Why immigrant founders are more successful?

Searchable Transcript:

[00:00:11] Mudassir: hey Peter. Welcome to the show. How you doing today?

[00:00:13] Peter: I’m doing great. Mudassir, how are you doing yourself

[00:00:16] Mudassir: so happy to have you here on the show

[00:00:17] Peter: Yeah, I’m really happy to be here as well, and thanks for inviting me, and congrats on launching your podcast. I’m really excited to see how it develops.

[00:00:23] Mudassir: Our pleasure. I’m a big fan of context, and I believe all our stories that we have without context don’t mean a whole lot. So, I want you to I want both of us to start with the earliest context that we can have of your life like what was growing up in Bulgaria, like, and all of that.

[00:00:41] Mudassir: So, if you can walk us through the earliest context of your life and how you became whoever you are today

[00:00:46] Peter: certainly. Well, it’s been quite a journey, I have to say. Growing up in Bulgaria? Yeah, I mean,

[00:00:52] Peter: growing up in Bulgaria back in those days, it was so different than what kids are doing today.

[00:00:58] Peter: I mean, we didn’t have any tech, we didn’t have any, well, we had computers, but they were so basic when I was in my teens, but it was very peaceful.

[00:01:07] Peter: It was I was always eager at trying things and exploring and I think that’s never left me. But it’s been quite an exciting journey growing up. Learning from my parents. Uh, my father who started a business when I was really young, he started it late in life, but I was very young.

[00:01:25] Peter: I was in my early teens and that really sort of sparked my desire for entrepreneurship. And that’s never left me. And it’s been quite a journey since then. Moving to the UK when I was only 15 alone with, without knowing anyone to study it was an opportunity I had to take and building businesses ever since for more than 20 years.

[00:01:46] Peter: So, it’s been interesting.

[00:01:47] Mudassir: You mentioned something very powerful, so I think far as my little research goes, I think most people in eastern Europe, they’re like very close to their fathers, and, the family structure is pretty close. I don’t think that’s the case in the west particularly, but what was It like working with a dad who’s a full-time businessman? And especially in your teens, when a lot of kids are looking for a lot of, time and attention, and then not seeing him, take you to the park or something like that. But you know, him building out a business and then you take over that business. So how did that feel like?

[00:02:20] Peter: It was very exciting. I mean, just like other kids at the time I was doing a lot of things. I mean, I was studying, but I was enjoying playing sports. I was actually playing competitive basketball at the time as well, the local team. But.

[00:02:35] Peter: When my father started business, he, the whole family got involved.

[00:02:39] Peter: My mother got involved. I got involved I think it was only 12 when he started it. It was late in life for him. He had a long career as a research researcher and working for a big institute working in industrial ceramics. Uh, and because he was, back in those days, he was still, it was after the end of the communist [00:03:00] era when most people could not start businesses.

[00:03:02] Peter: It was all about traditional careers. So, when he started, he experimented with a number of different ideas before he settled on one that worked, which was to import and distribute wholesale automotive consumables and accessories. And we got involved even with the previous ideas, we were sort of helping and packing and talking to potential customers.

[00:03:24] Peter: And I found all of that really exciting. I mean, I was I don’t know what. What got into me, but I just thought the whole experience and trying to build this was really cool. And I learned a ton as well. And I also gave me an opportunity to be with my dad a lot because before that, in his job I hardly saw him.

[00:03:44] Peter: He used to work long hours and he was really end of the day when I saw him and building a business, he was an opportunity for me to spend more time with him. I was, that was brilliant.

[00:03:54] Mudassir: no. Amazing. You, you mentioned something I just wanna pick your brain on that. That was, end of the [00:04:00] communist era. It was in Bulgaria, and then most of the people they have the idea was like, we’re gonna start a convention job or something. That’s the care everybody wouldn’t take. To me it looks like your father had that fire in him. Like, I don’t wanna do this thing. I wanna be an outlier or something like that. So, can you walk us through what time and, what were the conditions in Bulgaria at that point in time? Feels like, so today it’s like a very modern country, stuff like that.

[00:04:25] Mudassir: People are amazing. It’s a beautiful place to go and visit. But I’m sure it was different. than it is

[00:04:31] Mudassir: today, right?

[00:04:32] Peter: very different. It was totally different. It was a time when., many were trying to do something different and just there was a boom in businesses. In my father’s case, he retired from his traditional career, so he was 62 when he started. And I think for him, just like for others, he was quite difficult to start businesses financially because people didn’t have a lot of money on the side.

[00:04:59] Peter: But, [00:05:00] he managed to do it a little bit by bit, starting really small. And it grew. But I think, I mean, I was too young to remember the difference between what life was before and after the communist ruling ended, which was in 8 19 89. I was only seven, oh, sorry, eight actually. So, I have some vague memories, but not quite a lot.

[00:05:23] Peter: I have more memories from a bit later on, which was the exciting period of growth.

[00:05:27] Mudassir: I’m sure I heard something and again, we were just doing a little bit of research on the guests of the podcast. And then one I thing that really stood out was you started your first business at the age of mayor of London. So, what was that business and then how did you come across like, okay, I’m just a kid not gonna go play in the park and they’re gonna go, usually people would want to have a career in, in. In basketball because you were playing comparative or something and then you say, no, I wanna do business. So, what was the shift looks like and then just tell us a little bit more about that business if you can.

[00:05:59] Peter: [00:06:00] for sure. So, I was getting really involved in my bus, my father’s business at the time. So, the business was only about two years old. He was small. Essentially selling automotive consumables imported into the big petrol chains or the four car shops that they have and also other retailers. So, I, my father was really keen to get me involved and I sort of, I started from the warehouse preparing and packing orders and helping others there.

[00:06:28] Peter: But then it moved to different aspects of the business and how money works, how does the sort of profit loss. All these things I found really fascinating. And the idea behind the business, it actually spun out of my father’s business. At the time we, we mostly imported stuff from Western Europe, from manufacturers and big wholesalers, and they used to send a lot of swag.

[00:06:53] Peter: So, they sent, promotional pens, cups, mouse mats cats [00:07:00] caps, T-shirts, you name it, they’re all branded with their own brand. And they were sending boxes and boxes of this with every shipment. And they were just collecting dust in storage because we could only give away so many for of, to our customers.

[00:07:16] Peter: So, one day I was looking at this and as I was going with my mom and dad shopping around local shops, we used to have a lot of grocery stores, not so much big supermarkets like nowadays. And I saw exactly the same things sold in shops. And I thought, well,

[00:07:32] Mudassir: Wow.

