[00:00:27] Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by Monik Pamecha. Did I get it?

[00:00:36] Monik: Yes, you did.

[00:00:37] Jay: Beautiful. All right. He's from Toma. com. Monik, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you, man?

[00:00:43] Monik: I'm good, Jay. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:46] Jay: You got it. so tell me a little bit, where did you grow up and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:00:52] Monik: so, I grew up in Bombay, in India. you know, I mean, the place I would say it's very close to New York in terms of like the spirit So it's like everybody's hustling. My father had a small business. My mom was at home So, you know, we grew up watching my dad work all the time And the only days off were like maybe like six seven hours on sunday and that's about it So it's like you I guess you grew up with the mindset that grind is the norm Like my dad was like, why aren't you working?

Like why aren't you doing something?you know those kind of questions so you just look up to your parents as kids and then that's what I did and then As I grew up, you know, more and more things started happening and then I just happened to be very interested in playing computer games. And then, you know, finally, like at the age of, I don't remember, I like maybe 10 or something like that.

I got my first computer, you know, and then I started like playing with it and then Started making websites and there's like a long story back that we can get into that But I feel like it's just been one event leading to another like that has nothing to do with It's just randomly, you know things just happen and then I end up doing something you know, which resembles a business and then I realize okay.

This is what I want to do This is more fun and I keep doing it

[00:02:07] Jay: Yeah. I think that's, that describes a lot of people's stories. I don't think some people have a nice little, You know, nice package of like this. I did this and then this. And then other people are just like, I did all sorts of shit and then it actually worked out. So, maybe you're in the latter bucket.

So, tell me a little bit, what was your first business you tried to start or you did start?

[00:02:24] Monik: so it also, this is a really funny story. So I think, I don't know if people know about WordPress. So that was like something that was really big in like 2006, seven, something around then when I was like, I think I was 11, 12 years old when, you know, I just. Was trying to make websites and I was like, let me make a website for fun and you're in school and kids are dumb and Cruel and stupid, you know, so I was like I had a friend who had a lot of like body hair and I was like You know what?

I'm gonna start a blog and like write about this harry potter. and I just wrote that and It's actually funny because you know this showed up on like This was covered by like some magazine as well later when they did a profile on me I just wrote a blog and it like All the people in the school like went and read it because you know first a website like you know What is that and they go to their parents and they're like search for this and this shows up So that's how I like first made a blog and I was like, okay It looks like people can read you know Like they can come and read what I wrote and it sounded interesting and I was always very interested in technology The first thing I really did was I started a tech blog and it was It's actually still my email address, you know that i've been using for like, I don't know how many years now and when I started writing the blog, I think that's when tech crunch mashable and gadget like these were blogs That were just coming up.

They were like very new at the time as well. so I was covering tech stuff writing news and you know, I was like Again, I looked up a little more how to make money online and there's something like Google Adsense comes up and I'm like, okay You can put ads in your blog. That makes sense and then wordpress did not allow you to do that So wordpress.

com was a place where you could do like a self hosted blog and then I was like, okay looks like a new challenge has come up now I need to you know host as again a 13 14 year old i'm like, what should I do? I need to find a different way to host this website. So i'm like oh php this programming language this Posting all domain I got a buy like or my dad and my dad like, what do you mean?

You need to spend like again, I'm spending in rupees not in dollars So it's like I think 12 dollars which was I don't know 400 rupees or something like that at the time and he's like why do you need that money for like something online like what? Is this because they don't have any technical background my parents are like, you know Did you study like commerce dropped out of college and just started doing a you know, retail business?

So it was like a lot of experience And then finally I go ahead and like, set up this blog of mine and I start writing and I put ads and then it starts making money slowly. and that's when I realized, okay, you know, there's some potential here. And the real reason for me. To actually make money was I used to use the internet a lot and at the time there were like dial up modems So you would get billed on the time you used it for so it was like your phone line is engaged and that's it Like, you know 56 kilobytes per second and i'll get like really huge bills So the first month I was like online all the time I did not know what it would lead to and it shows up and my dad looks at me and he's like What is this?

You know, I pay people who work at my shop like this much per month and you're just Blowing it away on like internet. Like what are you doing? Are you watching porn? Like what is happening? and then and that's when that fire came in me when I actually started looking Okay, I need to monetize what i'm doing because I cannot have him ask me again that why are you know?

spending so much money. I just felt really insulted at the time honestly And that's what like pushed me to work and then fast forward here some more things the blog I kept I would spam the Comment sections of like literally every other famous blog So they were like tech crunch and get all of those guys banned me and I would try like different emails and obviously Like the spam filters weren't that good, but I somehow like got people's attention And then there used to be this other website called dig Which is like the reddit of the time, you know, it was like front page of the internet.

