The Power of Resilience | Soulaima Gourani's Journey from Adversity to Silicon Valley Success

27:56And it's very traumatic. None of them have barely survived their own life. Wow. And at what point did you start, you know, I imagine here you were on this unusual path. And again, it's both a curse and a blessing in the sense that to be an entrepreneur, you have to basically go on an unusual path. You have to discover something that no one has discovered before and do it in a unique way. Not in every case for an entrepreneur, but in most cases. You went through all this trauma and again, you probably had your own version of PTSD just like your mom from growing up in that situation. What were the consequences of that?

28:38Like what was negative going on in your life then? You know, I never really thought about I could have post-traumatic stress disorder. and I have never been diagnosed or anything but lately because I've been interviewing other leaders that are looking into psychedelics trauma, post-traumatic stress disorders and stuff ADHD and stuff I'm like yeah I'm 100 % sure that I have a great amount of those to deal with and I was just never diagnosed right so should I or should I just live in unknown Lee about that probably that's a hard question because sometimes when you just label yourself with an illness, then you take on the illness and maybe you're fine without it.

29:21So it seems like you're fine without the label and perhaps I shouldn't have had the assumption to label you. But you ran away from home for a reason and that reason was very important to you and it was in your head and those reasons are still in your head. But you're just older now. Yeah, and now I'm a parent, right? So... Well, I mean, now I almost forget what you asked me about, but... What was still sticking with you that somehow the other kids didn't, or young people didn't seem to have?

30:00I definitely felt that I did not, I could not afford, I didn't have the privilege to just live life, you know? I don't remember any point of time where I had like even one day where I was not worried.

30:18And this has been a constant in my life. Even today, right? As an entrepreneur, and don't get me wrong, James, I live the most privileged life you cannot buy for money. You know, it's unbelievable. My life now is insane. Like it's a fairy tale. I cannot believe that I'm living the life I'm living. But even today, at this very moment, despite that I'm outperforming statistically 99.9 % of all startups at our stage, I'm still, every morning I wake up, heavenly burdened with the responsibility and the worry some of, you know, and it's just my nature. Someone told me a few years ago that those who survive are those who are slightly paranoid.

31:06Right. Well, Andy Grove, who was the former CEO and basically a co-founder of Intel, wrote a book, Only the Paranoids Survive. See? And then also, because I've been through so much and I was kicked out of school in seventh grade and, you know, we spoke about math, right? And I have not had a math class since fourth grade. well this goes along with a theory of mine on education which is that most things we learn like like for instance nobody ever uses geometry in real life i mean if that's your job to be like an engineer and you build bridges you should use geometry or calculus or whatever no one uses calculus anywhere or trigonometry i had to take tons of tests on all this stuff and do years of homework and I've never once used it.

31:55And I think that holds for almost every field in school, that most things we don't, we should be learning other things and not the things that are currently taught. Well, don't even get me started on this. Part of what I spend my spare time on is, you know, I co-designed a teacher's price. We hand out$1 million to the best teacher in the world every year, the best school prize for the best schools in the world, also a member of the jury there. I've been leading the global dignity movement globally for 10 years, right? It's all about schools, education, and kids. And I do spend, to this very day, a great amount of my time discussing the future of education.

32:47A few of my books are about what are we supposed to learn, And what are we supposed to be in the future? You know, my TEDx talk, everything is around the fact that, hey, listen, I have traveled to more than 40 countries telling my story. And James, you said about something a while ago that I love you for that, that you were considering to buy Greenland. Remember Trump wanted to buy Greenland and you came up with this whole thing. And it made me think about my trip to Greenland. As you know, Greenland is Danish. Which I did not know initially until the Prime Minister of Denmark responded to Trump and said, Greenland's not for sale.

33:23I'm like, what the hell is that guy doing there? Oh, it's Danish. We are proud of Greenland, but we kind of messed it up as well. But that could be a whole other conversation. Anyway, Greenland is facing a 50%, 50 % dropout. Kids drop out of school. It's a huge problem. Yeah, and alcoholism is a real problem there. Suicide is a real problem there. Suicide, alcohol, and abuse in homes. Sexual abuse. Anyway, so you can imagine that I am the ideal person to ship to Greenland and put in front of those kids because I survived a similar upbringing. And I still remember they took me to this high school.

34:09and I don't know, I would like to say there was three, four, five hundred kids in the school. It was in the capital, Nuuk of Greenland. And I started sharing my story. And when I was done, usually, you know, people applaud you or whatever, right? Complete silence. And they just started sitting crying. And it was the most moving talk I've ever done in my entire life. And because in all silence, we were just all crying. how hard life is for so many children. Sorry, I get emotional, but it was a very emotional moment. And I knew that, you know, I have not been through all these things for no reason.

34:51I am supposed to bring that hope back in some way. And that is why I cannot help myself from sharing my story. Not as a victim, not as a victim, but more of, you know, yeah, I know, I was... And I was, what have I been, 13 and a half when I was returned to my parents for the second time and I ran away again. That time I ran to my mom's sister and she had me living there for a few weeks before I was put in foster care. And I lived with her a few weeks so that I could attend school. And I remember one afternoon I was opening my lunch bag that she had made for me. and in that was a little note that I should not return back home that afternoon.

