: So I started interacting with folks who were good at stage. So my journey just started, Hey, I want to be on stage and I want like thousand people in the audience that I should not be able, uh, I should be able to speak in front of them. So it was, I won't say it was like something that happened overnight, uh, when I became the globe, uh, the, the, um, Ambassador for TEDx.

Pritika: It was like, I was already, uh, working in the TEDx community for three years and I organized three big conferences in TGA that became the best, uh, of TEDx conferences in India. And it was like, it was very gradual. I wanted to learn, I was always fascinated by, oh, this is something I would like to do one day where I get like fif.

Pritika: I was very passionate about. The, uh, idea behind it, you know, ideas were spreading. It's like, yeah, we listen to so many, so much of entertaining stuff, music and all not, but then we, we need to listen to ideas to grow. Yes. And I was super passionate and I, I applied for the license without having any experience of organizing events.

Pritika: And luckily, uh, they gave it to me and then I was like, okay, this is one challenge I have on hand. I have to win this. So I went to do the, uh, onto the tech conferences. I interacted with anybody and everybody. I could bridge my network and organize the first, uh, TEDx conference in my city where it was sold, sold out.

Pritika: So yeah, it was a very gradual journey. Nothing happened overnight. And then three years they saw my FX and building the com strong community. And then yes, I became the, uh, global ambassador

Aqeel: for FedEx. This is amazing. One thing, uh, this is like also specific to a lot of cultures, but you know, Indian parents, you're gonna ask Yeah, exactly.

Aqeel: Is, is this making you money? Did they ever ask us questions like, what's the point of community building, organizing, and even doing events like, are you making dollars as far, aren't you getting a job? Or, or going on to start the business or something, right? Yeah.

Pritika: So, uh, so did you have that conversation?

Pritika: Yes. Many a times. It's like whenever I used to say, Hey, I'm doing this. Is it even paying you anything? I'm like, Hmm, no, not really. But then I'll be able to build my network and this and that. So I would say this is typical, uh, of, uh, Asian parents to ask them, is it making money? But in the shorter run, uh, they do not understand.

Pritika: But in longer run, now they see. Everything has benefited me. Yeah. Yes. So yes, it was challenging to make them understand, why am I going there? Why am I even doing this? So they're always like, oh my God, I don't understand this. So I'm sure you get the same. So typical.

Aqeel: Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. Um, there's something there where like, you know, when you actually have, you know, what's the meaning of network and it's not followers and, and friend count.

Aqeel: Hmm. It's like, Can, people can call right now for a favor, right? It's like, and that takes like years of relationship building and trust, right? Like that's one thing right now where in social media channels, folks at the micro to almost macro influencer level, like technically like 50 to 500 K followers, the level of trust like they have with like that niche follower.

Aqeel: Maybe it's like, for example, I follow some folks who are just like, I think their nutrition and their workout advice is really good. Mm-hmm. Because their individuals are completely sharing everything. There's a complete authenticity there. Mm-hmm. But if you follow like a different kind of page where they're trying to sell you something, uh, or maybe they have like a huge followers or whatever it might be, like a brand's page, like I'm sure that's fine, but like, I trust the influencer cause they're giving me an information value and I like, Even though I've never met them, I don't plan to talk to them or whatever that might be.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. I like very much appreciate and, and support what equipment or what brand that this person endorses. Mm-hmm. And that's why, so trust in these sort of long term relationships still sells ultimately. And that's just an example for distribution, but maybe even the idea of like introductions and investment opportunities and, and other, other like general things kind of come of it over time.

Aqeel: Right. Um, did you, Were you very intentional at the beginning or any stage in time or strategic about building your network? Like sort of like putting things into place before you needed to like launch a company or something of this nature. Was any of that sort of like the beginning to, uh, percolate towards the beginning of these three years?

Pritika: Yeah. You know, we hear a lot about build your network, build your network, and I see like people take it in the wrong way of artificially going and handing over their, you know, cards to everyone. That's not network. That's truly not network. Network is like we met, right? We enjoyed each other's, each other's company.

Pritika: It's like, do you find somebody, uh, you like what they're doing or you can learn from them, or you can sit and have a cup of tea. That's your network? Like do you have that much trust? So it has to be organic. Like can you be friends that's network? Like you might not be talking to that person every day or every month, but you know, there is one person, like if I need some advice in real estate, I know there is one friend who lives in New Jersey who's really good at it, I'm gonna call him and say, Hey, can you help me with it?

