The Inspiring Journey of a Serial Entrepreneur w/ Senad Santic

Episode 70

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The Inspiring Journey of Serial Entrepreneur

Have you ever watched a seedling grow into a towering tree? That's the trajectory of Senad Santic, our guest on today's episode. From escaping war-torn Yugoslavia to becoming a successful serial entrepreneur in Sweden, Senad forged his own path and ignited his passion for creating websites. His journey took him from aspiring professional basketball player to founder of multiple successful companies, including Avidnote, Robinize, Mendy, and ZenDev. 

Ever wondered about the entrepreneurial opportunities in Bosnia and Herzegovina? Senad shares his unique experiences and the distinct strategies employed to understand the local market and implement their vision. Embarking on a new chapter, Senad and his family returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Inspired by the US way of life, they continued to chase their entrepreneurial dreams, advocating for a mindset shift towards innovation in their homeland. 

We delve into Senad's startup world, discussing his unique strategies for evaluating people and assessing cultural fit. We talk about Mendy, a service that's revolutionizing how we fix home issues, and discuss the future of AI and its implications. But that's not all, Senad also shares his work with Citizen Remote, and leaves us with some golden nuggets of advice for young entrepreneurs. Join us to hear all about Senad's compelling entrepreneurial journey and insights.

Topics of Discussion

• Serial Entrepreneur's Journey and Insights
• Entrepreneurial Opportunities and Challenges
• Entrepreneurship in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Exploring Startups and Tech Innovations
• Future of AI and Its Implications
• International Collaboration and Remote Work Platform

Senad’s Resources

LinkedIn
ZenDev

Robinize

Avidnote

Mendy

About The Show

Thoughts of a Random (Citizen Remote Podcast) is a podcast oriented around open ideas, entrepreneurship, travel, investing, politics, philosophy, and an odd take on history. Together with Toarc United & Citizen Remote we talk with thought leaders from all around the world to stir the innovative mind. This podcast specifically talks about the importance of having an international perspective, the ins and outs of the business world, the entrepreneurial life, the digital nomad life, investing and ways to enjoy life in the new age.

Businesses worldwide have very quickly oriented themselves around freelancing, digital nomads, remote workers, and diluting borders. If you'd like to find out how you can benefit on an individual or entrepreneurial level from that change, this podcast is for you & Citizen Remote can help.

If you’re a startup, needing to find useful tools, wanting to build custom software or generally struggling with the next steps you should be taking to optimize your companies bottom line Toarc United can help.

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Transcript

Tim: 0:20

Alright, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Thoughts Around Him. Citizen Connick Hobrand is here with the Citizen Remote podcast. I'm here today with Sennad Santic. He is a Swedish and Bosnian Herzegovina serial entrepreneur. If you're not labeled serial entrepreneur, i'm going to go ahead and do it for you, because you're pretty much well in your way, founding companies like AvidNote, robinize, mindy, which I'm excited to talk about, and then probably your most popular one, zendev, one of the fastest growing companies in Bosnian Herzegovina. Sennad, welcome to the podcast.

Senad: 0:52

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here with Tim. It's been a few months since we spoke last time. I'm glad we finally got this podcast going.

Tim: 1:01

Yeah, i know It's been what since October I think, and it's now March. I feel like time just flies when you're working hard. But I'm really excited to actually get back over on that side of Europe this summer for sure. So when I'm back over there I'll have to get them in. So I wanted to kind of kick things off with a bit of who you are and what has led you to where you're at now, and then you know, i'm going to pick your brain about all things business and Bosnia and a bit of Sweden, which is what I wanted to start off with. So you're originally from Gotenberg and I think it's pronounced Jatibori. You're going to correct me on that one for sure. Can you explain a bit of your upbringing and then obviously correct the butcher that I just had there on that pronunciation?

Senad: 1:42

Yeah, so the question for your butcher there is Jatibori, that's how you say it there in Sweden, jatibori, and it's actually not where I'm from originally. So I'm actually originally from most of Bosnia, herzegovina And in 1993, when the war broke out, my family and I have been more or less split to Gotenberg, sweden. But I was a small kid back then, i was four years old. So almost my entire life I spent in Gotenberg, sweden. That's where I grew up, that's where I went to school and so on. So obviously, the beginnings of my life I was born in 1988 and for Yugoslavia, and when the war broke out in 92, well, in 93, we fled from Bosnia to Herzegovina, to Sweden. We're in a few different refugee camps and in the end after about six months we ended up located in Gotenberg.

Senad: 2:26

So, yeah, just did what regular kids do over there. I guess first had to learn the language, obviously because it was a new country. But when you're a kid you tend to go really, really easily. So by the time I was in first grade I was speaking the language. Yeah, i went to school, thought I was going to be a professional basketball player. So that was kind of my obsession when I was a kid Just really wanted to make it in basketball And just around the end of high school you're kind of going to realize if that's going to work out for you or if it's not, and I kind of saw that it was the end of the road for me. So I had to think about what other alternatives I had in life And, like a lot of other kids did that you know, grew up with a computer and I have to say my dad was really really ahead of his time there.

