Finance for Founders with Samuel Ajala

Scaling with AI | Cien Solon | Episode 2 |

• Samuel Ajala • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Join Samuel Ajala in this episode of Finance for Founders as he interviews Cien Solon, the founder of Launch Lemonade. Shen shares her journey from marketing to AI, explaining how Launch Lemonade is revolutionising AI enablement by allowing anyone to turn ideas into AI assistants. The discussion covers the future of AI in marketing, business, and daily operations, offering insights into how startups can scale efficiently with AI tools. Cien also shares her passion for equity in technology and offers valuable advice for budding entrepreneurs.

Samuel:

Hi, guys. It's me, Samuel Adjala again, and welcome to another episode of Finance for Founders. Today, I am joined by a very special guest. Her name is Xian Solon. If I've pronounced that wrong, I'm sure she'll correct me. And, um, she is the founder of Launch Lemonade. Um, in fact, all things AI, really. Um, and, um, this, um, well, I'm going to get her to explain, um, um, Launch Lemonade. Um, but really it's. Automates startups assist you with startups and is really getting ahead of the AI takeover. In this session, we're going to be asking a few questions as well, um, about AI, um, what the future looks like, uh, with AI and the impact, um, of the business. And one of the things we're going to be Doing as well. She has a background in marketing and so we're going to look at the impact of Ai and marketing and what it looks like potentially in the future as well Yeah, so with that being said Shen you are welcome to finance for founders. How are you?

Cien:

I'm, great. You did pronounce it. Correct that is shen solon. Well done. Uh, not a lot of people do Um, but i'm great. Yeah, I just got back from a three week holiday I saw my folks in the Philippines and I feel refreshed and ready to go for the next half of the year.

Samuel:

Fantastic. How long have you, when last were you in the Philippines and when last did you see your your family?

Cien:

Um, my mom visits quite often, but I haven't seen my dad in the last two years. When I was last there, um, two years ago, I was there for a good five weeks. So every time I'm home, I'm like home, uh, I don't do anything else.

Samuel:

Fantastic. Um, so tell us a little bit about you. I gave you a, uh, an intro, um, at the start of the program. Um, but tell us a little bit about you for those that don't know.

Cien:

Yeah, sure. So I'm Shen. Uh, like I said, I'm a CEO and co founder of LaunchLaminaid. It is the WordPress or Shopify of AI enablement. So, you know what WordPress has done for a lot of businesses where they started an idea and turn it to a website, WordPress website, no code. Or you know, like what, Shopify is doing for a lot of businesses now in terms of e commerce. We're doing that for AI enablement. So essentially anyone can turn a service or an idea into an AI co pilot and they can choose different from different language models. So they don't just have to subscribe to like, is it open AI? Is it Gemini? Is it Anthropic? So depending on your use case, uh, what you want it to do, whether you're finance, you're a coach or consultant, Or a student or you know, like a small team you can turn any of your services or a business idea into An ai assistant or co pilot and start selling it to your customers

Samuel:

Fantastic I'm going to go a little bit further about that explanation. So i'm an executive coach for example I want to start a business today. I want to scale it and You know Three of my services are one hour sessions a month, another one service is two hour sessions a month, and another one is three hour sessions a month, or four hour session a month. Let's put them in multiples. So one, two, and four, right? Once a month meeting, bi weekly meetings, and every week meetings. Right. How does Launch Lemonade assist somebody in this predicament right now? Talk me through it.

Cien:

Um, so we already have coaches, um, uh, who have created, uh, their co pilots in our platform. So You would still have kind of, you know, those in place, but I'm sure some of your clients want to talk to you 24 seven or 12 midnight or they just can't stop thinking about something and they can't wait. I wish I could talk to Sam right now, but because they can't, they can basically, if you can, if you have PDFs or recordings of like a conversation set up, you have frameworks, you can feed that in as knowledge base to your co pilots and essentially all of your clients can talk to you 24 seven. Seven days a week.

Samuel:

Wow.

Cien:

In a version of an AI copilot. And when they really want to basically have that one to one with you, you can set up links in place or, you know, like appointment bookings in place within that same chat and they can book. All right, I need to actually talk to Sam now. So it could be your top of the funnel. channel as well. So there's many ways to think about it. Kind of like the world's your oyster right now in terms of, um, what you want to do with these AI co pilots or basically cloning yourself. Um, and, and a lot of our creators right now are experimenting on what that looks like for them.

