#215: Ibrahim Mohmed (CourtSide Media & Taja AI) — Revolutionizing Content Creation

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:00:00]:
I always look at perspectives from a glass half full and I look at like everything that's happening to you is happening for you. So I'm always looking at different adversity as mechanisms to learn from. What is this moment trying to teach me right now? And are we moving in the right direction? Just because a lot of times you could be moving but you're moving in the wrong place and so adversity can come in, help you take that step back to look at everything and reassess whether or not you are doing it correctly, moving in that right direction. And I always look at like these challenges and these obstacles only become harder as you're building. So you kind of need that adversity along the way to train you to understand how to deal with it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:46]:
Welcome to the Lay of the Land Podcast where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host Jeffrey Stern and today I had the real pleasure of speaking with Ibrahim Momit, the founder of Courtside Media Group and co founder and CEO of Taja AI. Ibrahim's entrepreneurial journey began right here in Ohio, where he founded Courtside Media, a digital media agency that serves influencers ranging from 1 million to 75 million followers across various social media platforms. Through Courtside Media, Ibrahim has collaborated with high profile clients including NBA legend Kevin Garnett, Cleveland's Futureland Annual Conference, and prom prominent influencer Lauren Fitzmaurice, effectively amplifying their reach and impact through strategic organic growth. Building on his success at Courtside, Ibrahim co founded Taja AI, a platform designed specifically to empower small businesses and content creators. Taja automates content workflows by optimizing, repurposing and scheduling content, significantly saving time for now many thousands of creators while maximizing their audience engagement and discoverability. Beyond his entrepreneurial ventures, Ibrahim is deeply committed to social impact through his organization Nile Knights, which curates events to raise awareness and funds to support individuals and communities affected by the ongoing conflict in Sudan. As a founder building on the forefront of media and of AI, Ibrahim has awesome perspective on where the space is going and what it will take to be successful within it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:02:27]:
So please enjoy this fascinating conversation with Ibrahim Momin Lave the Land is brought to you and is proudly sponsored by Roundstone Insurance, headquartered in Rocky River, Ohio. Roundstone shares Lay of the Land's same passion for bold ideas in lasting impact from our community's entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders. Since 2005, Roundstone has pioneered a self funded captive health insurance model that delivers robust savings for small and medium sized businesses. They are part of the solution to rising healthcare costs, helping employers offer affordable, high quality care while driving job creation and economic growth throughout Northeast Ohio. Like many of the voices featured on Lay of the Land, including Roundstone's founder and CEO Mike Schroeder, Roundstone believes entrepreneurship, innovation and community to be the cornerstones of progress. To learn more about how Roundstone is transforming employee health benefits by empowering employers to save thousands in per employee per year healthcare costs, please visit roundstoneinsurance.com Roundstone.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:29]:
Insurance built for entrepreneurs, backed by innovation.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:33]:
Committed to Cleveland so I'm always thinking.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:36]:
About where the best place to start a conversation is and I do feel like it is addressing this reality of video podcasts as we were talking about a moment ago and how quickly things are shifting in this era of AI content creation and video and how lay of the land when we first were planning to do this recording was a non video podcast and why it is video podcast now and maybe just helping everyone understand a bit of why that that might be the case. And I think that sets actually a good stage for a lot of what we might talk about here today.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:04:19]:
Yeah, no, agreed, agreed. I think the, the podcasting space is huge, especially the video podcasting. People want to watch actual recording, a live recording of the conversations at place. And YouTube is king of everything and YouTube has been the dominant player in this game of all streaming. And, and so you know, they're also the democratized media. So it's made it like not only can you watch your podcast here, but people can also use an additional stream of revenue and they're also, you know, from an AdSense standpoint, one of the best paying platforms out there. So it makes sense to put your stuff on, on your podcast on video, because you got more eyeballs on it more than ever. And, and you can, you know, get paid and monetize your platform even further and maximize your reach to, you know, the, one of the, the second biggest search engine in the world.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:21]:
Yeah. So how, how do you explain Taj AI in the context of all of that?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:05:30]:
Yeah. So Taj AI is a platform that automates a small business solopreneur's content creation workflow by optimizing, repurposing and scheduling out your content across all your platforms. So you know, we know as a creator or a small business, you understand the importance of content and long form content for whether, whatever, whether me, whether it be you want to use it for deal flow and lead generation or you want to use it as another mechanism to Maximize your reach. We understand the importance of it. We also understand the time consumption of it. We understand as a small business or creator, you, you're required to op, you know, optimize your content for SEO. So that's coming up with the title, the description, the chapters, the tags, the thumbnail, even generating shorts and clips and all those different elements. We understand the importance of that to help you get discovered, but we also understand that it's a very time consuming process that can take you like two hours or so to do.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:06:35]:
So for us, we built Taja, which is a mechanism that can handle it all for you in eight minutes or less, all with the click of a button.

