Never Been Promoted

STOP Using Insecure Passwords with Eli Farhood

July 11, 2024 Thomas Helfrich Season 1 Episode 72
STOP Using Insecure Passwords with Eli Farhood
Never Been Promoted
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Never Been Promoted
STOP Using Insecure Passwords with Eli Farhood
Jul 11, 2024 Season 1 Episode 72
Thomas Helfrich

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Never Been Promoted Podcast with Thomas Helfrich

Elijah Farhood shares his entrepreneurial journey, detailing how personal experiences with identity fraud inspired his innovative approach to cybersecurity. Known for his passionate commitment to technology, Eli discusses the challenges and triumphs of building a startup focused on identity protection.


About Eli Farhood:

Eli Farhood is the CEO and founder of KATSH ID, a company dedicated to preventing identity fraud and protecting personal information. With a background in finance, Eli transitioned to technology to pursue his passion for innovation and solving complex problems. His experience in finance and technology has equipped him with the skills to address the growing issue of identity theft and fraud.


In this episode, Thomas and Eli discuss:

The Journey to KATSH ID: Eli shares his transition from finance to technology and the personal experience with identity fraud that inspired him to start KATSH ID.

Managing Failures and Moving Forward: Eli emphasizes the importance of learning from failures and maintaining a passion for solving problems as key drivers in his entrepreneurial journey.

The Challenges of Startup Life: Eli discusses the strategic approach to building a startup with limited resources and the importance of focusing on solving specific pain points for clients.


Key Takeaways:

  • Focus on Solving Pain Points

Understanding that startups should focus on specific client problems and provide solutions that address these pain points effectively.

  • Importance of Passion and Resilience 

Maintaining passion and resilience is crucial for overcoming the challenges and setbacks in the entrepreneurial journey.

  • Leveraging Technology for Security

Emphasizing the role of innovative technology in providing secure identity solutions and protecting personal information from fraud. 

"If you're after the money, there are many ways to make money. Being an entrepreneur is about solving problems and making an impact." — Eli Farhood


CONNECT WITH ELI FARHOOD:

Website: https://www.katshid.com/
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/efarhood/


CONNECT WITH THOMAS:

X (Twitter):
https://twitter.com/thelfrich | https://twitter.com/nevbeenpromoted Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hovienko | https://www.facebook.com/neverbeenpromoted
Website: https://www.neverbeenpromoted.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neverbeenpromoted/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@neverbeenpromoted
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com

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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Send us a Text Message.

Never Been Promoted Podcast with Thomas Helfrich

Elijah Farhood shares his entrepreneurial journey, detailing how personal experiences with identity fraud inspired his innovative approach to cybersecurity. Known for his passionate commitment to technology, Eli discusses the challenges and triumphs of building a startup focused on identity protection.


About Eli Farhood:

Eli Farhood is the CEO and founder of KATSH ID, a company dedicated to preventing identity fraud and protecting personal information. With a background in finance, Eli transitioned to technology to pursue his passion for innovation and solving complex problems. His experience in finance and technology has equipped him with the skills to address the growing issue of identity theft and fraud.


In this episode, Thomas and Eli discuss:

The Journey to KATSH ID: Eli shares his transition from finance to technology and the personal experience with identity fraud that inspired him to start KATSH ID.

Managing Failures and Moving Forward: Eli emphasizes the importance of learning from failures and maintaining a passion for solving problems as key drivers in his entrepreneurial journey.

The Challenges of Startup Life: Eli discusses the strategic approach to building a startup with limited resources and the importance of focusing on solving specific pain points for clients.


Key Takeaways:

  • Focus on Solving Pain Points

Understanding that startups should focus on specific client problems and provide solutions that address these pain points effectively.

  • Importance of Passion and Resilience 

Maintaining passion and resilience is crucial for overcoming the challenges and setbacks in the entrepreneurial journey.

  • Leveraging Technology for Security

Emphasizing the role of innovative technology in providing secure identity solutions and protecting personal information from fraud. 

