TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Hello and welcome to the Bee Formless Flow Driven CEO Conversations, where we are shaping and shifting leadership strategy, business and brand, and all that life throws in and around that as we speak. And today I'm welcoming to the show from Sydney, Australia, Tahir Rauf Welcome to the show, Tahir.
Tahir Rauf: Thanks for having me, Bee.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: No, thank you. How's your your week been? Happy Friday. I I I can say that because we're both on the same time zone right now.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, always excited when the Friday comes. The week's been pretty good. We were we planning to release something really big, so the week was very exciting.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: It's always exciting. It's always exciting when you're scaling a business and you have these new products launching and you've got a lot that's been happening because you've just moved into your own office, which is a big congratulations moment to you and and your team. And yeah, you can feel that energy and the and the buzz when you're in that startup scale up mode. I I I love that kind of it's a it's a hard feeling to explain, isn't it? It's kind of almost like this energy that just feels buzzy.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially the times we're living in, things changing so rapidly that you have to be on top of everything. you have to be as you say, shape shifting and Bee formless like an ambiba Bee keep moving,
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: I know. I know. One minute you're in this shape and the next minute it changes. And it's just
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: like, okay, here we go. And you know what I find fascinating and and I'm I'm really excited to talk to you today is that AI, like, just even like if you look at it from even six months ago, the likes of Claude and open AI chat, it's just like the I guess the speed of what they're capable of now, it's wild to think that I mean even last month, like just things I've just done this morning, I'm like, wow, this is kind of crazy, isn't it? That we we can access so much of this technology and yet there's still this really important human aspect which I I'm keen to talk to you about as well. Yeah. Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. th that's why if you i if the businesses are not really raise of focus on what they're doing and and the purpose, it gets diluted a lot because every other day Claude and open AI all of them they they they're pushing so much into the market and it seems like what you're doing has been, you know, released by them. So it's it's really important.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, it is. It is. Well let's let's let's get into it. I want to say big kind hello to all the listeners and audio and my audience out there. Thank you again for listening to Bee Formless Flow Driven CEO Conversations. It's exciting to have you listening. It's I I'm loving all your commentary and your feedback. We're continuing to have incredible diverse conversations and really focusing on those four lenses that I called out. You too, leadership strategy, business and brand, because they are interconnected and I love talking to people like Tahir to really zone in on the inflection points and how they've ultimately shaped and shifted. So to here, without further ado, let's let's get into it. I'm going to introduce you officially. You're the co-founder and CTO of Keeyu YU and it's an AI powered platform transforming how e-commerce brands manage their operations. I love this bit about your story. You you you come from Pakistan and that's where your journey began and you taught yourself how to code on paper. I'm like,
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: what the? Before ever touching a computer. Like were you just like a little Einstein writing stuff down? How did like, yeah.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, it it's something we call algorithms. and it's like how do you simplify a problem into steps of doing things. So for example, if you want to achieve something, how can you define so small a steps that anyone can follow those steps?
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm. Mm.
