From Everest to Entrepreneurship: Lessons Learned with Igor Khalatian: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. And on today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down from Everest to entrepreneurship lessons learned with Igor Khalatian. Igor is the founder and CEO of Iris, an AI dating app that pairs users based on ideal physical preferences and a partner. And he's also Oracle's former VP of development. And today we talk about how success is about competing with others. It's about improving yourself daily and how there are no guarantees, but mutual attraction makes things easier and oh so much more.

0:36John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Igor and our sponsors. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. If you're feeling stuck or like you're ready to get to the next level in your career, then finding the right coach can help. Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off your first coaching session. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com.

1:22John Lee Dumas:Igor, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? You know, I think becoming successful is not about competing with others. It's about competing with yourself. You have to be better today than you were yesterday. I believe that's what success is. Fire Nation, comparison is the thief of happiness. If you are comparing yourself to other people, you are already in the wrong. Compare and despair. You need to compare yourself to one person, Fire Nation. That is you yesterday. And if you're winning that comparison, by the way, you are winning.

2:05John Lee Dumas:And today we're talking about from Everest to entrepreneurship, lessons learned. And I want to go back, Igor, to your story. Let's talk about your experience developing tech startups back in the day. I was in tech all my life. You know, I was one of the youngest PhDs. When I was 23, I got a PhD in computer science. And I was working in a wonderful company, Bell Labs Research, which was responsible for development of semiconductor, laser, Unix operating system, C, a list of innovations goes on and on. So I was very proud to work there. then I started you know founding you know my own companies and my latest latest company Livelook was acquired by Oracle Corporation and I was working until recently as vice president of development for Oracle Corporation and yeah and now I'm I got excited about this new opportunity Iris which we'll talk about and that is applying artificial intelligence in solving one of the the biggest problem humanities is facing is how to date or how to apply artificial intelligence to online dating to make it better.

3:39John Lee Dumas:Well, humanity is facing a lot of major problems. I'm glad that you think your problem is one of the most important because it's important to be passionate about what you're doing to solve real world problems. And you were Oracle's VP of development. So how in the world did you go from the VP of development and having that experience? How did that make you want to create a dating app? You know, how ideas come to your mind is always unpredictable. I, for example, found that majority of the ideas which come to my mind for whatever reasons are happening when I'm running in the parks, I like to run, you know, long distance and or when I'm in the shower, and I'm speculating that it's maybe hot water is heating your you know expanding your brain you know arteries and maybe that's that's what's happening but you know I would say 80 % of ideas come in when I do one of those two things but in this particular time I distinctly remember this first of all my co-founder was incredibly passionate about making dating safer to eliminate catfishing and other toxic dating behavior and for me the biggest problem with dating really came down to mutual attraction you know as I was sitting in a New York cafe one day when I saw a woman who walked in and I was instantly attracted to and so later I start analyzing you know what just happened you know how come my brain told me that I'm attracted to her in like a quarter of a second before I knew anything about her.

5:24I have no idea about her interests, religion, you know, political views, et cetera. And yet my brain is telling me that I'm attracted. So there has to be something, let's call it primary attraction, which is independent from, you know, all other factors, let's call it uncompatibility. And so I start thinking, is it possible to build an AI, artificial intelligence, who can understand who you find attractive, similar to, for example, services like Pandora can, as you listen to the music, can learn what kind of music you like and start playing the one which you like the best. So I start thinking, is it possible to build an artificial intelligence?

6:10Can artificial intelligence advance to the next step and understand attraction? And that's what really captivated me. And I start, you know, thinking about that.

6:21John Lee Dumas:I think this is really interesting, Fire Nation, and I would be thinking about this as the way of how could I apply this sort of thought, this process to my area of expertise, to my passion, to my skill sets? Where can I actually implement something like this AI, potentially algorithmic formula to become unique, to become different, to carve out a market niche? Because let's be honest, with this specific one right here, when you are really looking on ideal physical preferences in a partner and matching up based on that, how many times have you heard a friend or you yourself experienced a blind date or a date of any kind where maybe you just saw the person's face, you know, like from the neck up, and then you get to that coffee or that dinner or whatever it might be.

7:06John Lee Dumas:And immediately, and I mean immediately, without even that person opening your mouth, you're like, hey, this individual might be a good person. And they might actually become a good friend. But there's no there there. And by that, I mean there's just no attraction there. There's no attraction. And without that at least initial attraction, not all relationships are doomed. But let's be honest. We at least, most of us, want to start relationships where the physical attraction is there. and so many people again know the very minute they meet somebody that is just not there. So what can you do to potentially solve that problem?

7:42John Lee Dumas:And this is what Igor is tackling with Iris. And so let's be honest. Entrepreneurs will be able to win if they differentiate themselves from all of their competitors, Igor. I mean, that's just a fact. If they can differentiate themselves, they can really create a unique selling proposition that has them stand up from the marketplace. They have a chance. How exactly does Iris do this? When you start from the place of mutual attraction, things are much easier. We're not saying that it guarantees that you're going to have a successful relationship or live happily ever after. But when you start from the place of mutual attraction, things are a lot easier.

