#563 From Geology to AI: Ahmad Saleem on Building the Google for Podcasts

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CT O Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me from Perth Australia, founder and CEO of Podyssey. Ahmad Saleem. Ahmad. Thank you very much for being with me here today. I really appreciate the time. It's a bit late [00:01:00] for you at the time of this recording. The way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce themselves.

So a little bit more about you, your background, your journey, and what you're currently up to. So the floor is yours. 

Ahmad: Ah, thanks, Mait. Um, so yeah, first of all, thanks for having me on the show. Um, my background, I guess it's a little bit different than I guess most people that might have come on the show. Um, I started my professional life as a geologist.

I used to work for various mining companies and natural resources companies. Um, during that role, I did quite a bit of stuff with technology, um, you know, internal r and d projects and technology development. Uh, that led me to, um, an obvious thing to go do. Um. A PhD in economics. Then I went to work for a private equity fund, uh, again, had quite a lot of involvement with technology startups at that time.

Um, and then now I'm, I'm the founder of my own technology startup, uh, after having played with other people's, uh, startups for a while, uh, which is called Podyssey. Um, [00:02:00] and yeah, we're, we're building a search engine for podcasts. 

Mehmet: Nice. Very traditional question, Ahmed. Why, you know, you felt there's a reason to build the search engine for podcasts.

Like, what's the shortcomings you've seen? And, you know, what, what drove you to say like, maybe this is something, uh, you know, a, a. Problem. Worse to solve, I would call it this way. 

Ahmad: Um, it's a good question. Um, I guess, uh, yeah, like when I, when I worked, um, I, I did quite a lot of traveling. Um, and so, you know, so I really got into podcasts at that time.

Um, you know, the type of travel I had, you know, you have a lot of downtime in airports, downtime and traveling to places. Um, so yeah, it's like podcasts were kind of like my advice. Um, so I. Like, you know, consume them as much as I could. So I really love podcasts as a medium. Um, you know, like I thought it was, it was the thing that like, really app like appealed to me.

Uh, I hosted my own [00:03:00] podcast for a while. Um. And so, so I really love podcasts and I guess what I found about podcasts was that, uh, you know, probably in the last 10 years, like podcasts as a medium have completely exploded. Um, you know, the amount of podcasts we have now is, uh, phenomenal I think, compared to what they were 10 years ago.

Um, and one of the things that I often found, and this. To be honest, I always thought this was a me problem in that, you know, like I always listened to like, interesting bits in podcasts and then that would take me ages to go try to find it again. Um, and to the, to the point where I could never sometimes find that content.

Um, and so I built a little, you know, like a little application for myself where I fed all the podcasts that I listened to into it just so I could go find the content that I wanted to in it. Um, and then as I shared it around, I, I found that, you know, it was a problem that most people had. Or a lot of people in my network had.

And so, you know, so then they kind of switched my thinking from this is not just a me problem, this could be a, uh, a lot of people [00:04:00] problem. Um, and then, yeah, essentially that's kind of the seed of the idea, how it came about. Um, and I guess in general, you know, like. Um, because there's so many podcasts now, I think, you know, like finding podcasts is not the problem, but finding content within the podcast, I think is becoming the problem.

Um, also, you know, podcasts are becoming more long form, so. You know, like it might be the same with this podcast where the title has very zero, like very little relevance to what we actually talk about inside the episode. Yeah. So I think, so I think it became like, you know, like trying to find, you know, like coherent bits of, uh, content within podcasts, um, I always felt was a problem.

So, so yeah. So that's why we kind of went down this path. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Thank, thank you Amed, for bringing this and I keep, uh, telling people I shoot myself in the foot by naming the podcast the way I named it. Yeah, yeah. I had, I had a logic. Uh, but anyway, yeah, you, you are right. Like, you know, uh, you know, first I felt [00:05:00] guilty until I found out that actually majority of the people.

For different reasons. They had to, I would call, mix a lot of topics within the main topic that they thought that this is, will be the main theme now as it's, as you said, like it's, it's a problem, which myself even, you know, I had to do categorization myself for every episode. So I remember, you know, like, okay, I'm talking to Ahmed today about, you know, founder story ai, you know, and.