Tahir Rauf: And the idea that I had, because I didn't have access to a computer at that time, and I said, Okay, how can I solve those problems that people usually solve in computers but on the paper by putting them into the smaller step. And that helped me a lot throughout in my career, even even today as well, is that
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: that I can simplify complex problems into simple things. And often people say that I I often explain things in a very simple way. And I think that has been carried through that practice
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: that I had many years ago.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, incredible. And for all again, all the listeners out there see paper and getting it all out onto paper is really important, not just kind of focusing on doing everything, you know, with laptops, computers, iPhones, et cetera, et cetera. You had this important inflection point and it emerged after years of you rebuilding technology systems for fast growing brand brands. When Tahir you recognize that even the most sophisticated businesses were constantly constantly reacting to problems they could have present pre prevented. And I think we're seeing more and more of that. The insight inspired Keeyu and your your co-founders in Keeyu and a personal shift from surviving through self-reliance to building and leading with intention. And so today as part of your scale up journey KiU is Going beyond that 1 million in annual revenue, reoccurring revenue. I'm gonna say that again. I'm getting tongue-twisted. So today, Tahir and the co-founders are scaling Keeyu beyond one million in annual rev reoccurring revenue. You're navigating that tension between moving quickly and rebuilding the trust required for AI to become a part of everyday business operations. And at the heart and soul of your work is this belief that technology
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should solve problems before they become burdens people. And for you, personally. Personally, the next chapter is as much about evolving the way you lead as it is about the systems you're creating in the future they make possible. Super inspiring and and super interesting. You know, you were talk you and I were talking pre-show and and you know, I was just even I think even just before I was saying, you know, the vast change in six months. And I love this inside out lens that you are putting on technology and systems and the problem is never the problem, if that makes sense.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: You started the business in 2023. Tell us a little bit about you know, going from learning how to code on paper, working with these big companies, and then becoming a co-founder of Keeyu and and what you guys are doing and and building.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, I think I have about two decades of experience working in different things and the things that I learned is that I've been seeing signals of problems and I've been seeing repeated problems across the businesses of different scales. Bigger businesses like enterprises and mid market and smaller businesses. I've seen the the there there is a pattern of problem that occur everywhere, especially in the e-commerce businesses. So what I've been doing over the last two decades is that I was solving that problem in isolation for every business. And then I figured out three years ago that that was the the the idea movement was is that there is a problem that I've been solving for for for two decades. So I can see the signal and the repetition. Why don't we build an engine that actually solves that problem for everyone? And that was the idea three years ago that I shared with my co founder is that this is the problem because me and the two other co founders, we've been working together for the last five, six years.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Okay, yeah.
Tahir Rauf: So we said, Look, we've been pr solving that problem for many businesses together and I said, Why don't we build an engine that solves problem for everyone? And that was the idea moment that that that we started working into that deeper.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: And so and so the three of you come together five and six years ago, was that on a consultancy like were you d working like you formed KU only in twenty twenty three, so that's only three years ago?
Tahir Rauf: Yeah. Yeah. So during the COVID, one of my co-founder, he was the CEO at PE Nation, and the other co-founder, she was the head of customer care there at PE Nation. And they hired me to come and solve the problems because with the COVID, there was a lot, you know, the the sales went exponential. people were buying a lot, and then the sister were not copying, and they have the same problem that reactive customer care. They're reacting to the problems because the demand went high. They hired me to solve this problem. So I've been doing that for many, many years before. So I said we can solve the problem, and together we solved that problem. We built something that didn't only solve the problem but had an an upsell on because instead of reacting to the problem customer care was able to then you know sort of upsell so we sold that there and later on the CEO of PE Nation he moved on to another business and I moved as well and he called me and he said you know this problem that we solved in P Nation I'm having the same problem. Can you come and solve it? I said
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: well we had a bigger team and we built a system I can't do that alone. So that's where I said look That was the idea where I said, I can solve that problem for you, but why don't we solve that problem for other businesses as well? And he said
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm.
Tahir Rauf: he was so excited and he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in and resign today and come with you if you if you're okay. So this this was the moment then then he immediately on the same day he decided to come and join me.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: wow, incredible. I love the I love the bullish type of more probably bullish is the wrong word, but let's just go for it. Anything is possible here. And listening to you and you know, from an e-commerce perspective and the complexity around e commerce, the system, it's quite clunky when you go into businesses. It's dis I I look at it from a disconnected perspective. You've spotted a a bigger problem and being and the ability then to go, well we can't we can just We can solve this collectively for a number of different businesses and their brands. To to it doesn't have to be complex, does it? It it can be very simple. And I think this is part of the challenge here, in terms of and I and I'm interested in your in your as a question and and your thoughts. There's no doubt a lot of businesses that you come across as a starting point, and they've probably got that many different tools, AI tools going on. You're like, cut through the crap this is what we've got to get to. do you s are you seeing more and more of that?