Samuel:

So talk me through your journey, how you got to this. Uh, as I mentioned, you started off in marketing. Product owner and then eventually you came into the AI space as well Uh talk us through that um journey and how you basically became passionate about it

Cien:

for sure So actually yeah, like as I said, uh, I started my career in marketing I Was part of digital transformation team. So, you know, uh, 15 10 years ago a lot of businesses Um, I was invested heavily on traditional marketing. So whether that's billboard or TV commercial or print, um, and then there was a wave of like, okay, let's now take some of our budget out and move it to online websites. Let's build apps. So I was part of kind of like that cohort of people who Move traditional marketing online. And then we started playing around with data. So how can we maximize our digital marketing budget to make sure that our customers convert? So we started building like customized experiences using data, using machine learning. And then I started training, um, a chat bot in 2018 and using machine learning, you had to train, you know, there were a 200 person team who was like training and like testing and QA in the chat bot. Um, um, and then I saw overnight after. Launching it. It increased the efficacy of customer service by 20 percent and that was in 2018 and then it just got better and better And then I also in my product management role. So having been in marketing and started owning like CSM system, CRM systems, working with data. I started working with, you know, engineering teams, data scientists, architects, you know, and sometimes there were as big as 30 engineers in my team. We would like deploy, um, fraud models, credit models, decisioning models, affordability models. And also we started using like, uh, facial recognition to like, you know, combat bad actors as well. And, and this was, must have been like three years ago, uh, two years ago, if not. Um, and that was before kind of like AI, AI or these language models became accessible. Like generative AI was, was, uh, basically got out in public. And so because I saw the impact of. Machine learning on what was known to kind of like be like a I then I saw the impact on the businesses and how it got them to profitability. Got them to acquire a lot of customers. It got them to improve their operations as soon as it became accessible. I was like, everyone should get on top of this. Everyone should utilize this accessible form of a I now generative a I to scale their businesses as well. And so I started actually essentially through. Businesses. One is the startup, which is LaunchDominate, the platform that allows anyone to, um, custom their co pilots, assistants, and soon agents. But I also have ScaleThatThing, which is basically me providing fractional AI and growth support. To startups so that they can, um, uh, scale their operations or optimize their products through a I so kind of like those are the two work streams that work hand in hand together right now.

Samuel:

Fantastic. Tell us a little bit about scale that thing. I was going to be my next question. Um, uh, we've spoken about launch lemonade. Give us some information or tell us a little bit more about scale that thing.

Cien:

Sure. So maybe about three, four years ago, founders started coming to me from, uh, cause I was in product leadership roles in startups that are now unicorn startups. Some founders were coming to me asking for advice on, you know, like, how do we build products? Um, how do we kind of like use data to inform our product development? And since then. I started working, um, with startups from an advisor kind of like ad hoc perspective, I became a Techstars mentor, and then more and more founders were coming to me asking, okay, how do I launch a product? How do I use data? How do I, you know, scale my, my, my product or my idea? And so basically I was like, all right, I can scale myself from an advisory perspective, build some systems in and actually offer this as a service, um, through startups where it can help them cost effectively, um, launch an idea and scale it, uh, using product led growth frameworks and AI.

Samuel:

Fantastic. Um, and so right now, right, As a business, who would you say are the companies, if there is an, if there are at all that are most likely to be impacted within the next six months without, um, the introduction of AI

Cien:

with, with the introduction of AI,

Samuel:

without the introduction of AI. So if they don't introduce it within this next six months, what are the kind of company? I know it's going to increase in the next two years and the next three years, the next five years, but what are they? Industries, businesses that are most likely to be impacted without the introduction of AI or investing heavily into AI?

Cien:

Yeah, I, that's a really interesting question because I am seeing, we've, you know, we've already seen a lot of people being made redundant in the past six months, year, um, you know, uh, big, big companies, um, letting go a lot of like their customer service. sector, for example, kind of like teams, for example, and replacing it with AI. And they have publicly said that there are a lot of consultancy firms as well who are reducing their kind of like numbers, um, in size, specific roles. Um, and I think that that's just gonna grow. So I think, you know, like at the top of my head, I had consultancies, agencies, um, who are working with like small to medium businesses and even enterprises. Now having internal teams of, that are lean and are able to use AI, um, tools. So whereas before, companies would have multi million budget to work with marketing agencies or design agencies. And I think with like, tools now that are very accessible and cheap, these teams would just reduce in size or move internally and just start using these tools. I can see a trend as well. So I've been kind of like judged in accelerator programs and have access to, um, kind of like a startup ecosystem. I'm seeing a lot of lawyers, for example, are building their own startups, um, and building their own AI solutions that basically make, you know, like. Um, documentation and legal paperwork, very accessible and easy to, um, um, use for startups instead of going to a law firm. If you're a startup, you can just use the tools that these, um, startups are building. Um, financial analysts, I don't know, basically like consultant type, um, I think teams, if they don't AI enable themselves and scale by building kind of software or AI, Versions of their offering, I think are going to lose out.