Something to podcast, right? So I, I had to build my own, I would say database, uh, for, for, you know, remembering, uh, what kind of episodes I recorded. Now for you and of course. Building a startup needs to move fast. So if, if you want to remember like, you know, kind of the first maybe three to 90 days, how actually it looks like, you know, like what kind of of quick decisions you are able to make.

Especially, you know, like now we are living in the age of AI and development using ai, so there might be a [00:06:00] lot and tons of, you know, options that. Popped up in front of you and you had to take the decision. So walk us through like these kinds of key moments, uh, in the first, uh, few months of lunch. 

Ahmad: Um, so I mean, I guess the, like, the history to, to like our personal history around Podyssey was that, um, you know, like I, I came from a, uh, a background or language processing, so, um.

Yes. I had already had a startup that, that did language processing and data analytics and data mining. Um, so that probably wasn't the, the major kind of like stumbling block for us to start. Um, you know, like the, the stumbling block really was around the scale of podcasts. Like, you know, like how many podcasts they are and how could we build something that could scale.

Um, yeah, like, like, you know, like if you, depending on what podcast you're accessing, you know, they could be released at any time. So how do you, um, kind of figure out like. What are all the active podcasts in the world? Uh, when are they being released? You know, like what content's being released and, and all of those [00:07:00] things.

So, um, so yeah, so I think like. To your question about what were some of the early decisions. I mean, we debated for, for a long time about how to do this. Uh, and then eventually we said, well, let's just start, uh, let's just start with X amount of content and see whether we can, we can consume it. And, um, yeah, like, like, like I said, I'm an avid podcast listener.

You know, there's very few podcasts that I haven't listened to. Um, so I kind of fed all of the podcasts that I was. Interested in. And then I wanted to find content within it. And that was kind of our original, original scale, uh, or original kind of prototype we had. Um. So, yeah, so that was kind of, I guess, the start of it.

Um, and you know, like, I guess your question is really asking is like, you know, like what were some of the stumbling blocks or daunting steps that we kind of faced early on? Um, and I like, you know, the simple answer to that is everything is daunting, right? Like, uh, you have, you have no idea about how you're gonna [00:08:00] navigate.

Um, this kind of like, you know, dark space that you found yourself in. Uh, but I get, you know, like that, that's, that's the job I guess of a, of a founder or CTO is, you know, you take a problem which has no steps, and then you slowly try to build all the steps out of that, out of that problem. 

Mehmet: Right now I want to a little bit deep dive without going into too much technicalities, Ahmed, around applying AI and NLP natural language processing to discovery problems.

Now, uh, we all use, you know, tools which use ai of course, to try to do the transcription right. And you know, one of the challenge I saw myself, it's because like, look, you, you live in Australia, you might have the Australian accent. I have a mixed accent because I'm not a native English speaker, right? So I have a mix of an American slash also like British accent kind of.

Um, so does that make, you know. Challenge. Hardest, I would [00:09:00] say, to get the transcript itself, understanding the context, uh, which, you know, maybe someone was saying like, how the accuracy works, you know, in, in a world where we have like multiple accents, like maybe sometime the quality of the audio is not, is not working well.

Trying to understand, you know, your takes on this. 

Ahmad: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, I mean like the short answer to that is I think if you probably tried to do this five years ago, I think it would be impossible. Um, because I just don't think the, uh, you know, like the audio to text and even the text processing was that good.

But, um, in the last couple of years, I think it's come a long way. Um, yeah, like a, like accents and things like that. Yeah. They cause problems. You know, probably audio quality is probably the main issue. Um. Yeah, like if someone doesn't record a audio, well then it doesn't really matter what processing you do on it.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a bit of a car crash. Um, but the harder thing I think [00:10:00] for us was really like understanding the context of the content in various. Uh, geographies or languages. Um, you know, like each language kind of has, has its own kind of contextual understanding jargon, um, and things like that. And I think that was probably the more of the challenge that, that, that we faced.

