Construction and Connections: what's the importance of community when building a startup with Syed Ahmed, CEO and Co-founder of OnTraccr

3, 2, 1. This is founder Journey. And we're back with another episode, another kick ass entrepreneur, Syed Ahmed from Ontracker. And it's in the prop tech space. We're going to get into what that is and what that means. But sayed, please tell us, what is Ontracker?

Well, first of all, thanks Ray for having me. It's great to be here. And yeah, what Ontracker is all about is we're a construction tech startup. As you mentioned in the prop prop tech space. Essentially why On Tracker exists is we're a no code workflow platform that helps construction companies automate their busy work so they can do more with less. And nowadays, you know, the construction industry is facing a pretty tight skilled labor shortage. So companies are looking for every avenue possible to be able to do more work with less resources. And that's really what On Tracker helps them do.

So when you say no code, some of our audience doesn't understand what that is like. What do you mean by no code and how, why is that appealing to people, to your customers?

Yeah, so no code is part of this wave of technology or movement, if you will. Right. That's starting to hit a lot of industries. And the basic premise behind this no code approach and what it means is you're essentially allowing someone, the end user, the end customer, to build a custom piece of software without having to write any code. So the way you would typically do that is to build a bunch of these kind of more visual elements into the software. So for example, a flow diagram, you could build a flow diagram into the software where each block in the diagram represents something that happens in the software and then you kind of connect that flow together. So just presenting the user with some very simple visual tools that, you know, they can use. And then the outcome of creating those visual elements is that it actually turns into a functioning process in the software. The reason why no code is such an appealing concept is because when you look at B2B software in almost any vertical, right. A lot of this software that exists out there is, you know, kind of one size fits all or one size fits most. It's designed by, you know, a certain individual founding team maybe based on their experience within that industry or vertical, and they believe that, you know, since it worked for them, it should be able to work for other companies in that vertical as well. Now the problem is if, you know, the end customers are actually a little bit different if they operate in their own unique way or if the services they offer, the products they offer very slightly. Now there's going to start to be some gaps in those B2B software solutions, right? Because you can't really change the way they work. So typically in the B2B world, every company, every business, if you were to ask, you know, 100 businesses, gather them in a room and say, would you rather have a one size fits all piece of software that's designed by somebody else and that's telling you how you should work. Would you rather have the option to build a custom piece of software, right, that you control, you design, you decide how it works. 100 out of 100 would go for the custom piece of software. The reason they can't and they won't is because it costs a ton of time and money, right? You have to hire a dev shop, you got to give them constant input, you got to spend an arm and a leg to build out a custom piece of software and then you have to maintain that piece of software afterwards. So it's not really feasible, it's not practical for companies to do that, especially small to mid sized companies. So they kind of settle, quote unquote, for these one size fits all tools, but with no code. It actually presents an exciting new option that's in between those two, right? You don't need to hire a dev shop and you don't need to settle for something as restrictive as a one size fits all tool. Instead, it's an off the shelf product that still allows you to customize and design how the workflow should work right out of the box without asking anyone, really.

And then for you, when you were mapping out OnTracker in your head, did you think it was going to be a no code platform? Is that something that came to you afterwards or is it something that is it inherently ingrained into what on Tracker is now?

Great question, because we stumbled upon this, really, it's through trial and error. Originally, when we launched OnTracker, it had nothing to do with no code actually. It was just a field management app, right? We wanted to create a simple mobile app experience for a construction job site team or a field team to just report on their progress and the time that they worked and very simple things just to give that data to the team in the office, right, for them to now use for reporting and progress management purposes. What we quickly discovered was that this app was great. It was getting us in the door to start talking to a lot of these construction companies. But very soon, once we realized, we started to realize that this isn't actually the biggest headache for them. When we started asking them, you know, they saw the app, they said, that's great. We've seen, you know, 20 of these other field apps. Like there's a ton of them out there. You guys have a good price point, you know, whatever, that's great. But they said, but what we're really struggling with is this workflow and this workflow and this workflow. And all the workflows that they were describing were office related. So we thought that the problem was they didn't have visibility into the field, but actually they're still struggling in the office. And then when we started digging deeper and we had the opportunity, we were lucky enough that they were giving us the time to kind of dig deeper and interview. So the product demo ended after 10 minutes and then we just went right into interviews. And what they started telling us was a lot of the, you know, the problems with the current landscape, the current construction management software market and what some of the flaws are in these products. And that's what allowed us, you know, we kept asking why, why, why, why, why? Until we got to the root of the problem, which was that fundamentally all of the other options in the market are one size fits all tools. There's never been a different approach than that. And what we heard from these companies was we need to customize it. Right. Like these tools are great, but we don't agree with the way they handle safety documents. We don't agree with the way they handle scheduling. We don't handle scheduling that way.

Right.

For reasons X, Y, Z. And they couldn't really control them. So we saw an opportunity to create the most customizable piece of software that the construction industry has ever seen. And we think that will become the new standard.