35:38She didn't want to have me there anymore. Oh my gosh. Oh, James, you know, because she had found a cannabis pipe or joint, whatever thing, in my school bag. And yeah, I'm not proud of that, but hey, you know,

35:56that's my story, right? And so instead of dealing with it, She just said, can you imagine being at that age? You've been through all this and you just have in your lunch bag and know don't return home after school. Do whatever you want, just don't come home. Where did she think you were going to go? Yeah, just like anything. Yeah, I mean, James, what do you do? So, but I went to the social welfare system and they called their foster care family and stuff. So all good. But the thing is, I don't think I've ever shared this before in a show. I don't think so. Anyway, that afternoon I took my bike after school, but I didn't know where to go.

36:40And I was standing on the bridge, you know, and thinking that I should just jump. I didn't. And I'm so happy I didn't. Why do you think you didn't? I don't know. I had this feeling of somehow I thought a few years ahead, like could this work out? Do I have the strength? Can I pull myself up by the hair? And get myself an education and maybe a job and, you know, and I did.

37:34fast forwarding like then you achieved all this incredible stuff and and survived and then even went to school and went went to all these other countries what then propelled you even further because then you started being a consultant to really big the biggest yeah yeah it's incredible And then, of course, you became an entrepreneur and so on. Yeah. Well, well, well. Remember I told you that I studied that awful education that took four years and that motivated all the children to move out three, four countries during the study? In my final year, I was offered to go to Norway. And I was offered a six-month program at the foreign ministry in Norway.

38:22they offered me a position for six months. And that turned around my life. And here we go. Because I came there and I'm a survivor, right? I'm a social, intelligent, street smart hustler, right? I get things done. I'm extremely good at networking, if you may. Why? Because that's how I survive. That's how I got clean clothing or food or a bed to sleep in or whatever, through networking, right? That was my survival skill. And so I have a very extraordinary skill for relationship building. It's really my number one skill, but it is my survival skill, right? Funny enough. And so I started working at the embassy and they, you know, took me out to conferences and whatnot.

39:08And, you know, I was exchanging business cards like no one else. And they realized she's a talent. And I decided I want to pursue a career in the foreign ministry. I would become the first Danish-Moroccan ambassador ever. But then during that period of time, I met a CEO in Norway. He was, of course, Norwegian. And he had a small company with 100 employees or something. And he has been thinking about starting a new product, a new software product. There was nothing yet. There was just one string of code, one developer. It was really an innovative side gig that he was thinking about starting. And we met through the work, through the embassy, because he really wanted to export his software into Denmark.

39:57And that's the job of an embassy is to build trade relations, right? And so we started talking and then he offered me a job. And that was the first time ever. I must have been 21 something, 22. and he offered me a job. I had never, ever in my entire life ever been recruited or offered a job anywhere at all. It was the first time. And I didn't speak the language very well, Norwegian, right? I did not. It's similar to Danish, but it's still a different language, right? I had never worked with tech before. I knew how to turn on a computer, but I had never worked with software before. And I had never been, you know, a salesperson per se.

40:46definitely not SaaS software sales, forget it. But I thought, you know, why not? Let me try it. And within six or seven months, I had done the biggest European installment of any early stage software ever. And we had no marketing budget, nothing. And fast forward, four years after, we were in 44 countries. I had scaled that company. I had returned to Denmark I lived in a penthouse apartment in Copenhagen I made hundreds of thousands of dollars a month I was throwing the wildest champagne parties in Copenhagen all this within four years Wow, so what do you think made your sales what was your sales technique?

41:33Well, I have a really good eye for I've always done early stage software where there basically is nothing There is no proven sales pitch. There is no return on investment paper. It's all vision. It's all, we can draft this together kind of thing. And that demands a very, require a very special set of skills. I now know that, but I didn't know that at that time. So it happens to be that I'm very good in identifying in any country Who is the most powerful person in that country that I should know? How do I get in touch with that person? How do I get a meeting with that person? And I'm very quick and very good in identifying what is this person's vision, him or herself.

42:23Like what would they like to achieve in life? And then I speak into that vision with the product and say, let's go on this journey together, shall we? So what's an example of like you're entering into a new country and who was the important person? and how did you meet them? And you're like 21, 22, 23 years old at this point. Why would they meet you? Yeah, first and foremost, you do represent something they find exciting. Tech can be very exciting for an ambitious company, for an ambitious CEO or whatever, right? They want to know what is the new thing boiling, what could be the thing that could set my company up against my competitors.

43:00And if you can talk into that, and you have a slightly good vocabulary for, you know, visionary, business development, you know, kind of phrases, then you can get a meeting. The meeting is not the hard thing. The hard thing is to get in there and build that vision and make them trust you that you can build that together with them. Well, I mean, to find out who's the most powerful person is really not that difficult. You just open any newspaper, you just open the local news, whatever, in that country. and you slightly, now it's easy because you can search everything, you have social media and stuff, but back then we didn't have all of that, right?

