From Milking Cows in Kyrgyzstan to Building a $98%-Approval Law Firm | Aizada Marat (Alma)

19:03Amrit Rao:How are you going to do it? And I'm like, it doesn't matter. We'll do it. Like, we'll do it. We'll find means how to do it. We'll find ourselves a great technical co-founder. And interestingly, when we landed Shuo and when we announced, like, that day I had so many inbounds from all the VCs. And I'm like, I'm not talking to you at this point. Like, sorry. But Shuo was also my husband's co-founder introduced me to Shuo. They worked both at Uber. and interestingly they both represented different teams at uber and they competed in like in this dragon boat they were both captains um so he introduced me to shuo and i spent like we were supposed to meet for 30 minutes and i think i i spoke with him for like until the the coffee shop closed and we had very honest conversation about everything from the get-go he's very direct and I'm one of the most direct people out there.

19:59Amrit Rao:So we had very honest and direct conversation about everything, about startup, about family, about everything. So we both, we sure settled on what really united us is that we're not going to build some small company. This is not for us. If you are in it not to build a big company, let's not do it at all. Like if you are in it to build a big company and we do not give up until we build a big company, that's like really sure was like, I'm 100 % in. I don't want to waste my time until we build a big company. So that's how we really connected, both very direct, very open, and very similar in our, I think, intensity as well.

20:43Amrit Rao:Shuo and I are very intense. I'm most likely the most intense. And then Shuo and then Asal is the one who actually brings up some light. Really? Yes. The Harvard Business School grad. She's the nicest. and shuo and i are constantly trying to work on our intensity level but like not so much on like it's more so how our intensity shows up but like you can't really change like shuo and i have discussed this and i'm like unfortunately this is not going to change i'm not 20 like no one can mold me at this point i'm just the way i am so so is shuo aisha can't mold you i don't think so so talking about my daughter you know it's like now i already see she's so stubborn as well and i'm I'm like, I'll just let her be.

21:30Amrit Rao:She's one and a half years old and she's already so stubborn. But one credit I need to give to my parents, I was so stubborn and rebellious and they never broke me. They just let me be. And that's Chingiz and I, what we have discussed. And he's like, Chingiz is the biggest feminist out of Central Asia, I think. He's like, I admire how your parents brought you up. So he's like, we should never break our daughter. And I'm like 100 % aligned. So, yeah.

22:03Aizada Marat:That's beautiful. You weren't always an AI immigration firm. Tell us about navigating the idea maze with Acel to where you are today. And what can founders learn from your journey pivoting?

22:16Amrit Rao:Yes. So we started in 2023, late 2023. This is when we talked to you. I think in December we raised the funds. We were a B2B SaaS company and we were trying to sell immigration software to law firms. And I think we need to just touch base a little bit on what was so broken in immigration that I decided to start a company in the first place. I worked at Cooley and I used to charge billable hours. And the model is very different there. You You work with companies that have deep pockets and they just want their work to be done. And these are very important things to the company. You're doing their like important corporate documents, corporate governance, or you are like doing an IPO for them or you're doing an M &A or you're handling litigation.

23:12Amrit Rao:Those are all such important things that go to the core of the business. And then when companies think about something important that goes to core of the business, they want to go to big law firms. And if you look at big law firms, this is like MCHAM 100, the market is pretty consolidated. Like 20 % of the big law firms almost own 80 % of the market. That's how it works. And then if you look at immigration, it's very, very fragmented because it's just the entire business model is different. Immigration charges flat fee. So, for example, other than a couple of law firms that charge hourly, but if it's like a horizontal law firm that does everything, and sometimes they might do immigration, but it's very few law firms that do that, they might charge hourly.

23:59Amrit Rao:But usually it's just flat fee for everyone. And when you charge flat fee, really low flat fee, how big law firms like Fragman were able to go around it? They have huge Indian office. And this is where all the work, the low value that requires manual effort gets done in India. And this is fundamentally broken, right? Because the actual attorneys just don't have bandwidth to do it because they're not charging$1 ,000 an hour. They're charging like$3 ,000 for a visa. It takes like, I don't know, like 10 to 20 hours and they must outsource some part of the work to non-attorneys and low qualified, low skilled people.