And I would assume, like it's not just at a company level. Like obviously certain companies operate in different ways and they want customization. But from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, even within one province or one state, there's multiple cities with different jurisdictions, different safety requirements. So you're very beneficial to be able to customize it.

Yeah, and not just that. If you look at the construction industry specifically, there's many subsegments within the industry. So you have like residential construction, commercial, industrial, civil, environmental. And it's not like there's one company that does only one category of construction. You may have a company that takes on three different categories of construction projects. And the workflows for each of those categories of projects is actually slightly different. Residential projects are managed differently than commercial projects, which are managed differently from civil construction projects. The sets of documentations are different. The scheduling is different. So by giving them a tool that allows them to build these custom workflows, not only can they customize it around their unique needs, but they can actually start to segment the workflows across the different categories of projects that they take on. They've never had that kind of control before in a piece of software.

Well, it just really emphasizes how important customer discovery is and having that opportunity to talk to customers before you actually build something.

Absolutely. Yeah. We wouldn't have stumbled upon it if we didn't get that chance.

That's easier said than done. Trying to get, get, get somebody to give you that type of time, especially an executive at a construction company. But congrats on you for getting there.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Now I said prop tech, you said construction tech. Are they interchangeable? What are they like? What is, what, what is this industry? It's, it's, it's fairly new that people are talking about prop tech and construction tech, but it's. A lot of people are talking about. It is a hot sector right now.

Yeah, definitely. So proptech is. Yeah, it's definitely blowing up. Right. There's a lot of interest, a lot of demand for solutions within prop tech and for those that don't know, it essentially represents any real estate related technology, property related technology, property management technology, and it does encompass construction technology. A lot of people use prop tech and contact interchangeably. I would suggest not doing that because they are. It's a bit of a different concept. Construction tech is very specialized to construction, whereas proptech is a little more broad.

And can property management and real estate selling, buying.

You could even have fintech related solutions.

Insurance solutions and whatnot.

Exactly. So it's very broad and contact is a part of it. But contact is very specialized. But I believe that the appeal right now, at least for proptech as a whole, is there's a big push for sustainability, esg. Right. Green construction, green building, greener architecture. So I think that's a big driving force behind it. I think there's a lot of demand and a lot of pressure, quite frankly on organizations within the property management and real estate industries to adopt more green solutions, greener approaches. And so I think that's what's driving a lot of the innovation that's happening within Proptech and then within Contact more specifically. It's, you know, it's one of the most important industries in the world. Right. Like construction is one of the largest industries in history and we all rely on construction. Right. Whether we realize it or not. But you know, we wouldn't be Sitting here in this comfortable office if it weren't for construction. Right. We need experienced, skilled folks out there to build beautiful structures like this and other structures, you know, all over the world. So a vital industry. But if you look at the, you know, the market statistics, it's still one of the least digitized industries in the world. Right. And yet it's vitally important. And also it still is, you know, it's not the greenest. Right. Not, you know, there's not the most sustainability practices built into the industry yet. So there's a lot of room for improvement to make it not just more efficient, but more sustainable, more environmentally friendly. And so that's where construction tech, there's a broad range of opportunities now within the construction industry. And the reason why it's. Now is a great time for construction tech is because you're seeing a lot of shifts in the industry. I mean, there's never been more innovation in the market than there is right now, especially on the software side. There's a lot of good software out there in the market with robotics, with AI, we're starting to see a large surge there in products and innovation. So it's a great time, not just in terms of the options in the market, but also the other shift is with the workforce. So it's a kind of shift in generations. You're seeing now a lot of millennials step into these ownership, executive and management roles. The expectations of millennials are completely different. They don't want to be using paper and spreadsheets anymore. When I go into a workplace, I expect to be able to use this guy. Right. This should be how I power the business.

This being your phone for anyone who can't see it.

Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

Phones or tablets. Like phones, tablets, expecting to be able to digitize. That being said, like, I did see a funny meme where, speaking about the value of the workforce, where there's a construction building that's wrapped with safety wrapping or whatnot, and that wrap says, hey, Chat GPT, can you finish this building for me? So that's obviously a little jab at AI is not going to replace the car construction worker. That skill set still very valuable.

Yeah.

So, Z, you're quickly becoming a leader in the construction tech, prop tech sector. You're a thought leader. How did you get here? Like, what is your journey? How did you become this prop tech, construction tech CEO?

Yeah, it's kind of funny because I've never worked a day in construction in my life, so I've had no experience in construction before starting on Tracker actually with me, my bread and butter. What I'm the most passionate about is working in laggard industries. I like to refer to them as Laggard Industries. They're these massive industries that are vital for our economy, but they're also far behind in terms of technology adoption. My first startup experience was actually with an agricultural tech startup called Semios. They're based here in Vancouver as well and they've since grown quite a bit, you know, into a unicorn. So it's amazing.

But I'm guessing you never worked on a farm either?