Jeffrey Stern [00:06:43]:
So we'll talk a lot more about content and automation and distribution and all those topics in and around Taja. But to set the kind of entrepreneurial stage for what it is that you have built and are building, when you look back on your journey thus far, was there kind of a crucible moment or pivotal moment that altered your trajectory towards one of entrepreneurship? When, when did you begin thinking about entrepreneurship?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:07:18]:
I think I started thinking about it since I graduated high school. I always wanted to be in this lane because my dad's an entrepreneur, so I was very into what he was doing. He owns a, a food distribution company, so he buys produce at wholesale and then goes to retail stores in the Columbus area and sells to them that produce. And so I was always one that would go with him on these trips and I would always work with him. So I was very keen to it from the get go. And then, you know, in high school I had friends that got into it, had startups that did well. And so I was very interested in this space to, to, to become an entrepreneur. And so I went down the lane of just putting the right resources around me, whether it be when I went to Ohio State, getting into different business builders clubs and entrepreneurial clubs, going to engineering clubs, although I was an engineer, just to meet engineers and understand who they were, you know, and, and, and who are, who's the top talent in the area and, and you know, even watching YouTube videos of the top entrepreneurs in the world and understanding how they built their businesses, what are the common principles, all that type of stuff.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:08:30]:
So I've always been interested in this space and then I just waited at the right time to see kind of what fits me best. So the first thing that fit me best was I wanted to get into media. So I, I started working with influencers, helping them build and monetize their, so their content on social. But in the background. And even in my college time, I always knew that product was going to be the thing that I wanted to do long term and the thing that can have the most massive impact. So by getting into media and working in the service industry, I was able to identify pain points that I was dealing with that could transition to a product and affect people at scale.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:11]:
So what did inspire you to go into media? I mean, we can talk about the Courtside Media Group chapter here, but you started it at a relatively young age in a place not traditionally known for digital media expertise relative to LA or New York City. What do you feel inspired, your desire to go into it? And I'd love to. I love to hear the stories of kind of the unconventional path that you, you charted to connect with folks like Kevin Garnett and, you know, other early partners of that elk.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:09:48]:
Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, you know, Columbus, not conventional space. But to me, the essence of why I wanted to do it was I love storytelling. So I wanted to get into a lane where I could tell stories and I loved working with influencers. And the first realm was athletes. So just to backtrack, when I was at Ohio State, I took a class that Eddie George taught and it was about the business of sports. So in that class I basically got an internship with the NFL under the executive vice president of operations. So that that class featured a lot of high profile former athletes, executives in the space that would come speak to the students about the business of sports.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:10:35]:
And so I got an internship with the NFL there. I was also the first student, the only student that would connect and bring other athletes into the class to speak against guest speakers. So over time, Eddie saw my value. And then when the time came, I wanted to start a media company. He wanted help marketing his wealth management firm. And then so it was a good mashup for us to create a piece together. Started working with Eddie George, worked with him for about two years. And then from after that I one of the I used to do productions, Freddie George.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:11:10]:
So one of the guys I hired, Freddie George, was the production manager for content creator named Ross Smith, who has a funny grandma. And him and his grandma have amassed over 75 million followers across all platforms. So I got connected with Ross to become his production manager. Worked for with him for three years, learned the ins and outs of social media about how to grow and monetize on YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, et cetera. Then started working with other clientele, got a deal with Snapchat to have my own show on there, started managing some Creators through their, through their Midroll program. And then past that. One of the creators that I met through the Snapchat program I was managing was also good friends with Kevin Garnett and one of his business partners. So he knew what I was doing on the content creation side and how I help people grow, et cetera.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:12:01]:
So he connected me to KG's team to discuss how we can build up his own social platforms for his podcast, KG Certified. And then, you know, from there we signed him on, started building up his YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts and repurposing his content for his podcast on there. And then same time we signed him is when I started looking at AI and how we can streamline our workflow. Just because we had a lot of clients we serviced and packaging and repurposing their content was very time consuming. And so that's when we started on the journey of building out Taja. And you know, over time now it's been about over two years since we worked with KG. We've built his YouTube channel to 157,000 subscribers. His Twitter's grown substantially about doubled since we started with him and his Facebook has also grown substantially.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:12:59]:
So we leveraged that relationship and that, that experience to help help build Taja. But the essence of like who I am as an entrepreneur, what I do is I basically I'm resourceful. So I take like what I have in the current moment and work with it to try to see how I can make something out of it and then I leverage it to help me get the next opportunity and then I build upon momentum.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:26]:
When do you feel in that journey you understood the power of the technological leverage of a product versus consulting and services?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:13:39]:
Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is when I got a deal with Snapchat, we were, I was working eight hours a month generating substantial revenue for that time on the shows. So I got to see kind of like the impact of putting something out there and then just people going in, engaging with it and that, generating the revenue. And I saw like, you know, the service industry is a treadmill industry where every day you gotta get up, get on the treadmill run to make money. And the product industry is just something where you can put it out there, it can get in front of thousands, millions of people and consistently be a cash flow item for you. So that was kind of the biggest thing I saw was I always wanted to continue on that path of what I saw with Snapchat and how I was generating revenue there. And I understood that a product is a, is A good way to do that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:36]:
So can you explain the vision for Taja AI and you know, really the specific set of problems that it, it seeks to solve for content creators and I don't know, maybe ground it in how your vision for it has evolved since you initially founded it, given the pace of change of this whole space and what stayed the same, what is altered?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:15:04]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the biggest thing. So the vision of Taja is to help businesses accelerate their growth and so leveraging content. So what stayed the same for Taja is we're a time saving tool. Like I said, we're something that traditionally takes creators, small businesses, two hours to do. We do it in eight minutes or less with the click of a button. And the other thing is we help you maximize your reach. Initially when we started we were targeting content creators, we were positioning ourselves as an SEO tool and we were only across YouTube and the vision was to help content creators grow on YouTube.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:15:45]:
Since then, we realized that growing on YouTube is not sustainable just because there's so many factors to the algorithm, like you have to have quality content and strong SEO, we can't dictate whether or not you create quality content. That's not something in our control. So it's not something we should promise. So we shifted to saving time, which is something that we can promise people. The other element was the SEO side of things, of we're an SEO tool. We realized that we can't be an SEO tool because the competitive landscape of the space and what people saw as prominent players remain prominent players like GetIQ, TubeBuddy. And so we basically looked at everything and noticed that we have to niche down and did a whole analysis on like who's using us, what are the benefits of those customers? We talked to those customers, understood that for us we target SMBs, solopreneurs who use content for lead generation. And we can promise them that they'll save time and maximize reach with us.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:16:48]:
And we found that the value prop with them further is fully automating their workflow. And we understand that for them, social media is just one part of many factors of their businesses. And so we want to become the platform that they use to automate it and become essentially their assistant to help them get out their content as quickly as possible. So those are kind of like where we started and where we are today and how we've like gone through a whole repositioning and adjustment across product market to help us find that product market fit.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:23]:
And to just paint a concrete picture of it. Walk us through what this looks and feels like from a product UX experiential perspective for sure.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:17:34]:
So say you have you just created a long form video. So you're a business coach, you just created a how to video or some educational video. When you upload that video into YouTube, YouTube requires you to package it. The packaging requires a title, a description, chapters, tags, a thumbnail, all those different elements you also need like shorts to help you maximize your reach. You'll need clips, so the best two to ten minute segments and you'll need and, and then also text based content like a LinkedIn post, a thread post, all these different elements that help you just get that video out there so that as many eyeballs as possible see it and then they'll contact you to potentially become a customer. And so what you do when you enter the product is you basically upload the video to YouTube as unlisted. You copy the link to the video, paste it in our platform and in about two minutes we'll spit out for you your title, your description, your chapters, your, your hashtags, your thumbnail will generate shorts for you, we'll generate clips, we'll generate the text based content like a blog, et cetera, thread post, a LinkedIn post. And then through our platform you can just schedule or publish all of your content through us across all your different social media platforms.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:55]:
So one of these things we were talking about before we started recording here is this is, is the velocity of product development. And there's this old adage that basically the battle between every startup and every large company comes down to whether the startup can get to distribution before the large company can get to innovation. And the large companies have the innovator's dilemma and they struggle. But what startups have is speed. And one of the things that I've just been so curious about right now, where we are in the world of AI and development of companies is this kind of move fast and small team dynamic where some of the most incredible tools right now are just being built by very small teams, you know, less than a dozen people. And as they scale their user base or their revenue is what is scaling. It's not, you know, the team because you can do a lot more with, with less. And so I'd love to hear from your perspective just you know, describe what it's been like, you know, abstracting a little bit away from the product itself that you're building, but more just like building a company in this space relative to what that looked like with Courtside Media, for example.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:20:21]:
Yeah, no, for sure we've been able to achieve scale with less people. Like the company from an employee standpoint has always just been me and my partner and we've brought in contractors along the way to help us out. But the core and the basis of it has always been my partner and myself. And so a lot of it is just you really, if you can get a players across the board, you can build a pretty big company that is generating really good cash flow with 712 people. That's just never been done before. You know in the web two space a lot of times people would always index on like headcount, like what's your head count? That would be something that would predicate on how big your company Is and like 80, 100, 200 employees means that you have a really good company. And now that's just not the case. Has become like oh, if you can achieve massive scale with three, four people, you're actually now the talked about company that everyone is interested in and wants to learn more about.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:21:21]:
And so you know, AI has just allowed for this to happen a lot because a lot of times now like you don't need, you don't need the systems that you previously needed in the Web2 space to build in the AI space because these LLMs are doing a lot of different things that a lot of specifically a lot of mid level engineers do. And so what you need is basically an a player engineer that understands the AI space, understands where it's going and then you just need a good co founder or a couple players that understand go to market, understand how to market and how to get distribution and reach for your product. But the three elements are great technical team, great distribution team and then a great product. And in today's world great product means as simple as possible. Like I just want to do everything with one click the same way you use, you know, chatgpt and you just prompt it and it spits out everything for you. People want that same element in the AI space. So it's, it's been phenomenal for us to build because you know, we haven't needed to raise capital or that much capital in order for us to build to this level. We've, we've, we've been able to bootstrap for as long as possible and be able to work to get to that break even profitability standpoint and not have to worry about diluting our equity, not have to worry about giving a board seats.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:22:41]:
Different elements that you, you see in the, in the, in the venture space.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:46]:
Yeah and it, it touches on Kind of the, the other thread we were pulling on before we recorded here about the kind of changing early venture dynamics and what it means for fundraising.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:22:58]:
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm so interested in that space. I think venture, a lot of capital deployment is still going to be needed in the infrastructure of AI. But then you're seeing that layer. I see a lot of venture going into that to get a lot of funding. But then you know, the LLM layer you're seeing, you're seeing this thing just being a true commodity and being driven down to zero. And so that's great for people like us who are applications built on top of these players because our, our API costs are going to be so low.