"If you're after the money, there are many ways to make money. Being an entrepreneur is about solving problems and making an impact." — Eli Farhood


CONNECT WITH ELI FARHOOD:

Website: https://www.katshid.com/
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/efarhood/


CONNECT WITH THOMAS:

X (Twitter):
https://twitter.com/thelfrich | https://twitter.com/nevbeenpromoted Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hovienko | https://www.facebook.com/neverbeenpromoted
Website: https://www.neverbeenpromoted.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neverbeenpromoted/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@neverbeenpromoted
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com

Support the Show.

Serious about LinkedIn Lead Generation? Stop Guessing what to do on LinkedIn and ignite revenue from relevance with Instantly Relevant Lead System

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Welcome back to another episode of Never Been Promoted. Why is it called that? Because I've never been promoted. That's true. But that's okay because I have this kind of burning need to be an entrepreneur as many of you do as well. Listen. Today, we're gonna meet with an awesome awesome founder, Eli Farhood, the CEO of KATSH ID. We're getting some kind of the cool stuff they're working on in his journey as well. I wanna acknowledge, though, if this is your if this is your first time here, thank you so much for trying it. And I hope it's the first of many. If you've been here before, you rock. Thank you for coming back. Listen. Our mission, be very clear, is to help an, a 1000000 entrepreneurs get better in entrepreneurship, help them unleash their entrepreneur. And we do that by, you know, helping you cut the tide, so to speak metaphorically of all the things that's holding you back, the people, the the excuses, the fears that you're you have and you hold on to. You you need to get rid of those things so you can be out there free and and really kicking ass. We do this also through learning from other entrepreneurs and their stories, and that's what we'll be doing here today on the podcast and YouTube channel here. Only call to action I ask is if you like the podcast or love it, do the 5 star on Apple. Do it on Spotify and do it on, you know, your favorite podcast player and give the YouTube channel a follow as well at youtube.com@neverbeenpromoted. But enough of the shameless promotion. Let's bring let's bring on Eli. Eli, welcome. Hi, Thomas. Good to see you, and thank you for having me. Of course. You know, you and I have met a few times off to I've met probably the last couple of years, I think, where you and I have been talking just from what you're doing. And And you're like, man, I want to talk about what I'm doing now and kind of my adventure. And you've been thoughtful and careful on your own path. So I appreciate you coming on today. Start up, but where where you where you kind of, you know, where you based out of today?
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LA.
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LA. So you like to pick that cheap area to build a company on. Right? It's not like the Midwest, some small town outside of Saint Louis. You're like, no. Let's go to the most expensive real estate possible and let's go there. I I like your I know. It it it's getting really,
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crazy. The the valuations on on the real estate and the rents and the cost of living here is just skyrocketing. And look, I don't think there's just a magical place for building a soft top or a business. I think you can do that anywhere as long as you're driven, you have a mission, you're passionate about what you're doing. But obviously, I'm not gonna hide it. Some geographical location will give you just more benefits, more leverage, if that makes sense.
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I agree. You do have you have less need for, revenue that you know, so to speak, for your company to start up. Once you made it, you don't care. At that point, LA makes sense. Alright. Let's start with an icebreaker. Icebreaker question. If you could swap lives with anyone, live or dead, obviously, you'd be back in their time era if it's alive. For 1 day, who would it be?
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That's an amazing question.
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This might be the most anyone's ever thought about. I would wanna be
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I would wanna be I have many people in mind, to be honest, just thinking about it now. Steve Jobs.
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Steve Jobs.
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Alright.
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Dude, is it is it is the day when the iPhone either came to him or he realized what was gonna happen with it? What what's the day he's thinking of Steve Jobs?
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It is very funny what I'm going to say, but, honestly, when he came up with the iPhone few years back, I had similar thoughts about a smart device that will work much more efficiently, and it will just change the game. I just didn't know exactly how it should work. I didn't know if it should be all touch screen, but I just don't know 1 thing. We don't want any keyboards anymore. And Right. And when when he came up with the iPhone, it kind of like, wow. Like, this is something that I was looking for, and there, we have it now. And when I tried it and III used it, I loved it.
