#486 The Brave Leap: Michael Cutajar on Automating Accounting with AI Agents & Building with Purpose

Episode 486

[00:00:00] 

Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me from Malta, Michael Cutajar. Michael, the way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests and introduce themselves. So tell me a little [00:01:00] more about you, about your journey and what you're currently up to, and then we can take the discussion from there.

We're gonna discuss a lot of things, including AI agents and entrepreneurship and everything in between. So the floor is yours, Michael. 

Michael: Awesome. , My name is Michael Cutajar. As, as you said, I'm from the island of Malta. And by profession, I am an A, CC, A qualified accountant and started off my career at PWC, but I was always inclined to entrepreneurship and I left, I left relatively early on and opened my own Airbnb property management company over here.

Uh, through that I eventually ended up in a startup, a tech startup, where my mind was completely mesmerized. We were building virtual reality. And, uh, did a couple of years there and now I'm running my own business as CEO of AI Partners, where we focus on creating custom solutions using AI agents, specifically fo focused on accountancy and finance.

Mehmet: Cool. You'd mentioned something, which immediately [00:02:00] caught my attention myself is, you know, shifting from being accountant to entrepreneurship. Yeah. And this is something that usually doesn't just happen like that. So there must be a moment where you said, okay, I need to drop out. I'm doing, and I need, I need to do this.

Michael: No. So I, I was always very inclined to business. So I, I remember being very young and. Being specifically on a bus stop and looking at the businesses around me and just wondering how they're operating and what their pain points might be at, at a very young age. Uh, and I, I did accountancy more just to under more.

'cause I didn't know what I was gonna do. And I, I said that's a, a very good course to get practice both, uh, in the business world and, and in the educational world. Um, so yeah, I mean, I just felt it was the next step. 

Mehmet: Cool. Now out of curiosity, um, I. Starting, you know, a, uh, the, the, the current company, which is AI Partners.

Um. There must be also [00:03:00] kind of a moment where you spotted an opportunity to be in this space. Uh, something like maybe others, they're not serving the way it should be, or maybe an underserved market where you can add your value. So I'm, I'm curious always to understand from fellow entrepreneurs, you know about also the moments when they decide to start, you know, their, their own 

Michael: ventures.

So in, in our last startup, metaverse architects, I joined in as, as head as as sales, um, uh, and a bit of operations. And eventually I ended up becoming CEO of the company. And I think it was at that moment when I took the leap to become CEO that I said to myself, I have the skills to run my own business.

Not not just as an employee or, or or minority shareholder, but as a majority shareholder. Eventually I did end up closing that company. I. On behalf of the investors due to some issues with the co-founders among some other things. [00:04:00] And then that's when I said, wait, that was December of 2023. I said, you know what?

I've got savings. I have my other business running. Let me just see what I'm gonna do my next step. So I. I, I, I really, I, I, I said to myself, I need to improve technically. So I got a teacher for Python, and obviously, as you know, Python is, is the fundamental language for, uh, for, uh, ai. So then I built a couple of prototypes over 2024 in a different space, completely then accountancy.

But it taught me a lot because it taught me, it taught me about product development, about pitching, about getting investor feedback, customer feedback, et cetera. Um, so yeah, uh, it, it was a more than one moment. I would say a couple of moments in the past year and a half. 

Mehmet: Cool. Now, if we want to talk about this combination of AI and automation, um, what are like some of the.

[00:05:00] Problems you solve today for your customers? Sure. And why you think you know the way they traditionally have done? It's very interesting, Michael, because you know, the, the, I'm not any by any mean, you know, close to, to, to, to the, to the field. But of course. Nature of my engagement with, um, a lot of startups and a lot of also companies, you know, sometime I feel there's enough there.

So what are like the, the shortcomings, I would say, uh, that, you know, you are trying to solve for them with this combination of AI and, and automation. 

Michael: So interior accountancy as an industry is, is is broken, in my opinion. It's broken from the side, the sides of the accountant, and it's broken from the side of the end user.

From the end user side, it feels like they're very in the dark of what happens. And from the accountant side, they're just overworked and no one really wants to. Become an accountant and more [00:06:00] unfortunately. Um, so what what happens is that they have a, they have a lot of work and a lot of manual, manual processes that could be automated.