8:24And that's what Iris is giving you. And by the way, this is notoriously difficult. The mutual attraction is, strong attraction is rare and mutual strong attraction is extremely rare. And that leads to frustration in online dating. 80 % of app users report being frustrated with online dating after trying it. I mean, 80%. I mean, can you imagine any business surviving? surviving let's say you go to starbucks and you come frustrated 80 80 percent of the time eight

9:03John Lee Dumas:out of your 10 cups of coffee are not satisfying you're not going back there exactly and dating is still expanding because it's a monopoly there is no alternatives you know you you know in in in our lives nowadays so almost no alternative so um but 80 frustration tells us that what's happening is just not optimal and this leads and this goes back to mutual attraction and this is what iris is solving uh by the way the way we solve it is is when you register uh we take you through the process called training ai we show you uh random photographs and we just ask you to say do you like them or not like them and you know and and and and you just say like dislike and interesting is that when we show random photos women for example like only three percent of them but by the time by the end of the process when ai learns who you find attractive and shows predictions or suggestions women like 55 wow so going from 3 to 55 in in a span of 5 10 minutes i mean that's amazing 20 times more and um and so uh and that's the foundation of what we like if we know who you find attractive and we know who finds you attractive we can match you know mutually attracted people and then let you explore further let you let you converse let you find more about each other etc the other thing which we're doing and we we recognize it as a big problem is all sorts of catfishing and spammers which are um infiltrated you know dating apps nowadays so when you create profile with iris we require you every we require every single person to take a selfie and then we match that selfie with the photograph you will upload you know match it you know using ai automatically as well as manual review and by doing that uh since launching we we actually busted 150 000 users who've tried to catfish other users wow uh i'm not going to go into details of you know how we try you know all the sensitive details of how protecting users but our platform is vastly more safer and because it consists of only verified users and in addition to that we created the trust rating system so for example if you are sending a root messages or people are reporting you etc etc your trust rate may go down and if you actually are doing the right thing, it goes up, etc.

11:56So it's a self-regulating system which creates this environment, nice environment for everybody.

12:03John Lee Dumas:And again, Fire Nation, how I want you listening to this is, of course, hey, maybe if you're single right now, this could be something interesting for you. But specifically on the business side of things, how can you apply what Igor's done in the dating app to your business to differentiate, to stand out, to be special, to be solving a problem that is a real problem in this world. I mean, the numbers that he's sharing, 80 % of people are unsatisfied. That's a clear indication that there's a huge opportunity there to come in with a better solution, hopefully with the number one solution to a real problem.

12:38John Lee Dumas:We have a lot of things coming up, lessons learned when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. I've interviewed over 5 ,000 successful entrepreneurs. And one thing they all have in common, they've enlisted mentors, coaches, and people along the way to help guide them. But where do you find the right coach or mentor? Great question. And that's where our strawberry.me career coaching comes in. I speak from personal experience when I say that coaching and mentorship has helped me get to where I am today. In fact, you might not even be listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire if it weren't for my first coach and mentor, Jamie Masters.

13:17John Lee Dumas:I knew that in order to produce the best podcast, I needed to find someone who was where I wanted to be. Here we are nearly 14 years later, and I'd say I made a fantastic investment. So if you're feeling stuck, facing an important career decision, or ready to make your next big move, the right coach can help. Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off for your first coaching session. That's strawberry.me slash fire. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more.

14:03John Lee Dumas:Everything you need to succeed, all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business, and their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at HighLevelFire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Visit HighLevelFire.com and start building your something today. Igor, we are back. And one thing that I found pretty cool doing some research on you is you're an avid climber and you've actually summited Mount Everest.

14:49John Lee Dumas:How would you compare that climb to starting a business? There's a lot of similarities between the climbing and starting a business. First of all, you need to persevere. You know, when I got to Everest Base Camp, which is at 17 ,598 feet above sea level, you know, there's already 40%, you know, less oxygen there. And so you arrive, you're cold, you're nauseous, you're out of breath, just trying to tie your shoelaces, you know. And then you look up and say, this is just impossible to just get to the summit, just forget it. And then what I said to myself is like, I'm going to break this to manageable pieces.

15:45I'm not going to, I'm going to, my goal is to reach camp one. When I reach camp one, I'll think about it. And so you focus on what is more manageable and reaching camp one. When I got to camp one, I said, you know, maybe I'll try and camp two, you know. And by the time I got to camp three, I said, I suffered too long. I'm not giving up. I'm going further, right? So breaking the task to manageable pieces and then accepting the risk. You know, when I got to a combo icefall, it's like ice towers, which are as tall as 10-story buildings, and you are walking under them. and those ice towers blocks are are crumbling in random times because it's uh ice flow is always moving and you know triggering avalanches all kind of stuff and so i try to move faster because my brain told me it's dangerous but of course you cannot walk faster because you're extremely high and there's a lack of oxygen and you're out of breath so you accept the risk at some point and say, you know, I'm, there's just no way to do risk this, you have to accept the risk.