Pritika: Or this That is networking, genuinely finding those connections and they go a long way. Yes, definitely. Because there are so many people you can learn from. Be it tech, be it non-tech, be it anything you learn from people all the time.

Aqeel: Yeah. This is, that's network. This is definitely right. Mm-hmm. So is there trade offs, because as you start going into the world of entrepreneurship and things are taking off, I'm gonna hear the story, I'm gonna ask you about the story now.

Aqeel: Like in your perspective of like p o v, you know, how are you thinking about things as you're being in grow and scale and attraction? And do you have these like, You know, everyone's got those hurdles of like, wait, we're not gonna catch flow this month or something, and whatever, whatever. Like, I, I want to hear about if you have that journey, but, um, for us to network, do you feel like you make trade offs when you get into like, um, your social life and personal life in certain like, amount of time or just like even attention you can offer, um, as you begin to like get into full-time mm-hmm.

Aqeel: While you're running a company? Um, Does do, do you think, like, at some point, so just, what's the word, kind of with muscles, right? Like when you don't use it, you lose it? Uhhuh, I think the word attrition or something like this, uh, there's a word that like happens like deprecates. Mm-hmm. Because you just don't touch, you just don't use that over time.

Aqeel: So, yeah. And so what I'm curious if like how you go about with like, is there an optimization problem We like 80 20 to like, Hey, this is enough network. Um,

Pritika: I think I, um, I kind of, um, not agree with the fact, hey, that's all the network I have. Yeah. Because for me to grow personally, I always need to meet, uh, new people, learn new things.

Pritika: So I've always been the kind of person where I need my own personal space to build things, but then at the same time, I'll keep some time. Uh, for the people. Uh, so that's the reason why I've always been so involved in the community, because even though I was building my own startup, but at the same time I was like, no, I, I need to be there.

Pritika: I need to be with people to understand. So I don't think so you can optimize it, but it's a personality trait. I enjoy being with people. I enjoy talking to people, learning new things, so, and it's good, right? I, I don't think so. If you're an entrepreneur, you should stop doing that. Yeah.

Aqeel: At any point of your life.

Aqeel: Gosh, yes. This is beautifully said. So tell me about the journey then, uh, of Sox Soho. Like how did you even, were you thinking about some of the terms you might be using now? We're talking about distribution. We're talking about like, And that's what YC teaches you. It's build product, talk to customers, you, you do anything else?

Aqeel: No,

Pritika: definitely. First you need to know what you're building. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. So when it comes to soso, so we, you know, the audience was in there and what we saw was after Geo Revolution, uh, the 3G revolution that happened, um, people started shopping online and e-commerce market was growing so fast and men fashion segment was the fastest growing segment out of all.

Pritika: So we thought, how can we capture that? So we made a list of 80 different products through which we could enter into the med fashion segment. And you know, we gave different weights to each of them. And surprisingly, socks came on the top. It was easy to shape. You get what you see. There was no other, uh, big competitor just focus on socks.

Pritika: So we thought, okay, let's go ahead, try it. So we launched a website without even having a product in hand, and we just wanted to validate whether we are going in the right direction or not. So the first, uh, uh, set of three socks we built was Startup Socks. So we built it only for startup founders. We had this, uh, crypto SOS Silicon Valley socks, and um, uh, steam job socks.

Pritika: So we just launched it and, uh, we did things that do not scaling. Uh, went onto all Facebook groups of startup founders and started, you know, posting, Hey, this is something we have launched for you. You know, uh, you can buy it here. And we got like orders in first two days and we are like, okay, people need it and let's go ahead and build it.

Pritika: So then, then I learned the process, entire process of soft making and how to make the perfect sock. Uh, and then I sat into factories and there were days where I was sitting in factories for 48 hours straight. Uh, learning the each and every process. And people could not understand my obsession with socks.

Pritika: They would say, uh, like when they would gimme something and I'd be like, no, I need this better. They'd be like, this is a sock, isn't it? The past? Like, why do you even need to do it better? So that's how, you know, we launched it and, uh, over time we arbitrated it like, uh, and we understood our customers because we used to talk to customers, uh, all the time.

Pritika: And what we learned was, We started building our e-commerce channel over WhatsApp because India is super big on WhatsApp and we understood people are happy shopping over WhatsApp. So we build chat bots where people, uh, the moment they see an ad on Facebook or Instagram, they will directly come onto WhatsApp, shop it there and that's it.

Pritika: They won't pay it and that's it. And people were enjoying that experience, so we doubled down on that. Mm-hmm. That's how. SOX is like now some of the biggest Bollywood CELs. They were.

