Fisayo Oluwadiya

@0:02 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Hello, everyone and welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship.

This is your host, Mr. Flores. Today, I'm here with Fissio Olu Wadiya. How are we doing?

@0:39 - Fisayo

You're doing great.

@0:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

How are you? I'm excited about this one. You know, this is another one that, you know, working with some different team members that have helped me find phenomenal guests for the show.

But before we get into the company. Fissio, please give us a little background. Who are we talking to today?

Give us a little bit of a.

@1:00 - Fisayo

How much can you all experience? What have you been doing so far? OK, so I'm actually a baby entrepreneur.

@1:06 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I've been working for a large organization's my entire life.

@1:11 - Fisayo

I am an engineer, a photo on hands-on 18 years. I am not stopping. I will go to the day I die.

And I finally, about a year and a couple of months ago, said, you know what, you've been doing this for a long time for other people.

It's probably about time you actually try to do this for yourself. And this decision came up about the same time that OpenAI launched something.

And everybody is doing AI, So I'm like, OK, I'm going to jump on that that one. It's going to do AI.

So that's how I got into entrepreneurship, and that's me.

@1:44 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

See, I love it finally. People are understanding that AI, AI, we've been doing in the Spanish songs for so often is finally come to fruition and is taken over the world, but not in the way we anticipated.

I'll tell you that. So tell us a little bit. about your current venture, your current business and what inspired you to pursue this particular entrepreneurial endeavor?

@2:06 - Fisayo

Sure, so my current product is exactly, my company as a whole is okay, I'll provide technology solutions for the food industry in particular, but for the hospitality industry as a whole.

First-core product is exactly, it's an AIML restaurant and dish recommendation platform, it's dual marketplace. From an ETA perspective, and from the restaurant perspective, it provides data analytical services and tools so that restaurants can make data-driven decisions about their menus.

think about it, I'm collecting all of this information from eaters about their dietary preferences, things they like and they dislike, things they are allergic to.

So if I have all that information, we can answer simple questions like, I'm located in the zip code where I'm running a steakhouse and everybody's a vegan.

Am I wondering? It's a little bit, right? Makes sense. So things along that nature, questions along that nature is what I'm trying to answer and try and provide tools to help restaurants answer those questions, because the goal ultimately is if you're being smarter about what you're putting, if you're being smarter about what it is you're putting on the menu, you can most likely drive down.

You can increase, sorry, can you get me just one moment?

@3:29 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah.

@3:47 - Fisayo

I am so sorry about that.

@3:49 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You're fine.

@3:51 - Fisayo

Is that the door? So yes, by providing these tools, we're hoping that they can use data to essentially make

smarter decisions about the dishes they put on the menu, which will hopefully bring in more people into their restaurants and increase the satisfaction rates that these customers coming in to die, these customers coming to die and enjoy.

I got into it because I'm actually a food writer outside of coding and when I was thinking about okay, I should have my own product, I was thinking okay, let's work in the serious industries, I started my career in finance, it's like let's create an AI tool in finance, came up with something, built it, I was not interested in staying the course of it, so like forget it, I'm not going to do this, then I built something in medicine, I was like wow, this is a game changer, but I'm probably going to commit to this for like three months and then I was like no, I can't do this anymore, I'm bored.

So what do I really want to do that I feel like I'm obsessed with, I can commit my life to doing, so I'm obsessed with

food and wine and dining experiences and I'm also a coder. How can we do something great at that intersection?

And that's where the idea for exactly came up because I'm like, I'm a food writer, I'm recommending restaurants. So essentially my brain is a recommendation engine.

Let's go ahead and do that.

@5:18 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

That is so fascinating. So like, I mean, okay, let's let's break this down. So how let's think about the human human nature of the world, right?

So how can AI meet the unpredictable nature of human taste?

@5:34 - Fisayo

I mean, can it meet the unpredictable nature of every single human? Probably not. But if you actually dissect it down to data, ones and two, what is it you're thinking about when you say, I like this restaurant?

Okay, it's because you like dishes and you like drinks and you probably like the chef. Okay, great, we have that now break it down.

What is it when you say I like this dish, okay, it has this ingredient you have, or it's this cuisine you like, or it doesn't include this which you hate with the passion.

