From A Small Village In Tanzania [To Living The American Dream]

Edward Mbeche  00:00

I grew up in Tanzania. You know, like, from the humble beginning, people always used that word like grew up with, like with no shoes, and then they end up coming into America.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:07

Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. Today I am joined by another American, I said, I’ve got a few Americans on my podcast, which I love. And today is Edward Mbeche, who is a CEO and founder of the Halen Super-App. And he actually originally grew up in Africa, and then moved to the US when he was 18-19 years old. And he’s got a fascinating story we just been hearing about his story before we started this podcast. So welcome to the show.

Edward Mbeche  00:32

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:34

It’ s great to have you, hey,look, you have got an interesting story, because you started in tax of all things, and then moved into limousine. So tell us a little bit about your story and where you’ve come from where you are now.

Edward Mbeche  00:46

Do you want to go back to like, where I grew up? Or just.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:49

Yah know, let’s do the growing up to that’s great.

Edward Mbeche  00:53

Okay, yeah. So I grew up in Tanzania, in a small village, like, you know, just, you know, like, from the humble beginning, people always used that word like, grew up with like, with no shoes, and then they end up coming into America. Kind of weird started like a whole culture shock. So went to college and ended up stopped working. I trained working for a company, the Blackberry, I don’t know if you ever heard of the black? Yeah, I used to work for the company, went out of business. It took me a while to run to get another job. That’s how I ended up stumbling into taxi. And I ended up start working the tax company. It’s a big tax company in Washington DC. As a dispatch, like a dispatch manager, yes. From there, I ended up getting a second job working for a limousine company that was driving for them. Then doing my dispatch, I go to tax morning, I go early in the morning, like like, like 4:30 in the morning to like to like around like 1:30 – 2pm. And then I go drive for the limousine. So it was fun. And from there, he I ended up I ended up learning a lot of the stuff in the industry, How tax company works, and also how limousines and I ended up starting my own limousine company was called DC private cars.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:14

Yeah. Okay. And that you said to me in the podcast, also, before we start talking that that actually got sort of almost destroyed by the Uber app. Is that right?

