Todd Merrill:

Hi, welcome to Tales from the Sky Lounge. It’s a podcast about business consulting and venture investing. We get out there in the world and we talk to people who are making it happen, and we get their stories. And if you could like and subscribe, it really helps us get the word out.

Today in the Sky Lounge, we have a guest, Ghazenfer Mansoor. Hi, Ghazenfer, how are you?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

I’m good. How are you, Todd? Thanks for having me.

Todd Merrill:

Ghazenfer, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

My name is Ghazenfer Mansoor. I’m based in Virginia. I’m originally from Pakistan. I grew up there. I moved to the United States in 1999. And I’m an engineer by background. I have a computer science degree. And I came to the US in 1999, working on Java. And then gradually got into mobile.

I got into the mobile space pretty early, helping a European telecom and helping them on a mobile project. And then later on, got into more and more mobile because of my experience on that side. This is even pre-iPhone and Android time. And then, iPhone and Android came, obviously, things changed. So along with other software engineering projects, mobile has been one of my four areas where I focused.

Along the way, in 2015, I started a company, Technology Rivers. We started as a mobile app development company, which is to help companies build mobile apps. But then gradually got into more and more focus on product development, helping startups in product development, and helping companies improve their operations through technology.

Todd Merrill:

Very cool. A lot to unpack there. It’s really cool talking to a fellow computer science nerd. And I remember those old Windows, mobile devices way back before Android and Apple.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

The flip phones.

Todd Merrill:

Oh, yeah. So mobile has been going on a lot longer and a lot of people give it credit for. So, you started life in Pakistan and obviously did some software and then made it to the United States. Maybe talk about your experience. You probably have a pretty nice cushy job if you’re in telecom at that point. What made you decide to go start a business on your own? What was that process like?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah, you’re right. That’s a harder decision. ‘95, it’s easy. You make a good amount of money. And especially the area, I’m in Washington DC, a lot of government contracting, relaxing jobs. But yeah, that’s not for everyone. I tried to stay away as much as I could. Different challenges, different places.

I’m an engineer by trade, but looking back, I didn’t realize I gradually got into the business by initially just doing the consulting. And then as I was doing different consulting, I started to figure out certain things I liked, certain things I didn’t like. Then I wanted to build a startup because tech people like to build products. So, I started a recruitment software startup. It’s a SaaS company. What I didn’t know is the startup is going to be really hard.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

I thought as an engineer, you just build a strong foundational product, build a really good engine, customer will come. And then suddenly, there was a surprise. You built it, nobody was coming. And then there was a whole lot of excitement. There was a lot of time and money spent learning and redoing stuff because you build it, build something strong. But if nobody was using, then went back to the whiteboard, started the UX and everything. And then we got the customers. But there was a whole exercise that we spent two years. And that whole journey became, I would say, that’s a thesis of a new company that I built because that was just a learning that I did along.

Even looking back now, I think there were things that I was doing even while I was in Pakistan, which I would say are more entrepreneurial, doing things along the way, even when I was in school, tutoring people, doing some side projects.

Most of the time, the typical 9-5 employees, they don’t look for all those things. But somehow that has always pushed me towards initially doing something extra to make money. And I think later on you find a purpose. So that’s exactly what happened to me. At that time, I didn’t know it. Even until a few years ago, I didn’t realize. But looking back, I can see that all of this thing, these were probably something in total that had this control in mind that I wanted to do these things.

Todd Merrill:

So, your product company, you got in business and then you made some software and then the dogs did not eat the dog food, so to speak. And you didn’t quite find product market fit.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah

Todd Merrill:

What did you do? Did you pivot to something else or how did you proceed from that point? When did you decide, okay, this piece of software is not making money, we need to do something different? What was that?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. So, the pivot, it wasn’t really a pivot. It was just the approach of the product development. Because being an engineer, you feel like, oh, you really need to build a strong, solid, scalable product. But it’s not. Like the user experience and other things, like being coming in from back-end engineering initially, obviously, a lot of those things are missing. So, I learned the product development part, like how to really build the product. So that’s where I was grappling the experience that I got along the way in terms of building a product and selling it to the customer. That’s the experience that I learned a lot.