One example I will give you is, is a simple, uh, agent which we built, which analyzes the invoice and in the context of the business, classified it in a, in a, in an account. So it says, so for example, say we're analyzing, I don't know your business, right? You have a couple of different things. It says. Uh, Matt is, is, is, is uh, an entrepreneur is in the VC space and he has this invoice or this expense where, what account should I classify it in?

So what are you doing there? You're doing the job of two people. You're doing the job of the junior accountant who is posting the receipts, and you're also doing the job of the, of the senior accountant who is trying to understand the context of which the, in the invoice or the expense is in. Um, and, and that has been working tremendously for a couple of our clients.

I mean, when I say tremendously, they, you [00:07:00] have found a 150% increase in speed. Um, so it's crazy. Uh, this is just one agent out of many, many, which, which can be built in the industry 

Mehmet: right now. How much. Uh, you said the industry is broken. This is, you know, also agree, agree. Caught my eyes in such an industry where we didn't see a lot of innovation.

Yeah. Um, how people are accepting, you know, utilizing such cutting edge technology like AI and, and then automation. 

Michael: To be honest, my strategy, Mohammed, is I go, I, I go to them and I build something for them for free, and I show them the value straight away. And like, like that, like that they'll see it, they'll see it in front of their face and they, you get the wow, the wow moment.

Like, um, uh, agreed. It isn't an industry which is easy to break into, uh, that, that does [00:08:00] require a lot of trust, understandably. Um, so that is the, that is the solution I have found. And I, I think it'll continue working. 

Mehmet: Well, so usually because I work with some, you know, other, other startups and other startups, whereas, you know, the value proposition is actually, um, doing more with less resources, whether time, whether money, whether people in such situation.

And maybe here I want you to put with your sales hat, Michael, like how, how you can approach this because, you know, I've seen it a lot if, if you mention this in front of someone, they might be scared, um, like, Hey, I'm gonna cut resources and you might face this guy. Who's losing, who's, who's afraid of losing his job.

Right? And, and he would try to push back. What kind of strategies you've seen, like working in, in such [00:09:00] scenarios 

Michael: when, when, when the client is afraid of having his team members losing their job? That, that's the question. Is that the question? Yeah. That, that, that's a common one, to be honest. Remember, the way I see it is I don't, I don't pitch it like that.

I pitch it like an opportunity for scale. Because if, if, if said employee is overloaded work, then let's automate his work and go scale more because you are still going to require human in, in, uh, human, um, touch, right? It's not gonna be completely autonomous. Therefore, if the AI agent is doing 80% of your job, you still have 20%.

So why don't you build on that and scale it up further? 

Mehmet: Right now, another thing which, um, might lead to, to, to landing, you know, big customers with the approach that you, that you have said, um, I. What you have learned, I would say from all the previous experience, and of course what you do currently [00:10:00] to close like these big six figure deals, um, especially with, with, with big places, is what it takes today to, in order to do that, 

Michael: it, it takes a lot of patience, a a lot, a lot of understanding that.

Normally the size of deals require loads of approvals. You're gonna have lots of pushback, and you really have to go with the mindset that you need to make the deal work for both of them. And, and normally these, these enterprises are, are only fearful because say the person approaching you is a sale is, is, is looking for a new solution.

But he's not the, he's not the final. He doesn't take the final decision. It is his responsibility and his risk to make sure that he finds the right provider so that the person signing off is happy. And that's one thing I learned from Enterprise. So the person you're not, you're speaking to the first time is not actually the is, is is the person who's only fear [00:11:00] is, am I gonna give this solution to the company and is it gonna backfire?

And that is where you really have to make sure that you double down and, and show, show that you, you mean business. 

Mehmet: Cool. Now let's talk a little bit about, you know, the business model, Michael, and also the pricing model that, that you are currently using. Yeah. Um, because recently I started to see a lot of debates in this space.

Yeah. Especially very interesting. Yeah. Especially with all what the, again, AI have done in the past, uh, two years or so. Um. So what kind of, of, you know, business model, how, how do you offer that? I mean, is it a subscription base? What kind of that and, and how you decided, you know, on, on the pricing structure?

Michael: That's something I'm playing around with to be frank with you. Right. I'm testing the market with different things. Uh, so the way I see it is if it requires lots of custom development, it's, it's an, it's an upfront free and then a [00:12:00] subscription based model dependent on, on usage. Uh, having said that, there are different ways to price things.