Aqeel: Yeah. This is amazing. So a couple things there that's, this is amazing. So before the Sox o were you looking at data of just like, what is trending right now?

Aqeel: Did you, did you, where did you find this information? How did you know that men's fashion was like, or men's clothing was like one of the things taking off in the 3D revolution?

Pritika: So, uh, yeah. So in India, what happened was, uh, when this, uh, 3G revolution came, I saw my own parents who, whom I thought would be the last people to adopt, uh, technology.

Pritika: They were ordering even toothpaste. They're like, oh, let me Amazon it or let me do this. So this was kind of, uh, what I was seeing things around. But then to go deeper, we, there are many ways to figure out, you know, these stats. Uh, you see multiple reports, then you have, uh, seo, you, you can go onto those, uh, websites to figure out what's happening.

Pritika: There are many ways to figure out, and that's what we saw, how, um, the consumer behavior for men was changing in India earlier, e for men, either their moms used to shop for them or their, uh, white food, you know, get stuff for them. But because thing had things started happening online, men were interested in shopping for themselves.

Pritika: Yeah. And now they had, uh, the disposable income as well. So they were shopping for themselves. Interesting. And this was one category which, uh, was like, um, not disrupted by other brands.

Aqeel: Okay. And then now we'll get into building the best product. So you came into this again from the entrepreneurship and business ownership perspective, and you're determined to have the best one because you knew that, you know, once they train your sock, you want them to keep talking about the socks.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Um, what. How did you break? So, you know, you're, you're studying ai, you're, you're a very technical degree, Uhhuh. So to come in here and start learning about the SOC manufacturing mm-hmm. And the production side of things, and like I'm sure you're optimizing for like, and you know, I can like, think almost top of your head in a high level.

Aqeel: It kind of breakdown everything that goes into the process of the sock. How are you breaking down the product development process? Uh, is there a mental model you can chair as to like how to make the best sock. How

Pritika: you thinking in your head? So to make it the best, uh, soft brand out there? There were two things I knew

Aqeel: and the questions were more about like, how do you go about identifying how to make the best product?

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. But in your example, it's like your days you did it very much so with the sock.

Pritika: So yeah, with the sock. So it was like I had to learn everything for the productive n Nobody in my family was in the, uh, textile segment. I never thought I would go into the segment. So there were two things to it, product and distribution.

Pritika: So for product, what we did was we, uh, ordered socks, like 500, uh, socks from all the brands across the world. I tried and tested each of the sock and see what was good in it, what was bad, what we can make it better. So that's how you know, and then sat and understood the entire sock making process and say, Hey, this is what we are gonna do better Now you can wear socks, so socks for 18 hours straight and they won't leave.

Pritika: Even a single mark on your feet. So better blood circulation so people won't know, like you know, and they'll wear our socks. They won't know how it is. It better, but they will feel much better. That's how they would come back and buy socks of again and again, and, You know, they look good. You couldn't find the same classy stuff anywhere else in the market.

Pritika: So that was one part. But how the tech came into play was the distribution part. So we, yeah, since we were, uh, doing stuff online, we had to build the entire channel from somebody seeing our ad to somebody, you know, putting in their credit card. How do you make that, uh, that, um, experience seamless? So that this happens as quickly as you can.

Aqeel: I see. And you literally built out whatever thing you, things you needed for the entire user journey. Mapped entire, every single point in the user journey made it seamless. Mm-hmm. And some of that was literally going from like, maybe it's like add to WhatsApp for interaction to. Like the point of sales.

Aqeel: Exactly. And then the checkout process. Mm-hmm. And magically just in there. Yes. Um, did you build that yourself, these tools, right?

Pritika: You're saying? Yes. Yes. The entire WhatsApp journey was, uh, built by, uh, me and obviously we other team as well. Yeah. Yeah. But we just wanted, you know, the intention, when somebody sees your product, they have an in intent to buy.

Pritika: Yes. How do you convert that intent to actual customers? How do you make that journey? Seamless is what is. What makes you different from others? And that is where the entire tech stack is.

Aqeel: Yes, this is exactly right. How'd you identify solutions to this? Right. How'd you identify? Um, you needed to build it in-house versus like using.

Aqeel: Some existing tool or maybe there weren't existing tools. I don't, I don't know what was out there

Pritika: I've ever seen WhatsApp. So when, when we started, uh, people were not doing a lot of, uh, e-commerce over WhatsApp. So we were kind of the initial players who identified that this is one channel that could work really well.