Edward Mbeche  02:24

Yes, yes. So the DC private car was very, it was good. I had it running for, for almost 15 years before Uber came in. And what came in it was one of those, you know, like old school mentality we had, I was like, ah, nobody’s gonna order a limousine company using an app.You know. Like little we knew so but I realized when I start losing business, like my, my core customer, where I will lose them where they will, they will call me like, Hey, pick me up at the airport. And I’m like, who took you to the airport, because I’m normally the one who take them to the airport. So I started losing those last few other accounts, like really good account. And then I realized, like, hey, I need to get out of this. So I ended up selling the company got out a really like a guy like he sold it and got out of it. And it took me about maybe two, almost almost two months, two years, two, not too much, two years and a half, two years and a half trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And from there, I ended up developing rideshare app. I wanted to design exactly the same thing, what I was doing, but a little knowledge I had of technology. I ended up hiring some, Some Freelancer from India, they they designed the app for me, it works actually perfectly fine. But and but I treated them just like a freelancer, right, they designed and they left. And also with that old school mentality. I thought like, we can design it like like, you know, like we used to do like, Like old school, like you create a website, you put a phone number and email, you leave the website for two, three years before you update anything. But I was wrong.  Technology changes, like almost like every second, whatever. But so the app got created in a run for like almost six months, it was a really good app to run for six months and start having a bunch of glitch problem with the code. And I tried to go back to find the same freelance old designer came to find that the guy I deal with it was he was a project manager who find jobs and then find developers. He tried to find the developer he could not get them, either. Maybe he didn’t pay them enough money, the money I paid him for whatever reason. So we could not get the people that developed the app to fix it. So all this gracias was so much problem. So we ended up trying to find out the developers they looked at the code They said all the code has so many bugs, we cannot fix it. So what happen is now, we just decided to abandon the whole thing. But even at that time, at that time, I was trying to reach out to investor who are like, Oh, this is good. Tell us more like, Do you have a CTO? Do you have a product manager, I’m like, Whoa, they asked me all this stuff, like, I don’t know, I don’t have I’m the only one one that company. So from there, I learned that I need to re kind of regroup or pivot in a way and kind of from there, I started recruiting a CTO started recruiting team like systematics or whatever. And from there, I learned even the CTO that i brought in, they looked at the code, they’re like, Whoa, this is too much mess. So we decided to leave that and then created a new company. But at the same time, he just for me to start learning exactly what’s going on. I was a kind of registered driving for Uber and Lyft. And just to be like, Hey, what are they doing? Good? What are they doing bad for learning purposes,  right. but a learning purpose i kind of end up just drifting in and in where  at the same time it become like almost a complain i would drive maybe 7am to 7pm and i look at my pay  and I’m like i didn’t make enough money at all. like right if you calculate from the either food, the gas for your car, the wear and tare of your car, your time and you end up looking at wow I’m driving 7 to 7 and I’m making like 9 dollar an hour which is horrible like where you cannot really save any money for either like lets say when i had the limousine where you can be like hey i can take a vacation or my family for a week or two, i can put my kid on college but this was like you cant take even 1 week off because otherwise its like you know you will lose so much whatever. so from there learning, cursing one day cursing on the on the side of the highway, I’m like, This is impossible. I can’t believe this is how much I made, I think I think I bought I bought like, like one of those, like a electric toothbrush for like $80. And like one of those coconut water like they come like in a box. And and I remember I had lunch and I put gas in my car. And the money was run out and I was left I think we’d like $15. And I was like for the whole day like that really is really upsetting. But at the same time I was learning. The way is I had both Lyft and Uber, right. So as I was driving, so I keep switching back on and off, on and off, right? Because I want to stay busy and make enough money. Right? So, but at the same time, I was getting penalized by the system, like why you keep turning on time and off because they did not understand, hey, I turned both apps to Lyft and the Uber. And whoever gave me a job, a ton of the other ones. So I do the job as soon as I drop off a ton on the other one again. So whoever gave me the job first, in order to just stay busy, right. Exactly the on and off, on and off. And they did a couple of times where you accept the job. And I forget to turn off the other one and I’ll be driving in a day of pop up. You had a job with a sub like I’m on another job and then you get a decline. And every time you decline also you get penalized. So by the by the app that you declining, right so it’s like the almost kind of penalizing nd push you to the bottom way you’re not gonna be receiving more job quick. From there  it was just a headache right turning off it was a headache with all those apps.

Edward Mbeche 09:59

I’m out from there. Also, I’m still putting my team together for this new Halen Super-App.

Edward Mbeche  10:05

I realize why not merge two services, where you have food delivery and rideshare together, and the driver can decide whatever, you know, they can decide if they want to do both. They just like assumed a drop-off person, they want to pick up food they can pick up food. From they’re learning slowly, this this idea of a super app, I never heard of it, right. And in my head, I started realizing like trying to learn more, trying to kind of understand why if you can combine this stuff, why hasn’t hasn’t this big company done like Uber or Lyft. And as I’m, as I was learning, like, it became clear that whenever you design an app, you need to design a system architecture, right? The system architecture is like a house Foundation, right? House Foundation, if you say, Hey, I’m going to build a four bedroom house, right? You cannot turn around, maybe a year later, you know what I’m gonna put a high rise on top of it. The fun, right? If the foundation is not gonna help, this is not going to support the high rise, because it’s only support a four bedroom house. So system architecture is the same. Like this companies, they are big, they spend millions of dollars to build their system. But their system only support that. That foundation of a one bedroom and over four bedroom house, not a high rise. So we came into Uber, we came in and like when I was putting the team together, we came in with a with this idea of Halen, we started learning like oh Super-App they are popular in other countries like Asia market or Middle East or whatever. So for the Listeners listening in, can you just explain to me your you know, what is a Super- App? How would you describe a Super-App. Without reading, we can PDX week’s PDF, explanation. A Super-App is one platform that allow customer all of the public to access multiple services. So is, is a one stop shop app, kind of like where you have a bunch of different apps. So like the way we have ours to hell and we have, we have six different services where we have, we have rideshare, we have grocery delivery, we have restaurant delivery, we have retail delivery, then we have flight booking, and we have vacation rental, by some some other Super-App, they can go you can go with Super-App, anything like whatever you do, you can be like, hey, I want to have rideshare, I want to have grocery I want to have banking, I want to have insurance, I want to have a barbershop whatever you as long. This system can accept multiple service to do multiple services in one app. So it helps consumer or customer not to end up like less app to it to use one app on the all their daily use, right without them. exposing their personal data or personal information, get tracked their their movement of whatever their history, a bunch of different app, you have one, the Super-App is one app, you enter your credit card information, and your personal your personal information on one app where you don’t have to download so many other apps where you have to enter your personal information again, password. So now you have like multiple apps listening to your tracking and whatever, right? The Super-App saves you with all the noise it cut off, or it helps you so it’s like I will say a Super-App is something that provide privacy and security. Maybe the simple way for me to say it, yeah. Okay, cool.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:59