I mean, I heard, I heard the CEO of Microsoft say that in three, four years time, SaaS will be dead because of the simple reason that a, a agents would dictate, dictate pricing. So, usage of agents, um, I, I think it's really fascinating. I wish I have the answer, but hopefully we'll catch up in year's time and I'll tell you, listen, I've corrected it.

Mehmet: Yeah, it's, it's interesting one because, you know, and I think I was reading, um, the other day an article, like one of the main reasons you know, that sometimes startups will make it or fail it is because they choose wrong pricing strategy, to your point, SaaS not as a, not as a concept, as a business model.

Yeah. Now. It's becoming a commodity by the day. Yeah, a hundred percent. [00:13:00] Now walk me through something, Michael, and I'm, again, when I ask these questions, it's not too challenge, I think. No, let's do it. Yeah. Um, the defensibility, so one of the things that we've seen a lot in 20 23, 20 24, and still now, is that.

Every other day we see, oh, like, uh, Google killed this startup because they did this open ai, they killed that startup. Now with the agent tech ai and the agents and everything, which is coming around that, how far do you think, you know, these big giants, which are like providing the infrastructure, um, are going to, to, to be after businesses like.

You or like some similar businesses. What's your take on this? And I'm asking this in any sense, so you can encourage people's not to be scared. It's so 

Michael: I thought about like defensibility and [00:14:00] modes. Yeah. It's 'cause these companies are, are obtaining so much and they're building so much, so quickly now.

Well, 1, 1, 1, 1 mode is obviously speed. So you want to be faster than them to build something valuable that they could. Eventually purchase. Right. And they could say, listen, maybe it makes more sense to buy, to buy it than to build it. Mm-hmm. Uh, but that, that I think is, is a bit, a bit folly to be honest.

The. The defensibility I'm seeing at least is industry agnostic and location, industry specific and location specific. So building AI agents for people in the UAE for accountants in the UAE, using the account, using the accountancy treatments and laws in the UAE to train a model that eventually will be valuable enough to sell to PWC in Dubai.

You know? Yeah, yeah. That's, that's where I'm thinking that's, that's my mindset. May maybe you disagree. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see. 

Mehmet: I. It's interesting to see. Indeed. It's [00:15:00] interesting to see and no, no, the answer, you know, like No. Yeah, I, I discussed the, the, the defensibility and mode to your point.

I think it's also one thing which people I think underrate a lot. It's the personal touch. Although we talk, we talk. We talk ai, we talk, everything I tell, I tell people, look, you're, you're, you're forgetting what we call in, in, in, you know, B2B uh, space or, uh, you know, enterprise sales, the customer success and after sales support.

So people would always buy from people unless, and let me ask you this, do you think, you know, decision making will be handled over to AI also in somehow, like do you, do you imagine like. You know, in order to take the decision and get the sign off, maybe an agent, a procurement agent, would be judging if your solution is worth to be bought for, for this, uh, company.

Um, [00:16:00] 

Michael: not, not the final say, but they would provide 99% of the information. And it's not the final say because there's no liability on an agent. So what, what are you gonna do, sue an agent? You know, and it, it gets complicated. So. It's not because the AI agent can't take the decision with, with enough data.

It's because the way I see it, there's no liability. Um, now, I mean, that, that, that, that, yeah, that's, that's, that's my take right now. 

Mehmet: Okay. Back a little bit to, to the accounting space. Um, do you think. Okay. And this is can apply even for coders can apply for many things. Yeah. So if someone loves, you know, accounting.

Yeah. Loves finance. Um. Should they be worried that, you know, some of the jobs that existed before Yeah. That they were stepping [00:17:00] stone you just mentioned, for example, moments had, uh, before that, you know, a junior account would do Junior. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, uh, similar to what we see in, in, with the developers, are we seeing like these junior positions completely wiped out?

And if so. H how someone gonna, you know, crack the code as they say and, and go into specific place. And I'm asking you about accounting. Yeah, because it's, it's your domain, it's your area of expertise. Yeah, yeah, 

Michael: yeah. So no, we haven't, we haven't seen that movement yet. Like you see in, for example, coders and I mean, the rise of windsurf and, and loveability, but, uh, but it'll get there for sure.

Now, when it comes to peace of mind for the junior. It just, it just needs, I think, a refactoring, a refactoring reapproach to what your job will be. So your job will no longer be a ary [00:18:00] monotonous job where you're inputting data, but it'll be one to understand how an AI system works and then potentially increase your ability to sell and scale and advise.