Well, I, before that I didn't. Before that I didn't. But that was my first chance to experience what it's like to bring innovation these spaces. I remember when I was going to school studying engineering, I was always intrigued by like the flashiest technology out there. Right, let's talk about, you know, metaverse and AI VR, AR. Like it's, it's always the flashy stuff, right? The headline grabbing stuff. But when I worked there, I realized that, you know, for every large advancement in technology there's always a large group of people that are still two or three steps behind, right? And the flashy tech is great, but what they need is actually help with efficiencies, right? And that extends into different verticals and industries entirely. And so that's what I really, I never really understood that until I had that first experience within agriculture and seeing how technology can really make a difference for a company within these industries from the before and after. I mean, it's night and day, right? Whereas with a lot of the consumer based technology, it's from a standpoint of luxury in a lot of cases, right, it's more convenient, saves us a bit more time with a lot of stuff. It's cooler, right? It's, you know, tugs on our, our emotions. But with B2B software or, sorry, B2B technology, in these types of verticals, there is a clear before and after effect. There is a clear ROI that can help them actually grow their businesses. Right. In ways that they didn't even imagine before. And that's what, you know, I just fell in love with that process. And so, yeah, I did spend some time in agricultural tech. Also worked at a health care tech startup called Blue Willow Systems. We were building an IoT and analytics SaaS platform for the senior care within healthcare. Again, just, you know, a completely overlooked market. I didn't know anything about it and then just fell in love with that industry as well and the process of bringing innovation there. So I realized for me you know, I think my greatest strength is the fact that I bring a different perspective into industries like this. I'm kind of an outsider coming in, bringing in ideas that I've seen success, or seen success with in these other verticals and trying to apply them to the next vertical. Right. So everything I learned in agriculture, everything I, you know, led to, everything I learned in healthcare combined, that's now everything I'm bringing into construction tech. And I think without that kind of perspective and the unique experience that, you know, I've had, it'd be tough to really think outside of the box. You know, in an industry like this, I feel like I would maybe be a little too influenced by how things were done in the past. And that's what we see with a lot of our competitors. Right. They're not really thinking the way we are about it because we're a mix of people from inside the industry, but mainly from outside the industry.

So, yeah, it's a cross functional feel of taking knowledge and experience from another industry that, you know, works production where laws, the incumbents would just look at how do we just improve?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think it's, yeah, it's our greatest strength, you know, to be honest with you. And yeah, we kind of, just for me personally, I kind of just fell into the industry, right. It's as soon as the opportunity presented itself, you know what I connected with my co founder, Jaz. He, he worked his whole career in construction and we were good friends. So throughout the years, every time we'd go hiking or camping or, you know, we'd grab a beer, he'd always tell me about construction and, you know, he knew that I was working with startups in agriculture and health care and that the second you can, you know, you should really jump into construction, there's a lot of room for improvement. The solutions that exist aren't the best for companies. Right. They're not the most practical and there's a reason why the industry's still not digitizing properly. So yeah, that was an exciting new challenge and we just jumped right in.

So from health tech to on tracker, like you were an employee and now you are a founder, right? Correct. What was that jump like for you? And did you just jump with both feet in and then look back like, oh shit, what I do? Or, or was it really premeditated? Like, no, this is what I really want to do?

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was, yeah, it was kind of a mix of all of it. Right. I definitely had.

You thought it was premeditated Then you realized afterwards, oh shit, whatever.

I definitely had the oh shit moments. There's no, no doubt about that. But yeah, so essentially at, at Blue Willow, I was one of the founding employees, if you will, one of the first employees to really.

So you were still, it, it was still very entrepreneurial.

Yes, definitely, definitely still scrappy. And you know, they, they didn't really have a customer when I joined, so they were kind of the R and D portion or at least to the point where they had an MVP ready. And then I was helping them build out kind of the go to market motion sales and marketing and really start working on the distribution. So yeah, I kind of came in. It wasn't, you know, on day one, but you know, a little bit afterwards. And so, yeah, we had that scrappy mentality, right? That, that kind of mission driven culture, you know, tiny team and working in a very. How should I describe it? It's an office with a lot of character, I would say. I'd put it that way. Plastic tables and things like that. So it was just an unforgettable experience. But what I learned in that process.

Was.

I kind of came in where the startup had a little bit of funding. We had the resources to kind of bring in a team and start scaling it out and distributing the product. So I really got to understand what it's like, you know, when you have a product, when you validated your hypothesis, you know, there's a market need for it. And then how do you now start taking that and growing it and growing your top line, getting customers, how do you start servicing and supporting those customers? How do you work on your brand positioning, your messaging, your marketing, you know, business development? So I got to see all of that, right? And I was lucky enough, fortunate enough that I was put in a position where I could actually lead a lot of that stuff. So that was a really good experience for me. So when the time came, we ended up selling that business to Philips in 2018, spent a couple of years there just integrating that business into the global business unit at Philips. And then when the time came for, you know, me to look for the next challenge, I knew that the part I didn't experience was everything leading up to when you're ready to really go to market, right? So how do you go from just an idea in your head to turning it into something material? And then the part after that I've already had experience with, right. So it was just the part before that, you know, I was missing and I knew for a fact, like, I can do this Right. And it was really the fundraising side, you know, I didn't have too much experience on the fundraising side. So yeah, made a lot of mistakes there since with on Tracker, but just learning, getting better and getting more comfortable with the process and then, yeah, I mean that's the part where, you know, you're, you're in the early days ideation and you get it into an mvp. And then now we're at the phase where, you know, I was at with Blue Willow where, yeah, we're generating revenue, already gaining quite a few customers and just now really building out that go to market.