Samuel:

Wow. Wow. So, um, in the immediate to near future, the workforces of many organizations you believe are going to be impacted, right? And then, um, after that, do you think that you're going to be seeing a rise of independent contractors working with AI or like, what does it look like now in the next five years or 10 years or so?

Cien:

Should

Samuel:

people be worried about this as well?

Cien:

Uh, I'm excited about it. So, prediction is a prediction, right? Like, I, fortunately or unfortunately, my predictions are based on other people's prediction and how, kind of like, their visions of the world. Like, I listen to Sam Altman, I listen to Elon Musk, I'm very, like, I'm a little bit embarrassed about that, but I listen to what these guys are predicting, and as I'm developing a product that, uh, Who's on a mission to provide kind of like the mass market accessible versions of kind of many versions of what they're building and we're language model agnostic, democratizing that. I see a world where everyone's going to be their own startups as well. So this is not, this is not original for me. I heard this from somewhere. Everyone's going to have their own startups and everyone's going to be offering some sort of service or product that's going to be either an AI form, an AI agent form. Or like ran like a product that's being ran by AI teams or AGI teams. And, um, I, I find that really exciting. So I had a conversation with a friend who is also in kind of like the AI, no code space. And he said, if Beyonce's lawyer was to build an AI version or a clone of himself. Would everyone just have a Beyonce lawyer? Would everyone just have access to that lawyer? And I said, I don't think that that's gonna be the case. I think there are gonna be multiple lawyers, um, who will, um, turn their services into some sort of AI copilot or, or agent, and they would be competing against each other. So these different lawyers are still gonna be. Um, and so it was us, you know, like you're a financial, um, consultant or you provide financial services, other people with writing this, um, different things, but they specialize slightly on, on different things. And my financial agent. Someone else is going to be negotiating with maybe yours, um, from someone else's. So I'll have a financial agent that I might subscribe from you, Sam. And then someone else is going to have a financial agent that's subscribed from somewhere else. And every time we have a financial kind of like negotiation or transaction, these agents are going to be negotiating with each other. So I see a world where everyone's going to have their own kind of business, startup, and all of these agents are just going to be negotiating with each other. Transacting with each other. Um, yeah, that is how I see the world. Um, there are many versions of that as well, but that is kind of what I'm banking on. What

Samuel:

would be your advice to somebody that is, uh, fearful of what to come when it comes to AI? What would be your advice?

Cien:

I was what I told you I was in the Philippines and some of my friends who are business owners, they own egg farms, um, you know, like, uh, these are my best friends growing up. They are kind of like doctors. Um, they, uh, one of my best friend is oncologist. Um, and even my parents, they're like, we just don't understand it. And, you know, like, it's using a lot of data. I don't know What data's being used, uh, I'm not going to use it. And, but I hung out with them and I started explaining to them, like, there are many use cases for AI that could help your egg farm right now, for example. So my best friend, he was saying he wanted to expand his operations from this region to like five cities, um, north of him. And I was like, all right, what is your main question right now that, and we'll, we'll use an AI tool to. Um Answer that question and he was like, I don't know where to put my To build storages throughout the next five cities so that I my eggs can compete in the market. Um, uh sell to a maximum number of customers And remain fresh as I deliver from this city to the next five cities over I basically said the same thing um based on population Based on the fact that my eggs have to remain fresh and based on competition, blah, blah, blah, blah name five exact locations between these cities So that I can expand my egg operation and it listed down specific locations. I even asked for longitude longitude um Data and and it suggested The exact locations I was telling my friend and he was like, wow You Like, that's amazing. That just saved me hours or days having to find people to help me locate or like, you know, even just kind of like start thinking about it. Now I have a blueprint of where I can just go and see and, and then, and, and like, See if I can, uh, put up a scan, like an egg storage there. And, and they've now turned around, like his wife is now thinking about putting up an AI agency and, uh, AI marketing agency in, uh, in the Philippines. So

Samuel:

that's amazing.