Break it down again, that's a question. So essentially I was able to take all of these questions and all of these requirements and dissect it down to zeros and ones which a computer understands.

And when you now use AI into it, when you put AI into it and you provide it enough data to train your model, all of that gray area that we're thinking, oh my goodness, how does opening eye and chat GPT know exactly what I'm asking?

That's what my data is providing. So obviously the more data I get, the more I train my model, the better it's going to get on that unpredictability and it's going to be on that.

Oh my god, how did I figure it out? But ultimately it comes down to the data points and the zeros I want.

I am constantly, constantly evaluating my model and training my model and getting more data points. but ultimately in the end it's just going to these restaurants and thinking about what is the experience that I'm having that's saying I like this restaurant and I like this dish and translating it down to data and feeding it into my model.

@7:13 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You know the beautiful thing about data is data will always give you uh they'll never give you in what you need but they'll always give you what you have I'll never give you what you want but I'll always give you what you need right because it's funny with data you kind of assume or you want it to tell you a specific story sometimes but but it never it never gives you that full painting painting of it always and so it's interesting to utilize AI to kind of help illustrate that.

Now now who is the primary customer? it be the dining restaurants or is it a consumer like myself?

@7:48 - Fisayo

Can I use it like a Yelp? Well it would be either way um this product is actually anti-el because I'm trying.

I mean y'all said first. for who we help this for. It's not for me. I was just like, it's not fair.

I'm very much proponent of restaurants and it's not fair when you go on there and you see some of the things people write, especially when it's for like new and young restaurants.

@8:14 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

It's like, you could shut them down.

@8:16 - Fisayo

restaurant closure, it's already said at 30% in the first year and then you're going and putting this out there.

Come on, give them a break. So I'm definitely a very restaurant proponent. But people can come on here and use it from an extreme personalization level, extreme personalization perspective because that's actually one of the ways I got into it because I was thinking, okay, I'm a food writer.

I'm going out every night, sometimes three, four restaurants a night spending a lot money at all these places. So I can find one or two that I'm really going to hone in focus on or visit again on write about.

How about I actually have my tool which will actually do the That's streamlining, so I don't have to visit 20 restaurants in a week.

I can actually just have the full say, okay, we already have all the things that you normally go to go visit these ones for your final concrete.

So back to your question, who is this for? It's for eaters, more discerning users who are looking for extreme personalization in their dining experiences, because think about it today, everybody has some sort of dietary restriction and they're on today, this person is a vegan.

Tomorrow, this person is allergic to nuts, even though they're not allergic to nuts, they just don't like it. So basically taking all of that into the mindset and applying it, that is the eater side of things.

Then we have the restaurant side of things, right? So the restaurants have a completely different view. They have tools along the lines of what I gave as an example, initially, you have information about the eater and you make it into menus.

But a feature we're actually building right now is very much But there's competitive analysis that we're doing in there.

There's recipe, recipe generation engines that we're putting in there. All of this is driving ultimately into do this, and you will get this result, and with this result, you will hopefully stay open even longer and make more money.

@10:20 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

You know, that's a great point. I think, you know, it's interesting how AI continues to evolve and it continues to create innovation based on, again, this is based on the principles of the individual that creates the code for the AI, right?

And so it's also important in what it wants it to learn and how it wants it to learn. Now, based on you, you're in the restaurant industry.

also, you mentioned in engineers, you're writing the code. What does the future of AI innovation in the dining experience look like?

What can what can me as a consumer expect in the next couple of years?

@10:55 - Fisayo

I mean, ultimately, it is just what I've said, extreme personalization, because right now you have people. who go into the restaurants, it's like a 15 minute conversation with the waitress.

I like this, I don't like that, I don't like that. So there's definitely that extreme personalization. It's going to go from one or two people to everybody's expecting you.

It's already started. So we're going to have that. Same time, people want more transparency because everybody is becoming healthier as far as what they've done and what they consume.

And they want the transparency and the source of ingredients so on and so forth that they're getting that they're about to put into their bodies.

So we need definitely more, we need deeper insight to where our sources of food are coming from to the actual true health impacts of what we're eating.

We need more truth in that. So I definitely see there's going to be a whole lot more transparency required in that regard as far as the food industry is concerned.