Todd Merrill:

So, today you’re running Technology Rivers and you have business on several continents. What is it like running a business on multiple continents? It’s got to have some very unique challenges. You have culture and time zone and payments and all kinds of crazy stuff that you have to worry about. What are the things that you have experienced that are challenging and different about running a multi-continent business?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. So multi-continent definitely has its own challenges. So, we have people in Pakistan, Philippines, Italy, Dubai, Turkey, and South America. And then different parts in the United States as well. So, all these obviously come with its own challenges. But the big benefit that I see, it forces us to build the process, to do things the right way. What we noticed afterward is sometimes challenges with the productivity of people within the same office because a typical traditional way like there are people in the office, they come in, and people are going to others in terms of getting the work done. But they’re asking questions. So, a lot of time wastage. When you’re remote, then it forces you to do things differently. Like writing, using the document, the checklist, everything. Because if it’s not communicated, it’s not communicated. Things are not getting lost in that. Oh, this was the talk, something that was done in a meeting, but not really, like nobody remembered. Things like that. So that forces us. So, I see it as a benefit of being in a multi-continent. But yeah, it still comes with its own challenges. It takes time, obviously. And then understanding the culture of different people, different places have different norms. You’re expecting one thing done. So that’s one of the bigger ones. Money itself is another problem. But now it’s those things are becoming easier because all these different companies are moving to remote, so there are a lot more services available than it used to be.

Todd Merrill:

So, you have people all over the planet. Do you own real estate? Do you run an office somewhere that people come into? Or do you let everybody work from home? Or what’s the thought there in your head?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

In Pakistan, we have our own office. That’s where everybody comes to the office. But even there, we also have some people remote that are available, that are working from home or different places. But other places are mostly people working from home. The VM office in Reston as well as in Pakistan.

Todd Merrill:

Okay. Yeah. And then so I know companies, like we all saw that AWS announcement this week, where they said 100% return to office five days a week. And then you hear both camps, hey, that’s awesome. And then you hear a bunch of people saying, oh man, they just want to lay people off. You know, it’s going to enrage people. It’s really not either or. Right?

I think the office is like a tool and it’s a great place to go. At some point in development, you need to all be in the same room, looking at the same sheet of paper or whiteboard or whatever. But you really can exist remote first or hybrid. How do you think about that? Or what has your experience been? Is the office a tool or is it mandatory? If you had your druthers, would you just like to cram everybody into one office if you could do it? Or do you think there’s power in having the ability to effectively work with people in different places, wherever the talent is?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah, my thing is I think it’s important to have the office, but it should not be mandatory to come to the office. I think maybe half the time or sometimes having the critical meetings in the office because you still need to build the bonding. Employees need to be communicating. Remote has its own challenges. So, I mean, you can get the work done. There are some benefits, but still need to have a face-to-face time whenever possible. But in today’s time, that’s not always possible.

Todd Merrill:

Well, you know, COVID, everybody went home, right? And we all had to figure stuff out. And previously, hardcore office cultures had to change and adapt. But then I think a learning from that was no matter what, you need to get your team together, especially if they’re usually dispersed. Do you do that? Do you get your team together like once a year, once a quarter, once a month? Do you find that that’s valuable to do that?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

In some cases, and again, the practicality also. So, for example, Philippines is mostly marketing content. So, we have one retreat there. So, we’re combining those people. The US people can meet because then traveling is challenging also for everybody. In Pakistan, yes, people do. So, I’ve traveled a couple of times a year. So, be with the team or anybody from our team who’s working with the team, they travel. So, whenever it’s convenient to, yes, we try to have the face-to-face time.