Cien:

So it's just about exploring. What you want to explore, if you have a question, see if a, you know, like some sort of language model or tool can answer that. Um, if you're into design or if you're into graphics or movies, just, just start experimenting and start understanding what it can do.

Samuel:

Fantastic. That sounds amazing. What has been your, the biggest challenge in, uh, having a startup, right? Uh, whether it's scale that thing or launch lemonade, um, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, what are the biggest challenges you faced?

Cien:

Well, it was quite a transition receiving, you know, like a salary. To kind of like, oh, you know, what am I gonna do and how am I gonna find this money the next month or so? Like what how how am I gonna survive? um, and that's how how you start and and like all of these paperwork that you have to set up and Um, you know, like from registering at company's house to finding, you know, like an accountant or knowing what to, what you need to be able to kind of like pay your taxes for the next year. So in that transition has been quite, um, I wouldn't say difficult, but that, but only because I haven't, you know, it's something that you're kind of like, I would rather delegate this, um, rather than do it myself. But then, you know, at the end of the year, like tax year's ending and you're like, oh no, um, I've had part time jobs before, but it's still, you know, like it's still, and I've had to, um, basically, Do self assessment as well before, but it's still, you know, it's still like something that, um, um, is, is quite tricky.

Samuel:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, one of the things about, um, uh, a startup or, you know, starting your own business is the many caps that you, um, have to wear. It sounds as though finance is one cap. You certainly don't like to wear where, what are your, um, what are the areas of business that you do enjoy? Uh, what are the aspects of business that you actually enjoy doing or that that's more Aligned with your skill set probably is the right word to say.

Cien:

Yeah I am in between looking for ways to deliver a solution in the most cost effective way And also experimenting with the latest technology So like kind of like I love innovating And like working with new tech. So I have had the privilege of having big budgets before where I could integrate like six figure solutions, test it. Um, and, and that's okay. I've, I've worked with, um, with agencies as well with, uh, you know, like a seven digit, um, budget and, you know, like experimenting on, on like how, like a simple design change could shift something. So, um, I actually enjoyed that element of experimentation, but I want to do it in a cost effective way, and I love doing that for the startups that I work with, including Launch Laminates. I love finding the first customer, first 10 customers, and growing that exponentially, um, through experiments. Um, experimentation and growth hacks and machine, you know, like, again, using data to cost effectively do that. So I guess that, like, the best part is kind of like experimenting effectively and learning, um, fast is, yeah, something that I really enjoy.

Samuel:

Uh, you spoke about, um, you love tech, um, as a startup, right? What would you say are the, um, five top must have, uh, softwares, tools that every startup must use? I'll give you an example. Uh, a friend of mine, uh, introduced me to, um, a software called, uh, Descript. I think that this script is, is, is, is life changing, right? And what makes it even better now is that they've applied a lot of these AI, um, um, Aspects to it that has really have enhanced it. Whether it's scripting, whether it's even editing, um, Literally, it just makes, it saves hours. Like literally hours of somebody's time. Uh, so what are the four startup? This is, so what are you looking to get into business? What are the five must have tools that a business owner must have?

Cien:

A great question. I think it depends on where you are on your startup journey. If you're just validating an idea, go for free or the cheapest tools out there just to see if your idea would actually solve a problem or it would attract, um, you know, initial traction, like initial customers or drive traffic. Okay. So you could, there are free website builder tools or like really cheap website builder tools. If you want to have a wait list, for example, you could use, you know, a combination of Google Forms or like Devin, for example. Use Google Forms and they raise, and they're now valued at 2 billion, you know, and this was before they, they, they launched. Um, so. There's that and Google forms is free. There are cheap versions of Google forms, a type form or whatever. Um, and there's card for example, which is a landing page builder and you can use it for free or you, you, you, um, purchase. I think it's really cheap. Um, uh, so if you're in that phase and, and then you, for example, you want to build, you can't afford a marketing team or marketing agency, build an AI team. So for example, with me. I have Otter instead of Descript. So I basically record my conversations. If I have an idea while I'm walking, I just have a conversation with myself. And then with the transcript, I have an AI team that transforms that audio recording into a blog, into LinkedIn posts throughout the month, into tweets throughout the month. Into a YouTube description into ideas of what other content I can put together and instead of again spending between 500 to 2, 000 a month for an agency who could have done that and you know, like a week's time I'm doing it in two hours every Sunday afternoon pounds A month. So, um, that's, where is that Launch eight. Um, I've built it on mine, but if you don't have launch eight, use open ai. You know, chat. GPP has their own, um, co-pilot builder. You can customize your own, um, individual co-pilots if you're not, you know, gonna sell it. And if you like how, um. chat GPT sounds then fine, but other people think that chat GPT can't sound like them. So on our platform, we, you can choose anthropic or the clod because it sounds more conversational, or you can use llama, which is from Facebook because it sounds more conversational every day. So that's why I like kind of like the different language models on the platform, because I can choose different language model for each co pilot. So I think that you so to answer your question, um, a recorder, you, mine is Otter, something that records audio at least, Um, is a must for me for market research as well. You can use it to interview customers and you record the conversation and you analyze like what are the themes? What are, what are the topics? What are the frustrations of of kind of like a sentiment analysis? You can produce a sentiment analysis at the back of of your recordings. Um, there is a tool called Clueso as well, where you can collect quantitative data at scale. So instead of like doing interviews, you know and capturing their audio recording you could just Pre record the questions and get them to answer on audio and then their tool would analyze the sentiment in real time Um, so that's also one tool. So some sort of audio capturing I think is really good. It transcribes um, the second tool would be Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, scheduler. So there are each of the kind of social media scheduler that kind of allows you to pre schedule posts throughout the week or the month would have a free, um, account for you. Um, you know, test it out just to kind of scale, um, Your reach, um, social media platforms for sure. As a startup, you need to establish your brand and start growing kind of your following. Um, depending on what you are, if you're a B2B, I definitely would say be on LinkedIn, have a business page, establish your, um, thought leadership. Um, if you're kind of like a consumer product, maybe tick tock. So it really depends where your customers are. Um, and then another tool that I would say. Video editor. So like to produce content. I personally use CapCut. It allows you to kind of like really in a fun fun way cut videos record and they've got templates as well. So you can just put pictures together. It becomes like a TikTok video and then the last one would have to be what's the last one? This is an interesting question. What do I have? Um, what's up? What's up is also some sort of community builder, so I find that a lot of kind of like the startups now are building the communities, finding the first 10 customers by by either building a community or being part of big communities as well, where they can talk to their ideal customer profile, um, get them to test it and then eventually become their customers.

Samuel:

Fantastic. You know, I was thinking of building a community on WhatsApp, but I was concerned that it may not be the case on business, um, um, WhatsApp, but I was concerned that putting them in a group or in a community like that, I didn't want people to have access to each other's numbers. Um, so I, I'm still pondering whether I should use that. I know there's other platforms that are not As accessible, um, because everybody has WhatsApp, but I'm thinking Discord.

Cien:

Discord could be great. Yeah.

Samuel:

Yeah, but that's not accessible to everybody. Not everybody has that on there. And I know, no, it's because of the world we're in now. Any resistance, uh, to entry? Any form just turns people off like, Oh, seamless, so easy to, to get in and, and without any resistance, otherwise people just opt against it, you know, but yeah, um, that's fantastic. You know, do you refer to, I'm not sure if you're referring to launch lemonade specifically, but you said you're, A. I. T. Right. Is that how you refer to, um, AI that's assisting you or is that specifically your AI team that helped you build Launch Lemonade?

Cien:

No, my AI team is a dashboard where an individual boxes that I have an AI, um, LinkedIn co pilot, I have an AI, um, blog writer co pilot, I have an AI Twitter co pilot. It's a pre designed, I designed it, um, within Launch Lemonade. To help me, um, yeah, scale my content creation.

Samuel:

Do you know why I asked you that question? Right. Is, um, I, I watched an, uh, an, uh, episode of, um, I forgot the podcast, but Sampar, you had it, you spoke to Sampar. I'm going to talk to you about your conversation with Sampar. Uh, what's their podcast again? Um,

Cien:

not my first million.

Samuel:

Yes. He, he made a statement or somebody on his show made a statement. And they said that with the aid of AI, we're going to see our first unicorn one person business, right? Scaled basically to 1 billion, right? And so I wanted to ask you, because you refer to your AI team, right? How realistic do you think in the future, next five years, 10 years, that we're going to be seeing billionaire, um, business owners, only one person working in their business? That person being them, but the AI softwares that they use probably account for about 500 people or what the equivalent of what 500 people could do, right? So that's my question to you. How realistic is that? And does that look like something that could potentially happen?

Cien:

I personally think it's realistic today. With the right, um, creator, uh, and that is our mission at launch lemonade. We want to produce the next one person, billion, um, dollar. I can imagine, like, for example, if I was give me a name of a really famous, um, dietician, um, what was his name? Joe, Joe kind of like during, there was a guy who created cookbooks and exercise ritual, um, kind of regime.