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Love it. Well, let let's start with you. So so you're,
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you know, you're It's it's a device that changed everything in the way we can consume, digital media, in the way we live our digital life, in the way we make business, in the way we pretty much every corner of your life changed after this device came to existence. And, I I always thought that we need something that will allow us to be more productive. Like humans, we like visuals. We like touching. We don't like, be hindered in a space. Like, you were hindered in that QWERTY, you know, keyboard that is physical and you can only do on this. He gave you a whole screen where you can swipe, tap, you know, resize, move fingers. It's just a totally different rule that is so powerful. We're still I mean, witnessing its power today. Well, exactly. And and they also took it from,
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like, the best in class of a of a computer to hey. By the way, it's the 1 of the features is now you can call people and, like, and, like, it was it's it's amazing. But let's pivot to you. So let's go to you. Give give me your background a little bit and, like, set up a story. Like, you know, talk about your company, what it does today, and and and lead us through the story that got you there.
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Yeah. I mean, Thomas, we've met before. You know about me, but let me, I mean, share more with the audience. So I come from the world of finance. I worked in finance for 20 years. I became a portfolio manager before I stopped working in finance. That was in 2012, to be more specific, following the financial crisis, which, you know, it was kind of like the pivot point for me. I was, I was good in finance, but at some point, I was also it was taking a toll on me. And I felt that III like this, but I don't love this. And technology was always, like, my passion. I I always saw technology as a gateway to liberation, to to revolution, to rebellion, to bringing new stuff to to to the planet, new tools, new, things we can leverage to to change our lives, to to get better, to to be more prosper. And, I decide I took this decision literally in 2013 to stop working in finance, although I still, like, you know, feel like I wanna go back there, because I I like it, to be honest. But, yeah, in 28/13, I decided I I wanna go to technology. And we were actually starting to build what back then was a platform that allows people to exchange live video. It was a platform that was supposed to solve the problem of fake bots, fake accounts, and later on, fake news. But we failed there miserably because back then, there was, this broadband limited access to most users. And the experience we were envisioning,
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we couldn't, you know, bring it to fruition and and, yeah, the the the the whole concept failed. Let me pause you on that as you kinda hear your story up because I think a lot of people struggle to talk about their failures. A lot of people don't even admit they had them. Like, just kind of brush over. I'm like, no. I got but if you could talk a little bit about what that did to you kind of mentally or, like, as an approach for moving forward to the next thing? And even you hinted at, like, sometimes I misfinance. And that and so so talk about this a little bit in your own you know, give a reflection back to others who are because you're not alone. People out there aren't you know, you feel these things. And at the time, you feel very alone. You feel very disconnected from everybody because you're trying to do your own thing. You're getting pulled back to what you kinda knew, which you know you can make steady money on. Like, there's a lot and then you fail a business, and then you're like, god, what now? Talk about how you felt and how you kinda work through that.
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Yeah. I always, you know, lean back to finance because I was really good at it, to be honest. I was really good at it. I I liked it a lot. But also, it was a very stressful job, if that makes sense. And the moment stress, and work, you know, converge, you know that this is not your passion maybe. This is not the thing you love the most. And there's some other space where you can excel better, do better, leverage better because, you know, for me, working should be fun. And to be fun, it has to be my passion. It it has to be something that doesn't stress me, and I think technology was that space. I can work literally sometimes 18 hours a day, on technology projects and be fine with it. That's how I go, okay. This is my space. This is where I love to be. This is my passion. Technology. I really believe in this, space and, you know, we're seeing it today, AI and it's gonna be a lot more in the future with nuclear energy, alternative energy. I think we're we're headed to a world where there's a lot of abundance. Everything will be cheaper. Talking about finance, there is some deflation threats here to the economic model that we we do currently operate, with. And so technology is a way out. That's how we solve our problems. This is how we we should take it.