Even at that, at this stage, it's not cookie cutter. You can't just repeat what you did at Willow.

It's.

It's that experience helps a lot. So you avoid a lot of mistakes and you see challenges coming down the road. But yep, it is its own journey. On its own.

Yeah, exactly.

And speaking about the journey, like you.

Are.

Living this life as an entrepreneur, I want to talk about some of those oh shit moments that happened before but you know, are coming down the pipeline as well. What is it that you wish you had known before you got into this side? Because. Because entrepreneurship is something that you can't really learn from a book. You do have to experience it. And I like to say, like, if you're going to go for an MBA, you're better off just putting that $100,000 into a startup and trying it yourself and learning first time what it's like to build a business.

Hello, fellow tech startup founders. I just want to quickly interrupt this episode to tell you about us at launch. If you're looking for a community to help you take your business to the next level, consider joining our Launchpad program. As a member, you'll get access to investor connections, programming workshops, mentorship and over $400,000 worth of perks. Also, don't forget to check out our other podcasts, Launch AMA and Bits and Bytes. For expert advice and stories from the tech community in Vancouver and around the world. Visit LaunchAcademy CA to learn more and start building your dream business today. That's LaunchAcademy CA.

Let me take a moment to shout out our longtime sponsor, Smythe. They are a leading independent VC based accounting firm specializing in providing financial services and consulting for tech companies across North America. Smythe has supported our program and our alumni throughout their early growth stages by helping them structure and set up their businesses all the way to helping more established businesses. With cross border operations and M and A. They combine industry knowledge with a proactive collaborative approach empowering you to make more informed decisions as your business grows. So if you're looking for a trusted partner to help you drive your business to success, reach out to one of our Launch Academy's longtime mentors, Camellia Ho. For more information about how Smythe can support your growth, you can find Camellia's information on Smythe's website at smythecpa.com that's S-M-Y-T-H-E-CPA.com along with more information about the various industries they support and the services they provide. But like, so what are some of the lessons that you've learned along the way that you wish people were sharing with you when you were starting? I know you landed at Launch Academy and you got some trial by fire experience with other entrepreneurs, but there's more to it. What is it that you wish was being discussed openly? What would you like to share with the audience?

Yeah, I mean, great question. I think there's a lot that I've learned right from the previous startup being involved in scaling it. I think there's more challenges personally as an entrepreneur in those earliest days, right? Because, for example, my foe, my first oh, shit moment was when I quit my job to do it full time, right, Very quickly. You know, one month in, if the sales aren't rolling in and things aren't working the way you expect, you look back, it's like, I make the right choice, right? Should I still just be there? Is this even going to work? Right. So you start questioning yourself a little bit if, if the results don't happen early on. But yeah. And then the next one was for me, the big ocean moment was when our first hypothesis failed. The field management app just did not work out. We had that product in the market for six months and we made a total of, you know, we had one customer sign up paying us 32 bucks a month and that's it, right? Took us six months to get there. That's not successful at all. And I think the learning moment for me there was, and now I know how to see this, but you gotta, you gotta kind of see the writing on the wall a little bit earlier than that, right? And I think with us, we were so set on, we knew, we thought this idea was gonna work, this field management app. We thought it was a great idea, great price point, you know, good set of features. But this was us thinking these things, right? Like it's, it's more important to actually, like you said, the customer development side of it, like, don't just Sit behind, you know, in a, in a closed room and start brainstorming and throwing stuff on the whiteboard. Like, you need to get input from the people you're going to sell to, and you need to get that input asap, right before you even really start building too much or doing anything there. So, yeah, I think, you know, next time around or whatever happens, that customer development process is key to the ideation. Right. Like, you really shouldn't release anything or maybe even quit your job or whatever the case may be until you've gathered enough intel from the market to know exactly whether this is going to work and how it's going to work and how you can scale it roughly. Right? So that was a big learning moment for me.

That's a great plug for our Launcher Launch Academy Launcher Startup course. I think you probably heard the ads in our podcast the last little while, but that's exactly what we talk about. It's like really identify the problem that you're trying to solve. Like, yes, everybody's got an ancillary idea of a problem, but then they focus so much on the solution because that's what you envision solving that problem. But first step is you really need to drill into what is that problem? Like you did with your customer discovery, like why, why, why, why, why assets so many times to really drill down. It's like, why is this a problem? Why is that a problem? Why is this an issue? And then you get into what the core issue or underlying problem is and then you look at your solution they had in your head and match it up. Was that the right solution for this problem? Do I need to tweak it? Do I need to do a wholesale change on it? Then customer validation. Don't build anything yet. Go and talk to the people, validate that. A, they, they identify the problem the same way that you did. And then B, the solution that you're proposing is something that they would actually want to use. Then C, most importantly, will they pay for it?

