#238 The Success Story of Uzair Ahmed: Leveraging Automation and AI in Entrepreneurship

0:00:01 - Mehmet
Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO Show in Mehmet Today. I'm very pleased to have with me joining me from Canada, uzair Uzair. Thank you very much for being here with me on the show today. The way I love to do it is I like my guests to introduce themselves, so please feel free introduce yourself, tell us what you do. The floor is yours. 

0:00:23 - Uzair
Okay, thanks for having me. So I've been an entrepreneur for the last eight years. I started my first business back in 2016. We grew up to 23 different cities and multiple seven figures in revenue, and that business was a mobile mechanic business. So we were trying to build the Uber Mechanics here in Canada and we did that through and when we were talking to people about this idea when we first started out, they told us it couldn't be done. 

But we thought that by automating everything and building our own technology, that everything could be done so easily that the business was scalable. And through the process of doing that, we got the goal that we wanted to, and through the process of building automations and learning about technology and how to use that with business sense and just make everything a very easy to build, easy to run a scalable business, I learned that there's a lot of people out there that had these problems as well, but they didn't figure it out. So a few of my friends asked me earlier this year for help with their businesses and I took that and I was like, wow, this is like a real business now. People need help with automating their business and even using offshore labor. So that's kind of how I got started by now just helping people with their businesses. 

0:01:35 - Mehmet
That's great and inspiring story indeed. Now I'm interested to know or if you can extend to me a little bit to there how these automation systems help businesses, and especially I know, like you, focus on home service businesses as well but if you can explain how they use streamlined operations. Is it like about cost reduction? You know, feel free to explain that for us in detail, if you want. 

0:02:02 - Uzair
Okay, yeah. So when it comes to automation, the most important thing is like the. So when I work with my clients right now, everybody wants automation, but I always have to start with their current system. How do they do things right now? And that's where there's a lot of flawed ways of doing things right. So a lot of people I find either focus too much on getting new leads or they spend so much time with their existing customers they have no time for getting new leads right, or they get leads but they don't follow up on leads properly and they don't deal with their existing customers properly, right. So it just depends on what their problems are. But, like just off the head, some examples of automation would be when a lead comes in online, you could you automatically call them. 

Or if they don't pick up, you automatically call them again and you send them a text message and then, if the lead comes in, you get a quote sent to them. You can also do automatic follow ups. So you do everything you can to make sure that lead gets taken care of right. That's just one example. So at the end of the day, we use automation to make less mistakes, increase efficiency of our existing workers, to do less admin work and honestly increase revenue. Because you make less mistakes, you miss. You increase revenue just through that. 

0:03:15 - Mehmet
Right, that's correct. Now you mentioned something about off-float neighbors or outsourcing. So what usually are some common misconceptions about outsourcing and automation in the industry that you service or you offer your service? 

0:03:36 - Uzair
to. That's a good question. So with automation, I think that, even with outsourcing, I think that people they see like overseas labor as less scale than locally, which is completely flawed in every sense of the word right. 

Or they've had overseas labor in the past particularly failed at it, and it almost comes down to their systems that they use, right? It's like how do you do things internally? If your company is a mess, then, yeah, using overseas labor will not help. It's just going to make it worse. But if your company is very systemized and does things in a very organized way, then using overseas labor is like leverage. Much for it. Right, it's like pouring gasoline on the fire, but you have to have your systems in place before you can do that. And when it comes to automation, I think that the biggest thing is people think their business is automated because they have a CRM. They don't know the extent of the technology out there and how far they can automate certain tasks in their business. So they think that they're automated because they have a CRM, whether they use Excel or they use these basic tools that everybody has. But that's all they know, right? So it's not really their fault as much as just a limitation of what they know. 

0:04:51 - Mehmet
That's true. Now, one of the misconceptions that I personally face sometimes when I talk to people about any kind of automation, like whether it's related to services or related to enhancing a process what is this misconception about the human role? And they say, okay, if we do this, how we can stay customer-centric if everything is done by a machine or whatever, so what you can tell people about this, because it's not only about completely removing the human factor, right? 