24:44Amrit Rao:And that results in very inconsistent quality of legal services and the general frustration that everyone has with immigration. I had my issues with immigration, but if you talk to a lot of companies, it's the same. They compare with their corporate law firms and they say like, oh, our corporate law firm is amazing, but our immigration law firm is not. But I'm like, you're paying your corporate law firm, I'm sure like hundreds of thousands, like for every engagement. They're like, yes, yes. But also it's like we're still paying money to immigration law firms. So we would want consistent legal services and we also want some technology because immigration, unlike other areas of law, you actually have to manage.

25:25Amrit Rao:Imagine like you are a company on behalf of Village Global. You're sponsoring, let's say, like hundreds of foreign nationals. And at any given time, you want to know what's happening to their cases, right? Like, is there a bottleneck with your employees? Is there a bottleneck with their attorneys? Why things are moving? Why things are not moving? Because it actually costs money to you. The same was with Cooley, right? Like when they couldn't get me to start on time, they were like literally didn't know. Should they hire a temp for me? Like, what should they do? Do I know when my work authorization will be available?

25:58Amrit Rao:And I just kept saying, hopefully next month. And we didn't even know. We didn't have any clarity. We didn't have transparency. And those are the problems that we're ultimately solving. First is how to provide great quality of services. And this is possible with AI. And this might be some controversial take. I don't know if people will agree or not. But large language models have passed California Bar, whose flying colors, right? And California Bar is one of the hardest tests in the country. I bet if you bring anyone from India that is working on your immigration documents on behalf of Fragomen, can they pass the California Bar?

26:38Amrit Rao:So why would you trust them versus a large language model? So our belief is that we need to just hire expert attorneys who provide great quality of services, but we need to augment them. We need to make them 10x attorneys, right? Like so that they can actually outsource all the low value manual effort jobs to AI so that they can focus on strategic things and they can actually control the outcome to make sure that you get approvals. Because ultimately what matters in immigration is approvals that are done fast. Because companies, if you think of like, why even companies sponsor immigrant talent?

27:16Amrit Rao:Because companies just want to hire best talent regardless where it comes from. And if there are delays, if there is uncertainty, then they're just losing money because their best engineer cannot start working and they need to ship products fast. So this is how immigration is actually a competitive advantage for companies. And that's like a salt with the quality of services that we provide, but also the technology. Because when you manage hundreds and sometimes thousands of foreign nationals, how do you even like stay on top of things? Because usually how the day of someone who manages immigration looks like is that they get like hundreds of emails from their employees asking, what's happening to my case?

27:57Amrit Rao:Attorney is not responding. I want to travel to India. Can I? Like, and all of those questions, they're flooded with emails and like, but they also have to do meaningful work. So that's what we automate. We bring technology not only to our attorneys, but also to the companies that we work with so that their life gets easier. They get the time back so that they can focus on strategic things. This is how I decided to solve the immigration problem, right? And then going back to Shuo, he led the team that built Michelangelo at Uber. and he's incredibly talented. And that was super important for me to lend someone who had very deep tech expertise and skills.

28:40Amrit Rao:And he was an ML engineer from day one. And interestingly, as I told you, when I landed him, there was so much inbound. But we were able to, actually before we even landed Shuo, we were able to launch an MVP. We were able to ship it in two months and we started testing it. But when you ask about pivot, it was really about, I attended a conference in Chicago. It was a legal tech conference, one of the biggest conferences. And what was obvious to me, what we had in our MVP, a lot of companies, incumbents promised that they'll get there. And in 2020, this was early 2024, the shipping velocity was not there.

29:22Amrit Rao:So they were still behind. but they would promise like oh this will come in like q3 or q4 of 2024 and i'm like we can build this fast but i felt like this is not a sustainable advantage long term um the large language will get better um the cost of a building will go will go lower the velocity will increase so how do we how do we even build a sustainable business so at that conference it was just obvious to me that we need to make a pivot and we need to become a law firm. So we came back from the conference. I gathered my co-founders and I said, we need to pivot. And we decided the same day that we need to pivot and we pivoted.

30:02Amrit Rao:And what were the trade-offs, if you ask, some track record that we've got, right? Because we had some clients testing out, we had around like five law firms testing out our product, we were getting feedback, but it was about whether we want, you know, like a temporary setback, but strategic win in a long term. So we decided to go for the strategic win long term. And it was very, very obvious choice. It wasn't even that difficult because it was so obvious, so obvious to us. Not so obvious to the market, I think, back then, but it was very obvious. And this is when I understood it's like, startup founders are so deep that they actually know, but sometimes the problem is how to take a step back and just understand that you're not going in the right direction.