Pritika: And then yes, multiple, uh, people came over. But initially how we identified this thing was we were not using WhatsApp to say, uh, for sales. Initially we were using WhatsApp for customer support, and what we realized was since in the early days I used to do customer supports, people used to come and say, Hey, I have this query.

Pritika: Once the query was answered, they used to say, can I place my order here? This is the pattern I saw that people are comfortable, uh, placing their order over WhatsApp rather more comfortable. So I thought, why am I letting people, uh, why am I increasing that point of friction where I'm sending them back to the website?

Pritika: Why don't, you know, we just built, uh, the entire journey, journey where they're completing the entire checkout process on WhatsApp itself and got paid

Aqeel: off. This is amazing. Okay. How did, uh, how did things go from there? Like, uh, when the story goes on, but Uhhuh, it seems like you, you, you definitely did develop a, a formulaic approach to every, like you identify processes mm-hmm.

Aqeel: And continue to tweak and optimize and like, I don't know. Create that journey of what, what was the most efficient thing to do? Mm-hmm. Um, how did things go from

Pritika: there? Things, things went well. So, yeah. Uh, last three years have been great. Um, we are doing these improv, uh, you know, revenue and then some of the biggest Bollywood sellers.

Pritika: All these CEOs. Nice. Uh, these are our clients. And then there's a lot of repeat rate, uh, that's there. So Sox soho is now the fastest growing sock brand in India, and people know it, people enjoy it. So, Been working on it from last three and a half years, and it's been a great journey. Yeah. This is

Aqeel: awesome, Uhhuh.

Aqeel: Okay. I love that. Uh, tell me about, um, yeah, I mean, you still kept playing around by software ideas. Mm-hmm. Right? Um, so how did you, I want to hear about how butter not Came wa Art. So, yes. I, before it, there's like some transition period. Yes. Well, I don't wanna say transition as a. Soho is done. It's very much alive and kicking.

Aqeel: Yes, it's, uh, but uh, it's still like some of your life back. Mm-hmm. Some,

Pritika: some free time. Yeah. So, uh, Soo has a very definitive trajectory from, uh, here on, and I wanted to work on bigger problems, uh, bigger problems I could solve next. So, uh, for Soho, the processes are in place and, um, the team is great, you know, and now it was time for me to look for something.

Pritika: At a very different scale.

Aqeel: I'm curious though, if the iep, which you built first, for example, this blood SAP checkout, was there something there in terms of licensing or offering sort of this like business tool

Pritika: products, uh, as a SaaS business to others? Um, we kind of tried it, uh, but then we understood, you know, this is great for us.

Pritika: Uh, At this point, like there were different WhatsApp tools available. Uh, yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So yeah, we were just doing it in-house and using it for our, our own product. Great. Great. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, with Butter Art, uh, wanted to now, you know, at this point of time, I want to solve things at a very different scale where I'm building for the world and the bot art.

Pritika: Uh, being an AI engineer, I've always been fascinated, uh, with what AI can do. So it's not just one idea that came into my head at night and I started building it. I wrote down a list of 40 different ideas I would like to work on, or different problems I could solve, uh, using ai. Since the elements are now so mature, this is the best time to build an ai.

Pritika: And, uh, as. I'm a community oriented person. I used to like talk to people and see, you know, what are their day-to-day problems. So what I saw was people even in this age, uh, even though we have these bricks and webflow, but people still would outsource building a website to somebody else and they would, uh, pay five to $10,000 just to get a simple website made because nobody wants to focus on building a website.

Pritika: They won't want to spend time building their product. So that's, uh, that was one idea that I thought, okay, I can solve this with ai. And I actually, I met, I was with my dentist here and she mentioned how she spent $3,000 to get a website made, and after two months, what, she gets a shitty website and. You know, minus 3000 from her pocket.

Pritika: So that was my point where I thought, okay, let me solve it with ai. And then I started building the, building the solution, build, uh, my own data models and just launched it. My intention to launch it was just to get the initial a hundred customers. So I was in Mexico. I just put up a tweet at night and say, Hey, uh, this is something new I'm building.

Pritika: And uh, I just launched it. Uh, When I woke up in the morning, they were like, it went viral. People were trying it, people were leaving commands. People were like re-sharing it. So that was one point where I understood this is one problem. Yeah. I mean, where I could solve. And I got the market validation.

Pritika: People were reaching out to me, sending me money. They were like, Hey, can we Venmo you, can you just help us, uh, get our website live and this and that? So I understood the direction was right. So that's the journey of partner art and now we are heads down building the next version and launching it as possible as

Aqeel: possible.