And that's another point where that's another point where tacking. I was going to come into play somebody actually was like, you know, they're actually using blockchain into In supply chain.

They're using blockchain in supply chain right now.

@12:08 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

was like How are you doing that? Yeah, he's in it to map and to track where everything is being imported from it makes sense We are basically able to look at addition if you have access to that entire train.

You can say I came from 20 different places, you know, and it's that kind of transparency that I think people are going to watch They're going to be particularly like about that going forward, you know, it's it's interesting because um, I like I would say I'm a Junior foodie, right?

I'm starting to really indulge myself in different cuisines and very, you know, really really venturing it out Um now with that said folks do not judge me, but I will say I still love myself a beautiful red robin burger And I will admit that on the table they have they have this little

full of TV kind of thing, right? menu. And so it's like, to your point, they kind of have an AI kind of system, you know, it's already here.

We just may not have noticed it before because as you're as you're, you know, explaining this, I'm starting to think of that damn golden, those Royal Red Robin burgers right now.

And I'm like, oh, I can actually just order it right there. And then when I can check out right there and I don't have to, you know, all of these things.

And so it is interesting how it is kind of evolving. Now, let's take a step back. You know, let's take a step.

Can he take us back to the beginning? It kind of seems like this is, in fact, the beginning entrepreneurial journey for you.

But you're also in two very, very, you know, predominantly Caucasian industries as a black female founder. Journeys in the food tech industry.

Break it down for us. How has your experience been?

@13:53 - Fisayo

I'm honestly, because I'm in the tech industry. industry as a coder. I haven't had any impacts because ultimately in the tech industry, it's all about what your brain is.

Wet now when I first start and I join the company, people do in fact think I'm a diversity hire.

Black woman who can code claims she has all of this experience. Come on up. She can't do anything they hired her because she's black.

And then sure enough, I get myself on every critical path project, bringing it early. That's a project was slated for six months.

get it done in one. People time to shut up. And let me do my job. So with that, from the actual coding perspective, I'm perfectly fine with that.

Now I definitely do recognize that a lot of people have challenges and not only being black, I'm Nigerian, I'm African, not only doing that or being a woman because this industry as coding, it is definitely, it definitely is required.

It requires a lot of you because you have have to be moving at the speed of light brain power wise.

So you definitely have a lot of people doubting and questioning, so it can be a little bit hard. But I'm someone who actually rides to the challenge.

I enjoy this. There isn't an industry in the world that allows me to be as vocal. That's in the tech industry as a creator, without any repercussions, so to that open communication is something that's required as a part of the job.

So from the perspective of being a coder, that's not something that I have particularly faced an issue with. From the perspective of being a food writer, fair enough, I have lots of people who think I don't know what I'm talking about, who think I don't know what I'm doing, because I am definitely a standout.

I go into all of these restaurants and it's like, people are really quite rude and disrespectful. Tapping me on the shoulder when I have my headphones on and saying,

What are you celebrating today? It's like, why do you do this? You don't do it to the people. That's disrespectful.

You invaded my personal space. So I definitely have those experiences. But I feel like for a while, I felt like it's my job to do this, to educate beyond my just going in and experiencing and writing.

It's my job to educate. It's my job to expose. It's my job to say, hey, no, no, no, no, no, no, I am not one in the audience.

There are extremely people like me. And to share, not only to go in there and get the information I need to write about the restaurants, but to also share with the fellow patrons and give them an example, OK, You haven't seen someone like me before, but congratulations.

Now you have. So the next time you meet someone that looks like me at a restaurant, you're not disrespecting their personal space by tapping them and saying, hi, what do you celebrate?

You know?

@16:58 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah. No. I get it. I think anytime you start any venture, no matter your diversity or ethnicity, sometimes you're going to have haters, folks.

They're going to be people out there that just disagree with what you're doing. Sometimes it doesn't matter about your skin color or your orientation.

Some people, I hate to say they're just . And they just like to be, know, they just like to be those kind of people that get a rise out of people and don't let them, because then they win.

And you certainly can persevere through these things. In fact, you know, entrepreneurship comes with its fair share of challenges, right?

Could you share some of your significant hurdles that you've encountered when you're starting your own business?

@17:43 - Fisayo

I think the biggest one that I faced is financing. I didn't really know what to do from the world financing, because every time I heard about it, it's like, okay, tech crunch.