Todd Merrill:

I think that’s super important for the culture of the team. So, let’s talk about your primary business is helping companies take on projects, both short and longer term. How should people think about engaging with a software outsourcer? I know, you know, there’s lots of entrepreneurs out there that have an idea rattling around in their head, and they just don’t know how to get it built. And then there’s also, you know, big companies that are ongoing, and they have side projects that really would make a difference, but they don’t want to staff up permanently for this one little burst of energy. Are those projects that you like to work on or what kind of projects come your way when you’re an outsourcer? And what’s the right kind of mindset that you would coach your friend who is starting a company, you know, to effectively use a company like Technology Rivers?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. As the outsourcer, we come in as a value, as a benefit, but we don’t sell ourselves as just outsourcers because we’re not competing with low outsourcing services. We provide the value that we want to provide. We want to work with our customers and guide them in the process. Majority of the customers, they’re coming in, like there are companies obviously really know what they want. They have their own product management team. They just need certain help, but in many cases work with non-technical founders, they have an idea, they don’t know how to do it. So, this is where we come in and guide them through the whole process because it’s not about just hiring a developer to code something. It’s what needs to be built, a lot more involvement on a strategy part because if your strategy is not right, if your growth approach is not right, you build the app, but how would you market it? If we don’t do those discussions and just build something, likely you’re going to spend money and may or may not have the traction afterward. So guiding is definitely the key part. And that’s the core mission. 

We want to help companies and provide quality so that they know what they’re building. So, when we started the business, we had one more like right build the first time. Remember when I was talking about learning the product, even though the tech person, so being a tech person, I can say, if it’s just a developer, they are likely that you’re going to overspend money on that project, because it’s like hiring a handyman or people just to build a house without having any plan. And we follow the same process, the blueprint process. I can talk in a minute for even building the product. So, it’s not about just hiring the coders and getting the thing done.

So as I did my own startup and I see all the others, this was a common problem where you see there are people just hired building on TNM. They keep doing their work, but nothing is being delivered. And I did see those projects many times. And those are some of the master projects that came our way as well in terms of, okay, those are not getting done, so help those. So, solving that problem, really, you have to define what you’re building, when do you deliver? So the focus is on building a product and launching it, delivering. If there’s no delivery, no matter how good you build, nobody’s using it.

Todd Merrill:

So, you know, there’s an art to building a team, right? Particularly a software team. You have to get the right mix of people. And then, you know, the front-end people have to talk to the back-end people and you have to kind of come to terms with shortcut language of what are we talking about, you know, as a common vision. And I feel like, you know, when we talk to an outsource, you know, it’s almost kind of a, not a great word, but a company, a services company like yours, you’re hiring a team, not a person, right? And it’s not, hey, let me go get a plumber down at Home Depot or UI person or designer. You’re hiring the designer who knows exactly who the front-end people are, who are going to write this up and how they think and act when you’re going to code. And then, you know, the back-end people are probably sitting around reading notes from those early meetings. It’s going to go a whole lot smoother when you have that context around, you know, those early discussions. You talked about the blueprint process, how do you like to, you know, I get approached all the time with people, yeah, I call it the napkin phase of their business.

You know, I heard about a guy, he has a cybersecurity company, he could make connections and do six-figure deals. He just obviously could sell his idea, but he couldn’t get it implemented. You know, so he needs somebody like you, you know. So you get ahold of a person like that who’s got a great idea, thinks he’s got room in the market to sell this and what’s perceived as product market fit, how do you start in a project like that? If, you know, I can make an interaction, say, hey, I got a friend, he knows what he’s doing, he’s going to build you some software. What’s the first meeting you take? And then kind of how do you proceed from there?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. So, I think the blueprint is the key that I mentioned. So, we took that from like, as if you’re building a house. You have an idea. You want to build a house, but you have no idea what it takes to build it. So the typical process is you put together a plan, the blueprint of that. So, but even before the blueprint, so let’s say, take example of the napkin idea. Most founders do come with either app page requirement, one page, or some kind of a hand sketch or napkin sketch. They are thinking that, but then it’s our job to extract the information out of that, to take from that napkin sketch to something getting in a blueprint shape to the visual design, to the development.

So, what we do is we call it as a blueprint process. We’re identifying that maybe more sketches, more deeper, getting more clarity into, just like if you’re working with a builder and they’re building a house, it’s not going to just present the blueprint of the house. So, they are reading, there are more flows, defining what exactly do you need. Do you need a basement? Do you need like, how many rooms? What size? Obviously, there are cost considerations as well. Everybody can have a vision of a mansion, but do you have the money to support that?  I do get people say I want a website like Apple, but how much money do you have?