17:04And so, again, in business, as much as we're trying to make it, you know, risk free, it's just impossible. It's, and that's another similarity I find between the business and climbing.

17:18John Lee Dumas:So there's a number of things here, Fire Nation, perseverance, are you just willing to outwit, outlast your competition? I mean, for any Survivor fans, there's a reason why they use that phrase because that's the people that win. They outlast. And one of my new favorite shows actually that I've been watching quite a bit of is Alone. And man, talk about persevering. You're alone in some freezing Canadian environments and you are just trying to persevere till the end to win. And I love that part you shared about breaking challenges into manageable pieces. Don't look at it like a 26.2 mile race if you're a marathon runner.

17:52John Lee Dumas:Just look at it as, hey, what's that next corner that I see? I'm going to get to that next turn in the road. And then I'm just going to see what it looks like after that and just keep doing that over and over again, breaking it down into manageable pieces. And then of course, accepting risks. We all have to accept risks at some level, Fire Nation. Hopefully they're manageable risks, but there should be risks that we're willing to take to make our business work for us. So let's get specific before we move on here. How did you do one, two, or maybe all three of these things for starting your business?

18:25John Lee Dumas:Like, give us an example of how you persevered and or broke challenges in the manageable pieces and or accepted risks. Talk to us about that. I tend to create businesses which are technologically advanced. And my main challenge is always explaining what we're doing, how we do it, right? To the larger audience. And when people actually understand, they appreciate and they follow you. So if I, for example, take the example of Iris, Iris is using artificial intelligence, right? And people have all sorts of misconceptions about artificial intelligence. I'm assuming you know a lot of them saw Hollywood movies and they expect that AI will magically understand you like from right immediately right like there was this movie her where you the guy unpacks the box and the AI knows pretty much everything about him right so that's not the way I works AI learns as you use the product so when you start with iris um you need to you you need to you know you need to continue to use it to to continue to improve it right so that's what we're working on to try to explain how how this is um uh how it's different from from from our products etc etc i want to mention two other things of not losing focus and building camaraderie what i mean by that When you're hanging on the rope, when you're climbing a wall above the wall and there is an avalanche or a rock falling its way, if you panic, if you lose concentration for the moment, you could die.

20:28I mean, every move matters. The risks you face as an entrepreneur are most risky when your attention is elsewhere or you overreact in the face of setback or bad news. so keep calm and carry on as they say under all circumstances don't defeat yourself so that would be a very important lesson both for climbing and for uh for for the business and also build build camaraderie build the group only a handful of people have ever attempted to summit ever a solo climbers are much more successful and safer as a team when you work as a team one second you are supporting someone on your rope and the next they are supporting you on theirs you look after each other you're better able to solve problems you're greater than the sum of your parts so as a founder and the leader you can't just tell your team i'm the boss do as i say lead with acknowledgement of your interdependencies make sure your team sees the business as your joint venture and so you know something for us was one of the most challenging goals i've accomplished but i was made possible by the mindsets and actions that have also served me well as an as an entrepreneur so whether you're climbing mountains building businesses or going after another lofty goal, I hope these mindsets and strategies help you persevere.

22:01John Lee Dumas:Igor, you've dropped a ton of value bombs throughout this entire episode, and we really appreciate that. Give us the one key takeaway that you really want to make sure that we walk away with from all of these lessons we learned today. We are conditioned to think that if you really really like somebody like really in love with somebody the chances that they will respond to you are smaller you can find it in literature etc etc but that comes from the math math is brutal the probability of mutual attraction as i said before is extremely low however with new technology and new advances in artificial intelligence like like the ones iris has this can change and and so you it it will be possible for you to find the person of your dreams you just need to uh be persistent and and and and and follow through and and i'm hoping that when you do that more people will become happier and more the more happy people we have like if If we can reduce this 80 % frustration to a much smaller number, that will have a positive effect on society.

23:25We all will benefit if we just have more happy people among ourselves. So that's what I'm hoping to accomplish and that's what I'm really passionate about.

23:38John Lee Dumas:Igor, share how we can connect with you, learn more about IRIS, any call to action you have, and then we'll say goodbye. irisnetwork.ai, Igor, which is I-G-O-R at irisnetwork.ai. You can always shoot me an email and I will be happy to respond. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with IK and JLD today. So let's keep up the heat. Head over to eofire.com, type Igor, that's I-G-O-R, in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with everything that we've talked about here today. Best show notes in the biz. Igor, thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today.

24:20John Lee Dumas:For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you, John. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Igor, who sponsored this episode. Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And we're talking step-by-step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. If you're feeling stuck or like you're ready to get to the next level in your career, then finding the right coach can help.

24:58John Lee Dumas:Go to strawberry.me slash fire and get 50 % off your first coaching session. If you are building a real business. You need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com.