Aqeel: How did you get something MVP that's just like ready to go, um, at the time? Mm-hmm. You used to building your own models? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So yeah, there's a development cost and cycle of sort of intake.

Pritika: Yes, it takes time to build the m v MVP and at least to get a working model out. Yeah, you don't need to, uh, put something half baked.

Pritika: Uh, it should at least work. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, it took time to, uh, build our own models to, you know, give perfect outcome our out, uh, output to the users. It took time, but it was worth it.

Aqeel: Amazing. So what does that development cycle look like for you now? Uh, how do you go about product? Mm-hmm. Are you going to the factory for 48 hours straight and

Pritika: saying, okay, so now I don't need to go to factories, I just do zoom calls.

Pritika: So yes, I, uh, so we launched four weeks back and I have spoken to 500 people, uh, our customers, you know, and I've been talking to them over Zoom. And understanding their needs for what purpose? Uh, they were using bot art and just understanding the persona of, uh, my customer base. So I mean, that's the way to go.

Pritika: Uh, in bot art. Somebody is calling in from Singapore, Chile, you know, telling me different use cases of how they use bot art and what they want to see in bot. That's how I'm learning the

Aqeel: customers. This is amazing. Um, okay, well let's get into AI entrepreneurship, right? Because like you're saying, there is like, I, I argue this an AI.

Aqeel: Use case for anything right now. Anything, you can either have something a little bit more efficient or just more output, uhhuh or better product, right? Like every dimension of like, you know, entrepreneurship, innovation is made possible and it's been around for a long time. It's just the, the mass adoption for like, for trust of using, like adopting new technology.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Like that's a big cultural shift. That's, that's been like the recent uhhuh, big excitement lately, I think. I mean, chat bt right's, like the pioneer of this, but even around that, right. Um, yeah. What would, what should folks do now? I think you have some interesting, uh, tidbits you've already shared, which is something like with the songs, like before you even make the thing, people wanna pay for it right now.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Because making a landing page maybe use used, but or not like it's you mainly Atlantic, you right now. Like it is not hard uhhuh, it's just like, and it's, it's the two things of. Make the thing and what you're offering. Mm-hmm. And see if folks actually want to pay with it. And the fact that they want to like, put credit card information and check out before you even optimize the checkout process to capture every dollar.

Aqeel: If you can get like, you know, 10 people wanting to buy a thing and they've done all the steps just from like a, a templated landing page. Mm-hmm. That's a sign. Right. So that's a good idea in terms of like validating before your building. But, uh, yeah. What could folks do right now, um, in your eyes, like, uh, I'm sure you've been having lots of conversations with lots of friends.

Aqeel: I'm sure you've had even community members or folks from even back home saying like, oh, I want to do something to you. How do I do it? Mm-hmm. So what are some things that you typically share, uh, for starting at the journey? Uh, especially with this current sort of generated AI space?

Pritika: So why I say this is the best time to build is because the LMS are very mature.

Pritika: Uh, earlier it was not possible for everybody to build in the AI space. Like still you need very specialized knowledge to build in this space, but now you can see how AI can change life, uh, how AI can actually impact you in many, like, you know, earlier used to spend hours writing the right copy for social media.

Pritika: AI can do that. That was a pain point you used to spend so much time doing. Uh, these blog AI can do that. Nice emails, AI can do that. So I think the best way to go about it is to figure out like what is something that people still do and can it be done using ai? So what is ai if you, you know, you need to build models, you need to feed data, and you need to build a model that can recognize a pattern and give output on waste of it.

Pritika: So on layman terms, like you have these elements, you use it day in, day out. Can you build something on top of that? Or is there some sector where you have lots of data and can you use that data to build some model? So I would just say, just look around, see what people are doing. Figure out, you know, uh, can you make it better?

Pritika: Can you make it more efficient? Can you help them in some way using technology? And Yes, definitely. You know, you'll figure out some things

Aqeel: you can do there from conversations. Maybe it's investors or our founder friends. Uh, what's this topic on, you know, subjective mo,

Pritika: subjective

Aqeel: moat. It's very Silicon Valley es like thing, but it maybe it has some merit as like mm-hmm.

Aqeel: I don't know. How, how important is this coming up to you in your eyes?

Pritika: See, when it comes to mold, it's not just one thing that differentiates you. Like I said, you know, when we were building, uh, sock, so. It was not like just selling sauce. It's the journey, the entire experience you built around your product.