So you’ve been developing this Super-App now. And I suppose that you’ve had some learnings you’ve already shared some of them from the original rideshare app. You’ve talked a little bit about people, and you know, making sure that you have the right people. That’s one of the learnings that you had. Tell us a little bit about what you’ve learned and how you’re dealing with that now.

Edward Mbeche  14:18

Oh, this, this is fun. I thought I thought I had a lot of the management skills like when I had a limousine company. This is way totally different. Like because when I had a limousine company, I had a small customer service like four people and we knew each other they’re like Anna, like I knew their behavior and everything fine. It’s like they know they come in they answer phone, they help driver that’s fine. And also for driver driver, the nasty in office, they came in pick up the car or some of them, they kept the car at home, they just delivered to drive whatever. And they will come back to the office maybe once a day or once every week, whatever. When we’re putting the team together there to work on this where you are communicating with people like every day, or just kind of just just like going to learning people like from the progress of the app, right? Like, hey, we’re doing this, we’re doing this. And also we have a live virtual meeting. And all this is a lot of stuff that I ended up learning like, human behavior, right?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  15:22

Yep.

Edward Mbeche  15:23

Is almost in a way, I don’t know how to say this is like, because you’re dealing with so many different multiple, like personality, and each individual is motivated differently, right? With the, with the new age now people is like, they almost like what do you say? People not? Long time ago, people used to look for job that is like, Hey, I find a job. This is my job is this is my future is gonna give me my future, whatever people now is like, hey, no, it’s about my feelings. How am I being treated? Right? So I don’t care if they give me a bunch of money. It’s about my feelings. Right? So you find you’re trying to find the balance between getting to know the person trying to know the people like what are they motivated? Are they motivated by money? Are they motivated by the title? Are they motivated by both? Are they motivated by they want to learn about something about this project? Maybe it’s because the some of them, they just want to come learn. And then it become that stepping, you know, kind of like something for them to push them to the next level. Right? So but also at the same time is like you, you trying to figure is like a very thin line where you like, I’m trying to get to know them, but am I violating their privacy? So he’s like, it’s very delicate thing, kind of like trying to deal with people trying to learn or like bringing people to your team?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:03

Yeah. So how do you kind of look for that right person to join your team?

Edward Mbeche  17:09

So now we become as you kind of look, I do a lot of dealing with people through LinkedIn, right? A hire through LinkedIn, or dealing with people from LinkedIn. So I talk to people, and there are some, you can never really get 100 percent, because sometime you’re looking, you’re looking for a call like symptoms, you’re looking for, like, is this person going to be a good fit for my team at the day communicate? Does it take them six days to respond? Does it take them one hour to respond? Does it you know, so, things like that can be a red flag, like someone who, like let’s say you see them on either on LinkedIn posting, because you’re connecting, you see them like, hey, for the past three days, they have posted like four times, but they have now responded to my message on LinkedIn. Oh, my email. So you like that’s a red flag, right? You’re like, okay, this person is now probably a good fit. So would it would also the way things now the way I have have been is like a lot of the stuff are remote, right remotely, where people you’re working either just, they’re working from home and, and like people working from home, it become tricky also. Because some time people might end up abusing the system where they’re like, they have your job. But also they are doing other jobs, either freelancing, or they’re starting their own business. So really this person that this person is going to focus on your project, or they’re going to be distracted doing some other stuff, right? So so it’s a very tricky way trying to find the right individual. But once in a while you get you get, like really dedicated, like, let’s say, let’s say you get you you hire five people, right? Out of five people probably gonna get two that you got it like right the right way. And the other three probably like a mistake, then you got to start over kind of thing.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:06

Sure. Okay. I know that with your current sort of project you have how many staff do you have in the current project at the moment?