Yeah.

And if they're not willing to pay for it, is somebody else going to pay for it? Can it be covered in ad dollars or whatever? What is the business model around it? Because the end of the day, you're not building a charity, you're building a business. And if you can't make it sustainable, what's the point? And then you've got this 50, 100 person list of people that you've talked to. And don't just focus on one customer Persona, look at the other stakeholders. But then you go and build Your mvp. And guess what? You go right back to that list and say, hey, you told me that you might be interested in this or this is a feature that you really liked. What do you think about this mvp? And get their feedback and then you just build that. Build, measure, learn, cycle over and over again with that customer base you built.

Yep, that's exactly it. And in our case, the MVP was a little more than an mvp. Right. We built a field management app. But in hindsight, we wouldn't be where we are today if we didn't build the app that way. Because what worked for us is, you know, we were doing cold outreach, selling the product like we normally should. And when we were scheduling demos, we were scheduling one hour demos with, with the customers. So we set enough in the outreach to get in the door. And then, you know, the demo started off as a 45 minute demo, a full demo. And then we realized like, it's not really working too well. So at that point the demos started shortening down and because we knew going.

So this is live. As you're doing these demos with these people, you and your co founder are just looking at each other like, hey, this is not working, that's not working. Let's adjust on a fly. And ultimately you get yourself into a really tight demo that was working. Or was it still?

Yeah. So ultimately what the demos turned into were just straight up interviews. So the demo was kind of the hook to get us in the door. And what started as a 45 minute demo with 15 minutes allocated for Q and A at the end and trying to move them towards the next step very quickly turned into a 30 minute demo with more time for Q and a. More time for discussion, turned into a 15 minute demo. And then, I mean, we weren't really selling the thing. Right.

So you're walking into these meetings knowing now that, okay, our demo is only going to be 15 minutes, but we're there to really get, extract some information from. But they on the other hand are thinking it's going to be a one hour demo.

Yeah.

And so that 15 minute demo, was it even resonating anymore with these people? I think you said earlier, like they were just saying, yeah, we've seen 100 of these, but what we really need is this.

Yep, exactly. It was to the point where when we'd step into one of these demos, we knew that like the first 50 minutes are essentially like a bit of a wasted time.

Icebreaker.

Yeah, icebreaker. Like here's, you know, we've shown we can build software. It did look pretty nice, it worked pretty well. But just, yeah, it wasn't compelling enough for them to, to actually make the buying decision. But we knew going in, okay, first 15 minutes, we're just going to do this demo show, right. It just, it's like the, the warm up. Right. And then after that it, we knew we had them booked for an hour. We had good stakeholders in the room, you know, a good set of people at the table there, including sometimes the owners or the top executives. And then we're like, okay, now how can we maximize the remaining 45 minutes? We know they've allocated the time, so now what set of questions are we going to bring bring in to actually uncover what their, their pain points were? And that's where we started stepping in to, you know, the set of questions. The why, why, why. Right. And, and yeah, it started off as very high level, but then we would slowly start to identify a lot of patterns in what we were hearing from each of the customers. And it. What. One interesting thing that happened which led directly to our pivot was we started asking these companies like, okay, well, what's the biggest workflow that's causing you headaches right now? Right. Whether it's in the field or the office or administrative workflow, whatever it is. And you know, can you send that to us in an email? Because we'll explore and see if we can help you with that. Because I couldn't find a solution to it anywhere else. And one very interesting thing started happening. They all started sending us flow diagrams. So we immediately thought of no code.

So flow diagrams that they're already using in their processes.

Yeah, to map out the process. But the thing is, for them it was just a visual aid. So their flow diagrams were just telling their teams what to do operationally. Right. And using paperwork or emails or whatever. Right. But when we saw those flow diagrams, we're like, wait a minute, if we could let them build this flow diagram in our software and instead of it describing a manual process, if we could just automate that process, that would be exactly what they want because they're already thinking visually in terms of flow diagrams. And that's what led us to the, on to the no code aspect.

Right.

So slowly we started with some documentation workflows and then we slowly switched over to some time tracking field related workflows and we started bringing the no code to the scheduling. So we kind of just iterated our way there and now we have a pretty damn good no code tool in the market.

And so where are you with adoption on that, like you went back to those people obviously, and said, hey, what do you think about this? And yeah, and what was that, what was that conversation like?