Todd Merrill:

Yeah, for $10,000, right? Yeah.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Exactly. So, obviously, so you have to start showing that. So again, and that process works out really well for us where we said, okay, you have a house with a builder grade stuff that still works. Do you want that, that still work? Or do you want the upgraded one? But if I show you a house with the upgraded stuff, you would love that, but you want to pay that additional 200K for all those upgrades. So, depending on the startup. There are some who want animation on day 1, custom graphics, everything. And there are some who said, “Well, we’re okay with it. Even we are just okay with the template. We just want to prove our idea.” So, depending on the specifics, depending on the time and money, there are many factors that come in. But the whole idea is converting that napkin into a blueprint.

And when we say blueprint, blueprint means you would know exactly what needs to be built. What level, just like in a house, like how many garages, what size, what room, same as the case in R. How many, like, let’s say, how many portals, how many interfaces, if you’re doing payment processing, is it going to be just a credit card, PCH, like how many cards, can you store cards? These are simple things that doesn’t need a whole lot of time, but you can define those boundaries and come up with, okay, now we have this blueprint of this initial phase of the project. Now get to the actual design, so that you can be comfortable with the look and feel. And once you have the look and feel, then you actually go towards the build.

I mean, one thing I do want to mention, I do get this question quite often, where some people are coming with this initial mindset, oh, so this is not agile. That doesn’t mean you don’t do agile. You can still do the agile, but your initial blueprinting process or design process, until it’s clear, until you know the scope of it, you can’t really build. There are some types of, some level of requirements that need to be clarified at the early stage before you really get into the mode of really developing and getting the feedback.

Todd Merrill:

So what I like about your process, I think I’ve walked with you a couple of times down this road, is, you know, you get into Figma and you produce a couple of designs, and it’s not just throw it over the transom to the next pipeline phase, you know, UX development.

You have other people in the room that are watching and considering what the totality of the project is going to be, no matter what, right? Yes, we want to get to a design, that’s beautiful and fulfills my vision of what I hope the product could be. At the same time, you’re real good about saying, hey, you know, what are the feature requirements? And let’s pay attention to the scope of what we’re building. Make sure it’s not too big or too small. Make sure I’m not emitting certain things that are not necessarily visible on the screen. But you know, a screen design decision could imply a major back-end component like AI, you know, one little AI button. Yeah, AI goes here. That could get very expensive if you’re not careful, you know, implementing on the back-end. Or it could be, you know, pretty easy to implement, depending on what we’re talking about. But if you get those agreements upfront, what to expect, I think it helps quite a bit. And I think that’s a great approach that you guys bring to the table, is walking people through, helping them refine their thinking and what’s possible, what’s not possible. Let’s get all the changes out as early as we can. And then carefully, thoughtfully go design this as we go. Not in a, you know, phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, but designs at the table, infrastructures behind them, you know, listening, starting to think about, okay, where are the pitfalls here and that kind of thing.

 So maybe, I don’t know if you got any horror stories, like, what are some of the mistakes people can make when they engage an outsourcer? What are some of the common pitfalls to avoid when you’re hiring someone like your firm, who is capable of soup to nuts, getting the project design implemented and taken care of on a long-term basis? How do people fall down? Or what are the common errors that people make that should be avoided when you’re doing a long-term software project from scratch?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

One of the common ones that I’ve seen is people many times just come in, “Oh, I need a React developer.” Or “I need a Node developer.” So, I mean, it makes sense for some who are technical, so if I’m working with you, I know, is CTO, knows the stuff. There’s a specific need, so probably okay. But I’ve heard this comment from, like, even the non-technical, so I was contacted by somebody who said, “We’re building Python.” “Okay, what do you want to build in Python?” “Oh, just because we previously experimented something and the guy who did this in Python, that means it’s doable in Python.” So they only started looking at things in Python.

And again, as I said, the developers, you can probably resonate the same as let’s say, the workers for building the house. You need somebody who’s providing the direction, like what needs to be built. You may build a house that’s beautiful, but if it’s not livable, does not have the standard things, you miss the certain things, it’s not going to be convenient. The same goes for the software as well. So, just development is a piece of it. It’s an important part, but it’s a piece of it. Somebody still needs to take care of the other part.