Edward Mbeche  19:15

So so far, I have four total plus 12 Developer overseas.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:23

Right, Yep. Okay. Yeah. And so I know that you’ve been so trying to raise funds and things and you’ve become quite good at raising funds from investors. Tell us a little bit, you know what you’ve had to do to get that and also, you’ve mentioned when we first spoke about those, you have a board of advisors as well. So tell us a little bit about both of those, if you wouldn’t mind.

Edward Mbeche  19:44

So we start with the board of advisors. So board of advisor is a great is a great idea to find board of advisor right but I also had the board of advisor. I did find board of advisor through LinkedIn. And then from LinkedIn I was able to use some of the board of advisor to find to connect me with people that they know that can bring value to the company for advising and stuff. So one of the tricky thing is when you post a job posting, and you say you’re looking for board of advisors, everyone love the title of Board of advisor, they love it, like everyone wants to be called a board of advisor, they some of them, they don’t know what they entail being a board of advisor, they just want to have that board of advisor to either to something that can help them in their journey or whatever, whatever career like they want to is almost kind of goes like on their resume, right? So if it goes in their resume, it looks good for them for whatever reason they are looking for. Either they are looking to apply for a bigger job or is is very is very strange too, because when you’re looking for board of advisor, you can get someone who’s well qualified, you’re like, oh, this person is perfect. But what I would suggest for someone if you’re looking for board of advisors, you look let’s say you because you have to look up each like my started when I was doing I had to look for for multiple positions like I will have to look I had to look for franchise person, someone who knows franchise because our company is involved in franchise, I had to look for someone technology AI to look for someone finance, I had to look for someone human capital. So you look at this positions, like whenever you’re looking at like, one of the things that you have to be very careful is if people call them title grabbers. Title grabbers are people like they apply for you, they want to be board of advisor and you open their profile on LinkedIn. And you see they have like 10-12 jobs in all jobs that current, like from 2000 to 22. From 2021, they are still working with the same company this day. And I’m like you have 10-12 job exact, what are you doing are those jobs. So those are kind of people stay away from, right, a state trying to stay away from people like that, where they have so many jobs this, that this and that, because that time, then I’m like, wow, this person is more like title grabbing person just want to have their title anyway. And the other thing that helped me also looking for board of advisors, because I was on a fundraising model, we still fund raising, I was able to get a board of advisors, I was like, Hey, you want to be a board of advisor, we are fund raising. So for you to be a board of advisor, we need at least 2500 To be an investor into the company. So you can be you know, so we know like, in a way kind of like to validate the the idea right? To see someone if you want to board if you want to be a board of advisor for this company and you believe in this company. Do you believe also with $2,500? Right? Because sometimes people are like, no, no, no, I don’t have the money. Now. It’s like, oh, I can not invest in this company, right? Like, so why do you want to be a board of advisors in a company that you can now invest in it right? For someone who want to be a board of advisors, you have to make sure they understand the vision of your company, they understand the vision while you’re trying to really do and really can be a good element for a company to give you really good advice, right?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:33

So you’re looking for people on the board that can fill some of the skill gaps that you’ve got to ensure that you’ve got a really rounded diverse board for making suppose informed decisions. Yeah?