Pritika: Why is Apple successful? Is it just like they have better phones? No, it's the entire experience. The entire what's say good pro, great product, great distribution, and that's, that's what mode is product. Yes, you need to have solid product, but you need to have great distribution. You need to have great marketing.

Pritika: That's your mode, the experience you provide to your customers. That's the most,

Aqeel: yeah, that was amazing. What is, um, what's typically the thing that stops, like the entrepreneurial one from zero to one, that you, that, you know, you've done this journey, but maybe some could argue that ju outlier that was like, you know, high achieving from, from.

Aqeel: From youth, right? Mm-hmm. Maybe it's Indian parents. Indian parents, some Indian parents. Yeah, exactly. But yeah. What would you like just pull out of someone's like sort of psyche in terms of just like starting in terms of like put the blank page up, or even if they don't have any skillset needed, needed, you know, every skill can be acquired along the way.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. But some folks maybe, maybe there's this ability to acquire knowledge of needed. Like you said, you. You learn sock manufacturing after you had orders for a sock. Mm-hmm. After you build the product, then you learn how to make the thing. Exactly. So I'm curious, you know, that's, it's an amazing story and it's, it's also the only way you could do it in reality.

Aqeel: Uh, how else would it have gone done? Mm-hmm. But some folks look at that and say, and they can kind of for foresee that being that like, one of the tasks you have to do and

just

Pritika: don't. I think, um, It's just how you are wired, really, you know, if you're comfortable in life. I, I don't think, I mean, it's always good to try out new ideas, but you need to have that one answer.

Pritika: Why do you want to do it? Like, is it like that burning need to do it? And when it comes to trying, I, I think everybody should try whatever is in their heart, uh, hard because 10 years down the line, you should not look back and say, Hey, I even, I had that idea, or I should have tried. You should never have those regrets in your life.

Pritika: If you think of something, And you feel strong enough for that, go ahead and do it. That's my advice to people. And I, I just say people, uh, there are two reasons why people, uh, hold back. First is lack of focus. You know, they're like, okay, I'll do it something today, and maybe something after one week. So rather consider it more as a sprint, maybe dedicated report a month or a week and build something and you'll, you'll know in that time period whether you're enjoying the process.

Pritika: You'll know whether this is for you or not. So that is one thing. And second, uh, just don't be afraid of going near people and showing what you're building. Go and show it. So people often say, oh, somebody will judge me because my product is not perfect. It's never going to be perfect. So just go ahead. You launch it.

Aqeel: Amazing. If you're wired a certain way. Um, what are these like signals to know, like this is the path for you, which you, you identified?

Pritika: I would say, uh, It's only after trying, you know whether it is for you or not. Right. Gotcha. Before taking a job, you can just look at the description and say, oh, maybe I'll enjoy, maybe I'll not enjoy.

Pritika: But only after doing that job, you know, whether you really enjoy it or not. The same as with everything when you build something, you know, whether you are enjoying that process or

Aqeel: not. Yeah. So let's go to basic adults and operating the process. Uhhuh upkeep, right? Uh, there's a certain point in time where you know you're not cash flow.

Aqeel: Perhaps if you set yourself up this way, right. Uh, I'm sure there's different ways folks do things. They find gigs, they find contract work or whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Uh, they just like sheer brute force sit outside of a full-time job. Uh, perhaps there's other obligations like taking care of family at home or whatever that might be.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Or just other interests. You come into them, a lack of focus, but sometimes there are just the means to do that week off or that month off. Right. Mm-hmm. To do, like you said. Um, did you have like experiences like this where there was just, you know, Some sort of month where you're just not gonna make ends of meat, uh, in terms of running the business, especially if you're manufacturing.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. I can see that. You know, it's one of those things where you have to be very, very, like, clear on, on sort of like timing and cash flows. Mm-hmm. Uh, but software, it's sometimes like a different kind of behavior with the sort of the money. But uh, something like physical product, manufacturing, you have to be very, very clear with it.

Aqeel: And I dunno, if you had to do things like. Uh, manufactured partner. You need like a minimal number of units. M OQs. Yes. Yeah. MOQs. Uhhuh. Right. Uhhuh. And then, um, if you had that in the beginning to get your first ones out there, but maybe it's MQ was much bigger than you thought. Mm-hmm. Um, or the terms are just like, you know, you kinda get what I'm asking here.

Aqeel: Yeah,

yeah.