Um, but they are always around it, you know, like, I think it's always, um. A trade off in accuracy versus I guess, how much you can process. Um, so yeah, so like, I guess those are all the judgment calls you have to make. You know, like what, when you're building a product, um, you know, like how much do you wanna blow your brains out, trying to like, get everything absolutely accurate, uh, versus trying to get something that, that, that's useful, uh, but may not be, you know, like a hundred percent accurate in every, every instance.

Mehmet: Right, so transcription is one part of the game, Ahmed, and there is the other part, which is, you know, doing the discovery and. [00:11:00] Me as a consumer to give me something useful. Mm-hmm. So when the AI is adding value here, like, and if you share, you know, what exactly Podyssey, you know, can help me, for example, as a heavy podcast consumer in my discoveries.

So if you can shed some light on this part also. 

Ahmad: Yeah. I mean, I guess, um, the simplest way of explaining kind of what we wanted to build in Podyssey was the same as what I guess. Spotify has done to music. Yeah. So part Spotify has kind of changed the unit of sale of music from an album to, uh, a song. Um, so, so, so you don't have to listen to the whole album.

You can just find the song you like and then, you know, their kind of algorithm in the back goes and finds all of the other songs that, that are somewhat similar. Uh, or slightly different, or slightly edge kind of core, like, you know, um, uh, edge similarities to the song that you like. Um, and that's essentially what we are doing in Podyssey is that, you know, like we don't think that you need to listen to the whole episode [00:12:00] anymore.

You know, like you can, uh, start your, your discovery from a topic or uh, a part of a podcast that you like. Uh, and then you can find similar snippets. Or similar discussions in other podcasts, uh, or in other episodes as, as you kind of jump along. Um, and so, yeah, like, I guess like. I mean, this is as a, as a user, one of the problems that I found about, um, the podcast was, uh, like trying to find new podcasts was like, like, how do I find them?

Um, you know, the way podcasts are characterized are really around genres. Um, so yeah. So, so let's take like, you know, like, let's take Joe Rogan's episode now. Yeah. Like, what genre does his. Podcast fit into, is it, um, you know, is it lifestyle? Is it sports? 'cause he talks about MMA, um, you know, is it politics?

Like, like what? And so, so I generally think that the podcast [00:13:00] categories as they're kind of set out on most podcast apps, I think pretty much useless or redundant. Um, you know, so either you get really niche. Podcast categories, um, or you get such general ones like business, which has like millions of podcasts in it.

And, and so trying to find content becomes kind of hard. Um, so I think that's, that's kind of the challenge around discovery is, um, you know, like how do you find, you know, like you have four, say four or five podcasts in your rotation, you know, how do you add a sixth one? You know, like, like how do you go and discover like, like new podcasts?

You either take a recommendation from a friend or you stumble upon it randomly. Which, which is okay. Uh, but how do you find like a podcast that talks about, you know, like topics that you're interested in, um, you know, say you're an EPL fan or something like that, you know, like how do you find a podcast where people talk about EPL, um, you know, statistics in a certain way or something like that.

You know, like that, that's, I guess, the [00:14:00] challenge I'm trying to. Trying to do podcast or discovery and podcasts 

Mehmet: right now. I'm curious to know, Ahmed, about the business model of of Poti. Like how does it work? Like do you charge the host? Like is it like subscription for the people who discover podcasts?

Walk us through this. 

Ahmad: I mean, initially what we started with a, it's a pretty simple model. Like Yeah, it's a, it's a Spotify model. You know, you're a user, uh, you pay to use the app, uh, paid gets you, I mean, you can use the app for free, uh, but paid allows you to curate your own content so you can pick your own kind of stations like you do in Spotify, uh, and allows you to build your own kind of, kind of catalog of content.

Um. But then there's like a whole bunch of other stuff that we find found that we could, we could commercialize along the way. Um, you know, like we have a whole B2B side, uh, now as well where people wanna find out what people are talking about, uh, like their brand or, uh, something that they've put [00:15:00] out, you know, like a, like a TV show coming out or, or something like that.

Um, you know, so that's something that we, I mean, this, this all kind of happened, uh, by mistake in the fact that we went out to like marketing agencies to try to market our product and they came back to us and said, actually, we want to use your product for something completely different. Um, and then we happily kind of went down that path as well.