Tahir Rauf: I I think most of the businesses the way they try to solve problem is obviously they the the reactive angle. And if you are going with the reactive angle, you you need a lot of workforce to be able to because the problem has already occurred and you're trying to solve that problem after that. That's why the bigger businesses that I've seen, they spend a lot of money, a lot of resources thrown to that. So if what we've seen if the businesses start seeing things proactively and solve the problem before they happen, not only leads with the happy customers, but also happy workforce as well, because they're not day to day doing firefighting all the times.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, it helps with energy and all and and and what you're talking about here is removing the reactivity, the survival mode, the exhaustion that that actually you know contributes to the to the wider
business. You're working with some pretty, pretty big brands right now as well, aren't you? Like some you know, I I think you said Quick I think it's Quicksilver, you've got a few other big big companies.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Is it the same like do you see the same problems across the board? Like are you seeing patterns or is it different depending on the business that you're going into and working with and has it changed like there's so much rapid change happening right now. Are you noticing change more more complexity now than six months ago, for example?
Tahir Rauf: I think the core complexity remains the same. It's just that the mindset of people is shifting now. Very so if I talk about a year ago, the the way people were thinking, and there's a lot of education piece we had to do as well. We had to tell the brands and the businesses that the way you're operating i you can do better better ways. So if you see how the currently a lot of a lot of software is they deal with the reactivity. So which means
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: that they deal with how can they reduce the time. when the customer complain and the the issue gets resolved. So most of the systems are working towards that. We said the education we brought to the businesses is that you can proactively solve this problem. So you don't even see at the at the ticket coming in. Why don't you look at that? So So a year ago this was this education we were doing to the businesses. But now increasingly what we're seeing is that businesses are adopting that because they are seeing things happening in AI
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Hm.
Tahir Rauf: and they're like, Okay, we can use AI to to to solve that problem. And and and I feel the the complexity remains the same. I don't
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Hmm.
Tahir Rauf: think the complexity has gone up or down. Actually, it has increased the complexity because the amount of work they're doing is is quite significant now. And especially with the bigger businesses, what we're trying to do is with the proactive angle, is that through Kiyu, all the small little thing that they are doing, they can they can get that done through Kiyu. So so the so the idea is that the less low value work that they have to do so that they can concentrate on the high value work.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: strategic, yeah, get get back to being more strategic. It's really interesting. I was reading something the other day and and no doubt you're of you're familiar with this and it was like there's there's the humans, there's the a there's the Was it it was like the a the the prompting and then there was these replicants. So it was like the agents of the replicants in terms of there's almost three th three people or three, you know, two two machines and one human in the mix here. The reason I bring this up is I I'm interested in terms of, you know, going right back to You learnt how to code on paper, you talked about this algorithm piece and and coming back to Keeyu and you know it's an AI-powered platform as such. With with regards to the human component to this, like how does that work from a human perspective? And and you called out just then it l allows businesses to be more strategic. Is that what you mean? use l allowing then the human to do do what they're meant to be doing, getting right back to being more critical thinking, more creative, leading the way they're meant to be leading, future proofing their business, for example. Is that what you're talking about?
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, so in especially in the e commerce operation space it's a very unglamorous space 'cause you do a lot of repetitive tasks every day. So for example you might have out of stock stock is not available but then you got fifty orders against which the stock doesn't exist. And then you have to go through each and every order and and and maybe call the customers and do these kind of things. And these are really low value works. So that brings the morale of the teams down as well. As a human factor, if you see, if they're doing the repeated work all the time, the low-value work, the morale of the human psychology
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm.