Todd Merrill:

Would you throw that in the product management bucket? You know, pay attention to what the product is and what it could be and what the roadmap is and then.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah, that’s definitely.

Todd Merrill:

Okay

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

So, on that one, I just want to have one plug. I don’t have things on top of my head, but there are many different. So, we have one ebook on that, Eight Ways Software Projects Fail, and how do you recover those?

Todd Merrill:

Yeah, if you can get us a link, you can throw it in the description. Yeah, that’d be awesome. Wow, yeah, and there’s a lot of ways to fail in software. It’s a very complicated thing. Do it too much, too fast.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah, I mean, while on this one, I just want to have one. So, for example, we had somebody came in and they said, “We need somebody UI designer.” “Okay, what is the reason?” We started looking deeper in that. We had to call them and realized it’s not the visual. They need a user experience person because of the visual. So, many times it’s the awareness as well.  Not everybody is familiar with this specific. You could get maybe a graphic designer and they ended up getting another one, the similar problem. So, it’s like in the business, we said right people, right fit. So, you have the right person, but if you’re giving the wrong work, probably it’s not going to work.

Todd Merrill:

Well, let me kind of change gears a little bit here. Let’s talk about general business conditions around the world. The Fed just cut rates pretty good recently, and we seem to be at an inflection point here. What are you seeing right now in your business? It’s kind of a confusing time where you hear, definitely hear about big companies laying off, but you also hear about smaller companies getting started. So, we’re not toast, right? So, what’s going on from your seat? What are you seeing? Is it different here in the US versus Europe or Asia? What do you see going on? Where are we in the business cycle right now?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. I don’t know about the rest of the world. I can talk about the US because that’s where all of our customers are, US-based. So, I think the pattern that we have seen where our customers are struggling are the areas where they come to venture funding. Any of our customers who are dealing with funding are the ones that are struggling. It’s hard to raise money lately. The venture one.

Todd Merrill:

Particularly in that venture, yeah, venture bond. You know, the angel seems to be still fundable.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Exactly. There are a lot of investments going on, but may be more challenging for early-stage companies.

Todd Merrill:

Well, hopefully, we’ll dig out of this and nothing is permanent, right? Venture will come back. It’s just a matter of time before we figure it out.

Well, we talked about being an entrepreneur and you strike me as one of these guys. When I was a kid, for a dollar a day, I would come water your plants and feed your pets while you’re off on vacation in the summer. Yeah. So, I made a ton of money doing that when I was a kid. Do you have little jobs like that? My experience has been entrepreneurs are kind of, it’s in the blood, right? And then you’re destined to kind of run your own deal at some point. Did you have young entrepreneurial experiences when you were growing up?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. As I was saying earlier, when I was in school, even at that time, I was tutoring. That was the main thing. I was like, again, belong to a poor family. So, I had to make some money some ways for my own thing. So, that was the one that was probably easier, take less time, more flexible. You just go tutor for one, two hours, get some money. That was a good way. And then even after high school, like some side things here and there that will help make some money. Just doing some data entry for somebody, that’s another one I remember.

Todd Merrill:

It’s kind of a loaded question. I know the answer. But where do you find other entrepreneurs? And then being an entrepreneur is kind of lonely sometimes. You’re at the top, you have to wear a lot of hats and deal with everybody’s problems ultimately. It’s what you get paid for. Where do you go to compare experiences and get some energy from other entrepreneurs out there in the world?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. So, I think that was a big transformation for me. If you ask me like what was the lesson learned? This is about finding those communities. Because most people won’t have their close network, their friends, unless you belong to that family. But most of the time, like in my immediate circle, I would say not many or maybe any entrepreneur. So, you need to have somebody with whom you can share ideas, bounce ideas. So, I found a coach that was running a CEO peer group. So, we would meet eight people. It was an ex-Wistage chair. It was not a Wistage, but it’s a similar pattern to Wistage, where we meet eight people, do our check-in, discuss an issue. But those are the issues that people cannot discuss with their families.