30:48Amrit Rao:that because you can work hard and try to do something that's not going to get you anywhere, but you can put the same amount of hard work in something that's going to yield like 100x results. So it was clear for us that we need to focus on where it will be the most promising. And at the end of the day, we just understood that we need to control the entire workflow end to end, and we need to control the outcome and we need to guarantee the outcome.

31:22Amrit Rao:And 100 % it was the right decision to make. We've grown so much since then. And what Alma is building, there's definitely a need in the market for it because we just talk to customers and it is so interesting. Sometimes we talk to prospective clients and before they talk to Alma, they're like, I'm not sure, I'm pretty happy. And then once they talk to us, they're like, OK, before we met you, we didn't know we need you.

31:50Aizada Marat:I love that.

31:51Amrit Rao:So we're like, see?

31:53Aizada Marat:Do you want to take a moment and share a case study that really brings that to life?

31:59Amrit Rao:Yes, yes, 100%. At this point, we have built out a couple of case studies with companies. But just most recently, we did a case study with a company called Rundu. They're also trying to automate a very like conventional, traditional way of doing business. It's like this small shops, how to basically automate them and give them a lot of leverage with technology. And they work with like paint shops and whatnot. And interestingly, what was what was what really resonated with me? And I thought this is so deep because the founders are not immigrants. They're both local. They were like literally born in California, both went to Stanford undergrad.

32:42Amrit Rao:And when they started building the company, they both quickly understood that people they liked during the final interviews were immigrants. And they were like, oh, interesting. And then they started looking into an immigration provider and they worked with a traditional law firm. And then they found, as they say, it's like startups have this unfair advantage of discovering undiscovered talent. So instead of competing for talent that has been already discovered by Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, whatnot, they started looking into Waterloo. They have this like co-op program where apparently like they do internships for half a year and study half a year.

33:21Amrit Rao:So they started looking into the later, basically students in later classes, those who are about to graduate like the same year or next year. And they started to bring them for internships and then sponsoring their visas. us. So they've grown a lot. And as they say, it's like top talent fuels the growth, right? Because that's the only, like the company that you built is the team that you built. So they've understood it so early and they're so smart that they fixed it proactively. They worked with a traditional law firm, but they've understood that like they shouldn't be wasting time chasing the traditional law firm, trying to understand where the cases are.

33:59Amrit Rao:So they proactively looked for a solution. they found us through some VC. They've asked around and one VC said, you should look into Alma. And then they came to us and they said, this has been life changing for them because now the CTO, Andrew, he actually handles immigration matters because they're so important to them. He spends less than an hour a week if he like spends like maybe, I don't know, sometimes he might spend 10 minutes, sometimes he might. But he's like, everything is clear. He's like, I don't want to talk to anyone. Like, I just like, if I need to sign something, I'll sign it and upload it.

34:35Amrit Rao:Like, I don't need to, you know, go into the detail. And he's like, I just look at the platform. Cases are moving along. I talk to employees in the office, they're all happy. And he's like, I just got my time back. So this is, I think, super critical. And of course, we have 100 % approval rate for Rundu. And this is something that they're also happy with. But But the other thing that we do very differently is how fast we move. We understand is that in this very competitive talent market, if you slow down on anything, you're going to lose your candidate. So we move fastest and all of our basically commitments are live on the platform.

35:15Amrit Rao:Alma is the only company that guarantees it. We guaranteed all of the deadlines are on our platform and that's what companies love about us.

35:22Aizada Marat:Wow. And that speed must be directly a result of your automation strategy. What have you taken a principled stance or a point of view on that ought to be automated and what should not be automated? Yes.

35:38Amrit Rao:The ultimate legal advice cannot be automated. The strategic advice, like for example, what visa this person should apply for, or like how do you position this person when we're applying for this visa? Those are the decision making processes that will stay with attorneys at all times because this is too important. And you touch on human's life. So it is super important. But like low value work, when you're filling out the forms or drafting the first version of the documents, instead of them being done in India and where humans are, there are errors. We bring AI. And AI at this point, as I said, will do just a better job because it passes California bar with flying colors.

36:18Amrit Rao:So AI gets to a very good place. And then there are still attorneys bridge the gap because at the end of the day, ALMA is a law firm where California registered as required by the state bar. We must ensure that every single petition is reviewed by human and this will always stay.