Edward Mbeche  23:44

Exactly. Exactly. These are the people that have extensive experience in their industry. They help you always say black, any blind spot, like let’s say something like I don’t know much about maybe franchise, so I will find someone who knows about franchise who’s a board of advisors knows by franchise, I look for someone who knows about HR like human resources. So I find a board who’s a human capital, and I go to another one, maybe marketing, I will find someone who was experienced in marketing. So in a way, I mean, don’t don’t if you’re looking for this board don’t get don’t really take the weight the way I did, because I wasn’t I was in a fundraising mode. So I wanted to leverage that ahead, if you want to be an investor, if you want to be a board, you also have to invest and also if you look at it, there are some companies that help people to put on a board or you know, do become a board  of a company right? But those companies they charge you to become so they can connect you so in I’m thinking if they’re going to charge you to connect you to to be a board of a company, why not just pay the company directly as an investor. So also you get equity out of it. So but thats the way I did but for someone else who’s trying to put a board of advisors look for, you don’t have to get them to be an invest in a company, just look for people who has experience. But also find people who are responsive. Like, you don’t want to get a board of advisors just because they just want the title, you want to get someone who’s going to be responsive, like if you send them an email, or texts, you want to hear them at least maybe 12 hours, at least minimum is good, because when you will, when you will founder for a startup. You want quick response, like because your head is bouncing all over the place you want to quickly. So you need to find people that can respond really fast for you to move on to other things or to you know, to close whatever issue you have. That’s what I will suggest probably.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:56

So do you, do you meet with your board of advisors as a team? Or do you use them individually as and when needed in terms of if you need some help with a franchise? You go directly to that? Advisor board member? Or how do you? How do you run your board of advisors?

Edward Mbeche  26:09

Yes, so this is an individually so like, we have the meeting, we have the meeting every actually every every, every two months, we have a meeting all together with a progress report and everything what’s going on, but whenever I have problem I deal with with them individually. So I have a problem for franchise a call the franchise board of advice, I have problem, maybe hiring someone who I need advice on hiring someone, or talk to the human resources. I have this question I have maybe like the I had an interview. It was an article that was published like, like last week. It was about Super gap in technology in AI I call I hate to use also my AI board of advisors to be also use the court. So is you use them individually? Yes. Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:59

Okay, excellent. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about fundraising. Because I know that I used to work with the Ice House, which is a big incubator over here in New Zealand. And, you know, we’d had people come in with ideas. And of course, they all thought they could raise millions of dollars. And, and you know, not every idea was a great idea. And sometimes you actually have to sanity check it and go, Is this really, where’s the market validation that shows us a good idea. But if even if it was a good idea, I know that fundraising is always top of mind, particularly when you’re developing app software, that kind of product. So tell me a little about your fundraising efforts and what you’ve learned from that.

Edward Mbeche  27:33

Yes, so fundraising is a really weird thing. So it’s one of those weird, because you have you have people you always like looking for someone who thinks like almost like outside the box, right? So for my startup, I’m more like of like, I’m looking I’m on the angels Angel. What do you call angel investors stage? Like, where where I have spoken to venture capital, but a more of an angel, Angel. Investors kind of look.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:04

If you think about the pathway, you know, if just the people listening, the first thing is usually the three F’s family, friends and fools. The next thing is Angel investors. And that’s people who are actually putting in their, their own money, but they have an active interest in a business and venture capitalists generally come later stage when you’ve actually got a company that’s up and running. That needs capital to take it to the next level. So yep, so you’re at the angel investor stage, I hear that.