Tahir Rauf: comes down as well. So what we say is all the low-value work, you can leave it up to Q and it can do all of that because it can do all the repeated work very efficiently. So it learns. Of the day-to-day things that you're doing, and then it does that on its own so that the human factor comes in to do the high value work. So the low value is out of the box and and then you concentrate on the high value work. It increases. So what we've do done we've seen through our surveys with the people who are using the platform is that they they're more happy, they're more proactive now because they are focusing on the high value work. They're focusing on making sure that the the the customers are happy instead of fire fighting with the customer complaints and and things like that.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: It's so good. And I love that you call that happy because, happy team, happy customer, happy customer, happy team thing, right? And, you know, for so long we've kind of been caught up in we focus on, you know, the small value or low value tasks and then we forget about looking up and and what this bigger picture is. And I think that, you know, even even the conversations I've been having on the pod in the last probably six or so months, there is just need to step back and and pe and people are leaders are realising or actually I'm the human here. I I need to I'm the strategic one. I the the machines can only do so much. it's just where this discernment and and judgment kicks in. I wanna talk a little bit about you as a co-founder and obviously what k you's building and you know, you're you're hitting one million recurring revenue and you know, from a startup perspective, it's it's not easy, right? And you talk about how you're eliminating the complexity and
and the low value tasks from the business, the big businesses and and all the businesses you're working with. Sometimes we get so focused on well, we get so focused on our customers and and that recurring, revenue we're we're scaling that all our systems internally are not asking you to share all your data to laundry. how does it work? How do you apply the same I guess, practices for yourselves because I know from being a you know, a founder myself in the past and and I'm a founder now and you know, when you're scaling and you hit those numbers and then your team grows and you kinda go, hang on a second, like we need to take a step back and just
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: not Bee so reactive as well. Like, yeah, how's it work for you guys?
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think the the proactive principle that we've done in our business, we applied that proactivity principle into the teams as well. So when we started this business, I was mainly because I'm from the technical background, I was
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: designing and architecting everything and developing things myself. And I was very much involved in all of the process. And then about a year ago, I realized that actually I'm becoming the bottleneck for the company now because I can only do so much. Also the also I felt that the it's the cognition limit angle as well is that I'm
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: I'm smart to a certain extent and I cannot Bee smart in every single area. There are people smarter than me.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: No. Mm.
Tahir Rauf: So there was a book that I read about being the dumbest guy in the room. So instead of being the smartest guy in the room. So it means that if you are in in a room with your team, if you're the smartest guy, it means the t the level of the team will Bee kept at your level. You don't want that. You
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Hundred percent. Yeah, it's a good colour.
Tahir Rauf: you know and And that's where I thought and I I I got that sort of enlightenment that I need to hire people who challenge me in in their sort of areas. And that's why I started headhunting people, people that I've worked with in the past. So we built the team. Right now, the teams that I have, I'm really proud of the team. I I often say this is one of the best teams I have in Sydney. The reason is that they make me uncomfortable sort of in a positive way when I go into the meeting room is like we discuss the ideas and they come up with a passion that they want to do these things in a certain way and that's where the ownership comes in. So
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm.
Tahir Rauf: th i in our teams throughout not only the tech team but the sales team and the customers customer care team as well is that people take ownership of things. And the ownership comes if you bring confidence into them, if you if you tell them that I'm not the bottleneck, if you come up with a good
idea, that idea will Bee appreciated, not let you put down. So I think that's the kind of a culture we have, and that's proactively giving them powers that they can take ownership and do things on on their own instead of reacting to.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, it's great and it's good it's good that you're calling that out and acknowledging that. I actually saw something again the other day where someone was like, you know, you don't have people smarter in your team than yourself and that's why you use agents and I was like, What a what a bad way to think about that, because because I've always had the belief that you're only as good as the people around you and you do. To get high performing, happy teams, they you want them better than you because then you're learning, they're learning from you, and vice versa. It makes you better as a leader as well. I've always thought that way. I also think there's some something really interesting that you call out there in terms of, you know, innovation and creativity and having that kind of culture that is required because coming right back to this formlessness And this shaping and shifting. Everything is changing so quickly. And, you know, especially with you guys playing in the e-com space, I can't even imagine what that looks like in, you know, 12 months' time. A lot of things look like in 12 months' time. So you have to continuously Bee shaping and shifting strategically in a way that allows the business to grow. Have you had any moments in the last three years where you and the co-founders have just been like, is this actually going to get off the ground? Like, you know, there's all these you see a lot of the time everyone saying how good everything is, but there's also times when it's just shit and it's just so hard because again, you you've got the CTO role, you're a co founder also, you're wearing multiple hats. Like what's that been like for you?