Senad: 3:08

So even when we were living in Bosnia, herzegovina, in 89, he bought his first computer and he's not from the IT space or like electrical engineering, he's actually an economist. But he had a friend here in Bosnia that wrote like a simple software for him very early on to help him with his accounting, and when he saw how much that helped make him a much more effective in his work he realized that whatever this thing computers is, you know this is the future And I have to grow up with this. I'm a kid, i have to grow up with this. So he bought a computer here and then again when we came to Sweden even though, you know, on welfare he made sure that he bought a computer so that my brother and I could grow up with it. And yeah, that's how I started playing around with it And I started creating websites very early on because dad, when we got to Sweden, couldn't get a job as an economist.

Senad: 3:52

So they told him, like IT is really hot right now. This is like 95, 96 before the crash. So they're like, yeah, you want to learn about creating websites and so on. So he brought home these books about HTML and I started learning with him. So I started creating.

Senad: 4:05

Obviously, because I was into basketball, very early on I started creating the first websites around that space basketball websites for my league and so on. So that's my first interaction with that And I really enjoyed it And I figured it would be really cool if I could make a living off of this, you know, creating these websites. I love the creative outlet that he gave me because it had so much flexibility, because this was a point of the internet when the way to communicate with the world was to create our own website, we weren't in, you know, web 2.0 with all of these forms and so on. So, anyways, i started studying software engineering in Gothenburg, the Shawlomers University, and as soon as I got into that, what I saw was that, because Gothenburg is the birth city of the car brand, most of the industry, in one way or another, revolves around the ball pool.

Senad: 4:53

You're either working directly from all lawyers and sort of consultant, and for me personally, for whatever reason, that just wasn't appealing The idea of working in a company where there's another 30, 40,000 people working for that company And I wanted to have something much smaller where I had much more creative control of what it was that I was going to create. So I started the first company as soon as I basically got into college. College was basically a backup plan, like if this, what I'm creating on the site, doesn't work out, then it's good to have an engineering degree, right? So I started creating these websites on the site and because I didn't have money for marketing, i realized I have to get really good in search engine optimization.

Tim: 5:30

That's my own way of creating it.

Senad: 5:31

So I started learning a lot about search engine optimization And the ambition was to create websites that would drive enough traffic for me to be able to make an income off of ads, off of those websites, so that by the time I'm finished with college I don't have to get a job. I can continue with that And, yeah, i had three or four flops. That it's a long story, but yeah, tried a bit of everything that didn't work out. And then I had my first hit, which was a website which was super simple, like you enter a word and you get a hundred example sentences for that specific word, how to use it in a sentence, because it's what we call an SEO, a long tail play, like a lot of people Google different words for those combinations. It had a ton of traffic, so on a good day you would have over a hundred thousand visitors And then I just put on Google ads on that website. Everybody that clicks on it gets me a little bit of income and basically got that goal that I wanted to.

Senad: 6:21

But at the same time, in my third year of my bachelor studies, it came up with this opportunity and moved to the United States to have a paid internship. Basically this was 2010. And so Nicola a friend of mine that I know my entire life because we clicked the last part together both jumped out on that opportunity. I ended up in San Francisco for a year and he ended up in San Jose, just about an hour south of that. But we visited each other over there And what I saw there when I was 20 years old, i thought it was so inspiring. You know, i had done these small projects, which were great as side hustles, as side incomes and passive income and so on. So I certainly don't regret anything of that. But I saw how people did this at scale and I was kind of like bit by the startup. I will from that. But what I also realized was like I didn't have any business knowledge. I had more of a hack of how I was making money online and I figured out the SEO game, but I had to learn a lot more about business to be able to create the kind of companies that these people are creating.

Senad: 7:20

So after a year in San Francisco, i got back to Gothenburg and I decided to get my master's in entrepreneurship and business design Studied after two years and towards the end of that education, my professor contacted me and he asked me if I wanted to start a new company with him And he was already a proven entrepreneur in Sweden who had created a company that had a great revenue and so on. So I figured this was a great opportunity for me to have a mentor like go into real life, if you will And we were creating a mobile application for schools in Sweden for task management and communication between teachers and students and so on. So I did that for about three years. I got some of my friends into that company and so on. I worked as a developer.

Senad: 8:00

It was a really fun time, but after about three years it felt like it and i got my not basically. So it's like i was a back end developers was just like the next day i call, next day call, and The initial personal development that i have. It felt like that was kind of wearing off in that position that i had there and i started actually thinking about what other things can i do in life? and what always been there was the idea of moving back to bazaar, and And the reason that it was really there is because you know, my parents are from there every summer more or less since i was a kid i was spending or not enjoy the summers. But people here would also say, like it's one thing to spend the summer, about it to be nice and other things to try to live here, so on. But I figured i'd give it a shot because my brother had already taken that two years before me and that it worked out for him. And he was telling me like i'm an economist and i can do this. Certain you with your profession and it can figure something out here.