Sometimes, let’s say, your personal problems could impact your business. Your business problem could impact your personal. So, you need a place where you talk with people who can understand you and you can share the ideas. So, there are many organizations. I’m part of this organization called EO (Entrepreneurial Organization). OPEN is another one, an organization of Pakistani entrepreneurs in North America. Wistage is another one. YP is another one. I’m not part of those. And there are many other ADCs. That’s another one that I’m part of.

There are many, I would say, many other groups, the mastermind groups, where you can find those people who are in a similar situation. They’re all entrepreneurs and you can bounce ideas. So, yeah, that’s really the bigger part. I wish I knew this probably 10 years ago or longer. It would have made a huge difference.

Todd Merrill:

To get a peer group and get some mentorship and get some great advice any way you can from a trusted group of people, sounds like.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yes. And just to be clear, most of these are not the business group. These are more sharing experiences. We cannot solve it. Just learning, but still big learning about how certain people will do certain things.

Todd Merrill:

Give me an example of how that works. So, somebody comes in and they say, “Hey, I’m working on this problem. Is that kind of what it is? Can you all help me with my problem? I have a director under me that is underperforming, but I love him and I’ve got the following conditions.”

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Exactly. So, let’s say that is one of the common questions that come. So, yes. Like, okay, let’s say whatever, like how to review those or people share how we are doing certain things. Like when it comes to hiring, how people are hiring for using some assessment, some tasks, right? It could be, okay, we want to give equity to employees or people are asking for profit sharing. What are the best practices? Funtime share. So, all those different strategies, different things that people are going through, any challenges. So, you have to let go of people. What is the right way? It could backfire. So, asking advice to a group of people who have been in a similar situation makes a huge difference.

Todd Merrill:

Yeah. I think that…

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

… and they don’t have any business interests. So, they are just giving a pair of advice.

Todd Merrill:

Somebody once said, I think there’s a quote, you are the average of your five closest friends. Do you feel like that’s a way to level that game up?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah, absolutely.

Todd Merrill:

Okay. Get some better advisors in your life.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Really

Todd Merrill:

So, let’s talk about software. What’s going on now? You’re in a great position where you get to see lots of cool stuff and you have a really good idea of what’s hot and what’s going on. What kind of projects are people working on now? What do you see is hot in the market right now? Is AI leading the charge still? Is that softening a little bit? What other areas?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yes. AI is still, I would say, top of the list. It’s a buzzword as well now. It’s becoming more and more. Everybody wants AI. Many times, they’re not even ready for AI.

 What’s happening is people are looking at just the ChatGPT or some of the other tools that say, oh, building AI is so easy, so quick. Yes, those are the products that are already built. But if you have to really build something new, you have to train the model, it’s a big undertaking.

So, we, again, just another plug, we just did a webinar on AI in healthcare, even though it’s specific to healthcare, but it’s a lot of talks about what it takes for people, for the companies, if they want to adapt AI in their business. What are the things to look for, like the data or a lot of other stuff? So, I won’t spend too much time on that one. But AI is definitely, it’s more about awareness. People need to be clear in terms of what it means. It’s the cost, the storage, and everything, the resources. So, using AI is one thing, the tools that are available, versus building something or enabling AI into your product where you have your data, you’re doing something unique. So, obviously, we’re in the business of building products that may have AI. So, that’s different than just using.

Another part that I see is a lot of integration. Now that with all these tools available, so a lot of things are becoming easier. So, companies are looking to improve their operations through the use of AI and technology. That way, you may not have to build a big custom project, but you could do with all the smaller integration, improve your workflows, optimize your processes, bring more efficiencies into your day-to-day.

Todd Merrill:

Well, AI, I got to ask you, this is a software guy. So, casual business owner, non-technical business owner would say, “Hey, we have AI now, it’s going to write all the software for us. You’re going to charge me a whole lot less, right?” And then you kind of go, well, maybe not. So, do you guys, how is AI, particularly new LLM-type stuff, that impacting the way people write software? I mean, it’s helping a little bit, but are you guys using that internally at all? How do you think about that as a software development shop? Does Copilot write half the code that you put out or do you have to kind of be a little bit more careful than that and a little bit more deliberate?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. I mean, and the right people do ask those things. We’re heavily using AI, Copilot is one. There are many different tools and I don’t remember on top of my head every tool that our team is using. Some for even generating code, some for documentation, some for validating.