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What, tell me your, you know, KATSH ID. So talk talk about what that what kinda inspired you to do this, this startup, and and talk about what it does kind of for the world as well.
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Yeah. Like I said, we were building that, social platform, you know, that, was based on a live video interaction, and due to broadband limited access back then in 2013, it just really failed. It just didn't provide the experience that we were envisioning for our users. But then in 2015, I fell victim to identity fraud. And, this is where the whole thing about CAPTCH really started. We started looking into the the the the the reasons why I fell victim. I was thinking, you know, I was alone in this. And turns out hundreds of millions of people globally fall victim to fraud, whether through a credit card, unauthorized access to the bank account, or any kind of, you know, fraud that is based on identity, credentials. And we started from there. You know, we pivoted actually. This is how we pivoted it. We were in a social platform that, you know, sold fake profiles and fake accounts, and we we pivoted to an identity access platform that is more viewed not to not to the consumer, but to the businesses, because we uncovered this big problem, which is 80% of fraud today is, stems from stolen ID credentials. Just think about the 80% of fraud in the world today stems from global from stolen ID credentials. That's crazy. Like And that's also due to data breaches that are happening almost every other week. I mean, you hear about it in the news. So how do you solve that? And it was kind of like a new challenge for me. Okay? I was in social. My social platform didn't work. We had limited, you know, broad broadband access. The experience was not, you know, as we envisioned. But now we have an opportunity. Okay. I felt victim. I learned a lot from, you know, becoming as a threat victim. It's it's a serious struggle. A lot of people downplay that and they don't really protect their personal information. They think like, okay. I'm not Bill Gates. Like, who care about my personal information? But that's not how fraud works. Fraud, you know, can use your personal information in so many ways, especially money laundering where they're not really even stealing money from your account, but they're just using your name as a as a mean to to, clean money, dirty money, or or illicit transactions, if that makes sense. That that's how money laundering works. So back in finance, I also, was part of a team that was protecting clients from money laundering transaction and protecting institutions for money laundering. So I know I know the drill, if that makes sense. So I used my experience in finance and my passion to technology and kind of, like, brought the catch to life, which is trying to literally, in a technical term, make personal information useless to scammers so that if someone steals my information, they can't use it behind my back and, you know, ruin my credit score or steal my accounts or take over my my phone or any other account that relates to me.
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Yeah. Well, I mean, in your, you're solving you're trying to solve a massive problem. Right? And it's and it's 1 that's because there's so much money and and illegal activities with it. It's 1 that's always changing. So talk about how you think through the process of a startup, you know, with limited funds. Like, you know, you're not a Microsoft with a $1, 000, 000, 000 behind you. Right? Like, you you this is something that you're trying to solve. Have you found a very tight niche to focus the technology around knowing that you could you could extrapolate it to more? Or what what's your kind of strategic approach to the company? And the reason I ask is, like, a lot of people have great ideas, and these are, you know, $1, 000, 000, 000, 000 problems. So how how does a small company, small cell, their part of it, and and what are you doing about that? Yeah. I don't I never looked at the financials and your,
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financial position when I wanna build something because the way you the moment you start thinking this, you have this mindset, you can't achieve anything. Like, I could think now, okay, Microsoft is a $1, 000, 000, 000, 000 company. They have tons of engineers. They have, so much resources, deep pockets. Right? And how can I fend off the competition? How can I, like, you know, fight these guys? They can, you know, raise me off the charts. No. If if you're taking that mindset, you will never deliver. You will never, based on my experience, you know, and all the failures and success that I've made. If you if you have that mindset in place, you will never achieve anything. No. The mindset should be, I can actually, you know, compete with the best companies in the world. I can bring the best products in the world. I don't need all the money, you know, in the world to to achieve what I have to achieve. And I can bring smart people on board, inspire them, and and, you know, build a great team, and we can do it. The thing about, and this is something that a lot of, you know, startup founders, don't understand maybe or don't realize is that large companies are very inefficient. And the larger they get, the less efficient they are and the less innovative they are. And, so startups have that leverage, to be honest. When when you're a startup, you're a smaller team, you tend to focus more and you have, like, 1, in your eyesight, you have just 1 goal. You're focused on that goal and you and your team are working day and night to achieve that goal, you know, bring that mission and and help people. This is, I think, a leverage that large companies don't have. So don't ever think about resources and how much money you have in the bank or how much, or how many engineers you have on your team when you want to start, the start up or or like, you have a business idea or any kind of,