So that's where we're moving. You know, the, the role will become an advisory role and a very important one. 

Mehmet: Right. So it's more a supervising, I would say, supervising 

Michael: understanding of understanding how to, how to debug potentially, how to see where the AI went wrong, you know? Um, and, and, and then a human one.

A human 

Mehmet: one. Cool. One thing also, uh, because I can see you've learned a lot, Michael, you know, by yourself. Um, yeah. Yeah, but what, what this journey, you know, whether now with AI partners or your previous experiences about going and trying something and taking the feedback. So you mentioned like just showing it to, uh, yeah.

Potential [00:19:00] clients. You mentioned, you know, going to investors, um. How, how, how that, you know, can be accumulated. And you, you've done this at a young age. Like if, if we look at it, um, and I'm asking you this to just again, you know, maybe give some courage to fellow entrepreneurs. Yeah, yeah. Who might be doubting.

Who might be doubting themselves. Yeah. So, 

Michael: so your specific question is like, where do you get, where do you get the strength from or, 

Mehmet: yeah, yeah. Not only this, like, I mean, you, you, you started to talk to investors. You start, did you learn, how did you, how did you learn this? How did you, how did you practice this?

So 

Michael: in my last business I was put on, on the, on the, on the front line to kind of pitch to, to clients and. When you start pitching to clients, you then eventually end up doing some public speaking talks and you kind of need to develop a bit of a [00:20:00] hard skin to people saying no. And, uh, that led me to then pitching to investors for, for, for this project and the ones I was working on last year there.

Having said it, it, it just takes courage really. I mean, Tru truly, it's, it's, it's not something which comes too natural to me, um, but you just have to understand it. In the event they do say, no, it's, it's not a, it's not a personal rejection. It's, it's feedback. So that was one thing I, I really had to hammer home on.

So not personal rejection feedback. In fact, I had it on my, on my screen saver on my phone. It's, it's, it's a feedback loop, right? A and, uh, luckily it, its worked well. 

Mehmet: I think it's, it worked well because it, you practice it also as well. Um, I. 

Michael: Last year, I, I, I, I said to myself like, um, I need to go get feedback from the, the real world, like Silicon Valley.

So I found flights in. Mm-hmm. To Italy [00:21:00] and Italy directly to Silicon Valley, and I stayed there for six weeks and I just got to know people. I pitched, I learned from, from people who are around me. And that was a life changing experience because you, you really see that firstly, you see that the people there are.

Are not much more talented than yourself, but what they have is an ability to think big and to be confident in themselves, and not to be afraid of failure. Whilst here in Europe, I'm not sure too sure about the main region, but in Europe we're very resistant to failure. We're very fearful. I think it has to do with our roots 

Mehmet: of of you just hit the nail on his head.

Yeah, yeah. 

Michael: Man. They've got, they've. They're brilliant. 

Mehmet: Yeah. I don't want to reveal what I'm working on, but you know, this is something, and I get asked about this, they say, why you always talk about the Valley and the value? I said, look, man, like I, I, I really, you know Yeah. I work with some companies who were headquartered there, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:22:00] Uh. But I'm curious by nature to understand. I like to study things, right? I like to study. Okay. Why this happened. Yeah, amazing. What was the reason, right? Anyway, I think you just said it, Mike. Our biggest problem in the regions, I, I think with Europe is the same ASM region from this.

Perspective, and I learned this by the way, I was, I was shocked when I start to talk to founders and even investors in Europe. I thought like, okay, maybe they are okay. Not Silicon Valley, but better than Meina. But I discovered that almost we same. Anyway, so I think you the last thing you just mentioned.

Yeah, of course. We are all smart. Let's be frank about it. There's no one like, okay, we have more skills here. And there is the culture of accepting, actually, you know? Yeah. They tell you. Fail fast, fail often, I think. Yeah. And there's no taboo of someone failing. I think this is the biggest thing, you know?

Uh, I believe in Europe [00:23:00] it's the same. I have a lot of European, France and, you know, some of them, they, they live here in Dubai. Uh, the, the, and here we have the same issue. If, if you fail, you're gonna become the topic of, you know, the weekend nights. Oh, like, see Michael, he tried to do something and he failed.

Or someone say, Hey, you see my met? Like, he tried to launch a podcast and you know, he's humiliating himself. I, I, I know this happened. And because the reason is people, they, they, they expect, I think this education and culture and a lot of other things. But yeah, I think this is one of the main reasons why, um, Silicon Valley is what is Silicon Valley.