Yeah, and they bought. It was great. Because what we started saying at the end of the interviews was we acknowledged the fact that, you know, these are their pain points. We understood them. We took the time to really ask the right questions to understand exactly what they needed. We said, okay, if, if we could actually build a solution to this, would you consider it at that point? Right. Would you consider taking another demo to check it out? And we waited for them to give us buy in on that. So the second they said yes, we would check it out, we knew we could add them to that list. Right. So we started building the solution and we had a set of these flow diagrams, right. We had a pretty large sample size. So instead of building kind of one off custom solutions for each of these flow diagrams, we wanted to try to make it as broad as we could. Right. So we wanted to make sure we incorporate the right blocks into the workflow that could cover all of these in one go. And that's exactly what we did. So once we created that system that was broad enough to handle all of these, then we went back to that list and said, hey, we got it right. Is, is this actually going to solve your problem? And sure enough, they said, wow, you guys actually pulled this off in like a few months. We've been trying to solve this for years. And yeah, they moved forward with us. So we, we launched our first commercial beta of On Tracker in January of 2022. So it's been in the market for just over one year now. We have just under 30 customers across the U.S. and Canada. We just started selling to the U.S. in Q4, seeing great adoption. This is our big year of renewals. Right now we're in year two. All of our customers are on annual plans. We're sitting at 100% renewal rates. We're seeing great engagement of the product across the organization. Yeah, things are looking well in the early days, but lots of work ahead.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's always great when people want to buy your product and more importantly, pay you for it.

Yeah.

But that journey obviously has a lot of ups and downs. Right. And even when you are successful, there's a whole other wealth of abundance of challenges that you're faced with. Yeah, customers want our product, but I still need to hire more salespeople. I still need to fix the UI UX on this. Or we need to look at how do we Expand into foreign markets. What's the tax implications that I need to worry about and foreign exchange and all this other stuff. How do you handle that stress that you're faced with moving forward?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think a lot of people, when they think of startups, they usually think.

Of, you know, the hockey stick curve.

Yeah, hockey stick curve or like good growth, good steady growth. But in reality, it's like you said, you're just getting bumped all over the place, right? So we have a, we've grown quite a bit in just over the one year. But it's not to say we, we didn't have any down periods, right. Some months we didn't sell at all. Other months we hear a lot of complaints from customers. There were too many bugs with the product. So just trying to manage that is hard by itself. And then like you said, now we got to, you know, we got to continue to focus on sales. Then there's customer success, right. How can you ensure lifetime value for your customers? And then it's, you know, are we going to partner with other companies? Right. How are we going to manage the partnerships with channel partners and their marketing strategy? So it's, there's just constantly stuff being thrown at you as a founder. And for me, this is where, you know, I started discovering the importance of, you know, managing your mental health and just your overall well being. I think it's easy to get too focused on building the business. But a lot of times, like, for me, what was happening is I was focusing on the business at the expense of myself. Right. And when that happened, it was actually affecting the business negatively. Right. Because I wasn't at my best. I didn't have the mental clarity. I wasn't exercising enough. It was affecting my mood and my ability to handle that stress and the problems that arose. So I started just going on a bit of a separate journey on my own personal development to make sure that I'm taking care of myself across all aspects of my life. So my social life, I'm still trying to put an effort to spend time with friends and family when I went too deep into a rat hole there and didn't see anyone for weeks. I mean, it's just not good.

And like I've, I've built multiple companies as well and it's hard. Like you start to identify yourself as your business and it's, and it's rightfully so. Like, it is your passion, it's what you're building and you're living it 247 like other people don't. Other people that aren't entrepreneurs don't quite get how you get so enthralled in your business. And you're living at 24 7, but you literally are. You, you wake up thinking about your business. You go to sleep thinking about your business. You're brushing your teeth, you're thinking about your business. You're. You're dreaming, you're thinking about your business. But you do have to delineate the two, and it's extremely hard, especially when you're early stages, because you don't really have many people to talk to. And your social group or your friend group, oftentimes, if they're not entrepreneurs, they don't get it either. Another plug. That's why it's important to join places like Launch Academy, where you can I say, misery loves company. You need to talk to people that understand what you're going through and the pains and, and challenges. But what is a trick or technique that you use to, to really separate? Like you said, you went into personal care, that talked to a therapist, you talked to like, we're journaling or like, what was, what was that process like for you?

Yeah. So, and first of all, this is not a plug, but the, the importance of community. Just to your point about Launch Academy, that actually made a huge difference in our, our journey as a company, because it's kind of like what you were alluding to. It's a reminder to yourself that you're not the only one going through this kind of stuff and dealing with the stress and the struggle of building a business around your passion.

Right.

There's other people in it alongside you. Right. And to have the resources like yourself within the Launch Academy, to have the great team at Launch and then the fellow, you know, the alumni of Launch just available as well, you know, all kinds of experts available right at your fingertips and then fellow founders that are at the same stage as you, like, they're all on Slack, like, it's just a Slack channel. I can reach out to any of them whenever I want to talk about anything. Right. And I mean, that made a huge difference for us. So I. And again, not a plug. I'm saying, like, that's one of the things that helped me as well for my personal journey is just talking to other people. Because like you said, your friends won't get it. You know, your family won't get it either. Usually your family's just concerned for you. They want to make sure you're okay. Right. They don't truly understand it if they've Never done it themselves. So being a part of a startup community, everyone knows it.

Yeah. And this is where it gets complicated because you don't want to just surround yourself with just entrepreneurs. Right. Like I highly stress people get out of their bubbles and they talk to non tech people because it gives you a shot of reality what the real world's like. But finding that balance because you're so invested in your business, like you don't want to step away from it or a lot of times you feel like you can step away from it because if I do, then so and so is not going to close a sale or we're not that customer is going to leave us because I don't have that touch point with them.