[00:07:33] Peter: We got all these boxes. I mean, there was probably a whole, as much as a whole room full of boxes, why not sell them

[00:07:41] Peter: And I just,

[00:07:42] Mudassir: A great

[00:07:42] Peter: exactly. So, I thought my dad, what he thought about and he said, maybe. Yeah, well give it a go. I mean, I think he was keener for me to try something rather than thinking that it’s actually gonna work. So, lo and behold I got a. A sample back with me. I knew, sort of made a note from shops what similar things [00:08:00] were sold for.

[00:08:00] Peter: So, I thought let’s make them a bit cheaper. My father helped me and sort of explained the concept how much profit you probably I can expect shops to make. So, what I need to offer them for. So, I went around local shop, starting with the ones that we know. We knew the owners and it worked

[00:08:18] Peter: They started ordering, I’m pretty sure some orders because they were just enjoy seeing a little mayor of London year old trying to sell stuff and do things.

[00:08:27] Mudassir: Yeah.

[00:08:28] Peter: But over time I faced projection of course, and it wasn’t easy, but I just thought every time I got an order I was like, man, this is working and this is so cool.

[00:08:37] Peter: I’m making money. And my father told me, by the way, anything I make out of selling this, I keep and like any kids, that was probably the beginning of the computer games, boom, I mean, they were really crap games at the time, but still for me, I was addicted. And I, and my thinking was, if I sell this May and get [00:09:00] money, I can buy myself computer games.

[00:09:01] Peter: So yeah, pretty good. So, I kept going and to my surprise, I think in about four or five months I was making as much as the salary of two people in my dad’s business. And I kept growing and growing. And of course, it, it wasn’t gonna last very long, but what I found afterwards one of the shop owners put me in touch with a local company that was printing swag.

[00:09:29] Peter: So, I started actually offering to the shops, well, can do, you want us to make you these products but brand it with your own store brand? and I said yes. So, I actually expanded on this because I knew that all of the stuff my father had in storage was not gonna last forever. I was selling them and I was gonna go.

[00:09:50] Peter: So, it expanded into actually making orders and coordinating between shops and that local print shop that could print those. So that’s how it [00:10:00] went for about two and a half years, I believe. And then there was about that time, actually less than two, two and a half years, about two years.

[00:10:08] Peter: And it was, at that time when I moved to the UK. I got an opportunity to study in the school. So, I gave that to a friend of my dad’s and he continued that. He expanded it for a while and then he sold it off

[00:10:20] Mudassir: So, you wow. Amazing story. Amazing How important is it, is to have A father who supports you like that in, in your life, early in your life.

[00:10:28] Peter: I think it’s really important. I mean, my dad, like everybody’s not without his faults resting the peace. He passed away four years ago. But he, I think one thing that he taught me that was really important in the early stages to believe in myself and try things. I think he realized throughout his career and life that he could not experiment and try different things because of the system.

[00:10:53] Peter: But he experimented and tried things late in his life when the system broke down and became democracy. [00:11:00] So, He told me to be brave and just believe in myself and try things and experience different things, and I think that sort of stuck with me later in life. But it was great. I was I’m so grateful that I had this opportunity to experience this early in life, and who knows where I’ll be today if I didn’t have this experience.

[00:11:21] Mudassir: Absolutely. I think a lot of the people who eventually get into business, people who actually start early, and then people who actually start slate, the difference is having a different support system that, you know, somebody having a mum, a dad, who is in business world quite early on. those kids’ kind of raise different, that’s what I feel like. Not in terms of like, et case, not in terms of any particular attributes or, traits or something like that. But I think particularly they have a higher threshold of failure and they’re able to take more risk compared to the [00:12:00] kids who they don’t have that good of a, support system from family or from somebody else. They actually have to consider a whole lot of efforts. They have to be like really strong before they can do anything like in, in that life. Right. And I can see in like all of the early stories that you talked about, it’s just all centered on your dad and must have been amazing, having a dad supports you through the system. So yeah, I think that’s a very powerful thing.

[00:12:28] Mudassir: Before we jump into how the life is in London and all that. I wanna ask you one, one minor question particularly about Eastern European markets. So, you’ve been in, in London for quite some time. You’ve been in this industry for quite some time. How do you think is the two market differs from each other, like, you the Eastern Europe and the western Europe, and like, what’s the difference Feels like.

[00:12:50] Peter: I think Eastern Europe, it’s evolved really rapidly. I’ll say especially in the last 10 years [00:13:00] for a long time Eastern Europe was quite underestimated by Western Europe. And I faced this myself when I came to London New Young, and when people heard where I’m, I am from, I was sort of looked down, people looked down on me, and that was a lot because we didn’t have all these success stories in from Eastern Europe that we have today.

[00:13:20] Mudassir: Yeah,

[00:13:20] Peter: I think there is a tremendous amount of talent in Eastern Europe. They’re very eager to succeed, I think, because generally Eastern Europe is a lot poorer than Western Europe. And Bulgaria probably the bottom end of that scale.

[00:13:34] Peter: But also because of the, I think certainly for the countries like Bulgaria that are part of the EU, it helps a lot to develop infrastructure and in and bring foreign investment.

[00:13:45] Peter: So, it’s general Eastern Europe is growing at the rapid pace, I think probably more rapid than some CU countries in Western Europe. And it’s great to see there’s still a long way to go.

[00:13:57] Mudassir: Yeah, absolutely. I did not have, [00:14:00] the, this question planned out or like, didn’t even think about it. We’re gonna ask this question, but we eventually start talking about Eastern Europe in early days. Is Romania in Eastern Europe, and you probably have sense like where I’m going with that.

[00:14:10] Peter: It is it’s a market that’s is really strong. It has some notable successes like UiPath that started there, which I’m sure

[00:14:19] Peter: started by Daniel Deans, who I really admire. He’s an amazing founder. But yeah, it’s really strong in tech as well as other areas.

[00:14:27] Mudassir: So, I think there’s like two brothers, notorious brothers, like whatever you wanna call that, the, Andrew Tate and his brother, and like, they’re from Romania by the looks of that. It feels like, if I were to, draw any judgment or something like that, it kind of feels like people are very smart, they’re hardworking and there. to a certain degree. They’re like fighters. They can turn things around. They’re hardworking people. I think so. Looking to, listening to your story gives kind of the same sense, right? So, it’s, is that like common in those countries? Mainly because they’re like poor and you [00:15:00] have to strive and the best of the best get, get survived, survival of the best or something like that? Or is it more like No, there’s like every now and then there’s a few people who are survivors and then not everybody else is the same.