Senad: 8:55

And one of the things that i figured with that i'm 27 and moving to a new country. Maybe it's gonna be a tough time and you would know about this because your digital home, so it might be tough to find new friends in a city, right? And i figured, if i start a consultancy company, by the very nature of consultancy company grow with the amount of people in the company, so you get more connections to your own company and through those people you also get to be a part of the community. So i figured, alright, maybe i can start a consultancy company and whatever we were doing to this point in sweden, let's just offer that as a service, because Throughout all these years i had my own startup.

Senad: 9:29

People would come to me and they would say, you know, son, i can you build this and have the same situation. I couldn't close the us Me, so we figured, if we just turn the coin on this and instead of like saying i have my own startup on all this, maybe there's a business to be created out of that the man, basically And that's what we decided to do. So in 2016, i called me for a cup of coffee. I said alright, so i have this idea. i want to back to musta. Maybe we can create a set up for your left and got to find out first lines and i'll go to musta, create an organization, and that's basically what we did in 2016 and i was the start of sender, basically.

Tim: 10:05

So there's a bunch that i want to ask from that, so i'm just gonna go right back to the beginning what life was like in sweden. I know, nikola, he's not actually from bosnia and herzegovina, right, he's from sweden. So did he actually make that transition With you, because i know you spend a lot of your time in bosnia and herzegovina now is it 5050. Can you just kind of talk like what that transition was like to convince him to take that leap with you guys?

Senad: 10:31

So you know he's born in sweden, so you know practice, but his father originally from monta negro, which is the country just out of the blue, and his mother's from Finland. But we were always talking about the idea of starting something on the ball. And he's such an optimistic self, nikola, i just knew that if i call him, he would be the right person for this because he's an optimistic and he's a very hard worker and we've done other projects before as well. And i think that's one of the key things when you're looking for a partner to do something, that additional level has to be on the same wavelength, basically. So even if you're great friends, but if you miss there, it can be very tough because then there's always gonna be that one Person that's trying to push and the other person that's being kind of pulled along. It's not good for anybody that kind of relationship.

Senad: 11:12

But i knew that. I thought i both had a lot of ambition and when i talk to him about this, basically over that coffee, he said right away i mean this, and he was ready to quit his job in Gothenburg. That point i told him. Like you know, sleep on the club will take it tomorrow is like i can sleep on it, but i'll tell you the same thing tomorrow morning. And yeah, that was basically what it was, so he didn't have any issues with that and obviously for him it wasn't as big of a transition as it was for me. I genuinely want to move down to the green And that's where i spend the bigger part of the year now. So i do fly up to Sweden probably four or five times per year, but the bigger part of the year i'm in the bazaar but then also comes down to most of probably three or four times per year as well, so we get to see each other pretty.

Tim: 11:56

Obviously, you said you both went and spent time in the us abroad, which is kind of unique that you guys were both able to do that. Do you think that that played a part in understanding Opportunities of seeing, hey, they're not doing this in Bosnia and Zagreb? now we can literally just carbon copy that, because that's one of my favorite things in one Other things that i've noticed is most prevalent and when you travel is like just take what they're doing from back home and just do it here the exact same way. Can you just kind of talk like maybe your impressions on the us but also what that transition for you guys was like and what it did for you?

Senad: 12:28

I think specifically for me by myself, i would say we had the entrepreneurial gene. Is there such a gene? probably now, but like we have the information to do that as we We're doing our own projects even before we went to the us. So it's a question of you know what came first? the henardy maybe, were attracted to the us and that entire lifestyle because we started doing this. What i saw in the us was just a different kind of drive right, especially in san francisco. So any cafe that you get into somebody was working on their start up, so never on the phone and so on. So if anything, it was kind of like a motorbiter to take it to that next level.

Senad: 13:02

But then, as far as taking something that's working in the us and moving it down to baudet's going on, that's something that Initially we have thought a lot about. Like think about the things that are available in the us but also in sweden is also one of those countries that Perhaps even more digitized in the united states, at least from what i have seen like they're very forward thinking all that and always early adopters And one instinctive thought you can have them as well if we're seeing the future basically in the swing From the perspective of us and we know you know we just copy some of these things here you should hopefully work right. But then when you realize all of that is that You have to kind of evaluate where is basa and to go in there and they're going to develop right. So the things that are cutting edge in sweden maybe are too early for basa and to go in. Like, if they haven't got used to purchasing Clothing items online, then you can start thinking about it on the way, or something like that. So you try not to figure out is it?