This person got funded million. Oh, this person is evaluated to billion. I'm like, I just need a million and I'm good.

So, financing. As soon as I had the idea, I scheduled a call with an expert, he's someone who who it welcomes an expert.

Someone who invests in the food industry, quite a bit. So, there's this app called intro and I use it a lot.

Basically, you can schedule calls with people who are experts in their industry and just basically have a conversation. They can give you feedback information.

So, I saw him on there and I was like, oh, wow, I actually know you. You're in Shark Tank.

You're in the food industry. Great. I actually know who this person is. let's schedule a call with him. scheduled the call, pitched the idea.

He was like, oh, that's great. They'll didn't come back to me. Didn't give me any money. Just said they'll be

the product of like, yeah, this is expensive, but the money is coming. Oh, I double as all as all was done in three months went back to him and he ghosted me.

Meanwhile, I signed up for three year contracts with Google so I can post my platform because if you sign committed use for that long, you get significant discounts.

It's like, okay, the discount, I can actually afford to keep this thing up. So there was that. That was an epic failure.

That was disappointing to me. And I put myself in a predicament. And then there were the others who would basically smile on your face, say, yeah, everything, everything is great.

We're going to sign it off and get you the money tomorrow and then they disappear. And of course, as a woman looking for money, there are those other interesting characters.

don't need to actually mention what they're doing. You get the gist of it. So between All of that, I just came to the point where I said I'm really not going to go down this path of trying to find money from my company.

I'm just going to fund it for myself. Fast forward maybe six months when I'm sharing these concerns and these grievances with somebody else in the startup industry and they're like, yeah, this is completely normal.

I'm how can this be normal? So that really, like this is just, this is disgusting. That really has been my big core point and pain point as far as entrepreneurship is concerned, finding financing.

But I'm lucky that I've gotten to a position where I have a balance. I'm like, okay, I'm good. I'm good for at least four years as far as this is concerned before I have to go look for money.

But all of that said and done, that has definitely been my big challenge as far as finding financing. But I am really, really happy if I'm being completely honest that I never got it because I'm going at the pace that I can go in.

can go with my own pace. It's only my decision and I don't have to listen to anybody else who I'm saying, right, I took money from Vienna, I have to listen to you now.

@21:18 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

So yeah, very true, very true. I think that's a big, you know, I think that's a good point to bring up because I'm working with a lot of entrepreneurs and we're actually going through a pitch competition here in Seattle in a couple of actually it'll be after this, it'll be before this episode airs.

you know, one of the things we discussed, know, venture capitalists, their goal really is to kind of get your business and then sell the business.

And you report to them, you actually sell a part of your business to acquire that funding. And you know, your venture capitalists will take a bunch of meetings all day long and they will, by all means, they'll love you, send you the pitch deck, send the

stick, right? But the likelihood they're going to call you back isn't very high. so that's why, you know, one thing I always encourage our pitchers is, you know, one, try to figure out a way to grassroots one, but then also figure out a way to engage the community in your growth of your business because they become your actual founder.

They become your angel investors, right? having to give up your equity in your business, because they're actually purchasing the product service that you're selling, right?

Versus you actually selling equity in your business. you know, venture capitalists is great if you want to go that route.

It's not always the prettiest. It is, it is difficult. There's a lot of no's before a lot of yes's.

But you know, it's certainly, I think every entrepreneur goes that route. unfortunately, they do realize pretty quickly, I'm like, Oh, there's, there's a lot of these big unicorns you hear about them, but there's what you don't hear about is all those mules that are behind it.

So to speak. Now, walk us through the strategies and efforts that you employed to build this current business. What is your brand strategy like?

@23:11 - Fisayo

Okay, so that actually is something that I am actually only now focusing on because for pretty much the better part of how much time it's been done and it's just been building the platform.

built and coded everything on my own. I only in January actually started bringing on resources because I wanted to focus on the branding and getting everything out there.

So my brand strategy right now, it's very, very digital market heavy. And since this is digital marketing heavy, and since this is a dual marketplace product, I'm saying if I focus on V2C and I get the numbers on V2C, I will very, very easily get the B2B imported.

Now, with the digital marketing strategy, this is something that We're still talking about, but it's along the lines of bringing people in organically.