And we hit like the front page. I would like live blog, apples events, all that kind of stuff. And then slowly we grew it. I made a revenue sharing program, got like 17 other authors from like different places. So, you know, their ads would show up on their content and like the site would get gone and all those kinds of things.

As part of that, I wrote, used to write tutorials on like how to make a social networking website, something like that.and then people would actually read that and then they would, you know, reach out to me and they're like, look, it's so complicated. I don't want to do it. Can you do it? Then that's the really, the next phase that led to was like, okay, I'm writing about technology, but that seems all right, I want to build technology.

How do I do that? And then here, people were coming to me and they're like, Facebook was, you know, getting really big in 2000, you know, six, seven, right? Everybody's like, there were customers who came to me like, I wanna make a social networking website for fishermen. So I made fish book, I made, somebody was like in Central Park and they were like, okay, we want a fitness train.

I was like, I wanna make these communities for people. so this was all me. I was just using these open source softwares, but they kept reading my blog and coming to me and I was like, okay, let me do this. Let me do that. so that was really, I mean, the blog was obviously the first time I made money, but that was like more like publications.

But really I made money the first time when, you know, I had, I think a law forum reached out to me or somebody in India and they saw like, I love your blog and can you make this for me? just make a website like yours for me. I'll give you like 4, 000 rupees. That was like a hundred dollars at the time.

And I took it to my dad and I'm like, here, like a hundred dollars. Like the check has arrived. And then like, please do not, you know, bother me again. And he was like, looks like it has some legs.

[00:07:54] Jay: Beautiful. I love that story. I mean, that's hustle kind of personified. I love that a lot. so let's fast forward a little bit. where Toma come from? How far in the journey was that? Was that kind of more recent? Like how long ago was that? Like when did you kind of think of the idea? Where did it come from?

What is Toma?

[00:08:16] Monik: so I always wanted to do a startup ever since then. I was like, once you catch that bug, you know, you're like, okay, I need to do my own thing. I need to do something. You just don't know what, right. I feel like one of my favorite authors, Hunter Thompson, he, I think he goes on to David Letterman show and he says.

I always love that line that he says he's like i'm trying to prove something I'm, just not sure what and I think that kind of like summarizes how I felt for a long time So that was in school So that was in high school like me doing all those things that I mentioned I go to college It's pretty clear.

I need to do computer science. I was like, I just love that thing. I'm gonna continue to do that then I finish that and then I go. and again, at the time I was like reading about Silicon Valley and like the bear and I was like, there is no way in hell I'm going to go anywhere else. Let me just go to grad school there.

So I, I was like, cause maybe all the smart people are there. You read all that. You see videos of like, you know, Steve Jobs saying something at the Sanford commencement speech. you know, just being a middle class person, you see that stuff and you're like, okay, maybe that's where the stuff is. You don't take too much.

Go ahead. so I came here for, you know, with that in mind, always, I worked for some time, but again, like even when I was doing, I worked for like four years, you know, after grad school and then, for five years and, in that period, I was like always trying to do something. I don't know what I need to figure out.

I need to do something first. The problem is like, I don't know what I need to do. I don't know who I need to work with. how will like, you know, all those questions, right? So, so. Toma was really when it all came together. So I was, I had been trying to work, I've been working with other people, trying out to work with some, find a co founder, you know, use co founder matching, which is like some vice websites.

you meet people to try to do these projects. Nothing really worked out, until I meet my current co founder, who's also in New York. So I'm in New York at the time. Oh yeah. I moved to the Bay. Then I decided to go to New York because I was like, okay, I also need to look after my personal life a little bit.

Let me have some fun. And then I go to New York. and then that's where I'm working, for four years. so I meet my cofounder over there. Again, we don't know what we need to do. We just meet each other. We're like, okay, it looks like we both have the same problem. We want to do something. We just don't know what.

And then we start doing things together. Toma, we picked that name because it was neutral. At the time we decided, let's just pick something so that we don't have to buy a new domain every time. and you know, make sure that we can keep experimenting. and first I found out what we were thinking is that, so let's do something that, you know, we all share, like we, that are our own problems.

And so we started making a diet recommendation tool for chronic conditions, you know, patients with chronic conditions spend some time doing that. What I'm trying to say, I guess, in summary is that we never really got to where we are today through like a straight line. It was always random things that we kept trying.

And then something. Like works and then we probe more and then we go more in that direction. So it's you know, dissent, you know, like just finding your way in the mess somehow, just hoping it'll work. So we do that health stuff, we get banned on like subreddits, Facebook groups. Again, we're trying to promote it, get users and absolutely nothing happens.

People hate us. and they roast us completely, even in personal messages publicly. it was really, Awful, honestly, and at the time we decided that all right Let's just make a spreadsheet of like all the possible things that we think we can make and let's Go down in that list one by one until we hit something.