Senad: 13:58

is it the state that we were in in 2014? 15 maybe? those kind of stars are the ones that are smarter to take this market right now. Then you always also have to value what is the purchasing power in the country that you're in currently, because you know the weaker the purchasing power, the more you're going to have to orient towards must have needs rather than nice to have needs, because People don't have the luxury to spend money on a spot, if i or something like that account in my head. So you have to think what's a real must have for the people that are locally living here.

Tim: 14:29

And speaking kind of of that, where was it? was that, when you guys move there, obviously you're in software development within the tech realm of business. did you find it There is a gap between the potential employees that were located in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or was that something that you guys were able to easily train, or was it that you found this is a gold mine of developers that we can utilize? The exact.

Senad: 14:54

that was a question mark, so i didn't know that, even though i would spend summers. Obviously i wasn't in the space to be able to evaluate that. That was one of the like unknown unknowns when i came down here, and so what i saw essentially was that i didn't feel like on the software development so so so side of things, that they were lacking behind what I had seen in Sweden and the United States and so on. That wasn't a problem. What I did see was that, because Bazaar Antigamino for the past 20 years has been an outsourcing country, what happens is that you get quite good at the tech side of things, but as far as the business side of things and product development thinking broader, they were lacking in that and we're still lacking that to some extent, because 95% of our industry is that kind of outsourcing. And that's where I feel like people can't miss that whole bigger picture thinking aspect.

Senad: 15:41

And that's one of the reasons that I even though I haven't spent the amount of time that I wish I could have started a YouTube channel called Business Bits started promoting product development and some of these skills that are around that software development on LinkedIn as well, just so that people realize the importance, because I think that we're on that transition right now, where a lot of these people feel like, all right, we've done as much as we can do in this outsourcing phase.

Senad: 16:06

Can we start creating our own products? And I know that a lot of other countries have gone through this process before. If you look at a country like Poland, for 10 to 15 years they were purely an outsourcing country for Germany, but once they had their first hit, everybody starts pointing to that one success story. I want to be a part of that as well, as you start creating a culture around that. So it's a combination of education, but also even getting out there and trying it, because outsourcing will always be pretty lucrative business. Still, we're doing great on our consulting side of things, but I feel like we need to do more and we need to promote a culture of startups, and that's why we extended the side of that.

Senad: 16:45

We're going to take a lot of that profit that we're making off of our consulting and we invested into our own products that are either 100% founded by Zendal, like RobinEye's were, co-founded with partners in Sweden or the US, and so on something like Mendy, where we create this thing together so that we're much closer to that development. Because you don't want that When we work on a project like Mendy, you want everybody to feel like we're creating this together, So you don't want it to feel like there's a client in Sweden and then there's us here and some mediator in between. This is all one group and we're creating this together. It just happens to be for the Swedish market this time.

Tim: 17:19

So I'm kind of curious, pivoting back to Sweden as we're talking about it, how would you describe it entrepreneurially and then comparing that to a place like Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, as I was there, i met a lot of amazing people. I absolutely loved it. A lot of people would say starting up a business here is a bit bureaucratic. I guess you can say So. How would you describe the differences of Sweden entrepreneurially and then also comparing that to Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Senad: 17:46

I would say when we talked about earlier Sweden by nature I don't know if it's all the years of tech in the background that are done They're just kind of like earlier doctors that opened to try new things. Now, as far as starting a company in Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Sweden, the bureaucracy of course it's not ideal. So there is some paperwork. I think I had this, but maybe like five or six weeks walking around different places in the city to hand over papers. But in the grand scheme of things, as far as how hard it is to actually create a company, the easiest part is that, like the paperwork, so that's really not that big a deal. If you genuinely want to start a company, that really shouldn't be the thing that's blocking you. And if people say that that's the thing that's blocking them, that's not 100% genuine. Now, of course it needs to be made easier so you can promote entrepreneurship, so that it's easier to get to that point and make it a bit cheaper as well. That's the one part of it, and then it's also a mentality.

Senad: 18:36

I think Bosnia and Herzegovina a lot of kids here are the kids of a generation that lived during a communist Yugoslavia right And what you were taught there was viewer education And as soon as you're out of your education, the government would find a job for you and there's a chance you're going to be there until you're conscious of your focusing on that security, because what their parents told them was that security is everything.

Senad: 18:59

So I think a mindset shift has to happen there that you don't always have to go through that 100% security path, and also the idea of one of the things that they did really good at my college a part of my education how entrepreneurship did business design. They kind of broke down the mistake or the involvement of having a startup that fails Because Herzegovina, people are very much worried about what the neighbor's going to say and so on, and what they were able to do at that college in Sweden was to say that as soon as you've tried, you're a winner already. Right, because what happens then later on? a million things can happen, but when is in the actual effort or actually going down that path? So I think we have to teach our youth that there's nothing wrong in trying and failing. Just make sure to learn something out of it and something good will come out of it.