Tahir Rauf: So it's very interesting. Yesterday I was listening to the podcast of my other co-founder and someone asked the same question and I'm gonna I'm gonna answer the exact same phrase that he said. He said that if someone says that they're running a startup and everything is running smoothly, they don't have any problems, they are completely delusional. So it's because you see so many problems as you go along. sometimes when you look back, those problems look minor to you, but when you're going through them, they're very big problems. So I can say definitely throughout the last three years there have been so many times that we we we've felt that it's too complex. Can it Bee done? Can it Bee is it even possible? There has been many, many times, but the the persistence we all three of us has is that we're we're not gonna give up. We're not gonna we're not gonna give up at all. These these little problems, we're gonna solve them. Sometimes those little problems and big problems come in. And if the mindset is that you're gonna get it done, you're
not gonna just exit. I think things become streamlined. It's a mindset that you develop. And I think we've we've practiced that enough that by this time now we we see ten bad news and maybe five or six good news, but we go through that. We we you know it it's it's that kind of a pace. And and eventually you you reach at a point where the ten bad news becomes ten good news and five bad news. So
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm.
Tahir Rauf: it's just how you go through the journey to to flip the whole thing.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? It's so true though. Like it's just that kind of for me, it's that inner grit, it's that anti fragility. How do you not just bounce back from a resilience perspective, but how do you continue to bounce forward and learning from that? I mean, the the market's tough at the moment, the conditions are tough. Like we I mean, com bricks and mortar, you look at David Jones and what's just happened here in Australia, you know, obviously from an you know, global economy perspective, political stage, etc. It's it's a tough, tough market to Bee an entrepreneur and to Bee a founder and I think this is though when the the rubber hits the road and the ability to Bee able to solve complex problems is more important there than ever. When it comes to e commerce, you know, I you guys are launching internationally or you already are internationally, I think US markets and then obviously locally here and no doubt you've got big ambition for other markets as well. Are you noticing a difference from an econ perspective perspective Locally versus internationally or is it is it somewhat on the same page at the moment in terms? Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah. I I definitely see similarities and it's it's at at a similar pace everywhere. Australia I I know from the retail perspective is struggling a bit and and s I feel this same like in in in the US and other countries as well. but I think in terms of the what the work that we're doing, I feel that there is not never a good time. You will always feel challenges. The market will always Bee up against you. So I think where the market is going, it's in a way it's better for us as well because with the with the limited limited budget and and and extra cost and all of that, that's where Keeyu comes in handy as well. Because the work of i if if if a person is spending six to seven hours doing doing repeated stuff every day, you can have that go to Keeyu and Keeyu can take care of that
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: and you work on the high value stuff. So I think in a way it helps in in in that form as well.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, absolutely. It feels like it's like a it's almost like a plug and play, right? you've got you've got this really sophisticated yet simple system that you can plug into, you know, an e com business and make their lives so much easier to to like to say, to get them to Bee focusing on what they're meant to Bee focusing on in terms of Versus being caught down here. And I think
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: that's also a big call out that I'm seeing with a lot of CEOs and founders is that ability to look up and It's it there is a lot of uncertain conditions right now and this is why leaders need to Bee looking strategically, is our strategy on point, how is the business performing, how we've got our culture in place, what's our brand doing, you know, from a you know, go go to market perspective. And and so that's why I I see these four lenses. Tell me a little bit about your relationship from a co-founder perspective and and the reason I ask this in terms of, like in the past I've had three co-founders and there there's dynamics and there's different personalities and again, just it's it's a relation it's like a it's like a marriage, right? And you talked before about that you guys work through the not so good times and the good times. Have you learned a lot about yourself as a as a leader and as a person with regards to since coming into being a co founder?