Maybe something towards, and I really don't like this term, but it keeps on getting pushed at me. This make it exclusive and exclusivity aspect of it.

Instead of how I have it as a grassroots, everybody is welcome. I want everyone to use it. I want everybody to get feedback.

A lot of the direction I'm getting across different parties is to not open it up like that. I'm a very open person, so I'm definitely building in public in this product right now.

It's very MVP, and I'm pushing everybody, hey, come use it. But I'm getting direction opposite of that. Do not do that.

So there's that, but the brand, honestly, the brand message that I'm trying to put out there is mostly towards the restaurant.

I am not fighting the restaurant. I am your supporter because people will think oh tech and AI. It's going just the way AI is ruining and is ruining some industries and jobs of being taken away.

There's a fear that comes with it. And it's like, no, I'm actually not going to do that. I am supporting.

I am a tool. I know of only one restaurant so far that has converted into complete AI. But the robot that grows burgers, that's it.

I'm building tools to make you more money to get more bets and seats. So my focus on my brand is very much on putting out there that I'm here.

I am the support system for restaurants. On the dining perspective, my brand is essentially to say, let's actually create something new as far as the experience of food in dining.

It's because this does not exist. So that's what my brand is, a cord across these two marketplaces. Now, Now, there are definitely other personas, because either a restaurant persona, that's what I'm talking about, but there are other personas, there are other brand strategies that I'm having discussions about, but I'm keeping those on the harsh secret that talking about those just yet.

@26:16 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah. I love it because I think essentially, you know, I've kind of already envisioned it in my head, right, your kind of growth market strategy, where you have your B2B on one, and then you have B2C on the other, and basically you have, know, year one, year twos, your immediate, you know, growth strategies, and then year twos, your two to year three or four, your intermediate, and then your five six is like your long-term goals, right, and except each one, each segment has their own intermediate, immediate, and long-term goals, and then now you're basically starting to create your sales funnel within those goals, right?

Okay. Now, how do we get to create the awareness? How do we get the retention? How do we get to loyalty?

No. And Mike, I love it because it's like, I think this is important for people to understand because this is exactly the mind of an entrepreneur now.

What should be working when you started a business is you're not just starting like you know you want proof of concept right first and foremost and then minimum viable product you said MVP minimum viable product you want to basically get something out there for people to test to get to that product market fit to even say hey does this do I have the proof of concept right so you get to the MVP which is your minimum viable product your minimal thing that you can actually stand up to the market and say hey please test this and then once they test it.

then you start to determine if you have a product market fit right and the beauty of it is you're doing your minimum minimum viable product you're not getting all the bills and whistles yet you're just seeing if the concept works and that's what you're adding and then from there then you can kind of start thinking okay now how do I get this out to the masses the concept works now how do I do right that's that's where I am right now that's why I started the podcast circuit was actually in another person that I'm in on the intro app and who's why you really

@28:00 - Fisayo

Hey, you should do podcast not only because of the product but because you're just weird and interesting I'm like, okay, I'll take that as a compliment So that's how I got on the podcast circuit and so far As far as getting people onto the platform to use it and to give me feedback and really just enjoying the honest feedback that I'm getting right now Obviously I want more feedback and more people on the platform But I'm enjoying the organic level that I'm not right now Man, I feel like I need to change my tagline for the podcast now It's the weird and interesting come to the shades of I get them all people Now so we talked about some of the challenges, you know about the business what what let's talk about some of the rewarding moments What are some of the aspects that you have found relatively easy or enjoyable building this company?

I I think well obviously the easy part has been the coding. Now the coding, that's the easy part, but basically building a platform and building software is more than writing the code.

I already knew that off of my tens of years, my tens of years in the industry, that there's a whole lot more that goes into building software than just writing the code.

But it's one thing to know that it's another thing to be really thrown into the deep throws. So it's like, okay, I always knew infrastructure.

was always able to have a conversation with people on infrastructure. But now I actually have to understand what the DPMs and subnets and preventing these clusters.

And it's like, okay, I know it.

@29:39 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

But wow. My hands about to explode with all these damn acronyms. You me on VPN.

@29:48 - Fisayo

That's about the one thing I have to deal with.

@29:50 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

God, I hate that damn thing. But I still deal with it. You were alphabet soup on these people.