Tim: 19:46

I absolutely love that mindset And it's kind of funny that you say that because I'm generally curious. I see a huge potential in the Balkan region, not just Bosnian Herzegovina, but Albania to Montenegro, anywhere in between. So, in regards to the purchasing power that you're talking about, you're a huge advocate if anyone follows you or knows you of Bosnian Herzegovina. How do you see that mindset shift over the next five to 10 years, especially as we talked about like setting up a company for digital nomads and people wanting to kind of be more remote focused? I mean, obviously you think that it's a really good region in Bosnian Herzegovina specifically to set up. How do you see that progressing over the next five to 10 years?

Senad: 20:26

Well, the thing in Bosnian Herzegovina is we have such a complex structure, if you look from top down, from a government perspective, and I've tried to change things from that approach as well, in the sense that our can we introduce the digital nomad visa and so on, but it ended up being so much hassle and you have politicians that pretend that they will help you to get some points here and there, but when it comes down to it, they don't actually want to do the work. And then what I figured?

Senad: 20:51

all right, let's just take a bottom up approach even with this whole digital nomad, I think let's see what we can do, even if we don't get help from the government, and maybe eventually they will see the opportunity. And one of the things that obviously I'm doing and I'm trying to promote it a lot in every way that I can I try to stay active on LinkedIn and talk about the different opportunities that are there because I think, like you said and I think you said it when you were here as well, like you had no idea when you came here, like you had a lot of the similar benefits that maybe Spain has. It's very affordable as well, obviously has some drawbacks as well, but certainly a lot of things to offer Beautiful. I appreciate it. So, yeah, we tried to do a lot of promotion and I'm also trying to kind of put out a mindset there. It's okay to promote our country, right. So I hope that I'm not gonna be the only one linked in talking about these things. And if we can just get a buzz going in a vibe Going, that's more positive, that's not just looking at the negative side of things.

Senad: 21:45

I really think that in the, you know, makes it five to ten years, and if we can attract digital nomads, which is a story line that's kind of just starting in Bosnia to go. You know, we're just getting some breakthrough there. We're having you got. You were a part of that first official like plan on how to get more digital nomads to Bosnia to go, you know. But it is actually giving dividends and we can see it, and I think I had a post them Two days ago that most I had broken in on no met list calm in the top 100 times In the world for digital nomads. So it's something you know. A buzz is coming around and I'm just an optimist And I think you have to spread that kind of optimism out to the world as well. Obviously, when you're as public as I am, you know you're gonna get a little bit of that back. That's just some haters, isn't that? but it's just what comes with the territory. But just still keep putting out positive energy into the universe.

Tim: 22:31

Basically, yeah, yeah, i mean when I was in Bosnia in her to give you and I was just blown away by Not only what there is to do, because it seems like a very active country. You guys have the Olympic mountain that was in what Yahrina way back in the 80s, i believe. You guys have Red Bull diving almost yearly there. You have some amazing ref. I mean it's a beautiful country. We drove through a decent portion of it in just the hills. I mean maybe it was the time of year that we are at, but I just loved it.

Tim: 22:58

And then it comes back to how affordable it is and I'm not surprised at all to see that it has broken into that top 100. I assume that it'll just go up and up because it's in the backyard. It's not technically in the shangan area, which is now a benefit, especially after Croatia is just into the shangan for people to kind of visa run, if you will, and so there's so many benefits of it being Right in the backyard. You guys have a little bit of coastline if you, if you want to check it out.

Senad: 23:23

I think it's okay as one destination, so it's fine.

Tim: 23:26

It's like me myself like when the summer comes around.

Senad: 23:29

For six months of the year I travel, sometimes the Bosnia to Gugina coastline, but oftentimes the Croatia, sometimes the Montenegro, and it's overall just a great location.

Tim: 23:37

Yeah, exactly, and so I'm really excited to see the development of this area and then specifically Bosnia to be. The people are so welcoming and nice. It definitely has its pros being a digital nomad or remote worker, so I hope to see more companies open up there. But speaking of companies that are already there and Zendev, obviously you said you're helping and using Zendev's resources to partner up with other startups. How are you going about finding those opportunities? Are these companies that come internally? Are they just something that is kind of sourced outside, that you just know from connections? Can you just kind of walk us through your mindset and how you're approaching growth as a company which is in there?

Senad: 24:22

So the idea we have in Zendev was that let's not just have one product, let's have a few products just to create that culture or creating products. Right, we have multiple teams working on multiple products at the same time, and I think what most consultancy companies will have is that a lot of people will come to them and say, look, i had this idea and you want to build it with me and you get a certain percentage of the equity and so on, and you basically be Showered with those kind of offers. So you have to know your own business, basically to be able to evaluate What is genuinely legit in all of this, what is not. So on, who's ready to co-invest with you, who is just looking to have some fun with your money, basically, so you really have to know who you have to work with right. So, in the case of somebody like Mandy, they had heard to us through some colleagues in Sweden, then asked like, what do you think about Zendev and what they were doing? and they had, luckily for us, nice things to say about this, and then they came to us and said all right, we have this idea. But they were also very proven themselves. So they had a company called UV, where they did their staffing in Gothenburg and employed over 500 people themselves.