Everything has legs. That's what we did I think this, the, I think the fourth idea on that list was, AI phone automation or something like that.and we tried like three, again, nothing happened. The fourth one, we're like, we just put it out. on, I think on Reddit, and this was not even a promotional post.

The post has so many views even now, and I get customers from it. I just wrote like I'm making this thing, you know, this looks really cool you know, would anybody want to try it? Like that's it. I'm not selling anything and then immediately it blew up I got so many comments and messages and they're like I have this application.

Can you do this for me? There's we actually found A true forced customer from there.

[00:12:33] Jay: tell me more about the posts, like what, why do you think that one was successful? I mean, I'm a huge Redditor. I'm a huge fan of just Reddit. I was also a big fan of dig back then. And I think it was very like dig verse Reddit at some point. Like it was, you know, you were one side or the other.

It was definitely a dig guy, back then. But tell me about the Reddit post specifically because it's an interesting medium. Where I will actually, depending on what I'm trying to find or what I'm trying to look up or whatever perspective or opinion I'm looking for, I will actually append Reddit to the end of my search to try to find a conversation around it.

So tell me a little bit about that. It maybe sounds like you were hitting on that a little bit before it was super popular as an option to kind of search for things. What was the post? Why did you make it? Like, give me a little more details around it.

[00:13:24] Monik: so what I thought was, I think that was actually not even on a business subreddit. I think it was on like, so when GPT came out, there were some of these subreddits where people are experimenting with it. So I think the people who were going there were like, Oh yeah, this tool exists. How can I use this to improve my business?

Again, this is all in hindsight. I just saw chat gpt. I'm like, I made some like weight connection that okay I think people might like this and what I truly was trying to do was like get you know People's feedback on something. I was like, this is something I made, you know I can give you a phone number to call just try it and tell me what do you think like, you know Is it good enough?

Like do you have something better? Like it was me asking them because I was trying to validate that should I even go down this path? So it was just out of like genuine And I guess, curiosity that I'm like, what is out there? You know, like this is all I have. And I was so honest, like nothing about it is promotional, nothing about it was, you know, any of that form, it was just me not selling, just like asking.

and, a lot of people share that sentiment and they, I think. People opened up as well, you know, they're like, this is what I'm trying to do. Like, have you tried this? Can you move this? Like, I have this kind of business. And I think it comes from the fact that obviously there must be some inherent desire and need in the first place, right?

Like I'm not giving rise to that. Really. I'm like surfing on a wave that already exists, you know, of demand. I, of course I didn't know it back then, later you find out, but there has to be some inherent things. So it was more like trial and error. I mean, that's probably one out of, I don't know, hundreds of posts I made, you know, with a lot of different accounts and, you know, engaging a lot of comments.

So that's just the one that worked. Of course a lot of like failed ones too, which either means people, either my post was bad or there's just no inherent need for what I have. You know, I don't know which one of the two, but, I think it's most likely the first case, because like human desire, like that desire needs to exist, you know, and then, you know, that desire must be greater than the motivate, you know, that desire should be greater than the inertia at stopping you to do it.

That was the case because there was. We had a pet company from Australia reach out to us. We had,a company from UK who is doing like a call centers, receptionist software, you know, for like businesses, there's one multi level marketing company in Florida. So it cannot be a coincidence that all these like, you know, different people have like the same desire.

They're like, I want to automate something like this. So there must be something. It's more like, You stumbled upon something as opposed to I like created the whole like, you know, this is exactly what they want

[00:16:09] Jay: Right.

[00:16:10] Monik: Yeah, so

[00:16:11] Jay: And so what is Toma today? Like, well, after all your research and trying different things and like, what is Toma in its current iteration today?

[00:16:18] Monik: yeah, so we started with AI phone automation and we wanted to work with all companies and all domains initially and that's what we did for a few months. Actually. We even applied to Y Combinator the startup accelerator and we got in. As soon as we got in I think they usually they tell you that you have like 70 days now There's demo day and that it's more like the culmination everything you're doing and we're trying to like make money Okay at this point we're like, okay great people are using it That's fine But like who is willing to pay like who is really getting value out of what you have and then we realize oh my god We have a problem because none of these guys are like, you know, there is not like Valuable enough for them to pay, you know, or you can really create so much value.what's the thing about entrepreneurship? I think every time you do something you feel good and then the next thing comes and you're like, oh my god All over again, like things just break down and you're in this constant, you know turmoil So yeah, the point we're like, okay, what should we do now?

You know, we have all these like few customers You know Some customers are really slow to adopt your technology because a bank would take forever The procurement phase is just going on and then we have like a deadline of like 60 70 days I mean, I don't think we'll show up with just one contract and You know people are gonna laugh at us So at the time again Serendipity One of the customers happens to be in the automotive space and they were building something for a car dealership.

