Episode 051: Turning Your Website into a Virtual World with Farah Allen

Monique: 00:00:01

Coming up on Unpolished MBA.

Farah: 00:00:04

And so I deployed a product in the fastest way possible.

Farah: 00:00:08

Like it was really fast because I was like "everyone's making money around

Farah: 00:00:13

me...billion dollar valuation...coming from like 20M to like a billion."

Farah: 00:00:18

I mean, it was the wild, wild west of just event platforms.

Farah: 00:00:22

And here I was becoming another one of them, but with a cinematic feel,

Farah: 00:00:26

theatrical presence and purpose.

Monique: 00:00:34

This show is sponsored by TPM Focus, the strategy and

Monique: 00:00:41

execution consulting firm focused on generating revenue and finding

Monique: 00:00:46

product market fit for new innovations.

Monique: 00:00:49

Head over to TPMFocus.com to learn more.

Monique: 00:00:58

Hi, everyone.

Monique: 00:00:59

Welcome back to our most recent episode of Unpolished MBA.

Monique: 00:01:04

Today, I have probably one of my newest favorite people in the world right now.

Monique: 00:01:09

And her name is Farrah Allen.

Monique: 00:01:12

Hi Farrah.

Farah: 00:01:14

Hi.

Farah: 00:01:15

Thanks for having me.

Monique: 00:01:16

Oh, I'm so glad you're here.

Monique: 00:01:18

And I'm so excited about just all the stuff you're doing and I love your

Monique: 00:01:21

energy, but I'm going to start off this podcast like I do for everyone else.

Monique: 00:01:26

No matter how excited I am about you, I'm going to ask you these same two questions.

Monique: 00:01:30

And the first one is, are you entrepreneur or corporate employee?

Farah: 00:01:34

Entrepreneur.

Monique: 00:01:35

Okay, MBA or no MBA?

Farah: 00:01:39

No MBA.

Monique: 00:01:40

Can you tell me a little bit about your background though?

Monique: 00:01:44

Your work experience or educational background?

Farah: 00:01:47

Yeah, so I have been a creative my whole life.

Farah: 00:01:50

I went to architecture school at Florida A&M University.

Monique: 00:01:55

FAMU!

Farah: 00:01:56

FAMU.

Farah: 00:01:58

And I worked in that field for a number of years until I decided

Farah: 00:02:03

that I wanted to be in technology.

Farah: 00:02:06

And I actually did go to school to get my master's in

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information systems management.

Farah: 00:02:12

And, you know, I wanted that world and I needed to know something about it.

Farah: 00:02:16

So I went and got a degree and learned, you know, education-wise what it was.

Farah: 00:02:22

And I went into management consulting and I went into working for myself, had

Farah: 00:02:28

my own business, doing that as well.

Farah: 00:02:31

And then I went into entrepreneurship on another level with owning a

Farah: 00:02:35

product and seeing a product to market that I had designed and built...

Monique: 00:02:39

...and created.

Farah: 00:02:40

And my baby.

Monique: 00:02:41

Yeah.

Monique: 00:02:42

So I want to talk about that.

Monique: 00:02:44

I'm just saying when I first met you, well, I first met you a while

Monique: 00:02:48

ago and at TechSquare Labs, which if people aren't familiar with

Monique: 00:02:51

Atlanta, that was the location where the startup battle used to be held.

Monique: 00:02:57

And Farrah and I were both mentors to startups that were participating in that.

Monique: 00:03:02

And we met then, but I didn't know your product back then, but when I

Monique: 00:03:05

saw your product recently, when we met, I was literally blown away.

Monique: 00:03:10

So I want you to start with, okay, first, what's the name of

Monique: 00:03:14

your company that you have now?

Monique: 00:03:17

And this product you just mentioned that you created and is your baby.

Monique: 00:03:20

I want you to describe that to the audience.

Farah: 00:03:24

Sure.

Farah: 00:03:25

So the company is The Labz.

Farah: 00:03:28

L-A-B-Z.

Farah: 00:03:29

And what we do is we have technology that allows you to create interactive

Farah: 00:03:37

experiences for web and mobile.

Farah: 00:03:39

And these experiences are so awesome, what people are building.