Um, and so that's kind of like the, the, the interesting side that we found is that there's many different ways that we could kind of monetize it. Um, and, and, um, like, you know, I'm being brutally honest, there's some things that we are still kind of discovering about what we could do with this. Um, so yeah.

But yeah, the ideal kind of path is that that's an app people pay. As a, as a listener, they pay to use it. Um, there's a feature as a podcast host as well that, you know, like if you wanted to search your own content or try to create certain, uh, things that are your own content, we, we can add that as well.

It's not something that we've added in yet. Um, so yeah, so it's, um, I guess it's [00:16:00] quite a rounded kind of offering. Um, you know, we, we will kind of test the market to see which one lands first. 

Mehmet: Good. Now I gotta ask you about going back again to, to, you know, growing, uh, the offering, Ahmed. And, you know, something, you know, we, we, I interviewed a lot of founders, CTOs, CEOs, like different executives, and.

You know, the moment when you have the product market fit and then you know you want to take it to the next step to scale. So we see a lot of people fall into the strap of like adding features and then having, you know, what we call a technical deb, because they put a lot of the stuff, a lot of things. So, yeah.

Because you know, like the idea is, and this is kind of a trivia, right? So I, I, I was thinking this way, like if, if I, for example, even not in a business perspective, if I interview more guests, if I have more episodes, like the podcast for Wrong, right? So this is the same thinking. I think as [00:17:00] us humans, we have like the more features, the more people will come, the more customs we have.

So how to avoid these traps, like especially. In the phase just right after you are sure you get the mark, uh, the product market fit. 

Ahmad: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, um, you know, I think one of the problems we had is because we had this history of, of language processing and, and kind of, um, you know, like, uh, handling content, you know, like we built essentially all of the features we wanted to build on day one.

But we, then we decided that we weren't gonna put all of them in into the, our product, um, because we didn't really know what the, what, like what features the market actually wanted. And so. Yeah, so we were lucky in that when we beta tested it, you know, like we had like quite a good group beta testing, so we could kind of ask them, you know, like what were features they, they like.

Um, because I think there has to be a, like a little bit of a, like an exploration by the, the consumer as well. Uh, or the market has to kind of [00:18:00] explore and see, you know, like, what, what is. Um, like what are things that your product can solve or how can they grow beyond just a simple feature to more evolve feature and things like that.

Uh, so the customer has to kind of explore that, that with you to some degree. Unless you're pitching a product into a market where you know, like you know exactly what the problem is and you're just trying to solve that. Um, you know, like we weren't really in that space, um, largely because I guess the average podcast listener.

May not have thought that this is a problem that they really, uh, struggle with, but when they see the solution, they go, yeah, actually, you know, like, I do struggle with that. Um, so yeah, so like, I think like, it's a good question about features. Um, you know, like I, I think the trap is that you can build two quickly, um mm-hmm.

And then you, yeah. And then you. You know, you kind of make it really onerous on yourself to have to maintain this quite unwieldy thing. Uh, [00:19:00] 'cause it's easy to put features out. It's hard to take them away. Uh, because, um, you know, like there'll always be complaints no matter if it's one person using it, or a thousand people or a million people, whatever, you know, like there'll always be complaints.

Uh, so yes, you always gotta be, I think, careful about what you put out. Um, and then yeah, like, you know, however you want to test that, to figure out that that's what your market wants. Uh, I think, yeah, you should wait as long as possible to do that before you put things out. 

Mehmet: Right. Uh, you know, even I'm, I'm expert in B2B, not more than B2C, but again, yeah.

We have this saying that once you put it there, you have to support it. Like, if it is out, yeah. If it is in the menu, you cannot say, Hey, you know, like, yeah, but it's like, just say because Yeah. Like on Yeah. On 

Ahmad: Thursdays, you know, we don't make this dish. It's like, why not? Even, like, what's the deal? Um, yeah.

So, yeah. So I think that, that, that, that's exactly right. Right 

Mehmet: now regarding building, you know, a team that can ship that fast, especially with the ai. So [00:20:00] I gotta ask a couple of questions here. So, how a lead but effective technology team actually look likes in practice? Ahmed? 

Ahmad: Um, I think the, like the key thing I guess, for startups or even like small teams, is I think you gotta have clarity on, on vision and clarity in decision making.