43:35I mean, we did have the internet, of course, of course, right? It's 99 and 98, 99 and 2000s, but that was not the same. But, you know, the internet was there and also in the newspapers, but people weren't necessarily using it, particularly CEOs who had been running their business for 20 years. They were just like, what's this internet thing? Is it a fad? And so you can, but it was exciting enough that people, you're right, people would want to know from a young person in particular, what is this internet thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how we did it. And so, and you know, it was very hard back then to find someone's email or phone number and you had to go through PAs and stuff and, you know, had to do the groundwork.

44:16Actually, it's kind of, I wrote a book about, you know, in 2001 to just an e-book or whatever, just a PDF file, you could call, whatever, just a very easy, you know, a very light book about how to map, nurture, and expand a professional network, right? And back then, I had no idea, you know, I have never seen such a book. In fact, I was in 2001 invited to the Stock Exchange in Denmark. You have to remember, this is just a few weeks, a few years prior, I couldn't get a job, right? I left the country and here I am. They flew me back to the stock exchange to give my first public speak ever. And media was there.

45:03And they were like, Suleyme, we need to know how you are doing this. How are you taking this Norwegian company to the commercial success you have? We've never heard about you before. This is extraordinary. And they knew because one of the installments that I did was for a very, very, very large Danish retailer. So it was out there in the news, right? and I stood up there young never gave a public speak speech before and I didn't know what to say so what I did was I just took a pen and a whiteboard and I started explaining how I think of networking and how I process and map and think about relationships building and how you can nurture and how you can kind of I don't like the word use but monetize your network and this was before anyone had ever, I don't remember, I've never seen a networking book or whatever, strategic networking class or whatever.

45:58It was just, it came intuitive to me because, James, it is my survival skill. Yeah, you had to be able to. Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it was this only skill that I knew of that was networking, but I didn't even know it was called networking, right? Now we know. But the other thing you probably did too was you probably had really strong empathy for what their problems might be. And since it sounds like your SaaS software, this is like before probably the phrase SaaS even was really commonly used. They probably, they'd say, well, we need this, this, this. And you probably said, we could do that, whether or not you could do it.

46:37100%. That's it. That's it. Yeah. That's great when you're selling something that actually, that's the one benefit of not having a competitor. When you have a competitor, you could say, well, we're better in this way and we're worse in this way and you guys decide. But when you don't have a competitor, Sometimes it means there's no competitor because there's no need. But the internet was so new, SaaS software was so new, there probably was a need, but you had to kind of figure it out together with the customer. Yeah, and luckily we could deliver, right? It was really good software. What did it do?

47:07Like what kind of... You're going to laugh. So you have to imagine this is year 2000, 99-2000, and I was mainly selling to retail chains. and I spoke to the headquarter of any chain, retail. And I said, wouldn't it be amazing if you could sit at your headquarter and you could see real time the sales and if you could push education and notifications and messages to each of your stores. Yeah, it's great. It's so great. It's still a really great software. And yeah, we did very well. And this was before business intelligence data management, e-learning. Yeah, this whole thing became a huge industry.

47:54It became a dashboard for CFOs and CEOs. Exactly, and real time for your stores, right? And so I did really well with that and I was living the best life in Copenhagen again and I couldn't believe my own luck. And then something completely unrealistic happened. I made my parents so happy and proud. I don't think they've been any prouder of me. Then I got a call from Hydric & Struggle, you know, the big headhunter company. And they were like, someone wants to hire you. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, really? And they said, yeah, it's Musk Shipping, you know, the biggest shipping company in the world.

48:35And they were like, they want you to come and be responsible for, they have a new department. It's called e-learning. And they really want you to come and build relationship with the biggest financial institutions institutions and companies and customers, Maersk Shipping had a IT department called Maersk IT and they wanted to hire me. And I'm like, wow, I cannot pass all the IQ testing and whatnot. So I don't know. They only hire the smartest people. To this day, it's still one of the most prestigious companies to work for in the world. People might not have heard of them, but they do, for instance, a lot of shipping out of the Middle East for everybody in the world to have oil.

49:18Yeah, I mean, the blue containers with the little star, that's Musk. And I knew it was, it couldn't, I mean, at that point I couldn't believe, you know, it couldn't become bigger, right? And they wanted me to come and work for them. They want to recruit me, the tables had turned. So I ended up accepting a job and I - What happened to the company with the SaaS software? That guy was probably upset that you left. He was very upset, but he was very sweet about it. I think he was proud also, right? Did you have shares? Like, were you able to monetize your... Yeah, I did have shares, but it was before I really understood how to monetize those and buy them.

49:57And, you know, stock options are really not easy if you're in Denmark. It's still not a thing. They really know how to do well. So people don't have ownership in startups and so forth. But anyway, well, in his farewell speech, he said something super kind. He said two things. He said, when we hired you, we could not understand a word of what you were saying because I spoke another language, right? I speak Danish and they speak Norwegian. And you had never done such a job before, but we decided to hire you. And I said, well, I still don't understand why you hired me. And he said, because when you walked in that door, we felt all your energy.