0:05:32 - Uzair
Yeah, no, I tend to agree with them. So when I look at automation, I think the worst thing you can automate is customer-facing stuff, like when I call a bank or whatever right, and they have this robot there. That's like tell me your problem and then they barely understand your problem. It's like I want to talk to a human as fast as I can, because when I'm calling a company, I'm either upset or I need some help. Right, talking to a robot is the worst thing ever, but when it comes to doing backend tasks like email follow-ups or transferring information from one system to another or just admin work like that, right, then you want to use automation because humans don't like doing repetitive admin work. We should use humans to talk to people. We should not automate that part. We should not try to make our customer service like this beacon of automation. Look, we got this AI that answers questions for you. I think that's a horrible way to do it. 

0:06:30 - Mehmet
Yeah, you need to keep the balance. So I would say right to there and you know I heard a lot of stories because to your part you mentioned bank and actually you know Some banks and some telcos, they fall into trap, which they call it digital transformation at that time and they thought, yeah, we put, we'll put the technology and you know like, yeah, see, we have robots, ai, all these things. You know people were were frustrated now. But come on, coming back to the, to the AI, so what? What in this case, the role you think AI can play in in business automation, any examples you can think of, any way that it can enhance efficiency, what you can tell us? 

0:07:17 - Uzair
Well, one simple example of using AI is we have meetings those things that try meetings. Take those actionable items and then put them in your asana or notion or whatever task management tool you're using. That's a very simple use of AI that I like. A lot other uses of AI is like Automatic replying to reviews that are between like four or five stars on your service company, because they have pretty standard replies, right, but making sure that if it's below four stars, you do not automatically reply back to them. So you got to find that balance and but yeah, that's generally the idea. I don't like using AI too much in the sense that it's it's supposed to do like mundane tasks for me, right, but I don't like you for Unless there's a reason to use it, I don't like just using AI for things. There has to be a reason for it. This would be a business case for it. I like using Technology to solve business problems, but it doesn't necessarily have to be AI mmm, that's Controversial. 

0:08:24 - Mehmet
I would say so, even like for writing, let's say marketing campaigns and generating. You know these, let's say email Templates. Do you think also it should not be used this way? 

0:08:39 - Uzair
I hate. Like the whole point of marketing is to stand out in a crowded marketplace that people are like why should I care about you? So, instead of standing out with your own unique voice and your own unique thoughts, you're gonna go out there and use this thing like AI uses the same. 

This is based on what everyone's written the past, so the idea of standing out in marketing is completely lost when you're just going to send the same stuff that people have used in the past. You know like it's. It's such a it's such a horrible idea, I think. I think it's great for brainstorming, yes, but people that just write full-out campaign using AI, it's just like come on, you know it's just it's not good and you can tell to. 

0:09:21 - Mehmet
Anybody can tell yeah correct, but can I play the devil advocate for a one moment? Yeah, and it's not for challenging you, of course. You know I am very active, for example, on LinkedIn, and you know people knows what I do. I have the podcast, the consultancy, and even before this AI, before the chat, gpt became mainstream, still I receive these. You know it sounds very robotic sometimes. You know, because we teach people that, hey, this is the cadence that you need to follow and if you follow this cadence, your chance of Increasing someone to reply to you is high. I can understand this. I I worked in states. I can understand, you know the flow, but the problem is, I think it's not the AI. I think the problem is humans who become very lazy in Just, you know, acquiring a framework and trying to apply it. Do you agree with me on this Yep and people becoming really lazy? 

0:10:23 - Uzair
Yeah, I give it that, and others become more childlike. 

0:10:27 - Mehmet
Yeah, so again to your point, and you are very right in one thing, and we discussed this on the show many times AI is not inventing or reinventing the weave, right? So it's generating text based on text that we humans were all in the past, and it's just trying to reshape it somehow. 

0:10:55 - Uzair
So that's a funny point, like. The idea is like, as a salesperson or as a marketer, right, you are competing against way more interesting things constantly, right, and people, when they see like, and then everyone has their own internal filter, right. So when they see something that fits into a certain bucket, it just goes, this is disappeared, right, they completely ignore you. So when you're a salesperson and your emails are written the same way as everybody else's emails, you are now a salesperson, gone. I don't care what you have to sell Like, you're just automatically ignoring, ignoring, right? Same thing with marketing you have to figure out ways to stand out. 