[00:15:12] Peter: I don’t think it’s widespread.

[00:15:14] Peter: What’s common in Eastern Europe is that there is a big divide between big cities and the rest of the country because level of education is lower compared to the west and also west. In the west. Living in the countryside is amazing. It’s across some lovely towns and villages in Eastern Europe. The developed part of this world tends to be focused on the bigger cities. So, when you go to the countryside, it tends to be massively underdeveloped and poorer compared to the big cities. So, you find people with strong drive and eager to do something great with their life. They come from anywhere.

[00:15:53] Peter: I know people who come from tiny villages, but they end up moving to the big cities for the opportunity to educate themselves and [00:16:00] to take advantage of opportunities. But it’s not widespread. I definitely say that they are, there is a percentage of people who are really, you can see that they are they’re winners and some are on their way to becoming big winners.

[00:16:12] Peter: But it’s not a widespread thing by any means.

[00:16:15] Mudassir: Because of

[00:16:16] Mudassir: the lack of

[00:16:16] Peter: I think so, yes. Definitely. And also, the system, I mean, that’s Eastern Europe also has its own biases and how people are brought up.

[00:16:24] Peter: And some, a lot of things that I, as a founder, I needed to unlearn later in life, But I also, I was blessed by having parents that were very, they want me to experience my own life and not be troubled by what people think.

[00:16:41] Peter: And the journey I had to follow, which many people essentially followed the journey that their parents took and then their grandparents,

[00:16:51] Mudassir: Yeah.

[00:16:51] Peter: But are still very strong out there. It’s there, there is entrepreneurial spirit, but it’s not a massive percentage of the population. [00:17:00]

[00:17:00] Mudassir: Yeah. Okay. Y you said as a founder you had to learn a whole lot of, you have to unlearn a whole lot of things Like what were those things and why do you think you had to unlearn them?

[00:17:11] Peter: Like many, I, especially in school I mean, school was so traditional back then. And alongside the traditional subjects, everybody’s thought about

[00:17:27] Mudassir: Okay.

[00:17:27] Peter: career and what do you do with life later? And that whole learns skills, educate yourselves, get a job, progress, retire that whole cycle., there was also a lot of bias around hard work.

[00:17:42] Peter: So, people that are working really hard, succeed in life. Well, I don’t believe that is true. I think it’s people who work hard but smart because you can work very hard and not achieve anything in life or not anything, but achieve much less than if you work smart. [00:18:00] So these are just a few examples that I believe that they’re global.

[00:18:04] Peter: They’re just not just in Eastern Europe, but as founders, it’s and that’s why some find it really difficult to go from a traditional career to entrepreneurship, because the whole belief system from so many things about failure, mean, in the career, if you’re failing, that’s a massive problem. As a founder, you embrace failure.

[00:18:24] Peter: If you don’t fail and learn from failure, you do not progress. So, these are little things which are very different when you become an entrepreneur and they’re global. No, not just in Eastern Europe.

[00:18:35] Mudassir: Okay. What was your biggest failure?

[00:18:39] Peter: I would say my biggest failure has been overthinking too much about the negative that’s happening around me and what people will think of me about what I do.

[00:18:55] Peter: And that was especially strong when I was in my late teens in the [00:19:00] UK. And I faced so much rejection because partly because I was, I had big ambitions and I was trying things and people were looking down on me partly because of the bias that I was coming from Eastern Europe.

[00:19:14] Peter: And I think that led to me that I was just not brave enough and overthinking too much. If I do this, what are people gonna think of me? And later I realized that, oh, this is crap. I mean, it’s just that. People that look down, people that are negative, they’re always in life, even when you progress. So, I think that was my biggest failure, that I just let too long of the time pass.

[00:19:39] Peter: Before I just said, I’m just going for this and I’m just gonna try it, and if it fails, so be it. I’ll move on to the next thing. It’s more a mental failure, I think more of a mental failure than actual startup

[00:19:52] Mudassir: entrepreneurial

[00:19:52] Mudassir: one. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned that a couple of times. What was it like, being a Bulgarian [00:20:00] kid in a UK and that, and, I can just imagine the discriminations. So yeah, what was it like, a foreign kid in inside UK with big dreams and like nobody to support those big dreams.

[00:20:14] Peter: It was hard in the beginning. I mean, when I came, I went to a boarding school in east of England that was a small town in the middle of nowhere. Very few foreigners. We had a small group of students from Bulgaria. But later on, when I moved to London that was in 2000, I found it easier because it was more multicultural nowhere near as it is today.

[00:20:40] Peter: But it was hard, I think., the fact that I was studying at the prestigious university. I went to Imperial College, which at the time, and that certainly helped. But I think that was a, there was a period that was really dark where I was almost on the verge of going back [00:21:00] home a few times over a period of about two years.

[00:21:03] Mudassir: And how old were you

[00:21:05] Mudassir: At that point in

[00:21:05] Mudassir: time?

[00:21:05] Peter: at the time I was 19, when I was in London and I was studying I went through a really hard time because it was really expensive to be a student in London as an overseas student. And Bulgaria, there was a huge economic crisis in Eastern Europe at the time. So, my father’s business suffered big losses.

[00:21:24] Peter: They, it went down quite a lot. So, for a period of time, I really struggled financially. I had to take a job. I was working like 80 hours a week and trying to study at the same time. It. In the end, it was too much of a pain. So, I went back home, I dropped out and later returned about two years later.

[00:21:42] Peter: But it was I got an opportunity. I mean, I always wanted to come back to the UK. And I had

[00:21:47] Mudassir: So, you liked the countries, so you liked the opportunities, you liked the whole thing, but it was the circumstances. They kind of made it so difficult to stay

[00:21:55] Mudassir: pursue

[00:21:55] Mudassir: the

[00:21:55] Peter: yes, it was difficult, but I the big turning point [00:22:00] was when I decided, if I just think about all the problems, they’re not gonna go away. I need to go out there, meet people, explore things, learn. Internet was still not that developed at the time, as it is today. But I just went and learned so much about entrepreneurship, about business, about marketing, different topics, and I started going to events.