36:41Aizada Marat:That's awesome. And fast forwarding 10 years from now, why do you think the future of immigration law will look like Alma versus what it looks like today?

36:53Amrit Rao:The answer is short. They will not be able to compete with us. Because if you think of the manual labor involved in immigration with traditional law firms, it's like they really need to invest a lot in engineering talent to change that. would engineers, top engineers go and work for traditional law firms where they don't have the traditional incentives of equity, right? And it's not that cool to work for a traditional law firm as an engineer. So that would be the biggest bottleneck if they want to do it. And I think it's like engineering talent is one, all the product managers that we can attract.

37:34Amrit Rao:And I think it's like all the attorneys that are also joining Alma, they just want to change. Like they are currently working at traditional law firms and they're underwater. They're working insane hours and there's still mistakes. There's still inconsistency. And who wants to do a sloppy work? No one. They want to be augmented by AI. They want to use AI because at this point, especially in the Bay Area, it's so clear that AI provides a lot of leverage to humans. So So that's where I think it's like just the talent that is ahead of the curve. They will not join traditional law firms that is like so big and so bureaucratic and so hard to change.

38:19Amrit Rao:And that's why startups usually win, right? Like we're focused and we move fast. And that's where the advantage is. And I just think in the future is like when they see over years how Alma makes improvements, constant improvements and constant leaps, They'll be so far behind that it will be insanely hard for them to survive.

38:39Aizada Marat:Yeah. So speed, the reason why Alma wins customers in addition to just winning cases?

38:46Amrit Rao:Yeah, 100%. I think speed, but also consistent quality at scale. Because the problem is, if you look at traditional law firms, they're great attorneys, but they all operate in silo. And sometimes I talk to clients of some of the law firms and they say, oh, you know, it's like my attorneys are great. And I talk to another company that works with the same firm and they're like, oh, I hate my experience. And it's all because they're just like different people serving them. And that shouldn't be a problem at Alma because all attorneys are powered by the collective intelligence of all the attorneys.

39:22Amrit Rao:So it's like, for example, let's say you're drafting a petition. you learn from all the petitions that were filed by Alma, and actually AI helps attorneys to make certain decisions so that they know what other attorney, like for example, if other attorney received some sort of request for evidence, another attorney that is touching a new case, they would know because it immediately goes into our AI intelligence and they would know. But all the data that all of these companies collected over the years, it is not being used, right? It just sits there and data is not a leverage for them, but for us is.

39:55Amrit Rao:So I would say like the collective intelligence. We learn from every case that we file to improve outcomes and to deliver better. And that results in consistent quality at scale. And of course, it results in speed because we just deliver things fast because there are so many automations in place for our attorneys as well.

40:16Aizada Marat:You're the only founder where we did a double date before we actually partnered. And that's potentially a good segue to how we met you. So tell us what it's like to be married to a villager.

40:31Amrit Rao:Yeah. My husband, Genghis, he is a founder and marrying him was one of the most likely the best decision in my life. But it was a decision specifically because when I met him, I was like, okay, like he checked all of my boxes. And then I was like, okay, now I'm going to give it a chance if we develop romantic feelings. And it so happened. And I was very happy about it because he's incredibly sharp. And he always advises me things throughout like my life. He constantly keeps telling me like, oh, you're so much bigger than this. You could do so much more. And he believes in me so much. So he's, of course, my biggest supporter.

41:16Amrit Rao:And And because he started his company before me, I could avoid a lot of pitfalls. Like I, whatever things, he was like, don't do this, do this, you know, because he's done it. So my journey was somewhat easier because I had a founder inside of my house. And it actually being married to a founder, it's great because we just understand each other. And, you know, it's, we go to the same events. we share all the resources if we come across someone great that is part-time like designer we're like share resources videographers we share resources um seo agencies we share resources so it's like we just share a lot of things um and we also give feedback to each other um because we know um you know what our strengths and weaknesses are so we basically like okay this is how you can do things differently.