Like, it doesn't really matter if you make wrong decisions, uh, but like taking too long to make decisions is probably the the worst thing you can do. Um, you know, like start startups are essentially a company with, um, you know, like large degrees of uncertainty or unequal information. You know, like you don't know, like you hold a lot more information about your product than, uh, the customer does, or even the market does.

And so, um, so you know, so you, so you may be making decisions where you think it's with like perfect clarity and the market might be receiving it with, with less than perfect clarity because they just don't understand your product or don't have the depth. [00:21:00] Um, so yeah, so I think the key things that I guess I've learned out of it is that, yeah, like I think you gotta.

Like everyone needs to have the same vision, like where they want to get to and what do you want to do. Um, and then just the decision making process has to be quite clear. Um, and, and then, and fast. Like, like I said, mistakes are okay, but you know, like decision making apathy is bad. 

Mehmet: Right now regarding hiring the team.

Now Ahmad, things changed a lot. Like, you know, if, if I ask this question maybe beginning of 2025, it's different than, and we are airing this in 2026, early 2026, although we are recording in December, 2025. So the answer is different if we go one year back. Same thing. Yeah. Now, uh, but. There must be kind of patterns or general, you know, commonalities still in the kind of, let's say the traits of, uh, of the team members like that you need to hire to move fast, but at the same time [00:22:00] maintain the quality.

So what that would be. 

Ahmad: Um, 

Mehmet: yeah, I think 

Ahmad: that's a good question. Um, I mean, I guess the thing that we targeted in Podyssey is, you know, like, like I live in Perth, Australia, uh, it's probably not the biggest community in, um, in like the AI and machine learning space. Um, yeah, like. Like compared to like San Francisco or something like that.

Um, you know, so one of the things I guess I targeted was that I wanted to find anyone anywhere in the world, uh, and figure out a way of working with them. So, you know, so I don't really care whether they were based in Perth or not. Um, so, so I guess the trait that I was looking for is that they could work independently, you know, so, so we don't have to be in like in.

Perfect contact all the time. Uh, you know, we could discuss what, what things needed to happen, and they were kind of independent and, uh, self-motivated enough to go and kind of do things, uh, that may not be the [00:23:00] same as if you had everyone sitting in the same room. Uh, you and I understand that. Um, so yeah, so early on we had plenty of people that came and joined our company and they went, you know what, this is not for me.

I, I would prefer to go sit in an office. I wanna sit next to people. I wanna be in constant touch with them. Uh, and I was like, that's impossible. You know, you're based in Vancouver, I'm based in Perth. There's a 16 hour difference. Oh. You know, like our, our work days are gonna overlap for maybe two or three hours at a time.

So, you know, the rest of the time you're gonna have to think on your feet. Um, so yeah, so we cycle people through, through because of that. Um. And then I think like, you know, like, I mean from, that's I guess the team building aspect. And then there's things like, you know, like you gotta, there's a certain type of people that are comfortable working in startups.

And other people that are probably not. Um, and so I think, you know, like you gotta look for those traits and are they comfortable with, you know, like un uncertain other outcomes? Are they, [00:24:00] um, are they okay with building something that's not perfect? Which, which is also an a malaise that often affects startups that you just spend your time trying to perfect everything.

Um. And I think, yeah, like, you know, from, I guess from our team dynamic, the key things were that, you know, like people needed to be able to work independently, uh, be able to understand the task. Um, you know, like clearly in, in whatever calls that we did, uh, remotely, um, and me and like we did kind of start during the tail end of COVID, so I guess people were used to working remotely.

So, so it made it slightly easier. Um, but yeah, I think those are kind of the things that we looked for initially, 

Mehmet: right. Go back quickly to ask you about something related to ai. So everyone is saying, um, AI agents, agent ai, whatever you want to call it, right? Uh, is, is going mainstream. So if I want to think about that in the [00:25:00] context of, uh, long form content consumption, which is, you know, exactly what you try to help people into in discovering and, you know, summarizing.

Do you see any role for AI agents, uh, in, in, in this field? Ahmad and it's okay if no. 