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yeah. But you're saying focus hyperactively on 1 niche of that problem and solve those like, you you just have to give your focus fully into 1 thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. That then you're you're more about the scale piece early is what you're saying.
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Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, because you can't blow the ocean. Right? You're you're a start up. You don't have the resources that, you know, Microsoft has. But what you have is that focus on this client that is having a strong pinpoint. Right? And that pinpoint, you're solving it for them. You know, you're either solving the, you know, saving them time or saving them money. You're solving a strong pain point for this client. And when you when you reach product market fit with that client, you know that client is bringing you more clients. Your cost of acquisition is going down. You have, a high retention rate. You have all these metrics. And, of course, you know, being engaged with the clients all the time will will bring you to where you wanna go. The most important element here is to to really love your client, really, fall in love with them, fall in love with their problems. Don't go crazy about your product, which I happen to have fallen for it. I was, like, crazy about, wow, Catch. Like, this technology is amazing. Like, it can do this and that, but oh, no. That's cool. Keep that in mind, but focus on your clients. Focus on their pain point and what they really need to solve in their day to day operations and lives. Yep.
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What, what kinda keeps you up at night with your company right now?
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I my mission and and what I've what I've been enduring with identity fraud. Because here's the thing. I did maybe mention this before. In 2023, I had another identity fraud victim. I I wasn't again, it wasn't as bad as 2015, but in 2023, I had 1, 000 of dollars on my credit cards in unauthorized transactions, and that caused my credit report to plummet. A lot of things happened. My cards credit availability was limited. It's just another episode of of Identity Bro that I was going through. And I was like, wow. Am I so
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unlucky to just fall You're like you're thinking back, what what purchase or where did I go after drinking 1 night? Where did I dump my card? How did I gotta ask. So have you resolved that? And is there a way to, like, you know not to try to go down to any theft piece, but, like, what happens on the other side of that? Like, how do you resolve that?
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It's, it's it's an ongoing process. It hasn't I mean, I I haven't been liable for those unauthorized transactions. You know, that's good. But, we're still trying to figure out who did this. We still don't know. My bank didn't get back to me yet on that. I keep, you know, following up on this. All I know is that there was a transaction from New Jersey, another transaction from New York City. 1 was online. The other 1 was, at the Samsung store. So oh, that's all what I know. Yeah. But besides that, we don't know who is the party that perpetrated this. We don't know, how they how how they grab they got my the card information that I have.
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What's, so tell me about your ideal customer for this right now. Like, what's the industry market segment? Like, where do you where do you apply this technology first in your in your journey?
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Fintech companies, and web 3 companies. We're focusing so much now on digital assets, the likes of PayPal, the likes of, Coinbase. Because to be honest, this is where a real pain exists. Today, if you have, a wallet that, you know, has some Bitcoins or any digit glass, it can be whatever it is, not just Bitcoins. How do you protect that? Today, there's a password that protects you. Right? There's a multifactor authentication or 2 factor authentication. And the problem lies is that these are triggers for private keys. Private keys technically are known as an encryption, you know, endpoint. And, these private keys, once they're compromised, it's game over for you. That scammer can actually
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steal your money, literally, from from your bank account or from your Coinbase account or any kind of digital wallet you have. And so where where does your where does your text sitting at? So explain that to me from to, like, as a layman because, you know, I'm just your typical, I have an app. I have a phone. Like, you know, I I don't really you know, tell me where where your app sits in and how kind of it does that.