42:15Amrit Rao:Over the weekend, we constantly talk about our companies. So I wouldn't be surprised if Aisha, when she talks, she would talk startup, you know, because she would just know everything about startups. Because that's what we talk about all day long. Because as a founder, you cannot turn off. And I'm just so glad Chingiz is founder as well. Because if it wasn't a founder, I'm not sure if there would be the same level of understanding because we never turn off. We're constantly working. We sometimes we're like, OK, let's watch a movie. But like 10 minutes into the movie, like one of us pulls a laptop and then second looks and be like, OK, so pulls a laptop and then we're just working and we're OK with it.

42:59Amrit Rao:I'm I'm not sure if another husband from Central Asia would tolerate this. They would be like, what's going on? You're just constantly thinking about your startup and we just joke is like he's like he tells me okay for you it's like it's aisha and alma and i'm like number 10 and i'm like it's the same for you it's like you know it's code if and aisha and i'm but temporarily everything is fine because we still spend a lot of time because we have a common ground of like discussing our companies i love that and you're a strong woman

43:30Aizada Marat:and and i know that you and chingiz have such a beautiful partnership now i didn't really think about the advice that Chingiz has been giving you along the way, what would you say is the best piece of advice? And what is an example of advice that you as a strong Central Asian woman chose to ignore to your benefit?

43:51Amrit Rao:So I think the best piece of advice he gives me continuously because he has an outside in perspective. I'm always in founder mode. And because I started this company. I care about everything, small and big. So I get involved with everything. So he always tells me, take a step back and think about all the 10x things only you can do and focus there. And sometimes like if at midnight, he sees me responding to some Slack message and he's like, what are you doing? Like, let's talk. Is this important in the grand scheme of things or not? Like what you should be doing instead? Like what can you do for the startup to make leaps?

44:31Amrit Rao:So that's why he always like he knows that I am very execution oriented. I go into everything into the weeds. I want to control everything because the company's everything is important about this company to me. And he just tells me like as a CEO, I need to basically take a step back and always focus on what's most important. So he always grounds me and helps me think about it. And he I mean, like he's given so many great pieces of like tactical advice, strategic advice. For example, the banner at Ramen, we are famously located right next to Ramen Nagi in Palo Alto, which is a very popular spot.

45:09Amrit Rao:And we have a banner right next to it, which says, why are you waiting for your ramen? Like, are you also waiting for your immigration? Like, maybe you just might as well step in and check out. And that banner went viral. And we got actual customers because of that banner. because we work with one company. And when I asked, how did you know about us? They said, oh, our CEO was there. And he took a screenshot and told, oh, this is cool. We should work with them. And that's how, and it's one of the very fast growing robotics companies. So, you know, it just works. So he gives me both tactical and strategic advice.

45:50Amrit Rao:And the advice that I didn't take and I just couldn't take was when I gave birth. He was like, you cannot go back to work. Like you need to recover. but I had no other option because the company 2024 was still small even now I don't think I could have I can take any time off you just cannot so he was like you need to recover you need to take some time off but I just couldn't so after a week I was already at work um I started checking my phone like the second day and then like after a week I was back at work full time um this is when And he was like, you should have taken more time because he was like, you're not recovering.

46:29Amrit Rao:This is not good long term. And because he cares for me. But at the same time, like when I say no, but like, you know, would you just step away from your company? Like I give birth, but you can also step away from your company. Right. His response was, but I cannot produce milk. So it's like, I don't have to step back. And I was like, well, I can pump. And like, you know, it's the same. So but he totally understood it. He just wanted me to recover. So that was one thing I pushed back on.

46:59Aizada Marat:That's awesome. Switching gears a little. Well, actually, I have one more question. Do you ever karaoke with Chingiz?

47:07Amrit Rao:That's a good question. Chingiz does not sing. I sing a lot. So Chingiz does not sing and does not dance. He likes to talk about strategy, like even at 1 a.m. Like we hang out with our friends. I'm singing karaoke because I need to release all the tension. And he's just talking all the strategy stuff. He's among our friends, the startup founder group. He's the most beloved advisor to everyone. Everyone comes to Chinggis with their hard questions. They're like, I'm having issues with my co-founder. I have to fire this person or like we need to make a pivot. This is not working. Chingiz is very good at advising and actually understanding the problem.

47:55Amrit Rao:It doesn't work with me. Like they tell me something, I already have my point of view. And then I say, this is what you should do. Like, I don't understand why you're not doing it, right? So, but these are founders. They need to have their buy-in and whatnot. So it's like, it's very different. So I don't advise. I just deal with my own company. But Chingiz is very good at advising.