So, like, when I write my sales emails, I keep them very short and I purposely put spelling mistakes on them and I make them very casual. So I don't come across as a salesperson, right, who comes across like that, and I don't come across like a CEO of a business. They'll write very quick messages like they're texting you, right, because they're now running into that frame, right? So why not adopt that frame for sales? Why do you have to adopt the pandering salesperson frame? You don't, right? So that's what I mean with. When you use AI to write emails or write marketing stuff, you adopt the frame of the marketer, which is easy to ignore for most people because they know what you're up to right. So if you think things differently in your own unique voice, I think you'll work out way better 100% and this is, I would say, at least from my perspective, it's something that works. 

0:12:26 - Mehmet
Yeah, I always was the rebel who refused to use pre-written templates. You should know. 

0:12:33 - Uzair
Yeah, unless you're working for like a big organization and they want you to systemize everything. But you guys you and I are trying to build stuff out, right, we're not. 

0:12:42 - Mehmet
Even those are like, even if it's like big company, I still, as you said, you know you nailed it. Actually, you need to put your own voice in it right. 

0:12:50 - Uzair
Yeah, you have to do that right. So that's a big thing that I'm about, so like you're right. So that's going back to our thing about using AI. The question is I don't use a lot of AI in my automations. The answer was I don't use a lot of AI automations because I like business problems, and if AI is not the right tool for it which it hasn't been for a lot of the problems I'm trying to solve then I won't use it. But if there's something where AI does come into play, I would use it. But I personally use AI in my workflow every day. 

0:13:17 - Mehmet
Yeah, Actually, you know this is it will relate to the next question, but this is because you mentioned this. I can see who's there. I can spot on you a right entrepreneurial mindset, because you don't just use the technology for the sake of using the technology. You try to solve business problem. And you know. This is what lead me to the next question, actually, and which is you know, because you talked about having your business, that you know that you the Instamac, so I am interested in you know. Know what was the pain that you have seen? And you said you know what I need to solve this and I need to go and build a solution for this so I can provide my customers value. I'm interested in the original story of this. 

0:14:12 - Uzair
So for the story of Instamac, how I started, yeah, so the real story is I, so I worked as an engineer for a few years and then I went to a trip to Dubai my first time in 2014. And then, while I was gone, I was with my dad and all my mom was at home. 

She had the cars, and the cars both started having problems, so she was stuck at home and she had no idea what to do and she went to the shops and took care of all that. But like the whole process was really bad, right. So I was thinking of the idea I'm like what if there was a way, faster and easier way of doing this? And I'm like, okay, cool, like there's an Uber that's going out right now. So how about we use the two merged to technologies, like using something that's super easy to use with mechanics that come to your house? And that was the idea and that's how I was born, and I was like we tried it out. We posted some ads on our local classifieds ads thing and we got customers calling and then we started calling other mechanics on the same thing and just connected it to and I was like, okay, this is a business, this could be a business. And then we raised a bunch of money, built our technology and then, yeah, expanded from there. 

0:15:25 - Mehmet
Great, awesome. I love when I hear these stories and the reason I ask these questions is to inspire other to be entrepreneurs or to be founders, about how you start solving your own problems sometimes, or maybe your friend problems. So, yeah, great one Now with with your current you know venture, I would say. I know that you have launched continent global and you know, if you can like, just tell me how does this contribute to the whole vision that you have about continent automation? 

0:16:04 - Uzair
So the business is cottonwood, Okay, and what the idea behind it was, okay. 

So we have my instant business right, which is a mobile business that leverages technology and offshore labor to operate and run where the business I spend no time on whatsoever and it continues to make me money Right. And I was like, hey, how do I do my next thing, which is not so different than this? So that's where, kind with global and kind with automation coming to play. The exact same technologies and the processes I used to automate my current business, Now I do for other businesses, and the same thing with our internal instrument is also being run by a completely remote team based out of Columbia. So I was like, well, now we can do autumn would call it global and help other businesses with the same system itself, Like here's a system that instrument uses and now we can apply the same system to other home service companies and they can do things exactly the same way. 