Ahmad: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, um, I think, yeah, obviously I think there, there will be a role that they will play. Um, yeah, like I think, um, I, I guess what I, what my feeling right now is looking at like AI companies, you know, like, uh, AI agents seem to be tackling.

Um, I guess, um, more like routine tasks. That's what people seem to be kind of like, uh, focusing on. And more of that, more of that focus seems to be where there's a large amount of data that needs to be summarized or consumed. And then, and, and then, yeah, like. Kind of given a, uh, essentially a summary or some like list of actions that people can have, you know, that seems to be like, you know, like travel or, you know, like I get, [00:26:00] like I get this many marketing kind of, uh, influx of things.

I want someone to summarize it and kind of give it, give it to me in that sense. Um, I mean, the space that I've seen in podcasts around, uh, AI agents is more around helping you create content like, you know, so you can kind of give it. Give it prompts and then, and it helps you, uh, effectively be like an associate producer or something like that, and it helps you kind of create content.

Um, I mean, I haven't seen too many go into the space of, of trying to find content and trying to, uh mm-hmm. Handle like the, the context of conversation. And I think primarily the part of that would be. In that, I guess you could do it in a localized way, but you know, we are trying to do the whole catalog of, of podcasts around the world, you know, like irrespective of language, irrespective of which platform it's released in.

So yeah, so we are kind of a, trying to aggregate all of this content into one place. Um, and I'm not sure that's perfectly the role of, [00:27:00] of AI agents in that sense. You know, they seem to be a little bit more local agents. Um. But that's not to say, you know, like they, they couldn't do this. Um, but yeah, I guess it's, yeah, they haven't gone into this space yet, so it'll be interesting to see whether they go into that space or not.

Mehmet: Right. I gotta shift to the, you know, founder story, Ahmad a little bit with you. Like, uh, you are a serial entrepreneur and you know, you had like nearly 20 ventures. So after so many ventures, you know, how has your relationship with failure changed? 

Ahmad: Um, I, I guess it's gotten an easier, uh, because you feel so many times.

Um, but they like, I guess, um. I guess I don't really look at startups as, uh, like, you know, like success or failure. I think they all come in at different times in your life to kind of teach you different lessons. Um, you know, like when I, I guess when I started, you know, like I, I, I didn't really found [00:28:00] any companies.

I, I worked for many startups. Mm-hmm. Uh, and part of that was to kind of learn all of the, the things that go wrong in startups. Um, yeah. Like, I effectively learned from other people's mistakes. Um. And so, so I wouldn't call them failures. I mean, they weren't failures for me. They were, they were quite successful because I, I, I learned lessons out of them.

They might've been a failure to, to the founder. Uh, 'cause, you know, the company didn't go anywhere. Um, or, or it struggled, or, you know, it got stuck wherever it got stuck. Um, but I think by nature. Yeah, like, I think, I think you're okay. I mean in, even in my, like, you know, like in my professional career as a geologist, uh, you know, like you, you're pretty attuned to failure.

Uh, you know, 'cause my role was really as, as a discoverer of, of, of new opportunities. Um, and, you know, not every opportunity comes off. So, so you, you know, like it's maybe one in a thousand that works out. Um, so, so the other 999, uh, bite the dust. So, so you're kind of okay with failure? [00:29:00] Um, I guess apart that.

My relationship to failure has changed in the sense that I have more at stake as a founder. When, when, when it fails. Um, you, so it's, it's, I guess it's my name or it's, it's my idea or it's my, I don't wanna say reputation, but Yeah, like essentially you are, you are the flag bearer of, of what you're trying to put out.

So when it fails, um. Maybe initially it hurts your ego a lot more because you don't, uh, you think that it didn't succeed because of you. Uh, and I think later on you realize. That there's far more to it. There's timing, there's people, um, yeah, there's, your idea was probably a good idea, but it was the wrong time in the market or people didn't understand it.

Um, I think that that makes it softer over time. I'd say. I don't know if that, I love this a good answer or not, but. 

Mehmet: No, no, I, I love that because, you know, you mentioned something which struck in my head, which is, you know, you don't consider that [00:30:00] failure. You consider that lessons and, you know, honestly, like I had to learn the hard way also myself.