Samuel:

But the one that was doing, um, doing lockdown. That was

Cien:

lockdown exercise. If he created his co pilot now that allowed his users to interact with it. You know, like I can take a picture of my fridge right now. For example, I can build a co pilot in launch laminate called Shen. The nutritionist and I'll take and what it would do is take a photo of my um contents of my fridge and then based on kind of like my, my, my goals, my health goals and my needs, it would produce like, okay, this is what you make. Um, this is what you're going to have for breakfast, dinner, um, lunch, dinner, whatever. And these are going to be the exercises that you need to do. And you're going to achieve your goal in the next three months. Now, if someone famous would do that and scale it, charge a pound a month. To a billion users if they have that reach they're going to be the next billionaire They're going to make him a billion in one month, right? So My mission my personal mission at launch lemonade is to allow Um our creators to actually achieve their their financial goals whether that's a million a billion It really is down to them. We provide the platform you market it.

Samuel:

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow, that's amazing um What is your um, um Sorry, I'm still stuck up on your last question, because I certainly want to be a billionaire. What is your strategy, your marketing strategy to get yourself out there? I know you've mentioned having waiting lists as well, or softwares that can assist you in having waiting lists. What is your strategy at LaunchLemonade?

Cien:

Yeah, that's an interesting question because I have negated a lot of like strategies that I would usually recommend for startups because it it if you already have a strong problem that you're solving and this problem. Is known um and felt by a lot of people you hone in on your messaging and then you get Wait people to sign up to your waitlist with a promise that I will solve that problem now with launch lemonade A the problem is in the future. You're gonna lose your job. You're gonna lose your livelihood. It's not felt now So you're almost just kind of like You're not launch lemonade is not solving a problem now We're saying that we are going to solve that problem next year, but you have to start now. So, we're I'm not allowed

Samuel:

to do education, isn't it?

Cien:

Yeah, so there's a lot of integration and waiting for the market to ripen, for example, is, is, you know, mature, is what I like to say. We're waiting for the market to mature. Now, our strategy has been, let's play with some value proposition. Let's tell people what it can do, what it does now, and let's see if it drives traffic, and it has been. So, even though we're not solving a problem now, We're not spending anything on anything on marketing ads. We've driven about 11 12, 000 people on our website since mid january We have now over 300 I think 320 330 creators who built their own co pilots in the platform and we started getting and people are starting pay us And again, we're not, you know, like this is, this is a very new kind of like way of thinking about things of turning a service into co pilot and selling it. But we are, we have, we are getting early adapters now. So to answer your question, it is more about like experimenting. Finding the people who would be interested and kind of just testing out if people would pay for it.

Samuel:

That is amazing So what what's your main platform for for advertising and promote because saying that you haven't really invested so much in Marketing so to say and yet you've had so many thousand people visit the site and you've got did you say? 120 people that I've built something on there so far

Cien:

330

Samuel:

330 that in six months. Yeah, and you're not really like paid advertising it. So Like what are the platforms you work on? Like, what is your strategy? Are you? um doing um Workshops like I think that's amazing.

Cien:

I haven't done workshops yet, but I have partnered with a few amazing. Um, um Kind of communities and I have three or four book in the next couple of months. Um, uh, also with agency hackers. I'm doing a workshop at the Royal Institution on how to build copilots and I've got one with female founder rise. I've got one with, um, um, Specifically around climate tech and how to use AI to solve, um, problems there. And I have one in Ideas Fest in Turing as well. So there'll be like, um, thousands of, of kind of businesses there. But the channels that I've used really, um, for me. That has driven kind of like the traffic is tiktok and linkedin So linkedin I you've seen me on linkedin. It's basically just that and then on tiktok as well um there are a couple of videos that perform well that has driven traffic and I kind of just like You know keep keep reusing those Yeah, it's just very simple. Um, kind of, yeah, experimenting on these channels that's driven the traffic so far.

Samuel:

That's amazing. Um, what's your, um, what's your, um, are you, are you raising funds? Are you bootstrapping at the moment? What, what, what, what, what are you doing at the moment?