Farah: 00:03:43

They're doing it just like you're building things on WordPress or by

Farah: 00:03:48

hand, you're doing it very similarly, but you have tools that allow content

Farah: 00:03:55

to stand out; content to be virtual VR-like Metaverse era-like, and

Farah: 00:04:01

that is totally new in the market.

Farah: 00:04:03

And that's why we have 92 patents with what we're doing.

Monique: 00:04:09

Really?!.

Monique: 00:04:10

I had no idea!

Farah: 00:04:12

92 platinum variations.

Monique: 00:04:15

Wow.

Farah: 00:04:15

From anywhere from web 3 to facial recognition to hide it in.

Farah: 00:04:19

Well, even on the events, online events side, for whatever reason, people haven't

Farah: 00:04:24

really been "IPing", their technology.

Farah: 00:04:27

So we, we own those.

Farah: 00:04:28

We're about to fully own the IP, but they are all are pending and we're just

Farah: 00:04:32

waiting around to get them contested.

Farah: 00:04:35

We are here.

Monique: 00:04:36

That's so smart...now everyone you're probably

Monique: 00:04:39

listening and saying "Oh, okay.

Monique: 00:04:41

Yeah, VR you know, all this, like WordPress it's like, like she used

Monique: 00:04:46

some terms to kind of bring it down to earth for those that aren't really

Monique: 00:04:51

deep into the immersive experiences.

Monique: 00:04:53

But when I tell you that this is...it feels easy to use, you know, it's

Monique: 00:04:57

definitely user-friendly but what it does; does not compare to anything that I've

Monique: 00:05:04

experienced in any type of virtual, online events or immersive experiences that small

Monique: 00:05:11

businesses, large businesses, whoever has access to like it's usually a huge

Monique: 00:05:16

production involved to provide anything similar to the experience that the labs

Monique: 00:05:21

provides, which makes me so excited.

Monique: 00:05:24

So I can see why you have 92 pending patents.

Monique: 00:05:28

It's incredible.

Monique: 00:05:29

So you mentioned you were at management consulting, you know, you're an architect.

Monique: 00:05:33

How did you even think of creating a technology product?

Monique: 00:05:37

Like where did that even come from?

Farah: 00:05:40

You know, it was funny.

Farah: 00:05:41

I realized that I used to design buildings; now I design worlds.

Farah: 00:05:48

I was like "Oh, wow!"

Monique: 00:05:48

Now you design worlds.

Monique: 00:05:52

Wow!

Farah: 00:05:53

But that was not a career back in the day, you know?

Farah: 00:05:56

But, I actually started, when I left management consulting, I was in the

Farah: 00:06:01

music technology industry and I was in blockchain and I was solving problems

Farah: 00:06:06

through collaboration and protecting your IP as you're collaborating and it was a

Farah: 00:06:12

really, really early use of blockchain.

Farah: 00:06:16

People weren't even funding for it.

Farah: 00:06:18

There was no NFT, that was not a word.

Farah: 00:06:20

And so it was super hard to be in a woman in music, of course.

Farah: 00:06:25

And then it was hard because I had emerging technology.

Farah: 00:06:29

So, you know, built that as best as I could.

Farah: 00:06:33

Actually moved forward with adding other industries so that I can fill out the

Farah: 00:06:39

realms, which was film and television.

Farah: 00:06:41

And all these people were in this collaborative place that you

Farah: 00:06:45

can change the backgrounds too.

Farah: 00:06:47

Right?

Farah: 00:06:47

Just imagine like We Transfer or Dropbox and you can change the backgrounds and

Farah: 00:06:52

add tools that you can work on instantly together and then it protected you.

Farah: 00:07:00

So people were in there creating film, movie scripts

Farah: 00:07:04

and, you know, editing video.

Farah: 00:07:06

And they were also writing music and, you know, editing music with film.

Farah: 00:07:10

In that platform and it was all protected via blockchain and documented.

Farah: 00:07:15

And so it's still a really cool platform and an idea, not just an

Farah: 00:07:21

idea, but actually was a business and then COVID hit and it just was just

Farah: 00:07:26

not an appropriate time for folks to be investing financially in changing

Farah: 00:07:31

habits when it came to collaboration, because of course, collaborations you

Farah: 00:07:36

know, there's a very full industry.