Like, not necessarily in the context only of, of a startup, like in, in your professional and even personal life, right? So, uh, yeah, you learn, you learn by doing mistakes. And there's this famous story about Thomas Edison saying that I didn't, uh, fail a hundred times. I just discovered, you know. The a hundred, 1000, I can't remember exactly, but this is the Yeah, yeah.

I found 

Ahmad: new ways of doing like, you know, like what are, yeah, 

Mehmet: yeah, exactly. So they were, he didn't see them as failures. He saw them as as ways of continuous learning. Now, one thing also, Ahad, I'm not sure if you can, shed light. Some people they get so emotional and we are all humans. We get attached to what we do.

So resetting after something that doesn't work out. Like how, any experience you can share or anything you want to, to, to say about this. 

Ahmad: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, yeah, disappointment is, I guess is, it's, it's hard. Um, you know, [00:31:00] like I think they, there's always moments where you question your ability whether you should do it again or, um, you know, like, you know, like I guess the postmortem on what you could have done differently and, you know, like whether you can, um, whether you should have done things differently or listened to different advice or, or, or things like that.

Um. I guess like you, you know, like from that point of view, um, I can understand why people find it difficult to start again. Um, but you know, like, I guess I always take the view that, you know, like you, you always, um, starting off better the next time. Um, you know, like you're, you, you learn more. So hopefully you won't make the same mistakes again.

Um. But I think like the part that I've learned about starting again is that I think you, inevitably, when I've started again, you pick better people to work with. I think people is [00:32:00] kind of the, the, the part that I think helps get back up. Um, and I think that's also something that, you know, there's like the find like founder's dilemma and all of these things that people talk about in psychology.

I think that's really true in that, you know, like the more you take on, the more crushing it is when, uh, I don't mean to sound bad, but like, not crushing, but like, you know, the more disappointed you feel when, when it inevitably ends. Uh, but I think the more people you have to kind of help you along the journey, the, the, the more able you are to get up again as well.

Mehmet: Right. Um, what is something exciting related to pot you're currently working on? Ahmed? 

Ahmad: Um, I mean, the one thing that we are trying to work on is, uh, you know, like, I guess what I would love is that, you know, like any podcast content gets put out in any language anywhere in the world or any platform, uh, you know, like I don't have to go find the platform.

I don't have to go find, [00:33:00] uh, you know, like, uh, like a, a transcript that I can read in English or any other language. I know, you know, like I would love to be able to. Consume content in, in, in various ways. Um, and that's, I guess, what we are working on. Like, you know, I, that's why we kind of call ourselves a Google or podcast is because, you know, like no matter where content comes out, you know, you just go check it in one place and you have it.

Um, and yeah, like historically, yeah, like the podcast industry has been very English dominated, but now I, I think there's, you know, like there's some fantastic podcasts that are coming out in other languages, in other parts of the world. Um, right. And, and yeah, like I'm kind of excited to see what, what type of content people create, you know, like we interested to see like, yeah, like you obviously producing content in a.

In a place where historically podcasts haven't been that strong, right? Like, it's only recently that it's kind of taken off. Um, you know, it's like, yeah. So I, I like, you know, that's the part that I'm really excited about is I feel like I'm [00:34:00] exploring like, new content now, um, rather than just like, you know, like kind of old content from, from the historically, um, you know, historically kind of podcasting areas like North America or Europe or things like that.

Mehmet: The thing that I want to, you know, and, and by the way, this is again for the sake of transparency, uh, you know, usually when I record with guests on the podcast, very rarely, we had some interaction before. Very rarely. So it's, it's of course, a. You want to consider the compliment, consider it. But Ahmad, what you're doing actually for not only the podcasters and the podcast industry, there's one thing I always talk about and people kept asking me like, why you do it?

And, and you know, the podcast is a, for me it's, it's a passion project. It's not a business. It it, it's not a source of living in any way. And always I talk about this fact, like if someone. [00:35:00] I don't know, randomly around the globe found out about the podcast and he or she listens or watch and they benefit.

I feel happy. I feel like I, and I think what you're doing exactly compliments this, right? Because what, it's just what you just mentioned, you know, like it might be even in another language and by making our voices, is being able to be, uh, available to people in other parts of the world. Maybe they would be inspired, maybe this conversation someone would discover, I don't know, maybe in China, I don't know, maybe in Indonesia.