Jeffrey Stern [00:23:35]:
Yeah.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:23:35]:
So the application tier, I see them in the venture space just needing pre seed, seed capital to get them going and then from there they'll have a profitable business that's growing and that they won't need to get any funding anymore. They can just fund themselves and reinvest the profits of the business into growing the business even further. So venture is up for a huge shift. So I'm very interested to see, but I think Ohio Fund and you guys are ahead of the game in doing that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:24:08]:
As an application level builder, what is your perspective on this battle between model providers for your attention and your business? You mentioned this, call it exponential commoditization of these models. Race to the bottom when it comes to price. And then at the same time, really they're like explosion in capability. When you just think of OpenAI, anthropic meta, there's so many different model providers. How do you think about swapping between them and the different underlying models that powers Taja? How do you think about that as a builder of applications?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:24:50]:
Yeah, so we essentially look at a few things to understand when we're building something, the importance of it. The main thing is scale, cost and quality. Those are the three layers. But for us, what we love on these LLM models is we love where it's going because everything's cheaper for us. So our profit margins increase. We already have really high profit margins, but they're going to be even higher when these LLMs get commoditized even further. And so the way we build our application, our primary one is typically OpenAI just because they, we see that they innovate very, very quickly. And we're big fans of like Sam Altman, et cetera.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:25:28]:
But for us we have backup models. So if OpenAI is failing, anthropic kicks in and then we use, we're on using anthropic so we just the, the space and, and where all this stuff is at. We just love the LLMs because one, our profit margins are high and they're going to get higher as a result of these LLMs becoming cheaper. And then the other element is if one breaks you can just substitute it in for another one and they're all really high quality and they give you the same output. So we don't even see a decrease in user experience and users coming in telling us my quality is not as high or whatever the case may be, they're still very happy with the output we provide them.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:11]:
So if there's this vector of competition between the model providers, it's kind of one vector, the other vector might be the other application builders. How do you think about what it is to have a defensible product in today's space where it's becoming more and more ideally sticky and valuable for a user? I just, I'm pretty sure that there are other Tajas in the works and folks vying for the same kind of business. So how do you think about competitors in, in this era where, where that's. That speed of innovation and ultimately distribution is just kind of expedited?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:27:00]:
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So for us, we think about competition from a few points. So the first is one of the things that from the beginning that we were is very channel specific. So in order to access Taja and use it to its full capabilities, you have to link your channel to our platform. That allows us to get comprehensive data on your channels and your platforms. That allows us to fine tune and train our models on. So we're always giving users bespoke output. The second element is from a product standpoint we think about the ease of use, but then also we think about customization.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:27:41]:
We think about that element being huge in terms of allowing you to gain heavy investment with us so that you don't churn as a customer. So things like putting, you know, you can set your style of the templates of the shorts you want. We have a content scheduler, so people schedule out months and months of content in advance. So when you think about canceling your subscription, you're not because you have content loaded. Not that you're not, but your chances are lower because you have months of content already loaded into our system. So we think about those elements from there. But then the third is biggest important thing is distribution. Like this is where the game is at now.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:28:23]:
You have vibe coding, you have different elements where now it's so easy it's, it's easier than ever to create something and build something. It's now about how do you distribute it and make sure that you can gain significant market share and you have a great product that can back it up. But the main element now is more than ever about distribution and getting the product out in front of as many eyeballs as possible and just creating that market share so that you're top of mind. So those are the main things. Product side is again customization, helping, you know, you building that investment where we're trained on you, we understand you as a customer very well. And then for us is the second element is distribution. So getting in front of the right eyeballs and ensuring that we're top of mind and the best tool in the product for this specific group and people advocate for us in that way.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:18]:
What is Vibe coding?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:29:20]:
Yeah, so vibe coding is basically an element of where people are building it, where systems code for you. So you can, instead of having an engineer that actually builds out an application for you, you can just go in and prompt the app, the, the Vibe coding product to be like, I want to build this, that, that, and it'll spit out the code for you and you just implement it into your code base and then the, you're ready for deployment and production. And so right now we're seeing this as the main thing going out. It's still very early, so there's a lot of like terrible code in the space where things are breaking, et cetera. But the top engineers are, you know, a lot of people are going into the space of building different Vibe coding products for specific use cases. And so, you know, you're going to see a lot of these spun up more and more and that's going to just help people pump out products and iterate as quickly as possible. So the main use case that's really good for Vibe coding is when you're really early trying to find product market fit, you can basically swap out the codes and make changes and adjustments really quickly so that you can iterate and find out kind of where, where your product fits in the market and is best suited for.