So we have one car dealership, one bank, one airline, one, healthcare, you know, outfit, which has like maybe six locations, one pest control, it was just all over the place and this is just one of them. And then we built something for, we tried to build something for all of them. Again, we're failing miserably.

But one of them, you know, we make something and it works well and they don't say anything for two weeks They just go and then they come back and they're like, this is great. You know, I have this other dealership Like you want to you know do this for them and we're like sure why not? We do that then like four more come and then it just happened organically and we're like, okay I guess this is what it means when somebody has something has like staying power or you know, there's like, again, inherent value.

Like it took me a while to understand that. Like I, you know, sometimes people always portray that, you know, good salesperson could just go and convince anybody to buy anything. You can't convince anyone about anything, right? What you can do is you can assess what they have, like validate that and then connect the dots.

If there is, you know, like the scope of like really providing the value. Cause the desire exists. So I've actually started thinking differently about, I'm not shaping anything or changing people or anything like that. We're just experimenting and we're probing for the truth and wherever we see evidence of that, be like further, you know, go investigate and like do more things.

So really that's what happened. And then one point we decided that, all right, let's just double down on the automotive space. Let's just work with car dealerships because there's real value. Again, this is all. We've we didn't even know like none of us ever owned a car before for a long time We did not know the you know, what it entails to get so is how do you deal with dealerships?

Like, the fact that they're missing like 33 percent of their phone calls, they're like 18, 000 franchise dealerships, 290 million cars in the U. S. that are being sold, you know, on the road right now. So they're being sold through most of these dealerships. so it's a massive market, massive opportunity.

Cars need service. They're calling, you know, a phone call happens to be the number one way to get service, or at least, you know, initiate contact with the business. and then. They are, they have staffing issues, you know, in, in efficiencies. And then they get like a hundred thousand calls per dealership.

And they drop like 30 percent of that per year. Like, again, we didn't know any of this at the beginning. We just walked into it. We kept building, kept trying and it's, that's really what happened. And then we doubled down and then Toma became a iPhone automation for the automotive industry. That's. You know, that's how we arrived here.

[00:20:17] Jay: That's a beautiful arc. It's the ultimate shotgun approach, you know, you're just like probing at things and then you find the one that hits and you kind of double down and you go after it. I feel like there's so much to this story, but let me, let's, I have one kind of final question for you.

And I'm interested for your answer because, very similar entrepreneurial spirit, I think to myself, and I feel like you've tried maybe a bunch of different things, but this is a non business related question.

[00:20:43] Monik: Okay.

[00:20:44] Jay: Just. Monik being Monik.

[00:20:47] Monik: Alright.

[00:20:48] Jay: If you could do anything on earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:20:55] Monik: Then that would suck, I don't know. Cause, to be honest, like, I think the thrill of doing something actually comes from the real threat of failing, or like dying, or something like that. Like, if you take that away, it's so bland, right? Like, I would rather not live at that point, right? Cause then, where's the thrill?

What's the fun, right?

Right. Yeah, no, that's fair. I've gotten that answer before. Cause,

[00:21:20] Jay: think that's a fair one, but what, is there anything on your bucket list, that you would do today if you could?

[00:21:29] Monik: my bucket list. I've never been to Europe. I mean, I've, I'm a huge history buff. I really admire like just ancient history, medieval is the, all of that, like just getting to places, doing things, exploring, because again, that's just how I think is in my mind. What I want to do is I'm just curious.

I want to know everything about, you know, the word and the way it is and why I am the way I am and I feel like the answers are, you know, out there and I want to have the time to go study that and understand myself and others better and I think that's what I would do. Just study history and go around and like actually.

I don't know like even fossils. I'm just obsessed with fossils. I love like checking out fossils I buy like these small pieces that we find they're like 100 million years old 50 million years old. It's just yeah It would be something related to that, but maybe I would just become a historian and then just study

[00:22:24] Jay: I love that. I've never gotten, be a historian is the answer to that question. So I think you're unique in that regard and many others as well. Monik, people want to find more about you, specifically and reach out about anything they heard today. How did they do that?

[00:22:38] Monik: Yeah, so my email is monic at toma. com and you know toma. com is our company's website We're also hiring our founding engineer so if you or somebody you know who's, you know, an exceptional, computer science and just a startup mentality person, then please send them our way.

[00:22:58] Jay: Beautiful. Absolutely. Will do. it was great to meet you, Monik. I hope people reach out and best of luck with you and tumble. com. All right.

[00:23:05] Monik: All right. Thank you, Jay.

[00:23:07] Jay: Thanks, Monik. See you, man. 

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