Farah: 00:07:38

There's sharing platforms everywhere.

Farah: 00:07:40

So, you know, I have to think quick, like any other company.

Farah: 00:07:44

And what I found was we had a lot of film creators, a lot of people in Broadway

Farah: 00:07:48

and making Broadway musicals and such, and they wanted to share this to people.

Farah: 00:07:55

And because it was a place where it can be branded.

Farah: 00:07:58

It's something I just did because I liked pretty things and like pretty

Farah: 00:08:01

platforms and I like my platform and it was something that they

Farah: 00:08:04

cherished and wanted to pay more for.

Farah: 00:08:06

So one of my investors said, "Hey, if you do this..."

Farah: 00:08:10

because it's for me, because she's a film creator and producer "Hey, I'll fund it."

Farah: 00:08:15

And so I got within a couple of months of COVID you know, being

Farah: 00:08:19

there, I had a million dollars funded.

Monique: 00:08:22

Okay Farrah, so the meeting kicked you out, now we're back.

Monique: 00:08:26

So technology is imperfect, but yours is, The Labz is, so

Monique: 00:08:30

far from what I've experienced.

Monique: 00:08:32

It's as close to perfect as anything I could imagine using to bring

Monique: 00:08:37

people into my brand's world.

Monique: 00:08:40

Right?

Monique: 00:08:40

And so you were talking about before you got cut off, how it

Monique: 00:08:44

started going into that direction.

Monique: 00:08:47

During the pandemic.

Monique: 00:08:48

That was the last thing people wanted to do with like really change their

Monique: 00:08:51

habits, but go into describing again, or diving more into how it transitioned

Monique: 00:08:58

from being for musicians and artists and all that into being this more

Monique: 00:09:02

immersive experience for brands.

Farah: 00:09:05

Yeah.

Farah: 00:09:05

So, the platform that I had built for musicians and then film

Farah: 00:09:11

creators...it just was really flexible.

Farah: 00:09:13

Had all these communication tools in it.

Farah: 00:09:15

You can change your background, you could video conference.

Farah: 00:09:18

It was something where I really just built it so that people can have to

Farah: 00:09:23

really be immersed in collaborating.

Farah: 00:09:25

Right?

Farah: 00:09:25

And join, you know, the early stages of COVID people wanted that immersion

Farah: 00:09:31

of communication and visuals to be a part of how they go to market, how

Farah: 00:09:35

they shop their music and how they go and find buyers for their films.

Farah: 00:09:40

But that's not what the product was used for.

Farah: 00:09:43

Right?

Farah: 00:09:44

Because I got funding.

Farah: 00:09:45

One of our customers said, "Hey, we'll give you a million dollars

Farah: 00:09:49

if you build this, because right now we don't know what to do."

Farah: 00:09:51

We're film creators.

Farah: 00:09:52

We're in the theater world.

Farah: 00:09:53

We don't know how long this is going to last.

Farah: 00:09:56

You came up with a really good idea.

Farah: 00:09:58

Could you actually build this?

Farah: 00:10:00

We have customers like, okay.

Monique: 00:10:02

And congratulations on raising that money because very, very few,

Monique: 00:10:07

especially African-American women have raised a million dollars or more.

Monique: 00:10:10

So congratulations.

Farah: 00:10:12

Thank you.

Farah: 00:10:13

Thank you.

Farah: 00:10:14

And so I deployed a product in the fastest way possible.

Farah: 00:10:18

Like it was really fast because I was like, everyone's making money around

Farah: 00:10:21

me, a billion dollar valuation coming from like 20 million to like a billion.

Farah: 00:10:28

It was the wild, wild west of just event platforms and here I was becoming

Farah: 00:10:32

another one of them, but with a cinematic feel; a theatrical precedence and

Farah: 00:10:37

purpose for these filmmakers and I, within the first two months I had a

Farah: 00:10:42

customer and I wasn't even finished.

Farah: 00:10:44

So then it was like trying to finish a platform before this big

Farah: 00:10:49

democratic convention like event with Bernie Sanders and all these

Farah: 00:10:54

people that are a part of it.