Yeah.

And so. So what is it that you were really practicing to, to get yourself out of this funk that you're in?

Yeah, so a couple of things. So the first is time management. I started really like I never really thought about the way I managed my time before this. Like when I was working a job, it wasn't like it's different, right. It's more of a 9 to 5 and it's a bit more structured in that sense. But when there's, as a founder, when it's, there's all kinds of stuff flying at you and at the same time you're trying to execute on a high level strategy, right. To grow the business. But then you're trying to put out fires and then you're trying to keep your team motivated. There's just too much going on. So it's very hard to understand where you should be spending your time. So one thing that I started, I started reading some books on time management and I started creating this essentially it's a bit of a matrix. You have kind of the four quadrants of time and you kind of categorize them in order of priority. Right. So there's a kind of critical pieces that your business depends on in order to survive. And those are of course the highest priority. I mean you got to make sure you keep the lights on, you can pay your staff, you have enough money in the bank. Right. Like that if you don't take care of that, everything fails. Right. So like that's category one. Then you have other things that maybe are a bit more strategic, but then some of the other categories are still for your personal time as well. Right. So one of the things that I've started prioritizing now in my life, I've been on this journey for about nine months now is I started going to the gym I never before this went to the gym, I never lifted weights at all in my life. I played a bit of soccer. Right. Still play soccer. But I never truly understood the benefits of weightlifting and on mental health specifically. So ever since I started going to the gym, I actually made it a priority in my day. Like, I treat my time in the gym just like I would a time with a, you know, meeting a customer or meeting an investor. Right. Or meeting with my team. I give it the same level of importance because I know that if I don't go to the gym, you know, every day or, you know, the days that I'm trying to go during the week, it will affect me. Right. And, and after I go to the gym, I just feel so refreshed, renewed. I feel my mood is improved. Right. I'm more motivated, I have all these ideas flowing and so something as simple as that. And not everyone needs to be a gym rat, right? I'm just trying to say, like, find your thing.

What is that vice? Whether it's running, playing tennis or the gym.

Yeah, exercise is key. Exercise is key. So that's been a big part for me.

So. And a lot of people don't realize again, that physical exertion gets more oxygen into your body and that body, the oxygen in your body goes to your brain and that has a tremendous benefit. But it's not easy. Like even like I'm a, I'm a gym rat. I love going to the gym. Like I'll sit in the gym for like two hours easy to get my workouts up. But it's time that I can't spend on my business. But I understand the value, like how much more mentally clear I am afterwards. But again, it's not easy. This morning as an example, I got up at 6am like I normally do and plan is to get to the gym by seven, 7:30, do an hour, hour and a half. But 7:00 clock rolls around and I'm checking an email and I get a little bit too down a rabbit hole thinking about things and next thing I know, it's 8 o', clock, it's like, oh, well, I could still get an hour in, but then what's the point? And then get a shower and I just talked myself out of it. Right now I'm sitting here talking to you. Not because of this conversation, but I am regretting not having gone to the gym today because I know I would just been that much more happier in my day today. Not that I'm not happy talking to you. I'm talking about earlier today and then I got a lot of ton of work. I'm gonna be working till like 9, 10 o'. Clock. I was here till about 11 o' clock last night. And those 30 minutes hour even, even if it, if it's just like breaking down to 30 minute walk, it makes a huge difference.

Yep. Yeah, it's key. It's key and it's just part of that overall playbook of taking care of yourself. Right. And exercise is a part of it. Spending time socially as well. Like I make sure I allocate time, you know, for my fiance, for my parents, for my close friends. Like that's part of my week. Like the way I manage my time for the week. Because to me now what I've learned for me personally and I guess it may be different for everyone but all of this stuff, spending time on these things which are outside of the business are just as important for me to build the business as spending time on the strategic elements of the business. Like if I'm not in the right state of mind, it's going to be hard for me to think about new ideas or make the right decisions. Right. Or think really rationally and logically about things. Whereas if you're, if you're balanced, you have, you know, a good, a good feeling about you and you know, you're managing your mental health, you're just going to be much sharper, much better. You're going to think clearly, you're going to treat people better as well your employees. You're going to be able to manage your emotions better. It seeps into everything you're doing with the business. And I can't emphasize that enough for the founders out there. At the earliest stages, you know, really just take care of yourself. You know, I know that the, the instinct is to just always, like you said, focus on the business. You're always thinking about it. If I don't do this, this is going to happen. But, but just remember that it's, you know, it's nothing's going to hurt the business more than if you yourself don't have the drive anymore to, you know, do all of this stuff.

Or not just the drive, the physical ability.

Yeah.