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Yeah. Great question. So today, your your your identity is connected to a device. Okay? And so when this device is compromised, hackers are able to bypass any security on this device, which means they can bypass face ID. They can bypass any authenticator app, like Google Authenticator. They can bypass your MFA. They can get access to your passwords. So, basically, if your device is compromised, it's game work. They can do whatever they want. They can access that wallet. They can steal money from that wallet. What we're trying to do here is to connect your identity to your biological hand rather than the device. In this way, only your hand will be able to unlock your identity, which is different from what happens today. Today, your device unlocks your identity.
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Does your hand have to be alive? I I can see this scenario. I'm chopping your hand off. I'm sorry? Does it does your hand have to be alive or can I just chop someone's hand off? It has to be alive. Exactly. That's correct. It has to be I mean, like, it's a it's a scenario played out in every movie. Right? They take Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
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Absolutely. I can't you your hand has to be alive and you has to be, sober, if that makes sense. Can't be You have to be sober? Yeah.
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Woah. Woah. Woah. How do you drunk you. Right? Let's dive into that 1. It knows if my hand's drunk.
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You could have met a nice looking, you know, lady and she got you drunk
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with you. I mean, tequila. She likes to this is a real story, dude. You And she uses your head. Right? I'm just you're making up. I think I think we're seeing how your identity got stolen. Alright. You may have been in New Jersey, New York, you know, kinda hanging out. Next thing I know Right. Yeah. I'm buying stuff at Gucci. I don't remember doing it. Right. Alright. Well, we're gonna dive into that 1 off camera a little bit later. Sure. Hey. Fast forward a year, and I want you to kinda reflect back on the year you've just had. What are you most proud of? What did you accomplish?
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I am very proud of what I'm doing today because the pain that my customers have is so big, and the value I'm providing is also so big, I'm also very fulfilled that I'm gonna be able to stop scammers from abusing our personal information. This is the thing that really makes me so happy and keeps me, fulfilled about what we're building. Because, again, data breaches are so common and those breaches are for a reason. They want our credentials. They wanna use those credentials to hack our accounts, to hack our devices, and to defraud us in in plain English. And if we're able to stop any abuse of personal information, I think it's a very, very interesting value proposition on a global scale. Because if you if you look at any content, like, not just the Americas, Europe, Australia, China, Japan, a lot of these countries actually, 80% of those countries, uh-huh, they use personal information as a mean to identify us, you know, people, individuals, you know, humans. And so we we started, you know, thinking about catch and how to resolve this problem from that corner. Okay? So today, you need to protect that personal information. What do you do? You have 2 option. Option 1 is to not use personal information. That's not gonna happen because that's how the world operates today. Option 2 is to authorize who can use that information. Okay. Now you wanna authorize how to use this information. How do you do that? We wanted to stop the use of credentials, passwords. That was the whole goal of Catch, is to stop using passwords because passwords are used by scammers to hack our accounts. So we wanna remove that element. And how do you do that? We decided, okay. We need to replace credentials with a biometric. Okay? Now replacing it with a biometric doesn't solve the problem alone because if you look at biometric systems today, the robots biometric systems, actually, a lot of them rely on a specialized device. I mean, think of face ID. Face ID works because you have that device on on your iPhone. If you go to, I don't I don't know, like an Amazon not an Amazon store, maybe Whole Foods or or some other grocery store that uses Amazon 1. Right? It requires that on with your pay, right, at at Whole Foods. Requires that specialized device. If you go to the airport, there's Clear. Right? Clear is is pretty secure. But again, there's a specialized hardware. So we were faced off with this other problem. Okay? How can we provide the convenience of passwords? Right? We wanna eliminate them and use biometrics, but how can we provide that convenience from anywhere? That's the beauty the beauty about passwords is that they work on any device. So we decided to replace credentials with biometrics, but at the same time, provide a security on a biometric system that works on any device. And so if you remove the hardware element, we call it a hardware barrier, then you're able to provide