Of course, there are lot of other things also as well. Now for you, I'm talking about Silicon Valley and different geographies. I. Scaling. When we talk scaling, we talk about moving to different geographies to go out, like Yeah, I, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Like I'm, I'm sure like you're targeting currently maybe, uh, local and European clients.

Yeah. And European, 

Michael: yeah. Yeah. And you can, yeah. 

Mehmet: So, [00:24:00] but at, at some stage you're gonna scale now first, like how is your experiences from, from previous, uh, things you did before and how you can prepare, you think, and everyone, I'm asking this for everyone, they can prepare themselves for such, um. You know, uh, scaling, uh, to, to other geographies and understanding also the culture, how that is important.

I, I would say that is something I'm 

Michael: comfortable with because in my last business we had zero local clients. We had American Dubai. I mean, we, we worked with math from Dubai. I, um, I, I'm sure the developer who worked with Canadians and I had led most of those projects. I, uh, it's slightly different because that was service based, but.

I do understand, uh, what I, what I tend to do is do research about the culture, the business culture beforehand, just to make sure I don't overstep in any way and, and just really be respectful and, uh, and be patient. Now, when it comes to building a [00:25:00] product and scaling it in the specific regions, you do need, you do need help, you probably would need an, an investor from there or a partner from there who can really put, push you through the door and say, Hey, Michael's company's here.

Cool. Um, so, okay. Can I, can I ask you a question? Yeah, please. I, I, I, I'd like to know a bit more on that point about, about the confidence that, uh, as a region, both regions, how would you suggest We're gonna fix it though, ed. How are we gonna instill more confidence in in our region? I mean, we, we've probably been I think half an hour, so we can't take a crazy amount.

But I'd love to hear your take 'cause I intrigued me. 

Mehmet: Yeah, so this is one of the rare moments where my guests start to ask me question, which I like by the way, don't get me wrong. Uh.

I don't like to say anything is impossible. This is first thing, but now I hope that that in the span of my [00:26:00] lifetime, I would see things goes different now. Okay. Is it going to be fast as I want? I'm not sure, but yeah. So what, what we can do to change? So people think, I believe from one perspective only.

So some people they say, yeah, all this is because lack of capital was true. We have lack of capital. People are risk averse. They don't, um, I think we need to.

We need to customize the success of the Americans, if that makes sense. That fits us. So, because I think what, what happens usually is we have, uh, I'm talking about MENA region more. Yeah, yeah. We have this, uh, you know. Kind of, um, antibiotic in our, in our, uh, bodies that, you know, when we see something at first, we, we, we, we reject it, right?

Even if something good. Um, the biggest problem in my opinion, we don't have early [00:27:00] adopters for people who are building whatever services, products and without. And I always say, look, you can get capital, you can get whatever it takes. Uh, but if you don't. Complete the whole circle. Yeah. Right. You're still gonna have this problem.

And I think, and when you said about, you know, people, you know, um, you, you about the failure and all this, so this is part of it because, you know what, if we don't fix that, Michael is building a product that helps, uh, people with their accounting, right. And finance. 

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Mehmet: If we don't have enough people.

Locally to believe that. Yeah, look, Michael is building something. It might not be a hundred percent perfect, but he's up to something. He's visionary and he's gonna try to fix his, uh, his product and service if, if we don't get. To this level, I think we will always have the same problem, which is being always [00:28:00] risk averse.

If we cross this, I think we will have a little bit. Chance and risk averse applies to early adoption of a product. From customer perspective, it applies to capital. So being really. A a and people, they miss the word venture capital a lot. And the word venture capital means like, you need to do a lot of bets until you but people.

But people think, people think, oh yeah, like I gotta invest in this next unicorn, which is not the case. Oh, no. Yeah. So, so I, I would say like this, if we fix this now, how it's a collaborative, uh, it's a collaborative work. It's a lot of education. We need to. We need to train the next generation also as well, like our kids probably maybe that look, not everything comes perfect from day one.

You need to give it time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, we need to show them more. In my opinion, Michael, the first Apple computer, how it looked like it was a [00:29:00] wooden thing, which is fixed. By glue. And so nothing is perfect from day one. I think this is, if, if, if we manage to get this, maybe things will change. I hope that's a really good, 

Michael: that's a really good point, ed.