Farah: 00:10:56

And so the pressure was on and, you know, we got to a point where it was

Farah: 00:11:00

okay, it wasn't perfect, it wasn't going to be perfect because we had

Farah: 00:11:03

four months and we did that event.

Farah: 00:11:06

We got more events, we got more movies, we got more celebrities on there and you

Farah: 00:11:11

know, the end of the year we had revenue.

Farah: 00:11:14

Right?

Farah: 00:11:15

And one of the things that we had to figure out at that point was "what

Farah: 00:11:17

was what was this product again?"

Monique: 00:11:19

It was confusing after a while, right?

Monique: 00:11:22

Like, wait a minute.

Monique: 00:11:24

Who is this for again?

Monique: 00:11:25

Cause right now you're selling it to whoever wants to buy.

Farah: 00:11:29

Yeah, whoever wants to buy.

Farah: 00:11:30

And I didn't want to get locked into events, you know, events

Farah: 00:11:35

wasn't where I wanted to be.

Farah: 00:11:37

I wanted to be more graveled in the future.

Farah: 00:11:41

Outside of this disease is all over the place and people are online and I

Farah: 00:11:45

wanted to get more in gritty and deep into the world and where it's going.

Farah: 00:11:50

And I didn't know, but then I started to see Metaverse and Oculus, and then

Farah: 00:11:56

Facebook changed their names came later, but I started to see these

Farah: 00:12:00

more elaborate experiences on VR.

Farah: 00:12:04

And I was like, "we have this on VR."

Farah: 00:12:06

Where everyone's still on

Monique: 00:12:07

Headsets and all that stuff you got to do to even enjoy the experience.

Monique: 00:12:12

And that's what blows me away so much about your platform is because

Monique: 00:12:17

I literally felt like what I was experiencing should've only been

Monique: 00:12:21

experienced through a headset.

Monique: 00:12:24

And it doesn't, you don't need a headset to experience your platform.

Monique: 00:12:27

It's incredible.

Farah: 00:12:28

Yeah.

Farah: 00:12:29

And then I was like, well, you know, I want to be in an industry

Farah: 00:12:32

where I know a lot about it.

Farah: 00:12:34

And I honestly, you know, I had a partner, my investor had partnered with

Farah: 00:12:39

us, giving us recommendations to clients in the film industry, but really, I

Farah: 00:12:45

just didn't know the film industry.

Farah: 00:12:46

And I really wanted to get deeper into what I knew.

Farah: 00:12:50

And what I knew was corporate America.

Farah: 00:12:52

That's where I came from.

Farah: 00:12:53

I knew business.

Farah: 00:12:54

I knew those folks because I was in management consulting.

Farah: 00:12:57

So I really pivoted towards how can businesses use this

Farah: 00:13:02

to go to the next level?

Farah: 00:13:04

How do we go to market with this?

Farah: 00:13:06

How do we, you know, create these systems where this makes sense so that

Farah: 00:13:10

your organization can thrive in the world where it's going now, which is

Farah: 00:13:14

this metaverse era, this environment, we're not talking about websites.

Farah: 00:13:18

We're talking about environment are not talking about e-commerce.

Farah: 00:13:20

We're talking about digital currencies.

Farah: 00:13:22

How are you going to understand that if your customers aren't in VR, your

Farah: 00:13:27

customers don't know anything about web 3, but you have a product, you have content,

Farah: 00:13:31

we have advertisers, you have sponsors.

Farah: 00:13:33

How can you bring those worlds together?

Farah: 00:13:35

And that's where I've put my foot in the ground there and said, "this

Farah: 00:13:39

is where I know people, I know this space, I know how to speak to them.

Farah: 00:13:43

I can guide this and lead that."

Farah: 00:13:46

And so that's where we are today and now we have major organizations and

Farah: 00:13:52

partners anywhere from Salesforce to, you know, Google's other arm, Amazon's

Farah: 00:13:58

other arm, you know, or this unit.

Farah: 00:14:01

So that's how we're growing and we are in the NFT space.

Farah: 00:14:04

But we are supplying them with a go to market strategy, how to get people to even

Farah: 00:14:09

buy their NFTs, who aren't in NFT, right?

Farah: 00:14:12

You need a...you need a story to tell people online.