And then in the future, if I can start buying companies and then using the same systems I did, for instance, make for all the other companies, I think it could be a pretty nice way to live Nice, nice. 

0:17:13 - Mehmet
Yeah, great, I love to hear these stories. Now, while you know, preparing for the episode, I've seen that you are into the blockchain and cryptocurrencies, so, and you know and I see like, okay, what's the relation between cryptocurrency and home service industry automation? So what you can tell me about that? 

0:17:35 - Uzair
Oh no, I just like gambling, so that's different. 

0:17:39 - Mehmet
Okay so, but is there any role that you know these technologies can play in that space? 

0:17:45 - Uzair
I think the only thing that it could kind of work was like if you had like an NFT where it was like a lifetime, if you paid 500 bucks for NFT and you got like lifetime discounts on something and you could resell it and it could be a marketing thing. But I think we're too soon for that. I think that the last year in crypto has really put a damper on the industry in the public's eye when you have, like everyone, become a humongous scammer. 

Yeah it doesn't really help the public perception of it right. So it's tough to do anything technology wise in the real world with it. But I still think the technology itself is pretty cool. Unfortunately, yeah, please go ahead to that, like the idea that you can send any amount of money to anyone in the world without a third party. 

0:18:29 - Mehmet
I think that's a very cool technology to have 100% and you know, I had, I think so far, we had three guests and we discussed actually blockchain, keep two currencies in details and, as you mentioned, unfortunately because couple, maybe few scammers, but their stories went very public and very big. So people have the misconception about when they hear, even not cryptocurrency, even the world blockchain, oh, no, no, no, this is a scam. No, no, it's not a scam. But, again, unfortunately there are a lot of scammers out there. But you know, other than you know, nfts and cryptocurrencies, any other emerging technology that you are keeping eye on that can be potential game changer in the domain that you are in. 

0:19:21 - Uzair
Not the domain that I'm in, but I think neural link. If neural link takes off and we all become cybers, I think that's pretty cool. Like imagine access being half human, half robot. 

0:19:34 - Mehmet
Does it scare you? 

0:19:37 - Uzair
Excites me like, because it's all about product. Imagine you become way more effective. Human beings right. 

0:19:44 - Mehmet
Yeah, imagine imagine you link to a to a large language multiple. 

0:19:49 - Uzair
I'm just saying like you'd be so much smarter, right like I. The reason why I love AI is when I was in school, I used to always go to office hours and ask for help from teachers. Right to be like you explain this to me in a different way, don't know. Now try this way, just so I could really understand concepts. But now I just use AI as my tutor and it's been so good. So I just I love learning and it's learning at such a rapid rate now. 

0:20:14 - Mehmet
Yeah, yeah, it is, it is, but you know, this is something and thank you for mentioning this. I need to put some efforts to understand more about this technology, neuralink, and how it can affect our lives. So thank you for bringing this topic because I can understand it on a high level, but pretty much I want to see and I know that the FDA, they gave the approval for the trials finally, so they're going to start soon to implement. 

0:20:49 - Uzair
They're looking for quadruplegic right now that are interested in Neuralink. 

0:20:53 - Mehmet
Yes, so let's see how that goes. It's a little bit scary. I hope we will not end up with a Frankenstein or something like this. 

0:20:59 - Uzair
Something could happen. Right, we don't know what could happen, but I think the idea of what they're doing is pretty cool. 

0:21:06 - Mehmet
Maybe not related to Neuralink, but because you mentioned this, what do you think about the digital twin? 

0:21:13 - Uzair
What's the digital twin? Oh, digital okay. Okay, I think it's kind of. Let me understand this. So it's like uploading all your knowledge and everything, so you're like an online version of yourself, right? Yeah, exactly, I don't know, it just seems like a privacy nightmare. 

0:21:31 - Mehmet
We are in a privacy nightmare already, Jose, I believe now. 

0:21:35 - Uzair
Why would you make it even worse by having a digital twin that can call you loved ones and be like hey yo, I'm stuck here, send me money. 

0:21:44 - Mehmet
Yeah, but with the AI now the deep fake that they can do, it's scary. 

0:21:51 - Uzair
You have to have a code word with your loved ones. You're like this is a code word. 