Edward Mbeche  28:08

Yes. Yeah. Good. So with Angel investors is very weird now, because even them they are I think, a lot of the time a lot of them they kind of got pushed up into the cryptocurrencies. Right. So they jumped into cryptocurrencies, because this thing was everybody talking cryptocurrency ft. And if t is in everybody kind of running over their ICO or whatever, they got burned, right. So once they got burned, now they’re coming back to normal fundraising where people have a doing like, you know, technology company, this company. So now angel investor acting very, like weird, almost like a, like a venture capital. Like where they’re asking too much questions. Like where they’re like, Oh, do you have traction? Do you have, you know, do you have this? Do you have revenue? Do you have any like, whoa, angel investor, normally, they will invest on an idea on a napkin. You explain to them what you do. So now it’s like, so it becomes a little bit difficult now find raising, but they are listening. And a lot of the time sometime when you’re pitching an angel investor or venture capital, they start looking at things like Oh, who’s your competition? What is a market? Right? How big is the market and all that stuff? And so for us, we’re like, hey, the market is humongous, right? And we explained to them they’re like, Whoa, yeah, you’re right. And then they go in a mod like way. If if it’s humongous Why’d this come? parroted out, they are not doing then you’re trying to explain to them because this, the thing that we’re doing is so new for them. It’s like we’re creating a new space by is like for them to cool to understand a few of them understanding it. But for them, they’re like, oh, wait, we want to wait for you to see like a traction a little bit. Once you finish this system going to the market, then we want to hear plus one other thing. Also we are we are running into, we had one, one investor, like, do you have an office in San Francisco and Silicon Valley? I’m like, No, we are DC best. And I’m like, Oh, if you guys were in San Francisco, probably right? I’m like, does it matter? It technology company does not have to be in San Francisco, it can start from anywhere. So few things that we are facing we’re we have right now we actually we just we are about to launch a tokenization a security token offering, which which is way better than the ICO because the security security token is more attached to the company equity. And we are launching the next week by the October 1. So dealing with investor is I will say for now I’m more focused on finishing the product. So because for them, I wanted them I had finished the MVP. And I want to finish the product by bootstrapping. Because of them. Of course, by now we’re going through like a recession or whatever you call this kind of like going where everybody’s very tight on money. So we’re gonna finish the full service where we’ll have the rideshare grocery delivery retail and you in food delivery. So from there, I want to go back to them. I’m like, Hey, guys, here’s the system it’s developed, I have everything complete. And also, I’m going to be able to start onboarding drivers. And for them, I can show them to them like, hey, is this system done. And I have this much drive already registered, because to get drive is going to be very easy. So that’s what I’m focused now. But, but I have learned a lot. And a lot of investor, almost all of them. They use the same script. Like as soon you get in there. They’re like, do you have traction? Do you have this? You see, it’s like all over him. They are using almost they’re reading the same script back and back. So it’s probably I will say, I have gotten warm introduction where someone introduced me to an investor and they invested. They’re like, Oh, this is good. And actually that investor was very good. Because they stopped, they stopped putting themselves in the company. They’re like, Oh, well, we can do this, we can do this. When you hear an investor saying that. That means is really good. So that investor like oh, this go we can do this. And also the franchise can do this. And then And yes, that’s your right. And then he was like, Okay, listen, as soon as you guys launch, talk to me. They’ll be like, No, we will be like, No, we need the money. No, but But So now, we read so far about 200,000. And we have been awarded a million dollar by a tech company. But when you when you get a million dollar from a tech company, what they are trying to say is if your system is going to cost $2 million, you want to give us a million dollar, and they are the median, we’re going to take an equity. So it’s like you’re trading equity for that million, whatever. So we got our word for that which is which is big deal also is not it’s not handed to us by his big deal in for the company itself to say we’re going to take a million dollar equity in exchange rate for work. Yep. And and also we have been awarded by Google for startup 100,000 k. So yeah, that’s, that’s good. So that means they see the potential. So right now, he just just kind of focusing to have this team, kind of just kind of bootstrapping so we can finish and then kind of go back. And then kind of hopefully, reach stop launch, the company and also start maybe reaching out to venture capital.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:22

And I think if I heard you, right, and I’ve seen this when I was working at the Ice House, too. So when you’re looking for investment, it’s really important that you, you have done your homework, you’ve got your numbers, you can show you’ve got some direction, even if it’s not, you know, necessarily paying customers you need to better show people are actually starting to take up your MVP and show that sort of grow for them. And just we be really prepared to answer the questions because they are starting to get tougher around what they will or won’t invest in. So you need to have your you know, your numbers and your story and your understanding of your environment really strong so they know that you are serious about it. Yeah,