Cien:

We are completely, um, self funded and bootstrapped since January. Um, we wanted just to validate the idea, you know, like again, kind of like play around a little bit before, you know, we owe anyone any money. We, we wanted to just see how we perform, um, cause there's only two of us. Um, And now that we have achieved that and we have defined our vision and what, you know, like what we think we can actually provide, um, um, our future customers with and our existing customers with, we will be fundraising soon and I'm just setting things up now, taking my time to really understand what that means for us. Um, uh, Um, looking at the market because it's hard to do our valuation when kind of like there's nothing else that we can compare ourselves with currently. Um, so yeah, just kind of like taking our time to get everything set up to then start fundraising hopefully in the next quarter.

Samuel:

You're one of the first to enter the markets to do this, right? What advantages and disadvantages will you have by being the first in the market?

Cien:

Um, the disadvantages are basically, um, acquisition. I think I say acquisition, but I feel confident about an acquisition plan that I'm thinking of. Uh, but I think it would be. To be

Samuel:

acquired by a, no,

Cien:

customers.

Samuel:

Okay.

Cien:

Um, acquired paying customers, I think is a challenge that, I mean, we have a strategy for it, you know, how we, we, we know what to experiment on in any way. Um, to kind of like, see if we can, if we, if we drive that up, um, because we're making for the market, so it's very hard to solve a solution to a problem that doesn't exist yet. So I think because. That's the case. It's also kind of going to be tricky for us to prove our valuation right now Do potential investors to say we know that this is going to be this big This is how this is why we're valuing ourselves at that So kind of like thinking through that is um, I think it's gonna be kind of one of the the challenges for us.

Samuel:

That's amazing you have History as a, um, a mentor for accelerators, uh, talk to me how you got into that and, uh, why you're passionate about it. Uh, what drives you, um, to do so?

Cien:

How I got into it was through Andy Ayem, who's was my former, uh, manager and my mentor now, and also a couple of other founders who I advised before. So it was just through recommendation, like, Oh, we know this woman who is passionate about product growth and AI. We think that she would be perfect for this accelerator. And then they would then come to me and, and, and, and reach out and ask if, you know, like it could be. a mentor and an advisor for their founders. Um, it is just through kind of like, um, word of mouth recommendation. Um, yeah.

Samuel:

Fantastic. And what do you enjoy about it? What, what, what are the, what the perks of mentoring businesses and, um, um, entrepreneurs, embodied entrepreneurs?

Cien:

Um, I am one of those people who want to change the world for the better. Um, and I love working with products and founders who want to do the same and who believe that they can. And I think that's the most exciting part is seeing kind of like the world actually change and kind of people actually doing what they want to do. And, and kind of being part of that is, it's amazing. So yeah, that's my favorite part. Like, yeah,

Samuel:

change. What, what, what are your, um, your, uh, passions? What drives you? You mentioned about seeing change, but the core of it all, what inspires you? What drives you? What keeps you waking up each morning to keep doing what you're doing?

Cien:

Equality and equity. I think definitely for with all the projects that I have. Um, and my favorite projects is rooted on equality and equity, specifically equity. So I like working with startups who, you know, want to improve AI systems, for example, for darker skin colored people. So there are, um, uh, technology in place that is being tested in America here in the UK. Um, where it would diagnose certain types of cancers or diseases just through an image or whatever, like. data, but it doesn't perform well. Um, with, for example, women, there's this lung cancer, um, device that just with an x ray, it could accurately tell if you have lung cancer or not. It performed really well on men. And there's this, um, um, founder that I've been kind of like, um, uh, advising, they want to improve. So when you have diabetes, you have color discoloration, and there's already a device, um, some sort of kind of like technology that, um, gets, um, You basically just take a picture of the the area and then for white people it got them kind of uh, the Just from the picture it got them the appointment doctor's appointment right away because it was quite clear like yeah this is something that could be something it is diabetes or um, like kind of a Uh cancer or something but with darker skin colored people. It was hard to To, um, triage the images because they didn't have enough data on darker skin color people. So I'm really excited about products like those, like collecting data from diverse groups. Um, and that's because I want equity within these, um, technology as well. You know, like, it can't just be white people who, um, who are kind of like the, the systems are able to service. It has to be. Kind of there has some sort of, of kind of, um, diversity in, in, in, in the, the types of people that they can service as well. And that's no one's fault. It's just that the data has been collected specifically predominantly kind of like within these, um, yeah. Uh, cohort.