[00:22:26] Peter: And interestingly, amongst all the rejection and people that were looking down, I found some amazing people at events and they opened doors for me. And that’s how the whole difficult period sort of started going towards the end. And that was at the time, it was close to that time when the whole financial troubles happened with the university.

[00:22:49] Peter: But I knew that I was, I wanted to come back and continue that. So, I think that’s what brought me back. I came back to, to do a different degree. But it was really [00:23:00] those key people that I met who later I sort of, I kept kind, in contact with. And that’s how my entrepreneurial journey continued.

[00:23:09] Peter: It was really opportunities through them that, and then meeting more people. And it’s been a quite a shift since then. But it, I went through some real tough times.

[00:23:18] Mudassir: I’m sure but the thing about tough times is like they, some, somebody said this thing that, success makes the character and then I think it’s a failure that builds the character some, something like that, I think. But it’s the failure that, builds the whole character and then whoever you turn on becomes your life. Okay. Interesting. I wanna ask you about something that you have in your bio, which is kind of a cool thing. How did you end up working with mayor of London

[00:23:44] Mudassir: Sadiq Khan and then what is he, like, what’s the whole story behind that? So, if you can walk us through

[00:23:50] Mudassir: that.

[00:23:50] Peter: Cool. Yeah. It was interesting. I mean, I, it’s, I think the origin of that is I’ve always been a big believer in giving back and. [00:24:00] Throughout my founder journey, I’ve always taken time to help others and found more Lately, in recent years mentoring founders I’ve been in doing some stuff with accelerators, working with charities.

[00:24:15] Peter: So was a friend of mine who highlighted an opportunity and put me forward to because one of the multiple advisory boards that the mayor has, they had a new, they had a sort of a relaunch, and that was the jobs and skills business partnership which sort of, it was the new name used to be called a different name before.

[00:24:37] Peter: And that’s all about working with the mayor to connect business and the government and local government and. Bier’s act as the voice for jobs and skills. So, the mayor has a big agenda as part of his overall vision for London to help [00:25:00] Londoners get the skills and the jobs that they deserve and get all Londoners into good jobs.

[00:25:06] Peter: So that part of the board is sort of comprises people from different sectors as well as the big employer bodies. And then we meet regularly to discuss various initiatives that the mayor is launching as well, or planning to launch. And it’s headed by his Deputy Mayor for Business Rajesh.

[00:25:23] Peter: So, the way, for me, it was an exciting opportunity when they had openings on the board. So, a friend of mine sort of. Put me forward. I applied it, it took a while, but I was I was submitted into the board. And for me it’s an exciting opportunity because this way I can, as part of giving back, I, because it’s a role I can contribute and have my time and effort as put in as part of that leverage so we can help many.

[00:25:53] Peter: And as I sort of bring especially connection to the tech sector and startups and of course, digital skills are so important. [00:26:00] They’re a very big part of the overall plans. So that’s how it all started. Started through a friend of mine who highlighted an opportunity and I’m really excited to be part of it.

[00:26:10] Peter: I don’t work with the mayor on a day-to-day basis. We coordinate mainly through his Deputy Mayor for business because he’s chairing the group. But there’s a lot that’s happening and we have some. Interesting plans that I sort of put forward that I’m sure we’ll be working on. But it’s a great opportunity and I’m happy and I really respect the mayor for what he is doing.

[00:26:31] Peter: I think he’s doing some really good work in many aspects of the growth in London. And jobs and skills are so important. There’s a lot of work, a lot of people who are struggling who, who need the opportunities and some of the programs like the boot scheme, boot camps, which are now going strong and many other programs, I think are gonna make a real difference.

[00:26:53] Peter: And I’m glad to be part of that.

[00:26:55] Mudassir: No that, that’s very good. So just another question that you know, that.

[00:26:59] Mudassir: you [00:27:00] brought up is the London of today feels like they have a higher threshold of accepting a foreigner. Right. You look at Sadiq Khan, he’s a Pakistani background. You look at this deputy, he’s an Indian background. And I think the ex-prime Minister had a similar background as I think, and the current prime minister of the ex-Prime Minister

[00:27:17] Mudassir: had

[00:27:18] Peter: Yes, the current one, yes.

[00:27:19] Mudassir: And the current one yet. Not Boris sorry. Yeah, the current one. How do you think London of today is different from the London of when you were a kid, and if anybody who is a foreigner comes To the UK do you think he’s gonna face the same challenges or like, not even close to that?

[00:27:36] Peter: To be honest, I wasn’t so involved. As I am today in the London ecosystem as years ago. So, I only observed from my own experience, but definitely today it’s one of the most multicultural and open cities anywhere in the world. I think anybody who comes to London feels welcome. think the big shift, especially in the tech sector which was not [00:28:00] existent back then well, it was existing, but it was tiny.

[00:28:03] Peter: There’s so many success stories and not just founders, but people who have built incredible careers and they’ve companies that have grown because of their leadership. And I’m talking people who ca came from overseas and it’s the same in other parts of the world. I mean, the US has, look at it, the big companies, the big success stories, a vast majority of those are immigrant founders.

[00:28:27] Peter: It’s been., it’s definitely more accepting than it was years ago. But it’s, I find it’s extremely friendly nowadays. It’s really,

[00:28:37] Peter: I wouldn’t say nobody will face challenges. There are challenges, but they are nowhere near the, what I faced years ago.

[00:28:47] Mudassir: Why do you think immigrants’ founder have seen more success compared to the native ones?

[00:28:52] Peter: That’s a good question. I think, I mean, I’ve heard a number of stories [00:29:00] and some of the more the really successful ones not just in London, but I, some stories in the US as well. People who come from overseas from a really difficult background and they’ve been in, in such a dark hole that there’s really no deeper to go than where they’ve been.

[00:29:17] Peter: So, they have the drive and motivation that many others who have a better start in life face. So, I think it’s down to motivation to succeed from coming from a difficult background. But also, I think it’s places like London, places like the big hubs in the us they’re a magnet for talented people.

[00:29:39] Peter: So, people recognize the opportunity because you get talented people all over the world. I mean, I know amazing people from all across the world, but they realize that to, to make something with their talent, they need to be where things are happening and op opportunities are. So, I think that’s the reason why we see so many in London, in Paris, [00:30:00] in all across the we, the western world.