Jeffrey Stern [00:30:36]:
I think you've outlined a few tenets of your product philosophy, but I, I did just want to ask like, do you have a crystallized product philosophy that, that guides your decision making internally and how you focus on what to, what to build?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:30:52]:
Yeah, our biggest thing is we talk to customers. So we talked to about five customers per week. This helps us understand who the customers are, where they came from, what, what problem and Pain points. Were they looking to solve how we solve it for them? What are their frustrations with the product? What do they want to see improved? So all this stuff helps us create this like roadmap of understanding who our customer, who our ICP is, where we need to, where we need to put eyeballs, where we need to ensure that we're at because and get more of these people and also how we need to adjust and better our products. So the more and more we hear about I want this feature or that feature, whatever the case may be, it helps us debug our product real quickly and ship adjustments, but then also figure out what are the highest priority features we need to build out and ensure that we're building them for to make our customers happy.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:48]:
Have you been surprised by any of the ways that people use Taja?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:31:55]:
That's a really good question. I can't think of specific use cases, but yes, everyone uses it in such a different but universal way that helps us ensure that like we're. We're building the product in a way that's valuable to everyone across the board, but we need to build out specific features and specific use cases that help specific customers. But I guess to answer that question, yes, but we also want to ensure that we're building a universal product that's not catered to like one person. It's catered to everyone across the board. But it's always interesting watching people's recordings of how they're using the product and debugging a support ticket or something of that nature to, to. To help them out.

Jeffrey Stern [00:32:43]:
Yeah. From, from your vantage point, what would you say is the biggest mistake that creators are currently making?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:32:55]:
I think creators index too heavy on AdSense revenue and like traditional media revenue and not thinking of themselves as a business and that the value of creating content as you're building community that engages and loves your, loves your perspective and adding a product to that community is very important to me. Other other things I see are like, I just don't trust the AdSense revenue as much or I don't think that's as lucrative. It's a very competitive field, lots of eyeballs depending on your niche and stuff, the payouts can be a lot different. And so I always, I think that creators should be building a community and leveraging that to build product. And then a lot of times you control the destiny of that product. Where let's say YouTube bans your account, you now don't have anywhere to make revenue again or you don't have that community to generate Revenue from those types of elements. So I would say that is like creators need to start more so indexing on how can they leverage their community as a lead gen platform to create a product. And the second thing I'm seeing is I think every creator should have a newsletter.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:34:12]:
I think newsletters are a very good mechanism to, and a different medium to repurpose your content, get it out to other people in a different way that they consume media. And then I also think that from an ownership and database standpoint, if substack or one of these platforms goes down, you have your database of customers and or subscribers and their emails and all that stuff to take that with you to your next platform. So I think owning that data and having ownership of who your audience is all that is very important because these platforms don't allow you to have that and they own your data actually. So you're at the mercy of platforms.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:55]:
Yeah, yeah. Joe Polizzi, who was on the podcast a while back talked about don't build your content house on rented land. Yeah, I'm like that makes a lot of sense.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:35:08]:
No, that's a great analogy.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:10]:
I like that the newsletter is land that you own.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:35:15]:
Yeah, yeah. And there's great platforms today, like Beehive's a great one where people are growing and monetizing their content. So like it's a one stop built in house for you to be able to distribute your newsletter to different to your subscribers. But then also if you have good eyeballs and stuff, they have a built in ads platform that brands will reach out to you to be like we want to sponsor so you can get paid, et cetera, like that. So there's tools and platforms today that didn't exist previously that are helping creators in substantial ways. And again they own, they own that data.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:51]:
Earlier you had mentioned that. And maybe it's not a trade off, but in this dichotomy between helping people create quality content that's really good versus saving time, that Taja was going to ultimately be better at helping people save time. But I am curious when you think about the state of content creation and AI and how creators are constantly facing this immense pressure to produce the best content. I mean, what do you see at this intersection of human creativity and AI and if we'll reach this point where AI might contribute significantly more to the creative process itself and helping people be more creative versus time saving part of it.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:36:43]:
That's a great point. I think, I think in any realm, honestly, I think time saving is still there because you think about the content Creation workflow. Like even if you think you're ideating about your next video idea, that's a rigorous process that if AI can automate it for you, instead of you going and doing the manual research, looking at Google trends, trying to figure out what your next topic should be, scripting, outlining all that different element. If there was a tool that can automate that for you, that's time saving. If you're someone that creates faceless content and you previously were using Premiere or Adobe or any of those different platforms, you now can just use Invideo or something of that nature to automate that process. And then for us, you come to us to package up and repurpose and distribute that content. So at the different realms of creators journey, I think time saving remains a nuclear benefit. But I do see like different platforms, different things that come out that I see them promising growth.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:37:50]:
But again there's just so many factors to that that if you do promise that and people don't see immediate growth, they're going to churn. So you're not going to have a sustainable business. So I always felt that saving time is the nuclear thing and will remain the nuclear thing because it is something that you can promise and someone can see in practical, in the flesh type of thing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:15]:
So if you, if you take that line of, of thinking one step further and you project however many years out, I'm curious what, when you think about a sustainable business, what that kind of means and in that imagined future where AI and content creation is heading, what is the role that you envision Tasha as playing in that future?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:38:40]:
Yeah, for us we find sustainability like to be with the small businesses solopreneurs just because they're not, they're less likely to churn, let's say for a small business or a solopreneur they need 200 views, let's say, and three leads to come in and ideally to close one of those leads or whatever the case may be to make their money back. Whereas a content creator needs that hundreds of thousands, millions of views and a month to be able to make their money back and see that investment. So we see ourselves being very niche to this group and then expanding to like agencies, et cetera. But we see ourselves as a one stop shop solution automation tool that will help you automate your content workflow from the beginning all the way to the end. So right now the market is very fragmented. So there might be just an SEO tool or just a shorts clip tool, or just a scheduling tool or just a research key or keyword research tool. What we're trying to do is consolidate that into a one stop shop where we combine all these tools into one. One place.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:39:50]:
You pay for only one subscription and you get all the value you're looking at across, all across the market. And so we're, that's where kind of our head is in our line of thinking is, is we can build something that's really great at automating your content workflow specifically for a specific niche and just being the best for that niche.

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:14]:
What does success mean to you? What, what kind of impact do you hope to have? Kind of looking back in, in retrospect.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:40:22]:
And the Taja life cycle or just my life cycle?

Jeffrey Stern [00:40:26]:
Both.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:40:27]:
Yeah. So for me right now, in the Taja cycle, we wanted to build something that's 10x better than anything out on the market that helps alleviate the pain point for these small businesses. So for us it's impacting as many solopreneurs, as many small businesses as possible understand the pain point that we saw for them. And they can see that we're the best in the market at being able to help them automate their workflow. For my life, my biggest thing that I want to do in the long run is I'm from Sudan. So Sudan has a ongoing war right now. It's the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world with 30 million people displaced. And so I eventually want to go back there, use the money that I generated in America to help rebuild that country.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:23]:
How do you think in the spirit of that and kind of alterations in direction that you've had to make along the way as just part of the entrepreneurial process? Course correction, how do you think about what the adversity embedded in entrepreneurship is and how you work through it?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:41:47]:
Yeah, I always, I'm a very like spiritual person. I'm a very like grounded person. So I always look at perspectives from a glass half full and I look at like everything that's happening to you is happening for you. So I'm always looking at different adversity as mechanisms to learn from. Like what is this moment trying to teach me right now? And are we, are we moving in the right direction? Just because a lot of times you could be moving but you're moving in the wrong place. And so adversity can come in, help you take that step back to look at everything and reassess whether or not you are doing it correctly, moving in that right direction. And I always look at like these challenges and these obstacles only become harder as you're building. So you kind of need that adversity along the way to train you to understand how to deal with it, to then be able to conquer bigger challenges.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:42:44]:
And the bigger challenges you conquer, the bigger impact you make and the more you grow. And so, yeah, I've always looked at adversity as glass half full. So I'm never really, you know, no matter what's really happening, I'm never really tripping about the situation.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:59]:
What do you feel have have been your earned wisdom through the entrepreneurial adversity along the way? What come to mind as the most important, powerful lessons learned?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:43:14]:
Yeah, I think the biggest one is it's different because there's specific things for specific use cases, whether you're raising or this or that or that. But the biggest one along the way is patience and understanding that these things take time and understand that the great things need to have a strong foundation in order to last. And so as you're building, as you're creating something new, the foundation is the most important part to it because if that foundation is built very fragile, then it's gonna collapse as quickly as it came. And so for me, it's about patience, ensuring that I'm building the right thing the right way and not cheating the system, not cutting corners because it will come back to hurt you in the long run. And so for me, it's patience building the right way and not delaying the inevitable because it will, things will happen. So yeah, just go through it and get through it and build it the right way the first time. Because if you, if you don't, it'll come back to haunt you and it might take you double the time, double the energy to get it done. So those are the main things that I look for.