Samuel:

Yeah. Was there something that triggered this, uh, passion, uh, in an event growing up? Uh, you didn't like, uh, injustice. Maybe you witnessed something that, that triggered. Dispassion

Cien:

um, what triggered this passion? I think just being a woman and like an Asian woman as well Kind of go into the world wanting to do the same things getting rejected getting discriminated here and there and kind of just like wanting to prove that we can and wanting to inspire other kind of Filipinos or Southeast Asian women or Asian women to also try because you can

Samuel:

Fantastic. And, um, I'm gonna, for any embodied, budding entrepreneur that's coming up behind you, right? Your top five lessons you've learned so far in entrepreneurship. And being a business owner and being a founder. What are the, um, five top lessons you can, you can share, uh, with anybody in entrepreneur?

Cien:

Wow, five. It's a lot. The first definitely is find your crew or find surround yourself with people that, that, um, inspire you. Cause you're just going to be as good as the people you are constantly with. Um, so that is hands down my, my number one, um, advice. The second is shoot your shot. So I got this advice from, from my mentors to try it. Like if you have an idea to shoot yourself, take the shots that you need to take. Um, and, and yeah, uh, try, you know, do your best to be able to kind of, um, achieve what you want to achieve. Um, the third is. Um, uh, what would the third be is to sleep definitely like find time to sleep because it changes your focus makes you smarter. Um, the fourth is, um, don't overthink everything like, uh, there are things that you need to think about, but you can only think about so much. So where things that you can kind of like rely on strong assumptions, intuition, um, uh, easy decisions. Fast and slow kind of, you know, um, categorize what you need, what you can think fast on and prioritize what you want to think about. Um, read that book. It's great. Um, and the last

Samuel:

by Daniel Gorman, think and fast.

Cien:

Yeah. Daniel Kahneman. Um, Yeah, and Amos Tversky, yeah, great old book. And the last is be curious. Um, you know, like explore your curiosity. If you're, if you're wondering about something, use, you know, go to ChatGPT and explore curiosity. But yeah, stay curious and explore what makes you curious.

Samuel:

Fantastic. Um, thank you so much, Sharon. I know you're extremely busy person. Uh, don't want to take up too much of your time. Uh, but do you have any last comments that you want to leave with our viewers? Uh, that are in business, uh, getting into business, any last, uh, final advice?

Cien:

Be cost effective, stay lean, scale smart.

Samuel:

I like that. I like that. I like that. Um, I was recently speaking to, um, Somebody who, um, they're trying to manage it, their burn, their burn rate. And, uh, they, they basically have halted on everything. Uh, but advise that if you spend slowly, it can also affect the trajectory of your growth of your business. Yeah. By the same time, if you spend too fast, you quickly run out of cash. Yeah. So there's a balance that has to be done. Um, and really what you, um, really need is, um, uh, some kind of projection, um, or forecast, uh, and have all of your plans. Unfortunately, you're going to have to have some tough decisions because he, he began to build, he got, I think he got funded of about two and a half million. He began to be very fast and hired quite a number of people within the organization and had to cut a few in order to save cost. Um, but no, I think that this is a common thread within business. Um, and I think one of the things I always advise people is to, um, uh, educate yourself on finances. What I find with a lot of people is that they tend to run away from finance, but even if you have an accountant, you have, um, you know, a CFO as a business owner, you need to educate yourself to some extent. Right. If somebody says gross margins, if somebody is speaking to you about your burn rate, you need to understand what all of these terms mean and how it potentially has an impact on your business. And I find that, um, most, uh, startups, CEOs that I know, uh, tend to, um, assume that the finance person would take care of it. Whereas, um, Ultimately, you have to be an unknown, maybe not to the detail that your accountant or CFA or not, but to some extent, you really have to understand those terms and those terminology. So important, uh, to business growth. Yeah. So as I run, if you said alpha, I'll just add that. Uh, today, um, by the end to share with our audience.

Cien:

Yeah. Well,

Samuel:

Shane, once again, it's been an absolute pleasure. Uh, absolute, absolute pleasure. You shared so much. Thank you for being open, honest with your journey. Uh, and, uh, yeah, look forward as well to assisting you and working with you with Launch Lemonade, uh, wherever we post some things out to our audience, to our group. Mm hmm. Um, Any, um, events you have as well, just let us know. We share on our platform as well, whether we post it for you on LinkedIn or even on our, uh, email database to send it to our group. So let us know how we can support you. And once again, uh, wish you all the best in the journey.

Cien:

Thank you so much, Sam. It was a lovely being here and I'll speak to you soon.

Samuel:

Brilliant. You take care for the rest of us. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Um, look out for us next week. Uh, make sure you like and subscribe to our channel and any comments you have, uh, we'll try our best to respond to your comments. Take care and enjoy your day. Bye.

Cien:

Bye.