[00:30:06] Mudassir: Okay. And think that there’s a fair condition. It’s just like the circumstances and the personality or the persona, the character that the overseas people have, just being so talented and not having enough opportunities to, to fulfill the dreams or something like that. And they eventually come to the land that has the opportunities provides the infrastructure, and then those people just. The sky is the limit for those people. So, so, yeah, I think that makes sense. So,

[00:30:34] Peter: And they don’t give up and they typically don’t give up. They’re really driven. I mean, I know people, I know a guy from India who came from a really poor village. I mean, my goodness he’s a he’s like a fireball going, going, nothing can stop him. He’s amazing.

[00:30:48] Mudassir: Just the focus and just the motivation is so

[00:30:51] Mudassir: hard, so, so big. It’s just like, no, you just can’t break me.

[00:30:54] Mudassir: Right. Something like that.

[00:30:56] Peter: exactly.

[00:30:56] Mudassir: Yeah. And you particularly [00:31:00] don’t find these traits in in people who kind of grew up in with all these privileges. It’s just like, yeah, just life is just normal thing.

[00:31:08] Mudassir: Yeah.

[00:31:09] Peter: I mean, I know Westerners who are really driven. I think it’s all about upbringing. I mean, I know people who are born in wealthy families and, their upbringing was different, but they were raised in a way to respect people and to get through your own challenges in life.

[00:31:25] Peter: And those people can achieve, go on to achieve really good things. But for others who found it very easy in life early on, they don’t seem to be as driven as much as those who come from a more difficult background. But. It’s difficult to generalize. It’s very difficult to generalize.

[00:31:42] Peter: It’s very individual.

[00:31:44] Mudassir: Yeah. What drives you to get up every day and striving for that success that you have in mind, and I’m sure that you have seen quite a lot of success and then, yeah. What drives you? What motivates you to just get up, go crying every day? [00:32:00]

[00:32:00] Peter: For me. One thing I really discovered is over the years is the most important thing is to be passionate and really enjoy every day, enjoy what you’re doing. And I just love the founder journey. I mean, for me, the excitement building something with that team spirit and building something and exploring and creating something that makes a difference for me, that gives me the energy.

[00:32:25] Peter: It used to be, I used to be driven by money. Like in my young days, like many., but that over time changed. That changed a lot over time. Now it’s really, I’m still don’t have a massive win like some of the ones that you see in headlines. I’ve had a few successes. One is a seven figure; one is a low eight figure which are brilliant.

[00:32:45] Peter: But it’s not so much the money. It’s really the journey and creating something that makes a difference. That’s what gets me going. And just being in that tech space. I wasn’t always in tech. A lot of my background [00:33:00] is non, is traditional businesses, but being in tech is just a different world, different experience and it’s the whole buzz and excitement that keeps me going every day.

[00:33:09] Mudassir: So, you think eight figures is not a big success. Okay, well, we’ll come to that

[00:33:12] Mudassir: later on.

[00:33:13] Peter: It is, I mean, it is. I mean, I haven’t exited that’s actually., it’s my, that, that business is my father’s business, which is very small, but then I scale, I took over and scaled it. So, it’s not exited, but it’s definitely a good succeed, big success for me, for sure. But it’s not, it’s nothing like those that many aspire for in the ones that we know and see the headlines.

[00:33:36] Peter: I’ve got a good feeling that what we’re building now in my current startup has the potential to go very big. But that’s a different topic.

[00:33:43] Mudassir: Let’s talk about, what you’re building today.

[00:33:44] Peter: Sure. So, it’s called Smart Migrator as it’s a really interesting idea in the cloud space. And it came from my cousin, who was originally co-founder for a period of time, but then he had to step aside because [00:34:00] of personal reasons and. And also, he found the founder journey to be a lot tougher than he expected.

[00:34:06] Peter: So, when you look at clouds, I mean, everybody’s talking about clouds. Well, everybody’s talking about generative AI right now and AI in general,

[00:34:14] Mudassir: yeah, yeah.

[00:34:15] Mudassir: it’s all about

[00:34:15] Peter: it’s not possible without cloud.

[00:34:17] Mudassir: Yep.

[00:34:19] Peter: cloud has always has been a big thing for years, but it’s still in the very early days. And by cloud, I mean not just using cloud services, but really becoming cloud native, moving your whole, rather than running an on-premise server room with servers or data, or in a data center operating in AWS or Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure.

[00:34:40] Peter: Getting there is a big challenge for many because it’s extremely complex for most established companies. I mean, it’s it requires skill sets that are very difficult to find. I mean, the people with the right skills and experience there are really, are very few out there.

[00:34:58] Peter: And because of all that, it [00:35:00] becomes extremely expensive. So, when you look at companies that are in the cloud, they are either startups that start in the cloud or very large organizations that have the deep pockets to afford to migrate to the cloud. And then all the other challenges to follow on to manage the cloud correctly.

[00:35:18] Peter: So, all of this right now is happening mostly with consultancies. Some of the big names that, couple doesn’t, big names that serve big enterprises. And most of the effort is manual. So, it really re relies on brute force. It takes a long time full of problems and very expensive. So, my cousin comes from that world, so he was for many years.

[00:35:43] Peter: A cloud migration started as an engineer, then architect, then lead at Hewlett Packard Enterprise over many, over 16 years. He was one of the first architects at HP in Europe back many years ago. That was before the days of cloud moving data centers from one place to another. [00:36:00] So he had this idea that we, going through the same pain, I mean, he was talking to people that he worked with, we’re going through the same pain over and over again, planning migrations, assessing infrastructure going through all the challenges of delivery.

[00:36:14] Peter Simenov: Then it doesn’t work in the cloud. Then we’ve got to troubleshoot, go back, try and figure out what’s gone wrong. Why not just automate the whole process and make it simple? So that’s where the idea came from. And what got me really excited was that nobody was looking at SMBs because too small, not really interesting for consultancies.

[00:36:36] Mudassir: Yep.

[00:36:36] Peter: the, those that. Sort of build some boutique consultancies. They’re extremely expensive. So, the vast majority of SMBs, they cannot afford their cost. And that’s a huge market because there’s millions and millions of them out there, and they deserve just as much to benefit from cloud as the bigger enterprises.

[00:36:55] Peter: So, we embarked on this journey to take all the experience [00:37:00] from my cousin and a number of other guys. We have quite a sizable team of really experienced architects on board and create a product that really, that automates the whole process. So, if you can imagine a product that you just go through a simple step by step process, it assesses everything you have, wherever it is on premise, what could be in another cloud, and then it migrates everything, optimizes everything and launches it in your cloud of choice or with a few clicks.