@30:02 - Fisayo

better for life, go to realize, but essentially actually having to go knee deep or toe claw whatever deep in all of these aspects of building software, hardware, the front end, the back end, infrastructure, the product, the whole ecosystem and it's just me.

I had times where I was like, okay, you know what, maybe you really should just give up, but then I'd wake up the next, and out of frustration, I'd go to bed and then I'd wake up the next morning at my wonderful five AM alarm, rain is clear, not foggy, it's like, who is giving up, you're not giving up, you never give up, and then I should break back into it.

So I was like going through that, three months of that, hit month three, certainly yes after that everything didn't work out, but to actually have the product standing and I did everything by myself.

That was incredibly satisfying. fine and validating. And I think that's why obviously I was disappointed by Mr.

@31:05 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Moneyman disappearing, but I just felt so accomplished by that.

@31:12 - Fisayo

It's like, you know what, I'm going to keep on going with this. I'm definitely going to keep on going with this.

So that was satisfying point number one. And then just going out to these restaurants, I mean, obviously dining as far as going out and reviewing all of that is my job.

But now having this different talking point of what my tech company is, first place going to the bar sitting down saying, yeah, own a tech company.

Great, incredibly validating. But then having this talking point of talking about my product with bartenders with fellow diners with the restaurant mattress, just getting that immediate feedback, like, how come this doesn't exist?

Like, this is such a cool idea. It's just, it's so rewarding. Every time now I go out and I'm so happy and proud to talk about it and I'm always getting that feedback now Obviously, I need you to actually sign up for the platform, but getting that part of it In the real quick The verbal Getting that Bearing really really incredibly satisfying and rewarding And then I think the third part now is as I mentioned now I'm bringing I'm bringing up on an engineering scene to handle that part Because I now have to refocus on all of the other company aspects marketing CFO All of these things that also flow into becoming into running a company Taking the time to actually understand this split this phase, which is completely new to me and Finding satisfaction and joy because I actually own the company Yeah, it's

it's just it's amazing.

@33:02 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yeah, no, it sounds like again, I think it's important to also know that it didn't happen overnight, right? And it probably is a lot of work.

But man, the the satisfaction of it is always nice, you know, I got to tell you, it's not easy though.

Again, folks, I feel like I'm a failed entrepreneur, I'd say, you know, started my clothing line did it for four years, started another, you know, now with the nonprofit, we're very successful with the nonprofit right now.

And some people will say, well, that's not a business. No, folks, I'm hiring people or we're raising money. It's we're running it like a dang business.

It's very, very challenging. But there's a lot that goes into it. Now, you pivoting from a principal engineer to a founder.

What are some of those big picture lessons that you learned? One, and then two, what advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs today?

@33:56 - Fisayo

Pivoting from a principal engineer to a founder. made the transition easy, actually, because when you're at that level in any organization, you are required to be everywhere and to have your tentacle, you're required to know everything and have your tentacle everywhere, which is why I'll say, okay, well, when I speak to infrastructure, okay, I understand your speak, I'm not actually doing it, but I understand your speak.

Now, take it from, I understand your speak as a principal to, no, I'm building an entire company based off of the little speak I had, so it made things easier at that transition.

Now, being a principal engineer, you can talk to business for five minutes, but actually what business strategies are, what marketing strategies are, balance, well, you know what a balance sheet is if you manage your money, but what actually entails that from a company perspective, being a principal engineer doesn't expose you to that part at all.

That part is the part that was new, but I'm still able to approach all these different roles with the same mindset that I do as a principal engineer, which is basically take things from the one-liner and break it down into the detailed so you can speak about your one-liner.

Not only to your engineering team, you can also communicate it to your business partners, can communicate it to your QN engineers.

That ultimately being that top level I can speak English to everybody about a technical solution, that's what a principal does, and that's what I was able to take to run a nice company.

@35:39 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

That's a very, very well stated statement because I actually was doing a pitch coaching this morning and one of the things I said was you have to be able to explain your product and service well enough to a first grader should be able to understand it.