0:21:55 - Mehmet
Exactly the other day, someone called me and said hey, you talk about AI, cybersecurity, you discuss all these topics, but you self you do podcasts and people can now clone your voice. I said, yeah, guys, I'm aware of that. But yeah, but of course I need to take my measures out there, but yeah, nevertheless, it's a very good point. Now one thing I'm curious. By nature, jose, and excuse me if I'm asking you these questions like this Go ahead. Good point You've raised seven figure funding for your ventures, because I get asked this question a lot by fellow startup founders. So any tips on how to successfully pitch to investors? 

0:22:44 - Uzair
I would say the easiest time to pitch at the very start, because you're pitching on a story is way better than pitching on numbers. It's way harder to pitch on revenue and numbers than it is to pitch on a story. Maybe things have changed now because interest rates are so much higher, so back in my day. But it also just works on a human nature level, because when you pitch with stories, anything is possible. You run up there, you charge them up emotionally, but when you pitch on numbers, it's never enough. It's like it's never enough. So that's why it's really important to pitch. 

The key to investing is to have a really good narrative and a really good story. It is not. Unless you're doing debt financing or private equity stuff like that, then you got to know who you're playing with too right. So it depends on who the investor is as well. If they care about numbers, then you got to show them good numbers and you got to define if those numbers are even worth it or not, and your valuation won't be as high. But when you play on stories, it can be a lot better. But having said that, though, the market has changed now, so I haven't raised money for a while now, so it's probably different now. I can imagine it being a lot tougher now. 

0:24:04 - Mehmet
Yeah, everyone is saying the market is dry now and there's not a lot of funds everywhere, so it's tougher now. 

0:24:14 - Uzair
So it's really important to build a business that's going to make you money, and I honestly think that, unless your business is some experiment where it's like you have to figure out this is the thing that people want, it's better to just try to raise debt financing and go from there. 

0:24:28 - Mehmet
And what about trying to bootstrap there instead? 

0:24:31 - Uzair
of raising funds. I think it's a good idea to bootstrap. If your business is like a, obviously raising money will help do it faster. But if your business is a business that's already been done before or a business that's been done before the slight twist, I would bootstrap or raise debt financing. But if you're doing like something completely different and you have no idea if it's going to work or not, then you would raise equity financing, Because equity financing is the most expensive kind of financing right. 

0:24:55 - Mehmet
Yeah, that's correct. Now, one thing I figured out there, which is I'm asking this question to give your advice to fellow entrepreneurs as well I can see very obviously, like you have the technical background, you have the sales skills and they have the marketing skills how important for founders, and especially first time founders, to learn these skills. 

0:25:20 - Uzair
I think that's the only thing that matters at the end of the day. If you don't have the sales and marketing, you don't get the money in the door right, you get. Everything else really matters except getting the money in the door. And this is for starting out. Okay, so this is how the transitions happen. Okay so, when you're a brand new entrepreneur, sales is all that really matters. You don't even have the technology behind it. But if you can sell something you don't even have, you're on the right way. Then you have to focus on delivering on it. That's when operational chops come into play. But you can find someone to partner up with you on that, or even technology right. But if you can do sales, marketing and technology, you can just get started way faster. Yeah, that's correct, but the thing is you should not sit around and wait till you get those skills by reading and researching. You should just go out there and do it, and sales is the one thing that you should focus on at the start. 

0:26:12 - Mehmet
Yeah, this is something we repeated. And, again, the reason I repeat stuff on the show because you know the more you repeat, the more it gets stuck in people's head. 

Because even see, like, for me, I came from a pure technical background, like I was kind of a geeky guy who sits late in the night behind the laptop or whatever computer trying to do stuff and all of a sudden, you know, at some stage in my career I said you know what I should learn how to talk to people, pitch. You know the idea that I have Because, yeah, and being, you know, unfortunately, in culture, maybe this is something that happened over the years. And when you say that you are a sales guy, you know people think something bad. 