[00:37:33] Peter: And it’s, it brings acceleration, it’s reduced, eliminates the human error. That’s the big problem for many and it makes it cost effective. So, it’s affordable for anybody including small SMBs. So that’s really, that’s what we are building and the vision is to integrate cloud management automation into that.

[00:37:53] Peter: So, making into a single platform that anybody from Joe down the street running a [00:38:00] restaurant to the larger ones can utilize to migrate from on-premise to cloud or between clouds and then manage the cloud on the, on an autopilot and having it all efficient. Sorry, it’s a little bit longer than I, I was expecting it, but that’s in essence what we’re doing.

[00:38:18] Mudassir: no, that’s amazing. It’s a complex thing that you’re building and it has to be a complex explanation

[00:38:24] Mudassir: for that.

[00:38:24] Peter: man, it’s so complex. You wouldn’t believe, I mean, we still, in the early days, we have a product that works for awes. But it is insanely complex. I mean, it looks so easy when you see it in, in action, but what goes behind it is incredible. It’s beyond my understanding.

[00:38:40] Mudassir: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:41] Mudassir: absolutely. So, just thinking of the same, cloud infrastructure thing, and then you brought up some amazing point, like how complex it is me, it feels like you guys were using AI long before the AI became cool then, Chad g p t came out and the whole generative ai boom started to happen. [00:39:00] So, how truth is that statement that you guys were like working on AI

[00:39:03] Mudassir: even before, people get to know about that and e even before it was cool let’s say

[00:39:07] Mudassir: that.

[00:39:08] Peter: Not really, to be honest. I mean, we have we’ve doubled into ai, but not not as much as I wished because of the lack of resources. We’re still bootstrapping. But going forward it’s going to be heavily driven by AI in multiple areas. But we actually haven’t doubled and to me, especially the machine learning, which will be a, will play a major part in what we do.

[00:39:34] Peter: It’s still a bit of a mystery for me. I’m not an expert in it. So, I actually haven’t, we have, I don’t have a lot of AIS in my background, in the past, but I’m learning it. I’m of, I fascinated by all the various types of AI and generative ai, which everybody’s talking about now.

[00:39:50] Peter: It’s exciting.

[00:39:52] Mudassir: Yeah.

[00:39:54] Mudassir: One thing that I, that excites me the most about, about generative AI is so previously [00:40:00] if you have to start a tech company or a SaaS company or something like that, common sense would say you need to learn to code, or you need to have enough money to afford a developer or two, or something like that.

[00:40:10] Mudassir: Right? And then you need to find, obviously design that, and then you need to build something. Then you need to start selling it. And I think, even the start selling it quickly, part came later down the road, people usually start like building this thing from ground up. Once it’s there, then people would start marketing it, but kind of different shift it from that. But even now, a few years ago, everybody was doing the same thing. So you got an idea, you find a couple of devas, or you start learning how to code, and then you start building something. But the best part about generative AI is that, learning curves has decreased like significantly.

[00:40:44] Mudassir: It is like, so I can go on. And Chat GPT is like, it’s somewhat of the mouth, like everybody’s talking about the ad. It’s a, name the game. But all these other starters came out and I was like looking at one of those. It’s just like you, you do the prompt [00:41:00] and it can design you the whole mockup, like the whole editable designs in Figma in just like that. if I look at that on the generative way, and that’s my take on that, thee learning curves has come down significantly. And now if you are not starting a business and you had an idea and you’re like not starting that, I think it’s just you standing in your way. Right? I mean, there’s like no other reason for that because it’s like everything is like becoming. super accessible, super easy, super dumb. You just like, have an idea, just go talk about it. Now you have, now you got the tools to build it in a week. You got the tools to start marketing that really quickly.

[00:41:37] Mudassir: You don’t have to be an expert in anything. You just need to have a courage to start something.

[00:41:42] Mudassir: Right.

[00:41:42] Peter: Yeah.

[00:41:43] Mudassir: what do you think and how do you think AI is going to change the whole entrepreneurial, journey that usually people have from traditional businesses or even in tech industry. How do you think AI is gonna transform all of that?

[00:41:57] Peter: That’s a great question. [00:42:00] I mean, it’s, you’re absolutely right. I think generative AI is bringing a whole new revolution to the marketplace. Along, aside from the hype, which is very strong, I think that’s gonna cool down a little bit over time. And a lot of, a lot is happening too fast for a lot of people, me included, to comprehend it fully

[00:42:21] Peter Simenov: But I think, no, without the doubt, it’s a lot easier to start a startup and build something today than it was years ago. I mean, we went through that period when., you had the old school way, you had an idea, you had to hire developers, or quite often founders were technical founders, so, so they needed to struggle more with the marketing side rather than the development side came along low code, then no code, then make things a lot easier.

[00:42:50] Peter: And now with a, with generative ai, I mean, you can just spin things so fast. I mean, I’m just amazed at all the applications that I’m seeing all the time in recent weeks, [00:43:00] just like you mentioned. But there’s so, so much more and we actually trying to figure out how we can benefit from generative AI within our own development plan and platform.

[00:43:11] Peter: And there’s multiple areas. I think that my personal opinion, and I know there’s been a lot of debate about people worried about AI replacing what they do. And yes, of course there are jobs that will disappear. New ones will be created, but there will be many that suddenly will disappear. But I think the vast, in the vast majority of cases in tech especially, it’ll enhance people’s performance and abilities and people really, everybody should be embracing and learning it.

[00:43:44] Mudassir: Absolutely.

[00:43:45] Peter: one thing that I have to say is that I think there, there is a danger that people are jumping very fast and not thinking about what, what can happen later on. And one big danger is [00:44:00] regulation. I mean, that’s already, we already starting to see that it’s been worked on and it is coming. It’s no, no doubt about it because there are so many concerns from privacy to security.

[00:44:11] Peter: We saw Italy banning chat, G p t completely. Hopefully that’s not gonna be permanent, but things are happening because it’s just happening so fast for the authorities to comprehend. And there is a risk that regulations will come that can impact a lot of startups. Just like the recent Twitter API pricing changes that just completely took so many founders and solopreneurs by surprise, all the ones that built amazing tools to make the Twitter experience better.