You never know. Mm-hmm. And then they'll say, oh, look at Ahmed. He was a geologist, you know? And then he start, he, he had like multiple ventures and then he's building this and he has some resilience. You know, and this inspires someone, and this is exactly why, you know, uh, I appreciate what you're doing, Ahmed.

And, uh, you know, all the efforts to make, uh, you call it like Google for podcasts. I call it like democratizing actually the. The knowledge that [00:36:00] is within the podcast because you know, as someone who ignored listening to podcast for a long time, when I was very much younger, I discovered how much I missed out and I wish like I would have a solution similar to this.

Anyway, Ahmad, as we are coming close to an end, any final words you want to share and where people can get in touch and learn more? 

Ahmad: Um, yeah, I mean, I like, like I appreciate your, your sentiment. I should, I should respond to your comment. Sure, please. I mean, like, um, I mean one of the things that I've always found interesting about podcasts is, um, that.

Yeah, like when people write things, I always think like, you know, people write what they, what they do, uh, but people talk about what they think and so, you know, so I think that's a difference between, you know, like when I used to work in my previous life, you know, I had a boss who would always say that he is like, yeah, don't, uh, like read the report someone writes.

But also go talk to them because you'll learn far more by talking to them about what they did rather [00:37:00] than just read the report. Um, and I think that that's, that's what kind of podcasts are doing. I think. I think, you know, like there's a certain amount of tat knowledge that gets, uh, left in a conversation that nobody writes down, that very few people write down.

Um. And you know, like in written language, it's very hard to understand context, whereas when someone is speaking, it's very easy to understand context. So, and I think that's why I've always liked this audio format is because a, I think podcasts are like this thing where like, you know, you almost like a voyeur.

Like, you know, you see two people having a conversation and you can kind of listen to it and, and absorb all of the. Uh, all of the lessons without actually being part of it. So yeah, so you kind of like, almost by osmosis you're kind of learning lessons. So that's, I think, one aspect. But the other aspect is, I think it's just people say far more than they ever write or, or, or do anything.

And, and I think it's like, yeah, it's a great. Like knowledge base that we've created, which I don't, I'm not sure [00:38:00] we actually utilize it as, as well as we could because we just don't have a way of kind of going through the full library of it. Um, so yeah, so like I appreciate your comment and it's like, yeah, it's something that I feel that's quite important because I think.

You know, like we're creating all this content and you know, like not all of it's useful, but a lot of it is useful and, and, and so we just need to figure out how people can access it. Um, but yeah, like, so like how people can get in touch, like yeah, like I'm on LinkedIn. You can go to our website, contact us.

I mean, I love to hear what other ideas people have as well, uh, about what we're doing and what we could do. To, to your earlier question about if you wanna, um, annoy us with what features we should put on there, I'm happy to listen to 'em. Um, you know, feel free to give, give feedback, feedback's a gift, so, you know, so happy to take as much of it as we can.

Mehmet: Great. And thank you Ahmad again for sharing, you know, um, what you're doing and of course your story today with, uh, with, uh, my audience and [00:39:00] hopefully through your platform with many more people also as well. So thank you very much for your time and this is usually how I add my episodes. This is for the audience.

If you just discovered us and maybe through. Podyssey. Thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed If you did, so give me a favor, subscribe and share it with your friends and colleagues and if you are one of the people who keep coming again and again, the loyal fans, the loyal followers. Thank you very much.

Uh, we are airing this in 2026, so happy new year again. Um, you did fantastic. Thanks for the show in 2025, we were ranking almost all the year, every week we were like traveling the world in one of the top 200 Apple podcast shows, so I'm hoping to see discontinuation in 2026. If not, not, it's not big issue.

As I said, I was telling Ahmad, and sincerely, really, when I say if one person. Find it beneficial. I feel happy, like it doesn't have to be trending, but of course that [00:40:00] shows like more people are listening, which makes me also happy. So thank you very much for your time and you know, your, uh, uh, fellowship and as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon.

Thank you. 

Bye-bye.