Farah: 00:14:15

We are in VR, but we provide marketing for VR developers who have games in VR

Farah: 00:14:21

that no one would ever see the light of day, unless they have a VR headset,

Farah: 00:14:26

bring that into our platform and say, "Hey, we're going to make something more

Farah: 00:14:30

immersive so that they know to go buy it."

Monique: 00:14:33

Immersive right from their laptop, right from their computer...

Farah: 00:14:36

From their phone...

Monique: 00:14:37

Right, for what they have and own right now.

Monique: 00:14:40

That's the brilliant part like, oh my God, that's the brilliant part.

Monique: 00:14:48

We're going to take a quick time out and pick back up in just a moment.

Monique: 00:14:53

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Monique: 00:14:58

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Monique: 00:15:03

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Monique: 00:15:07

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Monique: 00:15:09

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Monique: 00:15:21

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Monique: 00:15:24

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Monique: 00:15:32

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Monique: 00:15:34

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Monique: 00:15:38

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Monique: 00:16:14

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Monique: 00:16:18

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Monique: 00:16:22

So I just want to say, I don't typically give this much dialogue

Monique: 00:16:28

about a product on Unpolished MBA.

Monique: 00:16:31

And I want people to know I'm totally objective in this because I didn't

Monique: 00:16:35

know any of this before I met her.

Monique: 00:16:37

I experienced the product through her demoing it for me.

Monique: 00:16:40

And actually before then, someone that I knew in the ecosystem said

Monique: 00:16:44

"Hey, have you heard about The Labz?

Monique: 00:16:47

And you know, again, I had met Farrah before and I hadn't heard

Monique: 00:16:51

the name of the company, but I thought it was in a different realm.

Monique: 00:16:55

And obviously, as you explained it, it was kind of serving a different

Monique: 00:16:58

industry and it was like, wow.

Monique: 00:17:00

It's incredible.

Monique: 00:17:01

And I was like, really, like, what does it do?

Monique: 00:17:03

It's just, you know, it's this immersive experience and this VR and,

Monique: 00:17:06

and it may sound like that to you guys, the way we're explaining it.

Monique: 00:17:09

So I asked Farrah said, "Well, is there a way someone can like experience,

Monique: 00:17:15

you know, the demo that they showed to me, they can experience you kind of

Monique: 00:17:19

walking us around an example online.

Monique: 00:17:23

Right?

Monique: 00:17:23

So are we there yet?

Monique: 00:17:25

Is there like a video coming or some way for people to just know why

Monique: 00:17:30

I'm so excited about this product?

Farah: 00:17:32

Of course, there's videos.

Farah: 00:17:34

We have our website, TheLabz.com.

Farah: 00:17:37

Please reach out.

Farah: 00:17:38

We're a no code platform, which for those out there means you

Farah: 00:17:41

don't have to code to make this a platform that suits your business.

Farah: 00:17:46

Right, we have all these tools that pretty much, you make a platform for yourself.

Farah: 00:17:51

We like to demo the platform depending on what it is your business needs.

Farah: 00:17:56

What strategy you're trying to see.

Farah: 00:18:00

And this is free consulting work as to how to get into the space, but it is

Farah: 00:18:05

the best way for us to explain examples.

Monique: 00:18:10

Different applications of it.

Monique: 00:18:12

Yeah.

Farah: 00:18:12

So many different and really, you know, it's about what

Farah: 00:18:15

goal are you trying to reach?

Farah: 00:18:17

We don't, you know, Snoop Dogg in your Metaverse is great, but it

Farah: 00:18:22

hasn't made your business better...

Monique: 00:18:24

Snoop Dogg in your Metaverse is great but...

Monique: 00:18:28

Right?

Monique: 00:18:28

Right.

Monique: 00:18:29

Well, what are you, what result are you trying to get?

Farah: 00:18:33

So we want to talk about that because call it what you want, web 2.5 or

Farah: 00:18:38

3.0, but this is where everyone's going.

Farah: 00:18:42

And you want to be first to the party because you're going to learn the most.

Farah: 00:18:46

And people are interested.

Farah: 00:18:48

People really like this it's me; she really likes it...