50:37And we knew that you would learn anything, that you need to succeed in the job. And here we are four years later. And, you know, he's still very proud because then, you know, fast forward, I became 40 under 40, think as 50. I became younger global leader with Mark Zuckerberg. You know, I've received all those kind of rewards afterwards, right? So he's still very proud because he kind of found me, if you will, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so now you're at Maersk. Then I had Maersk, and then Maersk ended up selling the department that I was part of. Ah, IBM bought us. And I never envisioned me working for IBM.

51:19I'll tell you, I love IBM. I have the deepest respect for them, but they just work slightly different. I had more freedom at Maersk. I could do it my way. That was definitely not the situation at IBM. So I met with the CEO of IBM, actually, for Denmark, Ole. I hope he's still around. I'm not sure. but we had a, listen, I get a chance to meet with him even. Like it was, you know, here I am, this foster child, school dropout, was kicked out of my mom's sister's house because of a joint, you know, who am I sitting there in my suit with the CEO of IBM? And he said, you know, Sulaima, I cheer you. I admire you.

51:58I just don't think IBM is for you. Like I don't think, I think you're more unique than that. I don't think you should spend your life in IBM. At first, I was very devastated. I felt turned down. But he gave me a gift, you know. He set me free. And it took only, I guess, a few weeks. Then I got another call from another headhunter from Hewlett Packard. And then Hewlett Packard said, would you like to come and work for us? They have never had, I was the youngest hire. That's funny because they have similar cultures to IBM, I would think. I don't know. Yeah, I think Hewlett Packard back then were more like carboards, right?

52:36There was more freedom. They did things their way and stuff. IBM was more the black school of, you know, a certain way of doing things. HP is more wild. It used to be. I don't know how it is today. And they said, why don't you come over and why don't you become responsible for Hewlett Packard and Microsoft, the partnership between us? And I'm like, whoa. And I was like, what am I supposed to do? and they said, well, we will give you 45 people reporting to you. It's the smartest engineers we have. And you shall build our service business for Microsoft with HP. What many people don't know is that HP and Microsoft are actually strategic partners because they want to win deals from Dell and IBM.

53:17So they have something called frontline partnership. And that partnership was really not going well. I think to some extent you could even say that Microsoft and HP did not like each other. And they said, can you go and fix this? And I said, I don't know. I've never tried it before, but I'll give it a chance. And it is to this day still the best job I've ever had in my life. And when I left HP, I had, as the only HP employee, I had a key access card to Microsoft. I came in and out of the building just as I liked. To this day, still I have calls and meetings with Microsoft. They still love me for what I did for them and with them.

53:59We want a lot of deals. And I was promoted to become responsible for our service department for entire HP, very young, I don't know. But I actually burned out. I was picked up twice by the ambulance because I had a complete burnout. What does that mean? Like, why were you picked up by the ambulance? because I thought I had a heart attack but it was an anxiety attack but I didn't know I know this may sound really stupid but I didn't know that I was stressed no one had told me this job that you have can make you stressed and this is how stress looks like I had no idea when you are a traumatized person like me with this life journey one thing that we are not good at I think is to listen to our signals, right?

54:55I mean, you're tired. Because like you said earlier, you didn't even have one day where you could take a break from that worry. You had to constantly hustle for yourself. Yeah, so I can - So you probably turned that part of your brain off. Turned it off completely. I have actually been practicing in the last 10 years to acknowledge that I'm tired or I need food or, you know, I was 47 kilos. I worked 20 hours a day. James, I loved it, but it's not healthy, right? So I was picked up by the ambulance and my doctor said, you know, if we're picking you up one more time, then I want you to quit job.

55:36And I couldn't quit, you know. For me, my life was work, you know. I was really good at it. Finally, I found something that I'm good at, very good at. So I decided to leave my position. There was a new CEO from HP, both globally, but also in Denmark. And I left my position and I took a smaller job. I took a small job that was international director still, but only with 12 people reporting, medical device, something else, just a cozy little job. And I took my MBA and all that on the side, of course. and I got my MBA, by the way, by not, I was not even halfway qualified to take an MBA, but MBA, the school gave me a wild card.

56:20I can tell you about how I managed to get an MBA without being qualified. But yeah, and then a few months later, I find out that I'm pregnant in the new job and I tell the - Now, when did you meet your husband? Yes, that's a very, very important question. I met him when I was 20, just before I moved to Luxembourg for that job in Luxembourg. I met him in a bus. And I met him, but I didn't talk to him. I was with my girlfriend and he was in the bus with his best friend. And we didn't talk, but we saw each other. And I told my girlfriend, oh my God, if I could marry that guy, he's the most beautiful person I've ever seen.

57:00And he said the same thing to his friend. We didn't know. and then six months later I meet him at a bar and he pulled me in, you know, and whispers in my ear, we need to talk. And we've been together ever since. That's 28 years ago. Wow. Now, do you find that the trauma you experienced and what you saw your parents go through, sometimes these things, you know, not always the case, but sometimes boys inherit from the father and girls inherit from the mother. and did any of that come into play in your relationship at all? Oh, I was so afraid of committing myself in a relationship. I had no recipe of what does it mean to have a good marriage.