48:16Aizada Marat:He's the AXA call.

48:17Amrit Rao:Yes, yes, exactly. He's like, everyone tells that, like, everyone says that he's very wise and that, you know, later in life, he should definitely become a VC. All of our friends like literally be like, you know, Chingiz, can you please recommend this? Everyone just goes to Chingiz. um yeah i go to him as well because he has very valuable because the thing about ching is he reads books like crazy um he reads all the books and then i get the benefit of it i just ask him okay what are the three core ideas or five core ideas in this book because everything repeats but what's different maybe what's um controversial what's hot take or maybe something and and he shares.

49:03Amrit Rao:He loves sharing. So I just benefit from it.

49:05Aizada Marat:So that's the best.

49:08Amrit Rao:I don't know how he benefits from me, but I definitely benefit a lot from him.

49:12Aizada Marat:Well, we'll bring him into this room and ask him the same questions about you. I know he'll have some great answers. Now, you have interviewed so many people. You talked about Dario, et cetera. Who are your biggest inspirations beyond Chingiz, of course, in terms of what influences your vision and execution at Alma?

49:35Amrit Rao:I think ultimately my inspiration are all the founders that are ahead of me because I know how difficult the journey is. And I know that it requires a lot of perseverance, resilience, and just not giving up. All these people, they want to win. they're ambitious and startup journey takes a toll on you right it's like takes a toll on your relationships I haven't like I haven't spent any meaningful time with our friends I just like I just don't because if I have any time I try to spend with my daughter and it takes a toll on you so all the founders that keep grinding year over year resilient being resilient and still passionate about what they do, they're so inspiring.

50:23Amrit Rao:It's like, I listen to a lot of podcasts with founders. And right now it's like for a lot of founders that did not catch the AI wave and built traditional businesses, it's incredibly hard, right? Like I've listened to a CEO of Atlassian, for example, right? Like incredibly good business, but under such pressure, how the future of the business is going to look like. And I'm just amazed at all of these founders because they care for their companies. They try to do what's best. So one of the latest podcasts I've watched was with CEO of Uploven, Adam. Incredible founder. He's been through thick and thin of building a company.

51:06Amrit Rao:So resilient and so intense. And he's very open about it. He tries not to sugarcoat it. He's very intense. And he says, yes, it's been hard on my family, but like you either do it or you don't do it. Like this is no one is forcing you to do this. And that's what I feel like as well. This is my I was very intentional about building a startup. As I said in the beginning, I was illusionless. And that's why it's like I'm I'm I'm the same person. I'm illusionless. But at the same time, it's like this is the one thing that I enjoy so much. I used to work very hard at all of my previous jobs, and this is just how I was brought up.

51:47Amrit Rao:But this is my most intense and most favorite job ever. I don't think I want to do anything else than this job because every day it's problem solving. Every day is a new challenge. Every day I'm learning. Like my slope of learning was just like this since I started this company. And it's just like 2x because I'm also learning the journey of my husband at the same time.

52:14Aizada Marat:Maybe we all get that. That's awesome. What advice, you know, since we're asking, you've been very positive about all the folks that you get advice from. It's time for us to ask your advice for founders who are cracking zero to one. What are the two or three things that you would advise folks as they are starting to think about an idea that they will turn into a vision and then a reality that you would offer our audience?

52:44Amrit Rao:I think the most important to me is to really think about the problem that they want to solve, whether it's a real problem, whether it's a nice have or a must have. Because sometimes founders fall in love with the idea too early. and this is what you know Chinggis says is this is his literally words he says like you shouldn't treat your startup as your baby because you you take your baby out and you want everyone to say what a cute baby how adorable oh I love your baby but if anyone says anything bad about your baby you become so defensive and this is a little baby imagine so it's like you become so defensive and you shouldn't be that.

53:28Amrit Rao:You should treat your startup like a car that you're building because you want actually to show it to people so that they can take a ride and see and say like, oh, like maybe you should improve this, maybe you should improve that. So you cannot fall in love with the idea too early and then be defensive and just to be too stuck. You need to really test it and I think this is where the mom test book is really helpful because your mom will just support you in everything. And I think this is another hot take. I think American culture is very supportive where everyone is like you say, oh, I want to do this.