Jeffrey Stern [00:44:29]:
Well said. That resonates a lot. What are you most excited about? Looking forward?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:44:36]:
Yeah, we're most excited in this era for Taja is we're bringing on a new head of growth. So he's a phenomenal person. Been advising us since January. We've seen really good growth through him. Now he's coming on to help us out on a more full time capacity. So really excited to bring him on and help us grow this thing and just perfecting the product even more and really trying to, you know, master product and distribution at the same time. Just to be able to gain that market share and hone in on that niche of solopreneur small businesses and build something sustainable and really build a cash flow cow that we can then look to invest in other sectors of the content creation workflow and help enhance people's lives.

Jeffrey Stern [00:45:24]:
Well, what do you feel is left unsaid? Is there anything particularly important that comes to mind, reflecting on your personal journey or your entrepreneurial journey that you would like to share, that we haven't touched on?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:45:38]:
I think I'll just reiterate. I think entrepreneurship to a core is resourcefulness plus leverage plus momentum. So be resourceful what you have. Don't look at what you don't have, because if you do that, you're never gonna get anywhere, and you'll always be just stuck in that realm. So be. Look at what you have and how you can make the most of that opportunity. And then from there, leverage. Create a great op.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:46:08]:
Create something great. Leverage that opportunity to get more opportunities, and then you have momentum. And then never stop that flywheel, because the moment you do, when momentum stops, it's very hard to start it up again. So just. Yeah, just look at what you have, what you can make the mo. How you can make the most out of it. Build something great, and then you never know who's watching, who's looking. So advocate for yourself.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:46:31]:
Tell people about what you're doing, because at any moment, someone could think about something that they're. They're trying to do and reach out to you. So, you know, with what you have and what's in your control, maximize that. Make the most out of it, and then from there, leverage it to get more opportunities. Make the most out of those. Rinse and repeat. And now you have momentum, and now you're unstoppable.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:54]:
Yeah. That's awesome. Well said again. Well, I'll bookend it here then with. With our traditional closing question, which is for a hidden gem in Cleveland. Something in the area that other folks may not know about, but. But perhaps they should.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:47:10]:
Yeah. For me, my biggest hidden thing. Not. I don't know if it's hidden anymore. Finding out. More and more people are finding out about it, but Banana Blossom on West 25th is my favorite restaurant.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:24]:
That's some good Thai food.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:47:25]:
I love the Thai food there. See? Yeah. More people are finding out about it. So that's. That's my. That's my spot. That's where I go to wherever I'm Cleveland. I love that area, and that food is phenomenal.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:47:36]:
So definitely check it out and get their crab rangoon. They have one of the best crab rangoons you'll ever try. So, yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:46]:
That's a. That's a perfect one to. To end it on here. Well, amazing. I just. I just want to thank you for coming on, sharing your story. It's. It's really exciting what you're building and I'm excited personally to, to.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:59]:
To play around with it now that I have video on my podcast, so.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:48:04]:
For sure, for sure. Yeah, we'll definitely set you up with an account. Just reach out to me. We'll get it done.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:09]:
If folks had anything they wanted to follow up with you about, where, where would you direct them? What would be the best way to get in touch?

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:48:15]:
Yeah, LinkedIn's probably the best space. So you could do like Ibrahim Momed I B R A H I M M O H M E D and then you can just do Ibrahim Omad Taj AI and I'll come up. That's the best place to connect with.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:30]:
Amazing.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:31]:
Well, thank you again. Really appreciate it.

Ibrahim Mohmed [00:48:34]:
Appreciate you. Thanks for having me on. This has been a great time. So hope, hope. I can't wait to see the episode and hope that people get something out of it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:45]:
Yeah, me too. This was awesome.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:49]:
That's all for this week.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:50]:
Thank you for listening.

Jeffrey Stern [00:48:52]:
We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show. So if you have any feedback feedback please send over an email to jeffreyoftheland FM or find us on Twitter oddleayoftheland.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:02]:
Or sternfa J E F E. If.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:05]:
You or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on itunes or on your preferred podcast player. Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and pilgrimage builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast was developed in collaboration with the UpCompany LLC at the time of this recording. Unless otherwise indicated, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the company which appear on this show. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:53]:
Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week.