57:42I definitely did not want to have kids because I was so afraid of, you know, maybe I would, you know, traumatize my own children. I've heard that if you have been abused as a child, you might end up abusing your own children. You know, I was very afraid of all these things. but Brian my husband is the most healthy person the most non-traumatized person I know on earth he is emotionally sober he's so sober like he is incredible I mean James he saved my life I don't think I would have been around if it wasn't for him he has been my everything and I will not I don't say this lightly, but I'm not easy to live with, as you can imagine.

58:27But I'm not scaring him at all, right? He's just in it, full time, super committed. There's one thing, two things I'm very proud of in life. I mean, in this podcast, we talk about job and career and how incredible it is that I've had this journey and I have this journey. But the credit goes to my private life, 100%. I have the most incredible children. It's not easy for them either to be my children, right? Imagine. And he is my guardian angel. It's incredible what you can do in life when you feel loved. That is incredible. I think that's true because I think that frees up. Look, people are either anxious about money or relationships and also health.

59:10Yes. And if you don't have the anxiety, so let's say that's equal thirds in people's, let's say, pie chart of emotions. If you don't have the anxiety in the relationship, I think that's so much extra energy you could devote towards career and health. You can't start a company if you're arguing with your spouse every day. You cannot. You cannot. You know, you cannot. not. Yeah, I think you're right. And we agree on everything when it comes to our core values, right? We agree on how much money do we feel comfortable making or not making, right? Where do we want to live? What does freedom look like?

59:57How do we want to raise a family? What makes us happy? And I'm kind of sad you cannot see it because I'm sitting in this great light and we this studio. And for everyone that's not watching, I have an incredible studio. But what you cannot see is that I'm sitting at my kitchen table in my two-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley. And I'm sitting here because we left for US seven years ago, but only two years ago, we started a company. We started over. And I went from making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, flying private, having a private driver, to living in a two-bedroom apartment.

1:00:37And I have started all over again. And I'm sitting, now I'm responsible for a small startup that is worth$30 million. And I created that from my kitchen table. And that's Happio, right? That's Happio, yeah. And you do this AI software. So let's say we were having a meeting and a lot of things are said in a meeting and often nothing gets accomplished and nothing gets done afterwards. And your software takes, from what I understand, And it's like an AI that sort of analyzes the conversation in a meeting and figures out the tasks and the goals and the things that are supposed to happen after the meeting.

1:01:14Almost. Close enough, though. But a meeting is usually divided into three processes. Before, during, and after, right? You were mostly explaining what happens during a meeting. But in fact, what we are mostly doing is that we are putting a spam filter on Outlook. So every time you invite someone or someone invites you, if I invite you to a meeting, James, then Happio tells me, oh, you cannot invite James unless you tell him why he's... No, you cannot invite him unless you tell him why he's invited, what is the objective of this meeting, who else is coming, what is he supposed to present, and what is the desired outcome.

1:01:56So we put it on the top of your Outlook or Google or Apple Calendar or whatever, and it's an enterprise software. So it's really an AI spam filter for meetings. That's great. That's very useful. And obviously you raise money at a$30 million valuation. Yeah, I mean, well, we have a$30 million valuation and we have raised$7.5 million from some of the most remarkable investors in the Bay Area. And the reason I'm mostly proud of this is that back to our main conversation is, I've never done this before. It is really the first time ever that I have been raising capital, that I have been the CEO of a startup myself.

1:02:42I've never raised, I never, when I came to the Bay Area, I had no network. I have no relationships. I had never, ever spoken to a VC before. How did you, when you just moved to the Bay Area, how did you start? I mean, there's definitely networking conferences, but I find those to be a little bit annoying. actually, in the Bay Area. It's hard. You have to be a little bit on the spectrum. Nah, you know, I think I'm good in figuring out how to get along with people and find out, you know, again, how can we build something together, how to talk to this person, how to make him or her interested in investing in our joint future.

1:03:24And I guess if I'm a VC and I see that your background, I would think, okay, obviously she's been in thousands of meetings. And so she knows the DNA of a meeting and what can go wrong. So, okay, I trust her on that. And then I would think, well, she has these relationships inside Microsoft, HP, other large companies that she sold to. So my worst case scenario is probably she could sell the company to somebody she knows eventually at one of these places. This is what I would be thinking in the back of my head. So that if I put like 2 million in and I have a liquidation preference, I'm at least going to get 2 million out is how I would think about it.

1:04:00That's actually also what I think. And we have money from Salesforce, Microsoft, all kinds. So yeah, you're right. We have the most incredible investors. So that's right. I think they think, what is the worst thing that can happen, right? And I'm not a quitter, clearly. And we actually managed to raise a significant check just last week. Yeah, seven and a half. Seven and a half. That's a good round. Everyone here, I don't know how it is in other places. but at least in the Bay Area, not a lot of people have done up rounds, right? We 3X'd our valuation still in seed actually, which is very unusual.