54:03Amrit Rao:Everyone's like, wow, that's a great idea. You know, I'd love to buy that. It's all fluff. You should say like, OK, give me your money. Would you pay for it like today? Are you ready to sign a contract? Do not marry to your idea too fast. Actually, actually see if people are willing to pay money for it. Only then start it. But I think right now it's even harder than to start a company in 2023 because right now it's like everyone can build a product fast, right? Like the LLM's AI made it so possible. And for big companies, right, like if your contract size is too big, all these companies will start thinking about, should we just build it internally?

54:46Amrit Rao:But if your contract size is smaller, they might be, oh, we're not going to bother with it. We'll just buy it from them. But it also requires just a new level of resilience, I would say, because you need to be solving difficult problems. Because if it's just like a glorified some app layer, it will be really, really hard to survive. Because if anyone can replicate what you can do, then what you can do differently. Can you build distribution fast? Are you Brett Taylor, like that has access to everything in this world? then if not, why are you building this? Why do you think you have fundamental advantage to build a faster distribution or that you can build a better brand?

55:30What makes you believe

55:32Amrit Rao:that your company will survive long term? So I feel like now it is the best time to start a lot of services businesses because people want outcome and they don't want to learn your technology. seriously like when account like when we were doing like early on we were looking for accountants and there were companies that tried to sell me their software and they were like this is so easy to learn and i'm like believe me i have zero zero desire to learn your software i i don't want to like i need to focus on my thing don't sell me your software please like if you tell me that you will do my books yeah just every month i'll buy it but i'll not buy your software right and that's what everyone wants.

56:16Amrit Rao:People tell me about tax, whatever software. I'm like, please, don't waste my time. I just want the outcome. Very similar with immigration. People want outcomes. Companies want outcomes and they don't want to teach software. So this is, I think, the best time to start services businesses. When was the best time? It was when I started it and the second best time is now.

56:40Aizada Marat:Yeah, I love that. I'm a child of immigrants. You are an immigrant. You're operating a business for immigrants. You might have a point of view on what gives immigrant founders a strategic advantage. What comes to mind?

56:55Amrit Rao:For a lot of immigrant founders, I think the countries where we come from, from the bottom of my heart, I don't think I could have accomplished all the things I've accomplished in the U.S. back home. Because the country is small. It's a poor country. And there's still corruption. So I wouldn't be where I am today if I was back home. And I'm just so grateful for all the opportunities I have in the United States. And I think I have the resilience that many people don't. I'm just talking about specifically myself. I told you, I milked cows. I, you know, I helped field workers. I myself worked in the fields.

57:38Amrit Rao:So what can be more difficult than that? Like actually, you know, like, I don't know, planting potatoes, like under 40 Celsius. Like what can be like harder than that? Nothing. So that's what I, when I used to do anything manual, my parents would tell me only education pull you out of all of this, only education or all of your life, you will continue doing manual work. and I hated manual work because I did it every day after school. And that's why it's like no problem exists that I am scared to approach or address or like no challenge that exists there. I'm like, oh, I'm scared of it. I'm like, I just remember where I come from.

58:21Amrit Rao:And it's a privilege to be here. Literally, it's a privilege to be here, to be building a company. And I'm not sure if I've shared this with you, but Chingiz and I, we've talked about it and we're like, this is insane. Like the fact that VCs are willing to give us money, pre-product, pre-everything, just believing in us, it's like a dream to build something that we want to build, that where we want to spend time. So we understand this is a privilege and we do not take it for granted. And at the end of the day, I could have been back home with my family and I am here. I don't see my siblings grow up.

59:02Amrit Rao:I don't see my nephew grow up. I don't attend all the birthday parties. Chingiz and I are just by ourselves. We have nobody here. So if we have nobody here, we want to realize our potential to live fullest so that we never regret our time in the United States. And that's how we think about it. And that's why we were just like, we do the startup, both of us.

59:26Aizada Marat:I love that. And I think it's helpful to point out like your long term goal is actually to return to Kyrgyzstan. Would you like to share that? Yes.

59:39Amrit Rao:So as I said, growing up in Kyrgyzstan, it was the collapse of Soviet Union. I grew up in literal poverty where there was no food, no jobs. We used to like every day we would ask God so that God give a job to my father so that we could, you know, make a living. And it was not only our family. It was everyone in Kyrgyzstan. And I grew up just always thinking all the privileges that come across my way that, you know, all the privileges that I get in life, I really want to give back to the community. And in that sense, I think it's like United States has a huge advantage because I came to the United States when Kyrgyzstan already spent all the tax money on my education, on my health, on everything to support me, right?