0:26:57 - Uzair
You know, like, you know, it's so true. Like in Eastern cultures, right Like business is looked down upon Like if you can't do anything else, you do business, you do sales, but it's like the highest paying job in the world, but also the hardest job in the world. You know what it is? I think it's because people, when they think of you doing sales, think of really bad sales people and, like I said before, they have this idea of sales, right, and those are the guys who use those templated emails and just think they're really annoying. But then there's sales people that are so good that you feel like I need to buy from this guy just because like he's like this. This is status selling, right, and some people just sell so well with status where this prospect is like I have to buy from that guy. A perfect example is your doctor. 

0:27:45 - Mehmet
Right. 

0:27:45 - Uzair
When you go to a doctor, he's not selling you stuff. He's like here's a prescription, here's your problem, here's how you solve it. And he can be nice to you, but he's still higher status, right? But that's an idea of a sales person. That that's the same mentality you can adopt, because you know the answers. 

0:28:02 - Mehmet
Right, 100%, and you know it's thought provoking. By the way, what you just mentioned was there, and this is something, founders, they should listen carefully to this about that and don't be as you said. Don't be the silly guy, be the smart guy when you reach out to people. 

0:28:23 - Uzair
Because the best people like look at President Obama or Donald Trump the best sales people out there, right, right, they're not selling you knives, they're selling themselves as the president of the most profitable country in the world, right? So that's kind of like the way to think about sales. It's like the most sales is one of the most useful skills out there. If you get really good at it, the world is your oyster. And it's about so much more than just like templates and scripts and all that. 

0:28:54 - Mehmet
Yeah, yeah, I agree 100%. And was that as almost we are coming to an end? Is there anything that I should have asked you and I didn't? And feel free to answer it. 

0:29:08 - Uzair
Oh no, no, I think you asked a lot of quick questions there. 

0:29:12 - Mehmet
Okay, it's not a tricky question. Go ahead. Who's the? 

0:29:14 - Uzair
target. Who's who's a demographic since your podcast, what would they care about? 

0:29:22 - Mehmet
Honestly, they are a mix of entrepreneurs and you know people interested in tech in general. 

0:29:29 - Uzair
In general. Okay, it's what's called a CTO show, right. 

0:29:32 - Mehmet
Yeah, and, by the way, it's good that you asked me this question, as there the reason I call it CTO, because I believe to your point that a CTO is not just a geeky guy sitting behind you know his machine, trying to do things. A CTO and even in the definition of a CTO in a company, he is the bridge between business and tech, right yeah? And he should be able to understand technology, understand the trends, understand, have an entrepreneurial mindset and even understand sales and marketing. And this is why I decided to call it CTO show, and I wanted to bring people from different backgrounds. And, by the way, I don't have only CTOs on the show, of course. I have the, I have CTOs, I have marketing experts, I have sales experts, I have people who talks, for example, even about personal development sometime, because I believe it's all. It's like a puzzle and you need all these parts of the puzzle to make the whole thing. And thank you for asking me there about that. 

0:30:33 - Uzair
Where please please, that's a very good way to look at it. 

0:30:38 - Mehmet
Great, where people can find more about you and your business. 

0:30:42 - Uzair
So my website, cottonwoodautomationcom, or you can find me on Twitter my first name T-R-U-B-A-L-L-A, and then you can just message me directly on cottonwoodautomationcom, connect with me, and then I can have a call. But yeah, so the idea is, if you're running a home service company or any type of business and you want it to be in a way where it grows without you working on it every single day, that's where I can help. 

0:31:11 - Mehmet
Great, great. I will make sure that also. I will put all these links you just mentioned in the show notes there and really I appreciate the time. I enjoyed the conversation with you. A lot of great hints, I would say. So, guys, follow us there. He has a lot of great experience in multiple fields. I would say. You are multi-faced, from marketing, sales and even building businesses. So thank you, ozeh, for being with me today and, as usually, this is how I end the show. 

Guys, keep the feedbacks coming. I really enjoy reading them and they don't have to be always compliments. You can also tell me what you don't like on the show. I would love to always enhance my own process and if you are interested also to be guests on the show, don't hesitate. Reach out to me and we can figure out a way to see. Like Ozeh is in Canada, I'm in Dubai and even with the time difference, we managed to find a time and sit down together and thank you very much for tuning in. We'll meet again in the next episode. Thank you, and we'll be there to help you. 

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