1:04:38That's unbelievable. Like seven and a half out of 30 and you're in seed or series A. Yeah, pre-revenue. Like right now, particularly 2023, yeah, pre-revenue, that would have been unheard of. Unheard of. So, you know, the thing is, again, again, I'm beating the odds, right? And the AI, the fact that there's an AI component also helps because everybody opened up new AI funds. They wanted to put the money to work to show that they were busy. So you had a good timing too. I have a good timing. You also have to understand timing as well, of course. Yeah, and I think being a woman of color and immigrant and all these things does help unless you look at them as something that's going to victimize you.

1:05:22But you know, you asked about US.

1:05:26I became an entrepreneur in 2007. already. I built, this is my fifth startup. But this is the first time I take VC capital, which is kind of interesting. It's an interesting journey. It's not for everyone. No, because it's a different type of company then. Like you have to use all your marketing skills, not to sell your product, but to basically sell your ideas in exchange for investment. Yeah. Yeah. And yet you still have to prove traction, right? I mean, early stage software companies, what you ideally want them to have is a hard lineup of proof of concepts, early adapters, let off of intent, ideally contracts, good CTO, great tech team, all these things.

1:06:13So you have to do a lot of things at the same time. I definitely aged the last two years. I definitely aged 10 years. That's how I feel. It must feel like that because I think to some extent, I mean, I've started a whole bunch of companies and I'm so, I'm so, I think that's such an unpleasant feeling to go through kind of like you've gone through this classic startup phase, particularly with this last one where, you know, software, you know, using all the buzzwords, you have all the relationships and then you have to make the VC relationships and then make a pitch deck and go up and down Sandhill Road or whatever road is there now.

1:06:51And I find that to be so unpleasant that I either lean towards starting companies that are profitable from day one, like I get a customer first and then make the product, or I invest in companies that, you know, I find it better to be an investor than an entrepreneur these days. Yeah, I feel you. Well, you know, I did not start building any, not even a string of code. What I did first was I went to the biggest aviation company in the world. And I sat with the chairman and I explained, remember, again, finding the first client before anything else. And I said, if I built this, will you buy it? And he said, I will buy it.

1:07:36And we signed an agreement and we agreed on a price. And then I start building. So I see. So what's critical there, because I've heard that story before and then you build it and then they don't buy it. But what's critical there is that you got the agreement. Agreement and you agree on a price. And just this morning before I went on this podcast with you, one of our investors just introduced us to the three largest companies in Europe just in one call. She also happens to be the chairman of the biggest company in the world. So I think it's also about really your team is one thing, but also picking the right customers in the beginning.

1:08:16You want to be associated with the right brands, the right people. If you're associated with blue chip brands that are using your software and have hundreds of offices around the world, it's one of those things which you're probably familiar with the saying that since you were at IBM, you can't get fired for buying from IBM. You're so right. Beta is not for everyone. It's hard to be a beta software company. But I will say I'm very proud of what we have accomplished this far. But I will say, and now we spend a decent amount of time talking about what I have been through in my life, I will say that being a founder the past two years in Silicon Valley has been the mental hardest game I've ever been through in my entire life.

1:09:02And I know it must sound silly, but I've never been this afraid for my own mental well-being. I've never been this worried. I actually have never had a situation where I said to my husband, if this continues this way, I think you have to lock me up somewhere for a week. I've never been there. I've never been this far out. What's been the hardest part? I think it's the psychological pressure. It's all the rejections. I mean, I'm used to being rejected. You know, James, even when I was a child, like when I was first grade, I invited kids over for my birthday and my mom had prepared a birthday meal, but no children came, right?

1:09:39I mean, all my life has been like that. Yeah, it's horrible. Sometimes my children even cry when they hear stories about my childhood. Yeah, it's so sweet. But listen, I can, that's okay. You know, I've been rejected everywhere. I couldn't get a job. You know, I had to leave my country and everything. But it's the pressure. I was warned against becoming a founder in Silicon Valley. I don't know if it's Silicon Valley-ish or if it's just, I don't know, I was warned that this would be hard. It's a combination of a lot of things. Everyone you meet are anxious somehow. They look super calm, very well put together.

1:10:20But the psychological pressure here is enormous. I mean, on my right-hand side, I have Tim Cook. He's my neighbor, Apple. I have Larry Page, Google, on my left-hand side. I have Steve Jobs' widow, Lorene, lives down the street here. And I have Marissa Mayer on my left. So my street is just crazy. So even if I raise$7.5 million, my neighbor just raised$2.3 billion or whatever. And so I will say, in a way, you do sell your soul a little bit. Yeah, I think that's, yeah. I think, do you think in every sales situation you sell your soul a little bit? I don't know. I think the VC game is just slightly different.

1:11:08I don't know. Yeah, because I guess the dream for them is they want to make 100 times their money. That's a real success. Yeah, they don't want 10x or 50x. They want 100x. They want to go for the big. Right, because they figure on average their fund is great if after 10 years it's 10x up overall. So that means they need to aim for the moonshots. They need to aim for the 100x things. Yeah. And it's hard. It's hard to pitch them. But James, it's still a privilege, right? I cannot sit here and whine over the fact that I'm running a tech startup in Silicon Valley. It's a privilege. I don't agree. I think you can.