Pritika: I know what you're asking. Uh, and I need to make it work. Yes. Peop you know, my, I have a different theory on this. Okay. Yeah. So when it comes to entrepreneurship, you take so many risks, right? But when, when it, you know, when you're thinking about, oh, uh, how will I pay my rent? How will I, you know, get food on my table?

Pritika: That's not the right stage to build anything. The reason being, you'll be always thinking about, oh, how am I gonna take care of my family? Or how am I going to pay the rent? So for me, I think the best, uh, time to start or to build product is when you are in college, you have no obligation. Go out, do anything your parents are paying for it.

Pritika: Uh, so just go ahead and start building. The second thing, when I started doing, uh, I already had some money, uh, saved up, uh, from, uh, my job. So whenever I take risk, you know, I, I always say it's like risk versus calculated risk. What is the worst that would happen if I go out and try this? If that worst doesn't, uh, scare me?

Pritika: Why am I keeping myself, why am I holding myself from trying it? So that's my theory. Like if, if you have to worry about your rent and your food, I would say solve that problem first. That's the biggest problem on hand. You can't take risk in your business when you have to think about food or your end solve that problem first.

Pritika: Once you have some money saved up, go ahead. Because entrepreneurship in itself requires so many of risks you need to take on day-to-day basis. So you should be sorted in one end. So that's my theory of how I do things.

Aqeel: Okay. Okay. This is amazing and I think it's all straightforward and pragmatic. What about other life logistical things at some point, you know, coming here to San Francisco is the big ignition.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Uh, yeah. Do you have like commentary on stuff like this? Like, did you feel like I need to physically relocate for like, the best experience possible to make, make, make my ideas work? Mm-hmm.

Pritika: Yes, definitely. I think SF is a great place like, uh, to build stuff because in this like, uh, city. You can meet so many people who are building in the same space.

Pritika: Yeah. You, when you want to grow, you need to be in the right ecosystem. Yeah. That really matters. And coming, you know, from, uh, Changa, that's a small city in India, I have seen that what people are doing around you impacts you on day to day basis, whether you are not even interacting with them. So building an NSF where things are happening, things are moving fast, people are building and people are ready to take risks.

Pritika: I think yes, definitely. When you want to build something in tech, what would be better than SF and I, I am

Aqeel: living proof of that. Mm. Oh my goodness. I love this. What are your current plans right now, or struggles that you're seeing, um, with Butter now to ai? Like, uh, so what, let's walk us through like Some's already gone through this point.

Aqeel: They are the steps. They're in the marine environment. They've taken calculated risk. Um, you're sort of like launching a product. Uh, they've launched, they've like got some validation. Um, what comes next? Is it now, are you back at that stage of get the best possible product? Um, do you feel like a sense of urgency from competition?

Aqeel: Do you feel like, no, I need to, um, yeah. How do you, you sort of balance like all the things that are going on now. Mm-hmm. Um,

Pritika: so from, uh, from now on, from launching the product to now, it's like the priority is, uh, launching the next version where people can take their website live. Because it's not about, I'm not worried about the competition.

Pritika: I, it's what I'm worried about is I, you know, how fast can I help people to get their business online or to make a better website? That's the problem in hand. I want to solve the sap. So yes, that comes with a lot of hurdle. Sometimes some server would crash or some tech problem would come up, but that's the part and parcel of being an entrepreneur.

Pritika: So the problem in hand is releasing the next version, building it asap.

Aqeel: Nice. This makes sense. What is your take, uh, on, so there's entrepreneurs right now where the barriers to getting your first customers are pretty low. Mm-hmm. Um, typical, like, you know, products and business we've seen you do need to hire enough engineers, but now that you have AI assistance where things like coding mm-hmm.

Aqeel: Um, and doing a lot of these things to sales, copywriting, upbound, even like marketing health and all this other stuff. Mm-hmm. It's a lot leaner to run, start a company than ever before. What's your take on like, Do you raise capital or, or not? Um, now that's 2023 is sort of like venture capital as relevant as it used to be.

Aqeel: Mm-hmm. Uh, or what are your thoughts here?

Pritika: Yeah. So yes, now teams are gonna be linear than they used to be because so many things are not gonna be taken care, uh, uh, with ai. But when it comes to raising capital, it's always good to have some money, uh, in the bank. Uh, reason being, you know, you would need people to build it.

Pritika: So it's always good to hire, uh, to have that money in the bank so that you can hire the best people out there. And as the product evolves, there are gonna be different problems you'll be solving and you need to get the best people in your team. So it, it's good time to, uh, raise capital and have that cash in the bank.

Pritika: Gotcha.