So, you know, using try to refrain from using it. acronyms or if you do use acronyms just make sure you explain what it is if you're if you're bringing in a new concept explain kind of what the concept does right really and again I'm not saying that folks out there are not intelligent we are very intelligent species but some people when they get introduced to a new concept on the fly it is kind of difficult for them to understand so simplifying having that elevator speech is very important right you know if you have an opportunity and you go two floors with you know one of the wealthiest venture capitalists of the world and you're looking for funding and you have two floors to give them your elevator speech what are you gonna tell them right you got 30 seconds to basically really talk about your entire business in the value proposition in a very very short amount of time and in this simple way that it's understandable that they don't have to ask questions I'm saying well what exactly is this this and this

right and so that that's really important but you know it's it's it's it's very interesting to kind of see your progression in fact what I would love to do is you know later on is bring you back I would love to you know after this has grown a couple of you know in a year or so bring it back see where you have you know where you've grown and continue to see how this continues to build yeah because I think I truly do see a benefit of it and I can see again the anti-yelph I also believe I actually recently had them delete a comment of my exalt mad at the server not at the actual owner so I like I'm not trying to be that person remove that thing and they'll even ask you're like you sure you want to move I was like yes I do again I was mad at the individual not the server so nonetheless be kind on those Yelp reviews folks because it does affect people's jobs and I think that's also very good point that you made now for the for the folks listening at home they want to learn more about you or more mate they want to test out the server how do they figure how do they

@38:00 - Fisayo

and learn more information. Where do they go visit? Okay, so right now exactly is a website. We are a couple weeks out from actually being in the app stores, but pretty much you just go to the website.

It's rozakly, r-e-s-a-c-t-l-y.com. So you go to that and you can sign on to the platform. You just create an account and then I'll run you through the onboarding process where you just basically like give your information day to first.

Then you give your dining story, which is basically, I like this, I hate this. And then after that, it takes all of that creates a dining profile for you.

And ta-da, you can actually use the app. It's that simple and it's that straightforward.

@38:41 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Now, restaurants, go ahead. I was gonna say this would actually remove all of those tough conversations that we have with our significant others of where do we want to eat?

You know, that usually takes about an hour to two hours next. You know, you're getting McDonald's anyways. So this might actually be a better way.

@39:00 - Fisayo

to actually find something new to eat as well. sounds like, yeah, you actually keep me into one of the features and when you log into the platform, it's recommending restaurants for you.

Like you will see restaurants recommended to you within a five mile radius. There's a distance slider so you can expand that, but that's for you.

Now, there is the group recommendation feature. On the group recommendation feature, you can create a group, add your friends, you add your friends, you put a search term, okay, French food in New York City, and then my wonderful, wonderful platform is then going to go ahead and search restaurants that fit your search criteria and recommend at a group.

So you will be looking at the group, you'll probably say, okay, individual to you, 70% chance you'll like the restaurant, right next to that, it says 15% chance the entire group will like the restaurant.

Why? Click on that, it's going to show you who your problem child is. Let's check them up. Okay, maybe I'll

as people to have a hundred and this person has a five percent but we can still convince that five percent person is they click into this restaurant see the whole menu see what it says you can order so even though you're five percent on the entire restaurant at least you can get this and we don't have to curb going to this restaurant because this one person doesn't like it you always have that person that wants to order chicken nuggets why do you all make you are an adult you do not need to be ordering chicken nuggets anymore they have or chicken tenders or whatever they call them at this restaurant just to make you feel older there is other food and stop stop taking off the onions from your burgers folks and your tomatoes eat your dang vegetables it provides phenomenal flavor to those things

You need to flatten that beef so it's nice and it's crispy. Mm-hmm.

@41:05 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Don't talk to me about tomatoes. So you want a smash burger, a true smash burger. Okay, well now I gotta ask since we're talking on food, your food critic, what is the best restaurant?

Where should we be going? Where should we go if we want the best hamburger?

@41:24 - Fisayo

Well, I mean that changes, right? I'm like, my favorite right now, because I have actually been obsessed with burgers.

My favorite smash burger in New York right now is hamburger America. I don't know where they get their beef from, but every single time it's just like, oh my God, it's not like they're doing anything different with the cheese.

It's just the quality of the beef. The first time I had it, I am not lying.

@41:47 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

teared up.

@41:50 - Fisayo

I am not even lying. That's not what I was talking about.