Monique: 00:18:51

Yeah, and I see a lot of cool things in my work and the thing is, I just

Monique: 00:18:56

see this, like I remember when WordPress started being a thing and everyone was

Monique: 00:19:02

really enamored with that as it still is.

Monique: 00:19:04

But of course there are other no code things and things that

Monique: 00:19:07

people prefer, but those WordPress users don't know about The Labz.

Monique: 00:19:15

I'm trying to figure out how to like so many of our clients and folks that listen

Monique: 00:19:21

to this podcast, I can see it implemented in their businesses that will blow...I

Monique: 00:19:26

mean, really blow it out of the water.

Monique: 00:19:29

They would really be able to provide an immersive experience

Monique: 00:19:32

that would really just wow everyone.

Monique: 00:19:35

They will be ahead of their competition with it, which is why I wanted to

Monique: 00:19:39

have you on to kind of explain it.

Monique: 00:19:42

I know it's hard for people to really get the gist of it the way we're

Monique: 00:19:45

explaining it, but you just got to see it.

Monique: 00:19:46

So you mentioned that folks can reach out to you if they go to

Monique: 00:19:50

The Labz and that's TheLabz.com.

Farah: 00:19:55

Dot com or you can email info@thelabz.com or find me on

Farah: 00:20:02

LinkedIn I'm on all those platforms.

Farah: 00:20:04

So there's ways to find us.

Monique: 00:20:07

Yes.

Monique: 00:20:08

I mean, you could start with the website, of course.

Monique: 00:20:10

And some of you all are already connected with me or following me on LinkedIn

Monique: 00:20:15

and Farah is one of my connections.

Monique: 00:20:17

So you can actually go to my list of connections and search

Monique: 00:20:21

for her and bring her up easily.

Monique: 00:20:23

So you make sure you're getting the right person.

Monique: 00:20:26

So that's key, but yeah.

Monique: 00:20:27

So, you know the journey of, of your execution, of this idea.

Monique: 00:20:33

How long did it take?

Monique: 00:20:34

How many years would you say you you've worked on this to

Monique: 00:20:37

get you to where you are now?

Farah: 00:20:39

I would say two years.

Farah: 00:20:42

The first year was just throwing something together to service clients

Farah: 00:20:48

that were waiting eagerly, waiting.

Farah: 00:20:50

I had to turn people away that I didn't want to turn away.

Farah: 00:20:53

Because I was too scared to even have a bunch of folks on the platform

Farah: 00:20:57

because it wasn't built for that.

Farah: 00:20:58

It was supposed to go to market really quickly, you know,

Farah: 00:21:01

and that's what it was for.

Farah: 00:21:03

And so that first year was really more like concept and

Farah: 00:21:07

market proof and then last year.

Farah: 00:21:10

So one year kind of like, you know, if you want to call it that, and

Farah: 00:21:13

last year is when we really started to form the product and form the

Farah: 00:21:19

customer who that customer is...

Monique: 00:21:22

What it is today, though.

Monique: 00:21:24

You're talking about the platform, what it is today.

Farah: 00:21:27

Yeah.

Farah: 00:21:27

Yeah.

Farah: 00:21:28

We started to form that, we even started over.

Farah: 00:21:30

You know, because we built up this technical debt from just kind of moving

Farah: 00:21:36

fast and we started over and we're still like, we're still working on technical

Farah: 00:21:41

debt because even last year, when you don't understand who your customer

Farah: 00:21:46

is completely, you do make decisions based off of whatever's happening.

Farah: 00:21:51

Right?

Farah: 00:21:52

So we have, we still have some of that we're fixing now, but you know, for

Farah: 00:21:57

the entrepreneurs who have technology companies, you know, it's something

Farah: 00:22:00

you won't have to fix, especially if you're moving forward in bigger ways,

Farah: 00:22:03

you can't go to a bank that wants to be your customer with a product that isn't

Farah: 00:22:09

well-documented that isn't moving fast.

Farah: 00:22:12

And doesn't have that back in and I take can take months.

Farah: 00:22:14

So you have to prepare for your success months ahead of time.

Monique: 00:22:18

That infrastructure.

Farah: 00:22:19

Yeah.

Farah: 00:22:21

So that's where we are.