access to everyone on any device. It can be your laptop, or your iPad, your your iPhone. It can be any smart device that you have, with you. And that's the beauty about Pexels again. Right? They work anywhere. How, how far along are you in the tech? Is it fully developed? Is it, you know, MVP? Is it, like, where where are you in the kind of life cycle of the tech? We're beta testing with customers now, and we're we're building our MVP, MVP with the back end. So we are going to launch it end of this year. And we're very, very excited about this because this is a milestone for us. This is validation, that the technology has scientific merits. This is a validation from from a customer perspective also that customers wants to use this. And now actually, we're we're trying to gauge if the end consumer wants to use this because this is important for us. You know? We wanna make sure, like, you can go sell this to, I don't know, businesses. And what if they discover that people don't wanna use biometrics? You know, that's that's that that could be a problem for us. So we're also trying to validate with the end consumers. We surveyed hundreds of people in the LA area about what kind of biometric they prefer to use for authentication. If they if they're willing to use biometric, you know, also as a way. And we were kind of, like, surprised. 68% of respondents, said that they would use the hand over the face. They prefer hand recognition or palm recognition over facial recognition. Now we have a lot of reasons why this could be the case. You know, facial recognition can be privacy invasive. Facial recognition, sometimes can discriminate against people of color. Facial recognition has a lot of problems, to be honest. And and there's a fact behind it. The palm, for example, no matter what color skin you have is actually bright. It's always bright. And so that's also has an advantage. The hand has that advantage. Also, the hand is unique. You know, if you think about even twin twin sisters or twin brothers, they might have an identical face, but different kinds. So, yeah, hands has, and it's really easy to use. People are accustomed to using their thumbs. Right? And so they have the pump. So this is something that is easy to use, does not discriminate against, you know, racist, gender. I personally love the concept.
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Yep. If there was a question today I shoulda asked you, what would it have been? If if what? If there's a question I should have asked you, but I did not, what was that question?
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I've been asked this question 2 days ago. Why I haven't done this before?
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I was wondering, why haven't you done this before?
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I didn't feel victim before.
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You so it ties to a lesson. Right? It's where It really does. It really a passion behind your your your entrepreneurial path. If If it's just for money, if it's just for something else, you would just go back to work for somebody. Like, there's no but you have to have a driving loss, some driving pain, some kind of avoidance of the future because you have perspective of what that means now. And I don't have that perspective. I don't ever want that perspective. I want you to develop it so I don't have to. But but I think I think that's what you're saying too. Like, you because you have a passion against it, that's that's why you never thought of it before.
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Look. Absolutely. If if you're after the money, there's there are so many things you can do to make money, honestly. You don't need to be a start up business. This is the most, like, pain enduring process. Being an entrepreneur, III wanna just caution, it's not an easy job. If you're after just making money and becoming rich, there are so many venues you can do, so many jobs, so many businesses you can create. It doesn't have to be even a start up. It can be something way simpler and and and less sophisticated and more validated. And you can do like, I know people who do, honestly, 100 of 1, 000 of dollars every year just by selling products on Amazon. Like, you can you can make money in so many ways. If you're after the money, this is not the way to go. I no. No. III was never driven by making more money or or being rich to to to stop this company, obviously, because obviously because I had this personal experience. But even before, having that personal experience and and that pain, I I never thought that you have to be confined to technology. Because a lot of people think that, okay, I've become an entrepreneur and, wow, I'll be the CEO. I'll be my own boss and few years of hard work, and then I'll be a billionaire.
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Right. And I'll have all this free time to go golfing.
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You know? Right. And I'll retire so early. No. Really. III mean, you can ask all the folks, in Northern California, the best companies like Airbnb, what they endured to reach success. And, success was really, really far there from being a simple,