1:11:46Can I? Can I? Yes. Because now I've mentioned in the beginning and then just now we mentioned the rejection aspect. and you said that you repeated as if you're reminding yourself oh no i went through all the rejection when i was younger but you know it's not it's never pleasant to be rejected even once and even now even after all the armor you've built up it's never pleasant and it's constant the rejection there and plus not only that like you said everybody around you is a billionaire or or a hundred millionaire or whatever yeah and and so there's a lot of pressure in that sense too Like that's going to, not like an envy sort of pressure, but it's just around.

1:12:26It's just in your head. It's taking up real estate. Like Silicon Valley, I think, is weird mental real estate somehow, which is why I never moved there. But I always wondered if I should. Like I never did, but I always wondered if I was going to regret it later not moving there. You just moved-ish, right? So will you put another move and you're just settling where you're living now? but you could live here and I'll tell you why because you love learning you love people you love stories you know and you know I've never lived in a place where there are so many smart people everyone you talk to it could even be a mom not nothing against mom I'm a mom myself but listen a mom who's picking up her second grader right and you just talk to her for five minutes then she has a triple phd from stanford and she's rockin side you know everyone here is smart right and so I don't know about you but I feel like a third grader every day.

1:13:23I bet you that's exciting and I know a lot of VCs in Silicon Valley and I know a lot of people there and I probably know some of your investors I'm sure and everybody is super smart. I don't know. I just never took the plunge to go out there because I knew it would be all consuming. All consuming. It is all consuming. I don't know if I could handle that. Like I like to do many things and I'm sure you do as well. But when you're building a company like that, that's in the middle of Silicon Valley and it's going to be VC funded, it's got to be your thousand percent focus. Well, everything else suffers, right?

1:14:02To be quite honest, yeah. Yeah, you have to focus. And I don't know. Do you feel like you're over some hurdle now that you've raised this round and then you've got these customers? Yeah, it's really weird. You know, we raised five million just a few weeks ago. We signed the term sheet and everything. And just as I signed it, another big fund came, like the dream fund of my life, and said, well, we would also like to put in between one and three million. And I'm like, really? So you kind of get this snowball effect, right? I don't know. Until the money is wired, until the new team member starts, then it will always feel a little surreal.

1:14:42So I don't celebrate just yet, even though that everything is signed and stuff. And I know it's pretty - Yeah, there's always the next thing. Like now you have to, like you've been doing, you've been closing customers. Okay, but now you've got to deliver the product and collect the money. And then you have to show growth because if without growth, the valuation sort of falters. And it is never ending until you sell the company. And then the most dangerous part begins, I think. After you sell the company, people kind of hold off being sick. until their companies are sold. And then you have to watch out.

1:15:15Well, I don't want to scare you. But I've known people who it's as if you could kind of like force yourself to be healthy until all that stress is over. And then your body's like, okay, can I be sick now? And then it all comes out. So that's always a point I warn people. You've got to be careful at that moment. Well, yeah, it's definitely something to think about. I will say I live more healthy now than I've ever done before because I cannot afford to waste any brain calories, right? Sure. Sleep, exercise, alcohol, anything. You have to be super aware and awake. It's really, it's almost like taking part of Olympics, but for entrepreneurs, right?

1:15:59You don't go to Silicon Valley and build a startup if you want to just be-ish successful. You go here if you want to, and you believe you can make it big. Otherwise, you don't go here, right? Then you go to, I don't know, Berlin or London, no offense, but you don't go to Silicon Valley if you just want a half-ass it. You have to go here if you really believe you can make it big and your software can be part of the standard suite of Microsoft or be bought by Zoom or whatever, right? You don't go here if you, yeah. Now, do you get worried AI is moving so fast? Do you ever get worried that, okay, someone could just tomorrow?

1:16:37So, like, I don't think your moat is probably not your product. It's probably your relationships, really. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. And the contracts, right? And today I spoke to one of the biggest companies in the world, right? And they're pretty sophisticated on AI already. And they said, we have not seen a product that is doing what you do pre-meeting. It's really the pre-meeting market space, right? No one is attacking that. Everyone is doing note-taking and post-meeting follow-ups and stuff. or no one does anything pre-meetings, which is really weird because you can diagnose a low-quality meeting long before it takes place.

1:17:13Who cares about what is going on during the meeting, right? Because then you're there, right? But I really don't want you to be in that meeting at all if it's not worth your time. Yeah, I can see how, like, so let's say I'm the CEO of a company and I'm evaluating your product, I can think to myself, well, hmm, can my IT department do this? Well, do I really, A, the budget set, Do I really want to dedicate their resource to this when I could just buy this product right here? It's just off the shelf. Yeah, I mean, you should ask your CTO, right? If you are a CEO of a big company, hey, listen, John, Ben, Jane, how many percentage of our meetings are worth people's time?