[00:44:41] Peter: And so many have closed down because, $42,000 a month. Who can afford that? It’s not many. So, there are similar risks because if you’re creating an app that’s revolving around generative ai and there are risks these are sort of things that founders need to think about because [00:45:00] changes will happen, but without a doubt, coming back to your overall question, everybody needs to embrace AI because he’s here, he is here to stay and evolve and help our lives.

[00:45:11] Mudassir: Absolutely. So, I think you, you brought some really great points. I think. I was like, reading somebody’s truth. It’s like, AI is not gonna, cut your job, but somebody using AI is definitely, replace you. It’s just like, it’s like a superhuman abilities, like you can, so, in a day-to-day, job, in a day-to-day work as a, as somebody who’s like leading a team, building a product, doing the sales, marketing, that kind of a stuff, it’s like super helpful.

[00:45:34] Mudassir: The accessibility is like amazing. It’s just like you give, you just need to know the right prompt. And again, obviously you need to figure it out like, what to do with the chat gpt or like what to do with the ai. And then it gives you like superhuman abilities and the work gets so efficient, you get so, so much more Ed with that, I have a very good question. I’ve been like meaning to ask you since we started talking about smart migrator, all these [00:46:00] every single time if you look at that. So, so there was a.com, right? Dot com came in and I think you were quite engaged when you can you probably remember like what exactly has happened.

[00:46:09] Mudassir: It’s just like everybody was jumping on the ship and then the ball burst and then there was destable, the blockchain, if you, if we just, dial it back last year, same time everybody was talking about two things. Blockchain, NFTs, and every influencer on the planet, every entrepreneur on the planet every investor on the planet is thinking about how can I get them.

[00:46:33] Mudassir: A piece of the pie. Even if it’s like, our tiniest piece of the pie or like, whatever that could be, not many of those NFTs are relevant today. I don’t know if like they’re gonna be relevant, I’m sure they’re gonna be relevant, but because of the technology still stuff, and it feels like since this start of this year is just like generative ai.

[00:46:53] Mudassir: Nobody’s even talking about blockchain. So, do you think single time this is gonna be a new emerging [00:47:00] technology came in, the previous one gets obsolete. And do you think there is some something that can replace ai?

[00:47:07] Peter: I think there is always I mean there is always a group that follows the hype. I mean, hypes come and go just as you mentioned, some of the big ones. But the reality is there, there is a lot of work in the background that many are doing that’s just not in the headlines. In the spotlight.

[00:47:23] Peter: has been here for a very long time. Just people, not everybody talked about it. But he’s been here for decades.

[00:47:29] Mudassir: Absolutely.

[00:47:30] Mudassir: b Yeah.

[00:47:32] Peter: in the same way with crypto. I think again, the big focus and hype was on Bitcoin and then NFTs, but the reality is the underlying technology, blockchain technology has so much potential and there are a lot of startups that are working on very interesting applications.

[00:47:49] Peter: And I think just like ai, blockchain is gonna grow and we’ll see some very big wins., but probably not in areas people expected. I was lucky to [00:48:00] to be a mentor in blockchain incubator in London that started, I was in mentor in the first cohort called block Dojo. Used to be called Satoshi Block Dojo.

[00:48:09] Peter: Now it’s just Block Dojo. But that’s all around the Bev blockchain. So not the B btc, but bsv, which is a different type of blockchain. And there were some amazing ideas. Yes, there were some that were N F T focused elements, but there were others that were focusing around security, there was a startup that was focusing around bringing lesser-known music artists and creating the connection and with their fans and being able to connect with the fans, sell their music to the fans directly and emoji other applications that were not. The NFT craze that it was out there in the spotlight.

[00:48:47] Peter: So, it’s definitely here to stand the same with ai. I mean, generative AI is now, the talk of the day. Everybody’s talking about it. Over time, there’ll be the next thing. [00:49:00] I think there’s a

[00:49:01] Mudassir: Yeah.

[00:49:01] Peter: thing about robotics. One very cool startup that I’m following closely is figure that I found called Brett Adcock is launching with the world’s first autonomous humanoid robots.

[00:49:12] Peter: It looks like thing from a sci-fi movie and it’s really cool.

[00:49:15] Mudassir: Yeah, he’s the guy he’s from Archer, right?

[00:49:18] Mudassir: He used to,

[00:49:19] Mudassir: he’s through an arch. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:20] Peter: he is got some really cool startup that came out of stealth and then it looks, some find it a bit scary. I find it really exciting. But things are happening and hype cycles will come and go, but., blockchain and ai, these are two transformational technologies that, that will grow and create so much.

[00:49:41] Peter: It’s just not everything is in the spotlight that’s how it is.

[00:49:44] Mudassir: Do you think like, like the dart comparable, like the N NFT bubble, I’m just calling it bubble. I don’t know if that was a bubble or not, but you know, at some point it was like everybody just creating weird looking ape and then just selling it for like a half a million

[00:49:58] Mudassir: or something. But that did not [00:50:00] happen for like everybody, right? It’s just like, there, there was only a handful NFT that got, to that point in time. And a lot of people get wrecked, like a lot of people wasted a whole lot of money. There was like frauds and stuff like that. Do you think, like, with the speed these new AI startups are coming to the market, most of them not gonna be around by the end of the year.

[00:50:23] Peter Simenov: I know for sure that and I’ve been talking to some investors who are investing in this space. Many are worried by the speed at which tools are coming out, and it’s fast becoming very saturated. But then also some have concerns around changes like the regulation that I mentioned, I think.

[00:50:46] Peter: like in any bubble, not bubble, but any sort of hype cycle when something new happens, there’s consolidations, some will go away, winners will emerge that grow fast and become bigger. [00:51:00]

[00:51:00] Mudassir: Yeah.

[00:51:00] Peter: I think, I personally think that we will see some very good exits bigger corporates, they tend to innovate by acquisition contrary to what many people believe.

[00:51:11] Peter: That’s the, that’s how most of them do it. So,

[00:51:14] Mudassir: game.

[00:51:14] Peter: so, I think we’ll see some big tech that will be acquiring a lot of interesting ideas for the tech they’ve developed. But for sure, I think some will phase a steep battle to compete in a very saturated space in particular areas. So, some will disappear, but I think a lot will be acquired.

[00:51:31] Peter: And I’m a big fan of acquire.com, Andrew Gas Dei. And team who are creating, doing an amazing job to help smaller startups and bigger startups sell, and I think they’ll be very busy.