I mean I, I, I just thought to myself, I wish I had an entrepreneurship class when I was younger, at a younger age because, you know, because just like you have Italian, like you're learning Italian or maths could potentially have an entrepreneurship class 'cause it's so diverse. And it teaches you so much that it, it could re benefits, I think.

I mean, I don't know about you, but in entrepreneurship taught me more than any, any other book. Any other advice, any other thing about life? 'cause it's so diverse. There's failure, success, there's leadership, there's late nights, there's happy moments, there's, there's so much. 

Mehmet: Yeah. The, the education system itself need, need a complete overhaul.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Another, another discussion [00:30:00] for next time. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Uh, we discussed it, by the way. Yeah, a lot. And I'm still surprised, like maybe, maybe. Some people would not like calling it an entrepreneurship, uh, you know, topic in, in, in schools, but things that are related somehow. So accounting, by the way, is one like money, right?

So, so they don't teach us money in the right way. In schools. I'm not sure about like, uh, in, in Malta, but the, the place where I grown up and even still now mm-hmm. No one teach us. No one teach us like, uh, how, I mean. About business concepts, right? Oh, no, no. Simple basic concepts. No one. Ah, and then we look at the company.

Oh, it's like the monster that they are after, you know? So anyway, um, as you said maybe for another time, um, what's, what's, what's on on, on the roadmap for, for, uh, AI partners roadmap? Um, 

Michael: raising [00:31:00] right now should have got some good news in so. Yeah, that's next step. And uh, and, and, and then just doubling down on, on on, on growth on growth to market.

Starting starting some client calls with accountants in the uk, which is great. Not only Malta. 

Mehmet: Mm-hmm. 

Michael: So that's, that's gonna be super interesting. I mean, I'm very familiar with the uk so that's great. And just, just keep on, just keep on grinding and growing. 

Mehmet: Cool. Um, back to, to the entrepreneurship, because I think this topic is, is, is is more fun to talk to you honestly, Michael.

Yeah, yeah. Um, you talked in, you know, I'm, I'm checking your, your LinkedIn by the way. Yeah. So you talked about something about, you know, the, the, the, you know, having the, the brave leap, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. [00:32:00] 

Michael: Yeah. 

Mehmet: So maybe it's related to the question you asked me, right? Yeah. So why do you think also, we don't have a lot of people that they, that, that don't take this brave leap?

Is it comfort zone? Is it like we understand things differently? I mean, I would love to hear your opinion.

Michael: I think if you, if you can break it down so as assuming that the person. Going to take the leap is not a person who doesn't have any backing by friends or family. So literally not none. Then I understand it, to be honest, and I really truly understand it, that then the risk is too great and you really have to be brave.

But, but it's, many people in my country have have a form of backing. They just keep it like that. Um, it is, it is. It, it's fear. It's [00:33:00] fear. It's social fear. Social fear. So we are social animals at the end of the day, and even if you, you say you don't care what people think, it's, it's hard to actually not care what people think, but in some people it's greater, um, and resources, but not financial more than like ecosystem resources, as you said before.

So there, there, there aren't many ecosystem resources for people just to drop out and start building. And then, and then generally just curiosity, right? So people are just not curious enough to say, listen, I want to learn about X or Y. Um, so I think those, those three that that trifecta is, is mainly it. 

Mehmet: Do you agree with me, Michael?

But it's getting even easier if we really think about it. It's getting really easier, 

Michael: easy. It's easy to build a business. It's easy to validate a business, at least to get some feedback. If your product is good or not. You can literally go and charge GPT and say, I am. I am a cook and I want to open a specific type of restaurant and it gives you [00:34:00] 150 ideas.

And then you say, okay, I live in, I live in Malta, and it gives you fourth. And you say, create a business plan. You can literally do that. You know, it's, it's amazing. It's an amazing time to be entrepreneur and take advantage of it as the way I see it. 

Mehmet: Right. Uh, and I'm lucky to see proofs also like, you know yourself, Michael.

And actually to back to the chat, GPTI had on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, um, Marlet, the famous guy who was after the, uh, hustle, GPT. Okay, cool, cool, cool. And, and, and, and, and Matt is, is running a full-fledged business now, and, uh, he, he, he's, he's using like similar to what you do, like agents and, uh, you know, like these, uh, kinds of new technologies to, to drive the business.