Aqeel: Okay. How do you go about thinking about, um, cap table and those other stuff? Does that like a conversation that comes up for you, for you all? Um,

Pritika: Uh, it's not a big thing if you're building the right product, uh, people, you know, there are investors who are, who, uh, align with your vision. These things don't really matter.

Aqeel: Okay. This makes sense. Mm-hmm. What do you think it takes to, to raise these days? Is it like you're have to be generating revenue with the product, or is it some, like, I don't know, what, what were conversations and some of your experiences?

Pritika: Mm-hmm. So when it comes to raising, uh, like two things, you need to have a product, uh, That is solving some problem.

Pritika: And secondly, yes, uh, you need very formative founders because things change all the time. And do you have, you know, the right founders who can, uh, pick up the right opportunity to work on? So these are the two things that matter. Mm.

Aqeel: Okay. What are signals for knowing if they're the right founders?

Pritika: I think, uh, for the right founders, you, when you talk to the founders, you know what they have done in their life, tells a lot and how they have done it.

Pritika: Like what they scrappy, have they built something in college? What did they do about it? So it's all about you should talk to founders and they'll tell you about themselves and you, you'll get to know a lot, uh, from those conversations. Yeah, this is awesome. And what is the burning need? Why is somebody even doing this?

Pritika: Yeah. That truly defines an entrepreneur.

Aqeel: Yeah, exactly. I, I like how you like really gone from like a pain point per perspective. Yeah. It's, it surprised me to me with the website creation. Mm-hmm. Right. It's just like, ah, it's a great market and these are huge figures. Um, Hey, he is a burning deed. You know, if you go back to your dentist and just be like, Hey, hey, yes,

Pritika: attended the cost.

Pritika: I met somebody today and he's like, I built a website for my mother who does, uh, podcasts and teaches yoga. And she's like, wasn't that amazing? So, you know, these things that, these things really keeps me happy and alive. That keeps me motivated when you hear customers using your product and being delighted by it.

Pritika: What else? Uh, that's

Aqeel: one more. Oh my gosh. My long that. Okay. Let's go to like, it's sort of like a last section here. Um, maybe like the fun, weird future. Uh, I wanna hear your, like, takes on like, where are we headed? Mm-hmm. See, in SF there's cars driving by themselves. Yes. You know, so like, what are you, what are you seeing in like, AI in our future now, and like

Pritika: in your imagination?

Pritika: I think AI is gonna be crazier than any other tech out there. What you'll see in like, I can tell about what not. Uh, three years down the line, I see that people will be able to build softwares, which is prompts mm, they won't need to need, have the need to learn coding or do even drag and drop. Just the way you talk to a developer, you'll talk to our software and it'll build the right software for you.

Pritika: You can test it, do all that testing stuff, launch it and everything. You can do it with just commands. So that's, that's the future. Future is gonna be very exciting. The jobs are gonna change so fast. Uh, we are gonna have different roles in your future. Five years down the line, we'll be looking back at this day and you're like, oh, we lived it differently.

Pritika: And it was such a different world we lived in five

Aqeel: years ago. So how do you see the, the, the entire distribution of the population, the planet's very wide. Mm-hmm. Um, do you see it being negative for some groups, positive for others? Like how do you see, uh, Things happening in real time as we implement like certain technology to reality.

Pritika: See, this was the same question that came up when internet came up. Like, you know how things are gonna be like goes these, uh, internet is gonna take away our jobs. But now when you look back, life has become so much easier. We are so much connected. My parents are in India about, I talk to them all the time.

Pritika: So it's got, it's gonna be the same transition now. You know, even it might look bad in the shorter run, but in longer run it's just gonna make our life easier and better. Mm.

Aqeel: Okay. All love this. Um, great. Well, I kind of feel like I'm, I'm out of questions about it. You're like, really? It taught me a lot of things.

Aqeel: I really appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. Of course. Do you have anything, uh, else that's on your mind these days that you kind have been like, thinking about even outside of just entrepreneurship? Mm-hmm. Maybe like, More things for the world, the more things that human souls need. Yes.

Aqeel: Providing pleasure, pain, or pledging or pain, uh, resolution or like happiness.

Pritika: Mm-hmm. I see that as tech evolves more, we have to find more solutions to loneliness on planet. Mm-hmm. Because as Aztec came up, uh, loneliness also increased, but we, we are social humans. We love being around people. So how are we going to solve that problem is something.

Pritika: I think a lot about, yeah.

Aqeel: Okay. How are we gonna solve over this? I got nothing. I dunno, either. Yeah.