Farah: 00:22:22

We know where we wanted to go and serve the highest level.

Farah: 00:22:26

So you know, this year it's fine tuning.

Farah: 00:22:30

It's getting it to be easy to use.

Farah: 00:22:32

So there's always something to work on.

Farah: 00:22:35

You're never lacking.

Farah: 00:22:37

And I think you were like, don't build nothing else.

Monique: 00:22:46

Guys, listening to this, listen, I am the first one to tell

Monique: 00:22:50

folks, don't build another thing.

Monique: 00:22:52

Let's sell what you have.

Monique: 00:22:54

People want, what you have.

Monique: 00:22:55

So I want you to elaborate just a little bit more on what technical debt is.

Monique: 00:22:59

Because some people don't understand that term.

Monique: 00:23:01

They may be able to kind of put together their own thoughts on what it is from how

Monique: 00:23:06

you describe what you're doing, but just like real briefly, what is technical debt?

Farah: 00:23:11

Yeah.

Farah: 00:23:11

It's the things that you do with your technology so that you can get

Farah: 00:23:15

something out fast, it's the opposite of planned out or planning for your

Farah: 00:23:22

future or for any escapability.

Farah: 00:23:25

You don't have time and, you know, there's cases where you have to move.

Farah: 00:23:29

You don't have time, you don't have money.

Farah: 00:23:30

So you're, you're kind of looking for the easier way.

Farah: 00:23:33

The fastest way out.

Farah: 00:23:34

That of course is the story of a lot of female entrepreneurs, a lot

Farah: 00:23:39

of minority entrepreneurs could, we just don't have it at this stage.

Farah: 00:23:42

We got to do a lot to prove it.

Farah: 00:23:44

So I wouldn't say I regretted it because I was what I had to do, but

Farah: 00:23:48

the consequences or what you mortgage for doing it is a system that you

Farah: 00:23:54

will have to go back and redo it.

Farah: 00:23:57

You have to spend more, probably more money, more time.

Farah: 00:24:01

You're going to have to give up some opportunities.

Farah: 00:24:03

You've got to have to have a focus.

Farah: 00:24:05

So it does cost you something.

Farah: 00:24:08

It doesn't just go away.

Farah: 00:24:09

It builds up.

Farah: 00:24:10

And the more you let it build up, the more costly that is.

Farah: 00:24:14

And you can also have design debt.

Farah: 00:24:16

You could have a lot of different types of debt, technical debt is technical,

Farah: 00:24:19

but anything you do quickly without actually putting thought to a strategic.

Farah: 00:24:25

It's going to come back.

Monique: 00:24:27

And then you got to go back and redo everything.

Monique: 00:24:29

There you go.

Monique: 00:24:30

There you go.

Monique: 00:24:31

Wow.

Monique: 00:24:32

Farrah, I really appreciate, I know you're, you're a busy, busy woman, and

Monique: 00:24:37

I appreciate you taking the time out to even share, you know, a little bit of

Monique: 00:24:41

your journey and describing some of the obstacles that those who decide to pursue

Monique: 00:24:48

a technical idea, you know,, some of the things they'll go through, it's not

Monique: 00:24:52

all roses, but it's definitely worth it.

Monique: 00:24:55

Especially when you bring something of tremendous value, that's taking

Monique: 00:25:00

people really into the future.

Monique: 00:25:02

I mean, you know, you should be very proud of, of what you've created.

Monique: 00:25:06

So we just talked about how people can find you online and definitely

Monique: 00:25:10

connect with The Labz team in order to see if this is something

Monique: 00:25:14

that you might be interested in.

Monique: 00:25:16

And I use WordPress as an example, because if you think WordPress was impressive,

Monique: 00:25:22

when you first, you know, first started using it and all that, like this is

Monique: 00:25:27

something that could, could literally replace your website in many types of

Monique: 00:25:30

circumstances and businesses and industry.

Monique: 00:25:33

So I really appreciate you, you know, sharing with us your journey.

Monique: 00:25:37

And I want to thank you for coming on.

Farah: 00:25:39

Thank you for having me.

Monique: 00:25:44

Thank you for listening to the Unpolished MBA podcast.

Monique: 00:25:47

To hear more episodes or to request to become a guest,