@41:54 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Just trying to get rid of it. Man, and I'm telling you folks, there's a lot lot of phenomenal smash burgers out here in the Pacific Northwest and the Oregon area.

I've I've definitely have gone to several in the last couple of, you know, gonna go and say months, you know, trying to, you know, wait myself to you folks over here.

But man, I'm telling you there is some phenomenal food in the Pacific Northwest and there's a lot of, you know, amazing chefs that are just trying to make it.

@42:24 - Fisayo

So I would definitely encourage you guys to get out there and try some food. Now, what is what it would you say?

Overall, what is your favorite meal? Overall, what is my favorite meal? Well, I'm Nigerian. So I cook, right? So I definitely still have like my Nigerian food that I love, I like the Jalaf, like the red stew.

I like to do which is just fried plantains. So I think no matter all these places that I travel to that I eat at and I have my food and everything, I still definitely

only come back down to just like good old-fashioned home cooking with myself some rice and red stew with some boiled chicken drop from drumsticks and Yeah, man.

@43:11 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I'm telling you folks. I'm old school myself By old school. I mean, I like nothing better than a steak medium-rare Give me some mashed potatoes on the side and I'm good.

I'm good. nothing beats and Nothing beats this and I explain this everybody the reason nothing beats us because of all the different things you can do and that is a crunchy taco Because I can make so many different meals with a crunchy taco.

I can make a taco salad I can make a tostada. I can make a taco, right? I'm there's so many different ways you can do it or you can just eat the meat as a salad I'm there's it again and it has all the ingredients She has onion tomatoes All these all these beautiful green and bread and colors and then he puts some stock now.

I'm getting hungry. Jeez. That's it got us and we always we've digress so quickly we've digress man.

@44:05 - Fisayo

I know is there any last words you'd like to tell the guest before we leave? Um I mean I guess maybe just putting a point out there for entrepreneurs and how they should find their ideas and progress.

I can't tell you how to find the idea but I definitely will say follow your passion because I know that's always like anti-advice that don't follow your passion do what is supposed to work and will make money but I know for me there's no way I would have continued this journey to be where I am today with this product and I'm still going because I know I'm still at the beginning there's no way I would have stayed the path without saying I'm going to do something that I'm passionate about that my heart is into it now I know there's certain people will say okay that's an old archaic um that's

if you don't have at least to me, if you don't have that passion behind it, that's just going to be one of those things that, okay, money's run out of mouth, you know?

@45:08 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

I agree. I agree. You certainly have to have the passion to do this because there are a lot of late nights and long days.

And folks, if you are interested, this is a great time to plug the Shades of Entrepreneurship newsletter. All this information will be on the Shades of E.com.

So if you visit the Shades of E.com, go ahead and click Subscribe to the newsletter. Or, if you're interested, I know if you say I will mention that she's not able to help you with an idea.

But I have an idea. It's called Patreon. And if you would be so kind to join our Patreon, I actually wrote a book and if for a small amount of $5 a month, you can actually go ahead and support the podcast.

And I will send you the free book that I wrote that has absolutely no value, I think. But it does go over mind mapping, which actually is a really cool little exercise to kind of think of business.

ideas and find your passion with that as well. It's actually came from the idea. So I can't, you know, it came from Stanford, this D school phenomenal group.

I cannot take ownership of them. But I did ask if I can use it in my book and they did give me approval.

So please go check it out. It's really cool on Patreon. And again, more information by visiting theshadesofe.com. You can also follow us on the social sites by visiting at the Shades of E.

And you can also stream this episode on YouTube by searching for the Shades of Entrepreneurship. Besides, thank you so much again for your time.

really do appreciate it. Please, once you do get the app going, send it my way. I want to use it.

I'm in Portland. I'm a foodie. I mean my wife are always looking for new places to try out.

@46:47 - Fisayo

And we're always very picky about what we eat. So it sounds like this is exactly what we need for all those other people.

Thank you and Yeah, it's great.

@47:03 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Okay.

@47:03 - Fisayo

Oh, you're good.

@47:07 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

In fact, you know what's kind of I think I actually have your Yeah, I think you'll be released next Wednesday.

@47:15 - Fisayo

Awesome.

@47:16 - Gabriel Flores (The Shades of Entrepreneurship)

Yep, your next Wednesday Good, but yeah, you did a great job. And then so I got your You