Edward Mbeche  34:57

Yes, yes. So the most important things Like, so one of the things I think sometimes we, for my company self, the way we hit some some wall because people, they’re they’re looking at it like that, uh, whoa, this is way too big, because they don’t understand the concept much of a Super-App because this is the first Super-App that they will be exposed to so they don’t understand. And even if you look out the company, even when they started this competitor like Uber or Lyft, when they said, Hey, we’re gonna have people ordering cars on app a lot of investors, they’re like, Yeah, that’s a crazy idea. Or like Airbnb. They’re like, Hey, we’re gonna have people rent people’s house and like, whoa, stranger, live stand in people’s house. That’s, you know, normally is like, you know, when you when you have guests come into your house, the first thing you do you go, you go close your bedroom door, right? Now, you’re gonna rent the, the whole house. So like, things sounded crazy, because that was new two people. Now this Super-App is new. People, it scares them. They’re like, whoa, so but until we create that we had you you’re right, you have to be ready, you have to have your pitch deck, your, your financial projection, your your whole number, you have to have everything like you were to go to market

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:14

Competitive analysis saw that thing thats all there and I think that’s makes good business sense. Anyway, for any startup to actually have that stuff there. The thing I learned too, about investors from working at the Ice House was that they tend to like to invest close to where they live, which is part of the San Francisco story. It’s like, actually, I found with the American investors, particularly, they were very much more inclined to invest if that company was in the same status as they were in New Zealand investors. So you’ll be very careful. It’s like, yep, you don’t have to move to San Francisco. But there are certainly a lot more investor in San Francisco. Hey, I’m conscious of time, we’ve been talking for a while it’s been really interesting. When we’re running out of time, I’d love to just finish up with, you know, your three top tips that we could give to people listening into the podcast, and then finishing up with you know, where they can get ahold of you. So what would be your three top tips would you say.

Edward Mbeche  37:03

For for this is for founders in startup? CEO, right? The first thing is probably a few. Now, if you’d have not heard of this, get some sleep, sleep is one of the things you need to get your sleep. Because I know sometimes sleep can be really like where you like you, you’re working so hard on your idea. And you’re stressing yourself so you you feel like even you go to sleep and three in the morning, you get up trying to work on the idea. No. So I will say get some sleep, trying to try to exercise and the exercise I will say even if walking, walking for like two miles a day. And without without headphone without listening to anything. Don’t listen to music, don’t listen to to any podcasts or whatever. Just Just let your mind wander. Yeah, I will say that will be the second one to the to do that. And then the third one, I will say, listen to podcasts like this, their business ideas. Listen to some other you know about business. You know, you can learn a lot of stuff from podcasts like this. And the other thing like read some books, if you’re able to read some book, grab this book, this book, if we can see.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:24

Eric Ries The Lean Startup, one of my favorites. Yep. Yeah. Okay, How i built this by Guy Roz. I’ve not seen that one. So that’s Yeah, but the lean startup is a fantastic book. I should have to get ahold of the other one.

Edward Mbeche  38:34

Yeah, yes. Yeah, really good books. So yeah, I will say the first thing sleep, get some sleep, try and try to get eight hours. I know it’s not going to be. But at least even if you don’t get eight hours trying to sleep maybe four hours when you wake up and try to take a nap. As long as you’re getting enough sleep.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:53

I think you’re absolutely right. I mean, first of all, your brain needs to be in a space where it can actually deal with things and when you’re exhausted, it just can’t work. And and the exercise thing is also really important. I mean that we call it a clarity break is not having any distractions going out there without the headphones. But just being out in nature, being out taking a walk, you’re having a bit of a clarity break to allow your brain time to rest so that it can come back and serve you better if you like.

Edward Mbeche  39:20

And if you I will suggest the last thing is if you have enough funding, travel, just go somewhere travel, be in a different city. That also helps you really to open up so you’re like kind of I don’t know why but it works for me. Like if I go somewhere I’m like, wow. Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  39:39

Hey looks like people would like to find out more Edward how would they get ahold of you?

Edward Mbeche  39:45

I’m on LinkedIn if you search for Edward Mbeche. Or you can search Halen Super-App Halen is with the AA. So H A  L E N. Yep, yep, Super-App and you should be able to Find us and you’d be able to connect with us.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:02

Wow. That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with us. Really appreciate it. Good luck with everything I shall follow with interest. And we’ll hopefully catch up in sort of six months times and see where you’re at.

Edward Mbeche  40:14

Yeah, thank you so much. Again, I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:17

My absolute pleasure. Thank you.