And the reason I ask you, because people can do now more with less, actually hundred percent. Uh, yeah. Now. Uh, do you envision, you know, this, um, [00:35:00] uh, what, uh, some of, uh, people in the valley, again, they said like, you know, the, uh, one man business who would be valued as, uh, unicorns. Is this the end goal?

Actually, uh, what's your take on this? 

Michael: Do you think it's feasible though? Do you think it's actually realistic or is it just like some dream because one man to build a unicorn, I mean, you know, you know what you're saying? Maybe 10 or 15, but one is bloody hair. You have to be, yeah. You can have, I mean, you could have agents running your business, but then you still have all the sales and the stuff and the, and the, and the, the thought, the legal, I, I just think it's too much.

I, I give it, I give it five to 10 people. 

Mehmet: Yeah, that's, see if we, we've seen, you know, the 20, 25 people stories, which are like real, um, you know, lovable, which is one of them. Lovable is an amazing example. European as well. Props to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, exactly. So this is where people they give Exactly.

We have, we have, we have winner, [00:36:00] let's go. Yeah. But, but, but reality is, again, maybe this is Michael, uh, my own opinion on something and I would love to hear you as well. One of the things that our friends Americans have done, they are masters of framing. Right. So Master of Framing Masters. Yeah. And the way I want to do it without naming anyone, of course.

So when we say it's a one man business, right, or one woman business, Uhhuh, but they forget about like, okay, as you said, you have all the. Parts, right, the legal, but if, if forget about agents and AI agents. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, with, and then I discovered like, you know, they're utilizing a lot of freelancers.

Yeah. One as assistant, the other as this course. The other as that. And yeah, but you cannot, so the thing is, yeah, you see in the front one person, but in the background we have, we have [00:37:00] like a, maybe an army or of freelancers maybe. Yeah, they're not full-timers. Uh, but yeah, officially on the paver. Yeah. It's a one, one man show.

But actually it's like, it takes, it takes. It takes a village. Um, I, I think this is the kind of framing that also maybe we, we, we need to learn actually. Yeah. We need to, to, to master the storytelling a little bit. You are let, you are Yeah, please go ahead, Michael. 

Michael: I think we're too honest sometimes, and I see it to myself.

We're too, we don't know how to, you know, turn things our way and to story tell, you know, um, uh, at, at least like, like, like they do and. I mean, creating a compelling story is, is amazing for valuations, for sales, for interest, for media, for pr. Um, but back to the actual one man building a unicorn, uh, it's a no from me.

Mehmet: No, I, I I don't think it's feasible, you know, like there's the burnout also. I agree. 

Michael: Amazing. Amazing. [00:38:00] So personal. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Yeah. As we are almost coming to an end, and thank you for letting me talk today. My pleasure. I mean, it's your show, so Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's about my guests and sharing their knowledge.

What you want to, to leave the audience with today. Uh, Michael, and of course like, uh, want to ask you how they can get in touch and learn more. 

Michael: I mean, if they have any questions about accountancy tax finance. I know that how agents can help out. I'm always happy to help. I I less them, less them business advice and more than personal advice for people who are considering starting a company.

It's never been easier. I genuinely, and you can get everything of the internet. If, if, if you want to see how fundamental the fundamental laws of startups go and see the YC videos. They're all free. We have around 25 hours. If you [00:39:00] want advice from people and experts, you can find everything on the internet and, and generally people are also willing to help for free.

So just take, take the leap and go for it. You won't to forget it. 

Mehmet: Cool. Where to get in touch? 

Michael: Um, LinkedIn, Michael Kuta. So that's C-U-T-A-J-R or email Michael at AI Partners ai. 

Mehmet: Cool. I'll make sure that, you know, these are in the show notes. Um, if you're listening on the. Favorite podcasting app or watching this, uh, in the description.

Michael, I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you for letting me. Yeah, my pleasure. Really enjoyed it. Yeah, uh, me too. And this is usually how I end my episode is for the audience. Uh, if. You just discovered this podcast by luck. Thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, so please do me a favor, subscribe and share it with your friends and colleagues.

And if you're one of the people who keeps coming again and again, thank you for being so loyal. Thank you for taking the show to new high levels this year, and [00:40:00] especially in the months of May, June, and I think we're gonna continue this for the rest of the year. We are being ranked in the top 200 charts simultaneously across multiple countries with something for the first time since I started this happen.

This cannot happen without you. The audience and of course my guests. So thank you very, very much, and as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon. Thank you. Bye-bye.