Tahir Rauf: Yeah. One thing I would like to say that w I've been very lucky to have these co-founder in terms that we own different areas. We have really good qualities in our areas. Like for example, I look after technology and s my other co-founder, he looks after sales and marketing and business side of things, and the third co-founder looks at the and the customer customer lens. and and the usage of the platform and the product side of things. So I think we complement our areas in in different and and that becomes really sort of a you see the Lego blocks and and they fit together and really well. but definitely as as you go through our there will Bee differences, there will Bee differences of opinions that we often have. but the good thing is that we go through them with respect and What we've learned now is that a framework that we have where we if if someone disagreed on something, we come up with with our points and sort of do a mathematical sort of a formula like in terms of scoring is that let's score that idea of you think about that, you think about that. So let's sort of give them scoring and see, you know, which one which one's gonna hold. So I think we've definitely learned a lot around that. how do we turn the disagreements into the opportunities and and get good things out of that.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, that's good. I like the scoring piece as well. And being right, practical is probably the word that comes up for me. there's you have to Bee practical in these situations because it is like a marriage, isn't it? It's it's a business marriage. What about yourself, Tahir? you've you've obviously done a lot of work yourself from an evolution perspective. What have you noticed within yourself that has evolved in the last three years? You you talk a lot about mindset, you talk a lot about behavior. I
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: my own experience is that your you
your business only evolves as much as the the founders and the leaders evolve. W what what's
Tahir Rauf: Yes.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: it been like for you?
Tahir Rauf: I think the way I I I see the problems now has really evolved. 'cause I feel the small problems discourage you a lot. and that's the one of the main reasons not the big problems, but the small problems.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm.
Tahir Rauf: Big problems are glamorous problems that everyone looks at and try to solve those problems. But the small problems are are something that that vears you down. And I've seen in in the past I've I've I've started a few businesses in the past, they didn't go really well because when I look back, the the problem was not the issue was not the big problems, but the small little hurdles that you feel every day that you view you down. And then eventually six months down the road, you're like, wow, it's so many problems every day. I I don't have energy.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm.
Tahir Rauf: I've learned that over the last three years that these small little problems shouldn't veh you down. It's just it's just a regular thing that will happen all the time. So you gotta just embrace them and solve them and keep moving on them. That that has significantly changed the way I think and that's why today I do not think of exiting at all or or or you know, sort of giving up at all because I know all these small little problems not gonna take my energy down. Actually
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Mm.
Tahir Rauf: gonna take my energy up because I know if I see the problems and I tick them off every day, I'm actually achieving something, actually going in the positive direction. I think that that's something that I've learned in the last three years.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, it's incredible that you've got all that evolution in you in terms of that inside out philosophy. And I think it that's what it is in in in my mind, in terms of energetically, it what you're talking it feels like what you're talking about here is knowing what is sucking your energy or draining your energy and what's actually increasing your energy levels. And so when you continue to solve problems, one step at a time or how often i I I think this is the the the point here as a founder and and to avoid yourself from burning out and that exhaustion and s being stuck in the rat race, for example. Let's come back to Keeyu again. I'm always intrigued. How did you guys come up with the name Keeyu from a branding perspective?
Tahir Rauf: That's very interesting. so Keeyu is the combination of two words, Ki and U. This is a Japanese word, it means foresight. And that was the whole idea behind Keeyu is that we it's foresight. We see things in advance and proactively resolve them instead of waiting for them. We're waiting for the problem to come.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Very cool. And did you guys did one of you did you cut were you just did you go through that torture of having to cut work
through about, hundreds of different names? Or
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: like how did you how did you get to a Japanese word like eats?