Senad: 25:26

So I think people that have a track record when naturally look for other people that have a track record as well, and then you can meet up halfway and see what we can build together, right? So that's a big part of it evaluating the people, and I think everybody always says that in the space of startups, don't invest in Tydeus, invest, invest into people. So it's mostly that we feel that the people that are Really competent, what they're doing. And then the second part is are they a cultural fit for us as well? We're gonna have fun working on this the next five years, right, because you can't build a startup in six months, basically. So we felt that, for example, with Mandy would be a ton of fun. They have such a great energy and they're a great complement to the skill sets that we have. All, right, let's go into this together. And they were very serious in the sense that, alright, they said we'll put X amount of money in it. You put in X amount of money in it. So everybody wanted to have skin in the game and everybody saw the benefit of everybody else being involved in all of this. So that's an example of how we get into these kinds of projects and Basically, what we do there from Zenit is that we took some of that profit and invested it into multi and we figured, if we're doing this constantly And we invest money into some of these startups, what we want to do as a company, then if these startups are very, very successful, in the end We want to have a kickback for all the people that are in Zenda, because they're part of creating this as well.

Senad: 26:41

So we created a model about a year ago where we decided that 50% of all the dividends that are taken out of Zenda are going to be given back to the people in the company.

Senad: 26:50

So, yes, we are taking a part of the money and investing in its own own products, but if we do make a great profit, whenever we take out money from that profit, half of it is gonna go to the club myself and half to the people in the company that were part of creating that and Through that, you want to crannicrate that ecosystem of people that feel alright, we're all involved in this and if this group over here does a great job on Mandy and we do a great job on having no, we'll be able to distribute all of that between all of us. It was an idea that was kind of probably lurking in the back of my mind for a year. I spoke to me club. I think it's a big decision. You can't have move, can't go back from a decision like that. But we felt that it was the right thing to do and we'll see how things play out.

Tim: 27:29

And so, speaking of Mindy, i saw this the other day just browsing through your background and I was really intrigued by the concept. So, if I get it right and correct me if I'm wrong, pretty much if you have something wrong in your house, whether it's like a plumbing issue or something you know that maybe requires a higher level of expertise, you can just get on a video call and have them fix it with you. That seems like such an obvious thing that isn't out there, and is that something that was created in Sweden? And how are you finding that kind of product be adopted globally?

Senad: 28:01

So what we saw in Sweden is that a lot of that is moving towards video. So very early on in Sweden we had Cree, which was the application to have your doctor in your phone, basically So if you have something growing out of your arm and show me what's happening here. And then there was the mind alert, which is basically your therapist and your phone. So we saw that you know, in Sweden people are accepting of these kinds of services And if you can accept a doctor over the phone, we figured certainly a handmaid can help you over the phone If you can use the camera of the phone in a good way. So we just felt like, especially for someone like myself, i could identify the problem because I'm a person that can't fix anything at home And what we believe is that Gen Z is gonna be even worse because everything's going into the space of like being a service. So we figured, alright, this makes sense and it was just a matter of how to set it all up.

Senad: 28:48

The idea wasn't Nikko and myself. Mustafa was actually been a handyman for 20 years, so he understands that industry very, very well And he said I really believe that a lot of big percentage of these issues can be solved over the phone. For the ones that can't be solved over the phone, then we're gonna send out a handyman. So in the same way that Cree, when they can't solve your doctor's problem over the phone, you have to go to your doctor here. When we can't solve it over the phone, we send out a handyman to you and basically solve your problem.

Tim: 29:15

Yeah, that's so cool. Do you see that branching out beyond and maybe you know this is? I don't want to, you know You to reveal any trade secrets or anything, but do you guys see this reaching out beyond? you know it was doctors, now it's handyman's like. I'm just curious on how This tech can evolve and I guess we'll see if you want to answer that first and then I'll kind of ask a follow-up on that.

Senad: 29:35

Yeah, absolutely. That's something that naturally comes to mind when you think about you were creating an application that creates errands And you saw them over a video call over the phone. We have thought about the idea. You know, maybe the broader picture here is that we're kind of like demarcatizing You know this like video call aspect of solving problems in your life right, getting access to the right people and so on. And it's certainly not out of the realm of possibilities that men deep will branch out like that.