1:17:51If the CTO cannot answer this, then you need our product. Yeah, and so that's good. Well, congratulations on the round. That's incredible. And really, congratulations on everything. By the way, I should mention you write a column for Forbes and your column today was Snoop Dogg talking about self-mastery. So I just wanted to ask, like, how do you, and I believe you. I actually once wrote an article that this was about, I think in 2014, I said Snoop Dogg should be CEO of Twitter because he was jokingly himself saying he should be CEO of Twitter. And I said, here's 10 reasons why Snoop Dogg should be CEO of Twitter.

1:18:29And he reposted it, like he retweeted it and said he's got the message. So I think I agree with you. Snoop Dogg is fantastic. I think he should deserve much more applause than he does, right? He's so extraordinary, talented, and insightful. Yes, I write for Forbes. I have a weekly show for the World Economic Forum. Every Saturday, I interview head of state from this humble kitchen table, right? It's pretty awesome. I've done that for four years. I've interviewed Malala. I've shared a stage with Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, I've done incredible stuff in my life. And that despite the fact that I learned to speak English in 2007, right?

1:19:08I mean, everything I've done in my life, I've done it through hustle and access to free education online. I really just wrapped it together somehow in my own way. I should tell you, by the way, when I built Happio, one of our investors gave me a playbook, how to build a successful SaaS company. There's a playbook for that. I looked at it. It was lying next to me for a few months. And I was so obsessed about it, right? And only when I threw it out, that was really when I started thriving. So I also think sometimes we are so obsessed about reading how things should be done that that we forget to maybe follow the flow, surrender, see every situation, even every person we meet, not categorize them as good or bad, but just as a learning.

1:20:01And I really believe that life will not let me down. She has invested too much in me to let me down. And I think also you have so much experience on every side of the table that that is going to propel your business forward more than a book, more than some kid who, you know, built a SaaS company and sold it for 400 million and then wrote a book about it. Like you've got the real deal on both sides. You're providing value. And I think always leading with value is really strong. Yeah, and then be sincere in why you're doing it, right? You spoke a few weeks ago, have you done that a few times in your podcasts?

1:20:41Building something meaningful is what needs to be done. You cannot, I mean, hope is important. Passion is important. All these things. Motivation. I don't believe in motivation, right? I'm driven by my principles and healthy routines. And then I have vision and it has to have a great deal of purpose. That's a real interesting thing you just said that you don't believe in motivation. Because I agree with that because if you only work when you're motivated, you're going to work one tenth of the time. Like you have to, what success is, is working when you don't feel motivated. You know, when you wake up at four in the morning or five in the morning or whatever you do and you get up even though you don't want to.

1:21:23Yeah. And that's success. I mean, it's just like anything else. I don't know about sport. You know, I didn't grow up with sport. I, you know, I couldn't afford the privilege of thinking about sport. I was trying to survive. But when I was 15, 16, I started exercising and, you know, I started running. and fast forward. I've done a few extreme races since then. I did a few fitness competitions as bodybuilding for women. I've done all kind of ski marathons and whatnot, just extreme stuff. And every time the recipe has been the same, I sleep in my gym wear. I put my shoes out so when the alarm wins off at 5 a.m., I don't have to argue with myself.

1:22:04Do I feel like running? Of course I don't feel like running. So I don't trust my motivation. Motivation comes and goes, but your principles and your routines, they are there to stay. So you better make sure that you have healthy routines. Of course, you're not a machine, right? I'm not a machine, but just two, three, four, five healthy habits overall in your life will set you up for success. And you know, I am really not that smart. I am not. I don't believe that. No, James, no, James, no, no, I'm serious here. I'm not, you know, I have not had math since fourth grade. That's not smart. I mean, that's not an example of...

1:22:39Okay, but you know what I mean. I'm not educated, right? I keep laughing because people are so much more educated than me. And I actually think it's a good thing that I'm not super educated because I can afford, I have the privilege of allowing myself to be an amateur. And unlike a lot of people. I don't care if I only have one subscriber for my newsletter or one whatever, because I have always started out with nothing. Nothing has been given to me at scale. And you can laugh. That's fine. People have laughed at me many times. You can reject me. You can let me be all by myself alone and don't invite me to anything.

1:23:20That's okay too, because I've celebrated birthdays and Christmas is all by myself. So that's not a punishment. So in a way, even if I lose everything once again, I do know who I am when I have nothing and I can live with that too. Well, it's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast. I'm glad our mutual friend Avatik introduced us. And where can people find you? Or where do you want people to look for you? Well, I love connecting on Twitter. So Twitter is definitely a good place, but I also have a homepage, sulayma.com. It's just my name, S-O-U-L-A-I-M-A.com. And then, yeah, LinkedIn also, Instagram.

1:24:08I'm also active. I'm just really honored to be on this podcast today. I had no idea. The honor is all mine, believe me. Really? Yeah, I was very excited. Like I said to Avo, our mutual friend, oh, you have to introduce me. Like he started to tell me a little bit your story. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Just I'll ask her about it on the podcast. I'm really grateful you're here. Yeah, I don't know. Here's the thing. You are the most humanized author and podcaster in the entire world. So the honor is all mine. Oh, well, I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. Thank you so much. And again, come back on anytime.

1:24:48And, you know, it's been such a pleasure having you on. So I'm really grateful. Thank you so much, James. Thank you so much.