Tahir Rauf: We tried we tried
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: yeah, we tried various options, but we have a a a friend of ours, he is really good at that and we said, Okay, maybe you have an idea on that and a couple of days after he came up with that word and that was immediately clicked that the no disagreements, everyone agreed on that threat away. that's that's the thing we were looking for.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah. Yeah, I love it. And it's so it's so universal. It's also so on point in terms of having that foresight to see things and to Bee able to continue, like I say, to bounce forward. You know, more than ever. I think this is this is where we're at. I've got a fine a couple of final questions for you. You come across as someone very positive and anything's possible and achievable. I know as a as a founder that, you know, there's mo you sometimes you're working twenty four seven, it's y th people are like if you're an entrepreneur or a founder, expect to Bee working seven days a week. It's not sustainable though, because for me, I burnt out significantly by continuing to do that year on year. It sounds like you guys are very well aware of how do you play the long game here and ensure that you have the long game for the ambition. What are you do what are you doing with the team and yourselves to ensure that you you know, you've just like you said, you've got this new product and I'm gonna ask a little bit about that as well. or maybe you can't share. Like what are you doing to ensure that you are keeping everyone regenerative, sustained to play this long game because it is a long game when it comes to scaling and and building a business.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah. I say the the first two years were two years were definitely very tough for for all of us. we overworked a lot and obviously everyone around us suffered that in that as well. kind of that was necessary as well in in in those terms, but we we've realized as you said, that's not long term sustainable. You you you just burn out and then the quality comes down actually. It it becomes unproductive, actually. It's counterproductive. So So we we realized that and I think one of the moves we moved to the new building, for example. It it was a move that we want to build our own culture. A culture where people take ownership but then relax as well. So this is one of the things when you give ownership to people then you don't have to build sort of fancies and and strong rules around how you're gonna work and not. And then people so for example, the our office timing is very flexible. People come at a flexible time, they go at a flexible time there's it it's outcome based. You you gotta deliver something and you work on that and you work on that as you feel. So sometimes you're not really in a good mood in the in the morning. That's fine. Just take it easy, chill, and then do it when you're in a good mood. So it's it's kind of that culture that we have in the company. plus also for myself, I I I I often I love nature, so I go out to the nature that that relaxes me and it's sort of a catharsis for me. I often do that over the weekends, more now than before because we have a bigger team now and then now the the the work burden is shared across everyone, sort of. So so that helps as well.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, incredible. Was it hard to let go? Was it hard to like you you brought a team on, you're super proud of your team. Was there this moment where you're like you're handing you felt like you were handing over the baby a little bit? Like d did you did you find that tricky at all to let go?
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, it was yeah, for sure it was tricky, but the the thing that I mentioned about about giving ownership to people and and trusting them a bit. And you see when you do that, you'll Bee surprised how quickly they they take the ownership and they make
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: you make you relax that they can take care of things like starting
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: off I was skeptical a bit, but then but then when I gave them free space and then they came back, so I felt that I would have been i if I would if if I scored it out of hundred, I might have been only at sixty or seventy at something, but they came up with ninety. So I'm like, actually they're better in i in that. So so
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah. Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: that that relaxed me. I think yeah, sure there was a transition, but I think the it became a lot easier as as I went across.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah, I love hearing this because I do think it's the new form of leadership. there's no need to Bee scared, there's so much fear mongering and everything with AI coming into play. There's still so much human requirement and and what you're talking talking about from a leadership perspective and that ability to to let go and trust your team is is super important. What's gonna Bee my final question? can you share anything about your new product or is that is it has it not launched yet? You said it's been an exciting week, is there?