Senad: 30:01

But what I feel also is that we need to own one vertical first. So it's initially this handyman vertical. Figure it out, learn how to sell, who to sell to and so on. And only once you've figured out one vertical is it worth actually start expanding. And this has been a discussion in our company as well. It shouldn't be expansion week Or we feel like, all right, we need to learn everything we can about this and ultimately adopt everything towards this one specific segment And once we've nailed that, only then can we talk about it if we want to branch out to the other ones. But I won't be surprised that there's a ton of competitors in the ton of other spaces, because overall it's going to be a better life for all us when they are more services like that.

Tim: 30:38

Oh, 100%. Instead of waiting a week to fix the shower, you can just hop on a call and it be done. I mean, it's such a unique and original idea. And then kind of branching over to something else that you guys do Robinize your AI powered SEO and kind of speaking on how another industry is evolving into the future. Obviously you hear of chat, gpd And that's huge And I feel like on everything that you see nowadays and that's such a evolving way in that SEO is going to operate, i'm curious to how you see that industry changing, because a lot of things that people are saying is Oh, you know, these are going to take away from all of these, whether it be digital nomads or all these jobs, but at the end of the day, these AI powered you know what they're writing is pulled from what is already written, so somebody has to go in and write it initially for it to do that. So I'm just curious to see as you guys, you know, have another company and Robinize how you see this space evolving.

Senad: 31:39

So certainly, chat GPD is a disruptive technology, so a lot of things are going to change in a lot of different industries, because we're also at the infancy stage of what chat GPD is. Nobody knows exactly where this is going in for us And Robinize certainly it's an industry that has been heavily, heavily touched by that And for the people that don't know about Robinize is, it is a tool that helps you write SEO optimized content that we feel is going to rank in Google. Basically, the first question is like what is this going to mean for the Google search engine in the next five to 10 years? I will be as dominant and, with their algorithm, still be the thing that is our go to place for information, but what I think ultimately is going to happen is that a lot of the content that has been put out to the internet by people that are aware of how to use SEO content is actually pretty generic And, in a sense, if you're putting out content like that, yeah, chat GPD will be able to replace you if that's all you're doing, but then again, if you're doing that, then you're not actually creating any new value.

Senad: 32:40

But I think if you're really a serious content writer, where you're actually doing serious research and you know both quantifiable but also qualitative research, those type of articles. I don't see that chat GPD will be able to generate that And that in that sense, you will be creating new content to the world that you're going to put out on the internet first, and that's something that is not directly competing with chat GPD. Eventually, obviously, chat GPD will scrape all of that and maybe use it as some of their future articles. But as far as putting out new content to the world, let's actually value, it's not a competition towards that. Right now, at least, that's how I see it.

Tim: 33:15

I mean, i just take this and I bring it, you know, 10 years into the future, and maybe I'm just not understanding the industry fully. But eventually wouldn't it get to a point to where, if everyone's just using that service and maybe making a few comments or adjustments on their side of things, isn't it just the internet writing its own self Like, at what point is there like this line, or do we realize that this content is not written by us? Is that not possible? Just correct me if I'm wrong. Help me here.

Senad: 33:44

It's very interesting. So Sam Altman claims that it won't be. He's telling schools not to try to figure out how to create plagiarism detectors for content, for instance, that are being written in school, because his point is like it's never going to go back. Now, people are always going to be able to use this tool to generate assets and you're not going to know if chat GPD generated it. And he says I tried to figure out how to work around it, in the same way that when the calculator came around, you have to figure out how to make your school work around the calculator more or less. So it is a lot of that And I don't know.

Senad: 34:18

It's very interesting to see because in a lot of ways, what chat GPD does is what actually the human mind does in a lot of places as well. For these simpler articles, you take four articles on the same topic, you try to read it fast and then create some sort of aggregation of all of that. Yeah, now there's a computer that can do that for the easier variants, but if you really like, go deeper into the research. I think there's the competitive edge for people And in a sense it's good, because we perhaps don't need any more generic information. We need new cutting edge information that comes out to the world. So yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Tim: 34:50

And then that AI powered information gathering. I guess it brings me over to thinking, and again I'm kind of just going off on a tangent here, but I'm assuming you're aware of those videos. There's a term for them and I'm blanking on it right now, but where they essentially like, can create what it, there's a popular one, morgan Freeman's face, And it's like the guy's talking And it's just Morgan Freeman but it's not Morgan Freeman. What is that called? Do you know?

Senad: 35:14

Deep fake.

Tim: 35:15

That's it, yeah, so as we can, deep fake with video, but then we also have like a chat GPD creating these texts as well. How far off do you think we are from full on videos of someone talking being created from AI without anyone doing anything. Really, yeah, exactly how far.

Senad: 35:40

And I think that's like a million dollar question that everybody's asking themselves the imperial right now And all the implications that it's going to have. Right, if you and I are sitting here having a podcast, our only face going to replace us five, 10 years down the line, i don't know how far along it is, but there is something to the fact that how we create new knowledge, if you will, is the same way that this AI is going to do as well. It's just going to have the ability to read much, much more than we can and be able to create much more comprehensive things. And I don't know what the future for human beings is versus AI, but what I think eventually it's going to be it's going to be is that we're going to be able to do more of the things that we do enjoy, and that's not just like the creative side of things.