[00:51:44] Mudassir: I think he’s doing an amazing job. And then, he’s just making it super accessible for, like, you, you got a small business idea. You can set it for like five figures. You got an amazing idea. You can set it for like eight, eight figures or something like that. So, so it’s just like that. And it’s saying, at the time, [00:52:00] Right on spot. And a lot of those, yeah, a lot of these startups gonna get acquired as well pretty quickly

[00:52:05] Mudassir: as well.

[00:52:06] Mudassir: Yeah. Amazing. That’s been quite a, a conversation that, that we are having. But I wanna just drift away and just wanna focus the last part of the last part of our conversation on something that you kept mentioning over again.

[00:52:23] Mudassir: my question is when you mentor somebody, what exactly do you offer them apart from, because and this is just me personally thinking a lot of people, think that like that they’re mentors and stuff like that, but when it comes to the quality, it’s probably not up there. So, when you mentor somebody, a young entrepreneur, or someone who’s coming from Bulgaria to London today, would you offer him?

[00:52:45] Peter: I think it comes in two parts. One is the mental part and the practical doing parts. I think one, one thing that, and I vote, I mean, I was, I. I don’t claim to be a [00:53:00] particularly good mentor. It’s for people to, that I’ve mentored to say, but I’ve also evolved over time. I think the big problem that people that go into mentoring have been they enforce their own experience into how things should be done, rather than letting the founders, supporting the founders, but letting the founders experience how it’s how it’s gonna work for them.

[00:53:24] Peter: So, it’s really guide providing the guidance and lessons learned through your own experience in a way that you’re not enforcing how something should be done to the founders. And I think that’s where, that’s what separates a lot of mentors, good mentors from bad mentors are they sort of, they can support you, but not, they don’t tell you this is the way.

[00:53:43] Peter: So, when I work with the founder, it’s, first of all, I., I show them the reality and what they can expect so they’re prepared from the mental perspective, all the hard stuff that comes with being a founder, rejection the difficult [00:54:00] periods. It’s a rollercoaster and it’s never ending, but all really sort of focus a lot on enforcing self-belief.

[00:54:08] Peter: Because for me that is the single most important thing to become a successful, not just founder, but in anything you need to believe in your own abilities. If you lose that belief, that’s it. It’s gonna be game over. You’re gonna lose motivation when it gets tough. So really for people I spend a lot of time working with them to, to under, to get them to understand their strengths and to reinforce the self-belief that they can do it.

[00:54:29] Peter: And anything is possible and nobody can tell them they’ll fail, because it’s really, they’ll fail only if they believe they’ll fail. So, I spent quite a bit of time on that. And then the rest is really looking at the practical aspects of what they’re building and their journey and their experience as well.

[00:54:49] Peter: And really sharing my things that I’ve learned from my experience that are potential dangerous and, but letting them decide, decipher themselves [00:55:00] because everybody’s got to go through the pain, and failures. It’s, we, I can’t save them the pain. I can just make them aware of things that may help them make it less painful along the way.

[00:55:12] Peter: And I think it’s that light touch, it gets deep into the, psychologically and philosophically when we get into it. But I’ve got a very simple and practical approach and that I sort of guide them and I’m always around to help and answer questions and sort of, but let them go through the journey.

[00:55:30] Peter: Not trying to be kind of like a., somebody holding them

[00:55:35] Mudassir: Okay. That’s really powerful. Peter, I have a very

[00:55:37] Mudassir: personal question and I hope you don’t mind re-asking that. Are you happy with whatever you have done, whatever you have achieved in life, wherever you are today, with the progress, with the pace, successes and failures? Are you happy with all of that?

[00:55:50] Peter: I am. I learned over the years to not look back. Of course, I could have done things differently in the past, but the only thing that I look into the [00:56:00] past is learning from it. What can I take from what’s happened in my, on my journey in the past? to what I’m doing today and the future. So yeah, I’m happy with I love being a founder.

[00:56:11] Peter: I love what I’m doing. I’ve got a wonderful family. An 11-year-old kid. Being a founder gives me the opportunity and the freedom to spend a lot of time with him as well, which is, I think it’s a blessing and I just, yeah, I enjoy life. It’s not as easy as many would think

[00:56:28] Mudassir: yeah,

[00:56:29] Mudassir: Not a lot of people

[00:56:29] Mudassir: agree to that, that you as a founder, you can spend a whole lot of time with your family. It’s just like, it’s a grind

[00:56:35] Mudassir: actually.

[00:56:35] Peter Simenov: it is a grind, but it’s, I think the freedom is the most important thing. And, the biggest benefit in being a founder. You’ve got freedom to control your time, what you’re doing you know why you’re doing things and you’ve got a freedom to do it. But yeah, I enjoy life. I, every day working on smart migrator and all the other stuff I’m working on it’s exciting.

[00:56:55] Peter: You never know what a day will bring. And I. and I just enjoy life. [00:57:00] Yeah, lots of challenges every day, but that’s how it is. And I just you’ve got to enjoy life because life passes quickly and if you get stuck on not in, doing something you don’t enjoy, you are wasting time. You should be doing something you enjoy.

[00:57:15] Mudassir: you so much Peter. Very, really lovely talking to you. So, I’m a huge fan of Steve Bartlett and The Diary of a CEO. Big fan of his work, big fan of the podcast. So, I’m just taking a page out of his book from that particular podcast and did they have a tradition where they ask the guest a question That’s not gonna be like, told and at the end of the episode, but we can ask the same question to the next guest without knowing who’s gonna be our next guest.

[00:57:42] Mudassir: Okay. So, so yeah, because this is the first episode, so we can ask you that question. And obviously we just don’t have a good one for you, but you can kick things off. So, any question that you would like to ask to our next guest yeah, you can share that with us. [00:58:00] Obviously, it’s not gonna be a part of the recording, but yeah, please just go ahead with that.

[00:58:04] Mudassir: Okay. Amazing. Thank you so much, Peter, for just taking the time out today. Great chatting with you. Would love to see what you’re gonna do with smart migrator, been following you closely for quite some time. I’m in that tech space, so that’s where my generally in interest lies.

[00:58:20] Mudassir: So, I’ll just keep a close tab on that and thank you for the podcast again really appreciate it.

[00:58:25] Peter Simenov: And it’s been a pleasure for me as well. Really appreciate the invite and I really look forward to seeing how the postcard develops and how what interesting guests you’re gonna have next.

[00:58:34] Peter Simenov: Yes, thank you very much. Been real pleasure. Real pleasure. And I look forward to following the journey.

‍

‍