So, now let’s say, for example, one of the things we are doing, let’s say we take the design from Figma. So, Figma also generates code, for example, but that’s not at least the quality that we like. But what we’re taking is we have our own components that we created, a lot of reusable components. What we do is we add those and we learn, we train LLM on those. And then as we’re generating code, relying on those components, that’s where we’re getting a better code and faster code because then that is saving us time in terms of building the code. So rather than just…

Todd Merrill:

…so yeah.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

So, I mean, yeah, so generic, you can get it in any language and that’s I think majority of people are using it that way. And then there are tools available, let’s say they’ll say, “Oh, if you give this one and we’ll generate the code for this X thing, Y thing.” The problem is you don’t have a control on those. So, this is where we have our own code that is the initial component. And now you’re getting something that you gradually train because AI need to train on your specific way as well, which is important because that’s the only way we can scale. We can keep an eye on it because as we are growing, different developers are coming. And if they keep building the thing, everybody is building their own way and it’s going to be a mess in the long run.

Todd Merrill:

ML is only as good as the data that you feed it and train and always refine it. Yeah. It’s kind of interesting twist. You know, instead of relying on stack overflow, you know, code that somebody scraped off the internet that probably is full of bugs, you know, you’re relying on production code that your people built and then you pull that in and it gets a lot easier to do it over and over again. And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about in the beginning of you’re hiring a team with a culture and a history, you know, a series of shortcuts that they’re at ease with each other. This is just another way that once you get that flywheel going, you know, of an established team, it makes everything go a lot faster, a lot more efficient. Yeah. Especially for software, it’s inherently complicated. You talked about mobile development. There sure has been a whole lot of changes in mobile development over the years. How do you stay abreast of developments in mobile technology, as an example?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Yeah. So mobile is changing a lot. So when I started in 2000, that was a web WML. And then there were a lot of custom frameworks people were building. There was a Java-based, I think personal Java, like a lot of those things. And then that’s where people were building all of those. And that’s when I was involved with a mobile startup.

Later on, with iPhone and Android came, it changed everything. But even then, it didn’t stop because you have an iPhone, you have a Swift/Objective C, and then Java, and then came Kotlin.

Now over the years, a lot more trend toward the hybrid. So, hybrid apps are becoming, they’re as powerful as the native apps written in Swift or Kotlin. Now, majority of the businesses, especially enterprise is moving in that direction. React Native, Flutter, and there are many other options, but React Native is on top of the list at this time. But yeah, there’s a big change. And I would say it’s pretty much same with every technology.

We’re saying like, things are not stopping. We started the Java, now the Java has changed, the JavaScript has changed, everything. So mobile is definitely coming. And now that’s changing into more, obviously, there are different types of devices. It’s a progressive apps. It would be even becoming more and more HTML-based app development. So mobile development becoming easier and easier, but just still is challenging.

It’s still different than just the web development because now it’s an app that you download. You have to maintain different states. You have to pay attention to things differently, especially when we deal with a lot of those regulations, there are compliance requirements. You have a phone left on your table and somebody picked up, it may already have the data. That’s a big violation and you could be penalized for that. And you could lose big time just by leaving something. That’s not the same as your desktop because obviously, you’re not leaving that everywhere. So again, there’s a lot changing in the mobile.

So, on my side, obviously, so there are many different ways. You see a lot of books behind me. I read, I mean, most of these are entrepreneurial, getting less and less on the tech part, but understanding the trends. So, reading different articles, different places. And then I think more importantly, the experiences over the years, for the last nine and a half years, since we were working, more than 50% of our work is on the mobile side. So that’s where, as you’re building these apps, you’re coming across many of these challenges, including, let’s say, our Apple used to, let’s say, reject applications. Where would they have objections? It has come a long way, where you can use even in-app versus the credit card. All these very small, small things make a difference when it comes to building. So, knowing these makes a huge difference.

So, on that note, I just want to share one thing. Based on my last 24 years of experience working on a mobile since early, I’m actually working on a book.