Senad: 36:23

Everybody thinks that when AI thinks over, we're just going to be drawing paintings again or something like that, but I think our quality of life overall is just going to be better, because I think what came with the industrial revolution all of these nine to five jobs that are not created, that are just done at work we've kind of programmed the people in the world that they should feel like yeah, this is what gives you purpose in your life.

Senad: 36:44

Meanwhile, you feel like you're doing the same darn thing eight hours a day for maybe 20 years of your life. Is it really that evolving for you? And I know that it's scary in the sense that if this is the only thing that I know in a computer or a robot can replace me for this it's never fun, but I think for the new generations that are coming, it teaches us that we don't have to learn how to do those kinds of jobs. We have to figure out how to constantly be evolving ourselves with the time, and I think that's what's going to come down. So I think more good will come out of it and bad base.

Tim: 37:14

I love that, i absolutely love that. You know it takes it from what I was going off on, and then you just made it sound a lot better, so I'm happy to kind of wrap things up on that. So now this has been amazing. So typically I always ask one question at the end for all my guests, which is if you could take all of your life experiences that you've lived, turn around and give someone one piece of advice from all those experiences, what would that piece of advice be?

Senad: 37:37

So mine would be patience, because one of the things that I struggled with in my early 20s was that I started developing these panic attacks that were really bad for my health, and most of it came out of the idea that I was literally going to a website called retireat21.com and you had this 20-year-old that retired You probably had a retired, which was called that, and had like semi-fake stories, but I thought I like it because I was going into entrepreneurship. I need to figure out everything at once. So rather than thinking of you know you need to get to this destination and this amount of time, just enjoy the process, know in which direction you're going, but give yourself time.

Senad: 38:15

I think Nicol always says it. he says when you have slow success, it builds character. we have fast success, it builds arrogance. So there is actually something to that of having a grind for a long time and then actually having step by step success. So, just if you're young and out there, give yourself time. don't kill yourself because it's not going as fast as you may think that it is going for other people. There's very few Zuckerbergs out there that are billionaires at 24. Don't even look at it.

Tim: 38:44

Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, just kind of on that. As you mentioned within this podcast, startups don't all of a sudden scale in six months. It takes some time. So if that's your goal, if you're interested in entrepreneurship, don't freak out or don't quit after six months, because maybe you just you don't understand what you need to do to get there. So it's not again. thank you so much, man. I really appreciate your time. Where can people reach out to you? Where can they find more about the projects you're involved with Zindev, etc.

Senad: 39:11

The easiest place to, where I spend most of my time is on LinkedIn, so my name is Sanad S-E-N-A-D, and then my last name is Sandic S-E-M-T-I C And yeah, so reach out to me. There's anything that's of interest for you, if you have any questions or if you potentially want to do business together. And, tim, thank you so much for the time. I didn't know what to expect of this, what in which direction it was going to go, but I genuinely had a really great time with you, so let's stay in touch.

Tim: 39:39

Cheers man? Yeah, absolutely, and when I eventually make it back over there most are I'll definitely hit you up.

Senad: 39:44

So I appreciate the time man Well, have a great time. Oh yeah, cheers, take care.

Tim: 40:09

And that wraps up another episode of Thoughts for Random Citizen. Thank you everyone. So much for tuning back in. For those who are new listeners, welcome And I appreciate you joining. I hope you enjoyed the podcast and our guests today.

Tim: 40:23

If you are new and you're doing anything remote, be sure to check out Citizen Remote. It is fantastic. If you're already traveling the world, It's a great app to join a very quickly growing community. It's a great tool for those who are just about to begin traveling and figuring out how to navigate that, especially if you work remotely. It's a fantastic platform and we continue to build more and more tools for you guys, weekend and week out. Otherwise, if you're an entrepreneur and you're looking for tools or assistance with the next steps of what you need to do with your startup, or if you're looking for software development network connections, reach out to us at Torque United. Otherwise, if you're just tuning in for the conversations, thank you. That's why I love doing what I'm doing Keep tuning in and actually keep a lookout for the not-for-profit that we're about to open up.

Tim: 41:14

Its main focus is going to be on international collaboration and helping build a borderless world, because it's something that I'm very passionate about. That's why I'm not only doing Torque United but Citizen Remote as well. Really exciting stuff on that horizon. Please keep up to date with all of that stuff the not-for-profit and entrepreneurial side of things at Torque United. But again, if you're traveling the world, check out Citizen Remote. If you're wanting to travel the world, if you're a remote worker, check out Citizen Remote. Check out the app we've built for you guys. Check out the platform we've built. It's only growing every single week, So hopefully you guys will take part in that with us. Otherwise, I will speak with everyone in a fortnight. Until then, cheers.