Tahir Rauf: Yeah. it's I I can talk about that. So what we're trying to build now is so what we had before is something that is primarily working across the customer care and e commerce operations. But now what we're trying to build is a framework that helps everyone in the business. So it's bringing the virality into the product, so that Everyone can in the organization can take benefit out of that. It's spread across everywhere. And what we're trying to do is you see how you use Claude or open AI or all these kinds of tools, but what we build is a underlying infrastructure foundation of trust. So so that when you use cloud, for example, you the the Claude can go and do a lot of things for you. But it can go similarly in
in in the wrong way as well. It might go ahead
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: and cancel a thousand orders as well. There's no so what we've built is the framework of trust where you can perform operation and you hundred percent are you trust, you know that it's not gonna go wrong and goes across the whole organization. So So it's it's like on a high level, this is what we're trying to do is make it viral within the organization, not just specific department, but everyone else can take benefit of it.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: That for me is that whole holistic or whole k kind of high whole model approach and, you know, I think that more and more we're going to s we we're going to see more of this because the challenge at the moment is that there's so many disconnections within businesses and, you know, AI is you know, the a p open AIs and the clause of the world as as great as they are. They're also creating so much additional complexity and teams or departments you know, focusing on only their department. And my big thing is it it needs to Bee all interconnected and and right coming right back to the the four lenses I call out, because that's the only way a business can and can truly grow and a and a team can truly grow and and Bee strategic versus being reactionary. And I think that what you're creating with this product is It's gonna Bee incredible because it it is looking at at a business holistically versus from just one aspect. And I think we're we're gonna see
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: w there's a need for this w in ac across what I see also.
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head really well is how this Claude and open AI are actually creating separations within the team instead of removing them because everyone can go and build their own stuff.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: So so what we've seen with some of our customers before they joined Kiyu, they had a lot of these silos going on that everyone building their own stuff in isolation.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah.
Tahir Rauf: And that created a lot of problems as well in terms of the security and the privacy of things. So that's where Keeyu helps them because it's it's one unified platform where everything you build is in conjunction with other things.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like do you know what I th I see it as, Tahir? It's like a living, breathing organism, just like we are as humans, right? it's exactly the same. we've got to Bee interconnected as leaders, as human beings, mind, body, soul. all of that. And
Tahir Rauf: Mm-hmm.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: I think it's the same when it comes to a business. And so we need to look at a business like a human system because it absolutely is. And then how do you put it all together? So so the so this new product has launched, it's live, it's out there. How do we how do we find out more about Keeyu you if we want to get in contact or have a an exploratory session with you?
Tahir Rauf: Yeah, I think on the on our website keeyu dot com there is there is there is a button for the discovery and the demo. so our customer usually go from there, our potential customer usually go from there and book a demo and then we walk through we first do a discovery call where we try to understand the pain points that people are having and then we set up a demo and we demonstrate them how the the problems that you're facing can Bee solved. An actual demo and and that's how the the whole process works.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Incredible. And do you have any words of wisdom, from a from a founder perspective? do you have anything you want want to share with the listeners in terms of le
Tahir Rauf: Yeah.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: l leaving thoughts?
Tahir Rauf: I think it's the thing that I said before is the small problems, small hurdles wear you down and you gotta just see them as a journal in in in a day, like a journal of things that are happening. So just just just resolve the small problems out and and and and just take your day. Don't get don't get veered down by the small problems. These are the things that actually takes you on the on the on the bigger side.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: That's a really good call out. I think we quite often forget that as as founders and and leaders in general. So thank you so much for your time, Tahir. I wish you utmost success. I know that you guys are gonna smash it out of the park. I can tell there's a lot of energy and ambition. So wishing you all the best for the rest of this year, this new product launch and you know, years ahead. So thank you for your time.
Tahir Rauf: Thank you very much and really inspiring questions you had you asked.
Bee Murray, Bee Formless: Thank you so much to here. Take care and happy Friday.
Tahir Rauf: You too.