1:00:33Amrit Rao:Like I came to the United States when I was like 25. First I came when I was 17 and then I came back. When I was 25, I was an adult and I was an adult ready to contribute, ready to pay taxes, ready to, you know, to provide meaningfully to the economy of this country. So basically America benefited a lot. They did not, America didn't spend much on me other than the Plex program. So that's why I want to give back to Kyrgyzstan. A lot of people from Kyrgyzstan who leave the country never want to go back. But I want to go back. And this is Chingiz and I have agreed about returning to the United States.

1:01:13Amrit Rao:This was one of the first questions I asked him. I said, will you go back to Kyrgyzstan? Because if you will not, then I'm not sure I can marry you because I will go back eventually. because this is where I want to spend, you know, when I get older and I want to run for the government. Because everything I'm learning, I would want to ultimately give back.

1:01:30Aizada Marat:Do we want to talk a little bit more about your position in government?

1:01:35Amrit Rao:Yeah, we can definitely talk about it. Everyone will be like, oh, this girl has no shame. But I'm very open and direct, as I said. And I've already told it publicly. So in Kyrgyzstan, it's a very top-down country still. We pretend to be a democracy, but we're still not. So the president has a lot of power to change things. And that's the only way for me to go and within six years to make meaningful changes within the country. So that's why I'd like to run for the presidency. and whether people choose or not that's you know that's my destiny if it will happen or not but if it happens I'll serve a term six years and I'll try to do my best and then yeah I would so Kyrgyzstan is the only country where presidents actually after the term they resign because in all of our neighborhood neighboring countries they're basically I think they're at their second presidents because the previous ones either died or no longer could mentally serve.

1:02:36Aizada Marat:Wow.

1:02:36Amrit Rao:Yes. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan. Kyrgyzstan is the only country right now, this is our sixth president. So we actually have a change in our presidents. But the only reason is because I can make changes top down fast in six years. And I feel like the startup journey, building a huge company is part of it as well. I want to build a huge company so that I know how to run a huge company and run it successfully. And then I can apply some of the skills to actually working for the government.

1:03:11Aizada Marat:Totally. I think the last time we talked about this was around the time that we made the investment. I was tickled by – you referred to Chingiz checking the boxes. One of the boxes he checked was he would allow you to be the president of Kyrgyzstan and take a different role. In the two years since, have you developed any clarity on your strategy for how to add value to Kyrgyzstan and your people?

1:03:40Amrit Rao:Yeah, that's an interesting question. Not yet, because right now I'm so focused on the company and all I can think is the company, how to make it successful. So one step at a time, I build a big company, I hire a lot of smart people, and I can think about other things. And this is when I will think about Kyrgyzstan. But I think all the skills that I'm learning along the journey will be super helpful because it's a lot about people building the teams, building scalable systems, going to market, how to make clients happy. So it's very similar, I think, to a government job that I want to have.

1:04:16Aizada Marat:I love it. Well, once you're a villager, you're always a villager, and it'll be great to see you in office after Alma's IPO.

1:04:25Amrit Rao:Yes, 100%. You're all invited to my inauguration. And that's what John, partner from Kuli, he's also invited. He just recently texted me. He's like, hey, Izada, I know this will not happen in the next five years, so is it okay if I go to Kyrgyzstan already? I'm like, sure, 100%. And like, I'm just focused on company building right now.

1:04:48Aizada Marat:I love it. Well, we admire your focus, your grit, your determination. Thank you so much for doing this with us, Izada.

1:04:56Amrit Rao:Thank you so much. Village was a very early believer in us when we didn't have Shua and it was pre-product. And I will forever cherish that you invested in us before everyone else did. You were the first term sheet we got and we got other term sheets, but they were not as important as the first one. And that's how, you know, we were very happy to take the first check from you. And it was just valuable because we were like, wow, I was like, wow, someone believes in me, even if I'm not technical, I really have to, you know, work hard so that they never regret their decision.

1:05:32Aizada Marat:Well, we won't. Thank you.

1:05:34Amrit Rao:Thank you.

1:05:38Amrit Rao:Hey, this is Ben Kaznoka, co-founder of Village Global. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Village Global Podcast, where we go deep on all of the biggest topics in tech. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can check us out on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love to see you for the next one.