Like there are health issues that you have to worry about and then there's mental issues that really start to creep out of you, creep up on you or just hit you out of the blue and it just immobilizes you. That is a reality that does happen.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm a prime example. It's easy to talk yourself out of it, but it's not easy. You got to force yourself to do these things. Nobody loves getting up and running first thing in the morning. What they love is the feeling afterwards. It's that 20, 30 minutes of hell. But that euphoria, that runner's high afterwards. But I cannot under emphasize the type of clarity that I get afterwards. But also the ideas that come to my mind while I'm running.

And for me, one simple example with working out is, so I've been fundraising and you know, I fundraised last year as well. And you, I mean, most of it. And you know this as well. Most, most of it is no's, right? You get a, you get a ton of rejection when you're fundraising, even trying to sell the customers. Like, so rejection is just part of the process as a founder. And I know for me personally I didn't face a lot of rejection before I started this journey, right. Like with my career, like, things went relatively smoothly, right. So I never really was subjected to a lot of that. But when it, when it hits you, it's like a, it's a wake up call, right? It's a very humbling experience. And what I found, for example, like in this fundraising process, you know, I'd have a bunch of investor calls. Clearly, you know, a lot of them are just kind of leading me on, but I could tell that, you know, it's going to lead to a rejection. But then I'm like, you know what? Screw it. Like, this has been a terrible day. I'm just going to go to the gym, right? So I go to the gym late afternoon, just get an hour in, and by the end of it, it's like the rejection doesn't faze me at all, right? It's like, you know what, it's fine. I believe in what I'm doing. I can see how it's impacting our customers. I can see how motivated, you know, my employees are. And it's like all the bright pieces are there. So it's fine if somebody else doesn't believe in it, right? Like as long as I. But that kind of thing only happened after I spent a bit of time in the gym. It's like, it's an automatic switch.

And a big part of it is like you're. When if you didn't have that physical exertion, your, your mental capacity would just be focused on the negatives. But having that physical exertion releases different certain endorphins and chemicals in your body and that extra oxygen to your brain gets you in a Better mood. And it helps you move past that, whereas you didn't have it. You just keep dwelling on the negative.

Yeah.

And even for a successful person like me that has all these VC connections I'm trying to raise around right now, and I get a lot of rejections. Even worse, I get, like, no replies. And then the imposter syndrome starts creeping in. It's like, is it that they're not replying to me because they don't know how to tell me that my idea sucks? Or they just don't want to hurt that relationship and tell me the truth? Or are they just busy? Or is it just not a good fit? Like, again, all this negative thought just starts going through your head. And fundraising is never easy. It doesn't matter who you are, what you're doing. It is a challenge. I've talked to Hollywood producers that are super successful and they're out trying to raise money for a new project and they're getting NO's, even certain VCs. I think it was like on the all in podcast, Like David Freebig said, successful as I am, I'm trying to raise money and I'm getting a shit ton of nose too. Right. So. So, so you have to realize, again, as I said earlier, it's not just you. It's, it's. It is the industry. It's everybody else that. That goes through this thing. So stop kicking yourself in the ass and realize that it's. This is just par for the course.

Yep.

But without that mental clarity, you're just gonna put yourself in this spiral that it's hard to get out of.

Exactly, exactly. And on that fundraising note, by the way, I remember the Community Launch Academy was actually what kickstarted my fundraising process, like, what I would recommend to anybody. You know, he's at the stages. When you're fundraising, the key is to practice. The key is to practice. And there's nothing like practicing in front of other people. Right. And people that have experience building businesses, that can be critical, that can ask the tough questions. Just subject yourself to that as much as possible. And if you're part of a great community, like Launch, there's plenty of opportunities. I mean, almost weekly. Right. You could, you could pitch if you want. You guys have all kinds of pitch events. There's a pitch competition that I was lucky enough to be a.

Of. Part.

Part of as well. So just, you know, just keep subjecting yourself to potential rejection is what I could say.

Right.

And of course, as part of a community, they're your peers, so they're not going to be as, as harsh, but it is going to still give you a sense of what real investors would ask and how they may view your startup and you just keep fine tuning from there. But I remember launch and the community was just critical to that fundraising process. The ability for me to refine the pitch from that constant feedback is what got us to raise our pre seed last year and it's what got us to where we are in the seed round this year as well. I've taken all of those learnings forward basically.

That's awesome. Syed, this has been a great conversation. What's next? What can we expect from Ontracker?

We're trying to take over construction. Yeah, for us, we're scaling right now.

We're expanding to the U.S. yeah, we're.

We'Re in the U.S. now. We're getting a lot of interest from the U.S. most of the leads are actually U.S. based now. We're trying to double our team size.

Are the conversations similar in the US as they were here or is it like a totally different set of problems or.

No, it's very similar. I mean there's not, there's nothing regulation wise or anything like that that's really holding us back from going, you know, to the US from Canada. There's just some minor nuances for certain state markets, but other than that, yeah, it's the similar conversations that we're having. The US customers are more familiar with a lot of the options out there, so they're even more surprised at the unique approach that we're building. And so, yeah, a lot of exciting stuff to come and lots of hard work to get there, basically.

That's awesome. That's on Tracker, this is Siyad. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you very much for having me, Ray, and appreciate the opportunity. Guys.

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