Todd Merrill:

All right

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

It’s called Free App Promotion Playbook, The Ultimate Guide to Supercharge Your Mobile App Breach. So, this is based on our experience working on mobile. How do you not only build, but how do you grow your mobile app? This is meant for app owners, developers who are working on those apps. So, we added a few case studies. I think some of our customers, but non-customers as well. And it’s an amazing book. It’s going to come out in the next few months. We’re pretty close to it. We’re getting the testimonials out and then working with a publisher. So, I don’t know, whatever the timeline, three, four months still out.

Todd Merrill:

Very cool. Yeah. If we can find a link or something, we can pop that in the description too. And if we know the title, we can definitely publish that with a published date. Wow. That’s very cool. You’re an author. That’s awesome. I know that’s a lot of work, but I feel like at our age, we have a lot of experience and start to want to get that out in the world and leave behind a little something for the next generation. So congrats on that.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Todd Merrill:

That’s a heck of an accomplishment. What should we be working on next? AI is kind of a nice little shiny buzzword. It definitely had some impact. Probably got a little ahead on the hype cycle. As career technology people, we’ve seen this over and over and over and over. What are you looking at for the future? Do you have any technical trends that you’re looking at?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

So our primary focus is on the healthcare side. So that’s where we are building things and improving things on that side. And that’s where we get maturity for our customers on that side. The other side that I see based on the AI, I think there’s a lot of transformation now for the services business as well. So, it used to be you have a service business and then you’re just competing based on the service that you are providing to your customer. And now everybody’s catching up on that. Even the AI is taking over a lot of those. So, your competition also have the same stuff.

Your competition is also using the same tools to manage the customer to everything. Where is the difference? How do you increase your value? How do you differentiate or bring efficiency? That’s where you can build something and bring technology in to improve your operation, bring efficiency, and also improve service for your customer. And it’s much cheaper and quicker than it used to be because now with AI and all those tools available and open integration options, you can make something good and make that happen. So, I think we do see that a lot of companies are looking toward that trend because they don’t want to be behind. They want to build something. Now, obviously, they’re starting as an AI thing, but most of them are looking in a way that, okay, how can I bring tech into it that could improve my operations, make my life easier.

Todd Merrill:

It’s like there’s a lot of work to be done figuring out exactly what AI is good for. It’s definitely good for a lot of things. We have to just weave it into the fabric of what we already have. And then it’s not going to wholesale or replace a lot of things, but it’s going to sure make a lot of things a lot better and that slowly incrementally improve. Okay.

Well, you know, it’s all about travel and getting out there in the world. I know you’re a world traveler. You got any great stories you want to share with us?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

So, yeah, I go to different places. Not a whole lot, I would say, but I think most of my visits are like Pakistan twice a week, twice a year, sitting down with the team, meeting my family, parents. So that’s a good dual benefit. And then also visited Philippines as we’re sitting down with the team, obviously, that makes a huge difference. I can’t think of any interesting story on top of my head, but I do think, for me, the interesting part is getting to know the people because people remote are different. So, when you actually really sit down with the people, that’s different. So, you really get to know. I’ll give you one, for example, I would do a call in the Philippines and I would hear the rooster crows.

Todd Merrill:

Ah yeah.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

And they’ll shy away, like, oh, okay, there’s nothing. And that reminds me of my childhood because when you were living in a village or even in the city, you would hear the rooster call. I miss that in the US, there’s no rooster morning calls. So, and I enjoy those things. So, yeah, I think that’s an interesting part of like any travel, at least in the South Asian part, wherever I hear those things.

Todd Merrill:

Nice. Well, if people want to get in touch with you after this, what’s a great way to follow up with you on the internet?

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Our website is technologyrivers.com or LinkedIn. I can share the link afterwards. It’s very easy to find me with my just name. I don’t think you’ll find any Ghazenfer with just E-N-F-E-R spelling. So, I’m easy to find on LinkedIn.

Todd Merrill:

Awesome

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

So, LinkedIn is the best way. You can ping me always there.

Todd Merrill:

And we will link it below in the description for you. Well, it’s been great having you here, and appreciate having you in Sky Lounge.

Ghazenfer Mansoor:

Well, thanks for having me.

Todd Merrill:

Bye for now.