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interview or or just a walk in the park. No. It it's a it's it's a You make a good point. And listen, if I can make $100, 000 a point on selling something on Amazon, you can show me, and I'll go I'll start doing that as a side hustle. But I think part of this, and and we will conclude with this idea, is the measure of success to your own entrepreneurial journey. For some, if it's if it's gonna be money, it's probably not gonna matter, and I'll explain that. So I have over here, right, the gold plaque for YouTube. Right? The million followers subscriber. I haven't opened it. It's almost been a month. And it's because it was I was so excited to get it, but then I realized it's just a thing. It it's not actually the mission or purpose of what I'm trying to do. And so I'm not in a rush to open it. I'm like, yeah, I'll probably do a live event, you know, and and but the point being is if that's very metaphorical to what happens in entrepreneurship. If you're just chasing money, then chase chase businesses that make money. If you if you want to be an entrepreneur with with meaning and impact, you still can make money, but you're likely your resilience is not going to be there. Your going to interests are going to fade unless it's something you're really going to get behind. So for you, what would be the biggest measure of success maybe over the next, you know, 24 months?
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The first measure of success for me is to grow our product. If I'm able to grow our product without paying so much on marketing and cost of acquisition of new clients, then I'm fulfilled that, okay, I've built something that people want so much and customers are just pouring in. They just wanna use our product. They wanna change their lives. They wanna change their customers' life. They wanna provide them security, convenience from any smart device, you know, because identity I mean, think about it. Now in the in the age of AI, a song used to be take 3, 4 months to develop or or or or or be recorded in studios and and, you know, lyrics and all things associated with creating the song. Now we can do that in 5 minutes using AI. We're we're we're entering a very dynamic and transitional phase in our lifetime, called artificial intelligence. And a lot of people maybe don't fully see the the the the the value of AI in the future. And AI is is actually gonna put our digital economy on a steroid. And that means we're gonna do a lot of things digitally in the future, even more. Like, things you need to go in person to do right now, you'll be able to do this just like that, you know, in a flash of a second on your device. And that means we're gonna need we're gonna need very secure and robust identity solutions so that we as humans can sell products by services, or identify who we are to our bank or to our institution or to send money to our friends or receive money as a business. All this requires identity and, you know, to to to accommodate that new era of AI and and dynamism in digital economies and digital assets in there. Look at Bitcoin. It just skyrocketed, like, what, 400% in the last few months or something. So Yeah. It's crazy. Think about that. Identity is a instrumental tool in the future of humanity, especially in our digital economy and digital world. And it's gonna be even more instrumental in the future. So we need this tool. It is so needed. And if I'm able to bring or not not not necessarily catch, like, anyone who's able to bring that value to humanity, he's helping so much, avoid scams, fraud, even abuse. Like, I I've I've been recently with with a client. He's an ad tech. They they actually they were telling me about the pain point they have with, pedophiles who are abusing their platform and trying to connect on that platform with kids. If you are able to stop that from happening, just think about the impact you can create. Like, those young innocent children are being abused by someone who's just trying to take advantage of their innocence, and that's not something that we can just, you know, overlook. This is something extremely important, and this is just 1 aspect of our digital economy. Right? And so you always have those trade offs. And when we're able to eliminate those negatives, the digital economy and our lives and prosperity will be just thriving over time. Just we need to bring security. We need to reflect what happens in real life in a digital, you know, manner or or framework. And I think we can unlock so much value there and, provide services and access to everyone so that it's inclusive too. A lot of people today, they don't have bank accounts because they don't wanna pay that, you know, fee because they fell below a threshold or something. They don't have access to payments. They don't have accthomasess to a lot of services just because, you know, they don't have the the credit score that is shiny or something that that inhibiting them.
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Great. Eli, thanks for coming on today. Listen up. How who should get a hold of you right now, and and how do they do that?
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I appreciate, you know, connecting with, everyone who wants. Love to connect with engage with us. I mean, obviously, catchid.com. Visit our website. Add me to LinkedIn. I always respond. Love to message, you know, with people, get connected with, new talents perhaps. So we're always, you know, looking for new talents to join our team, engineers, AI engineers, particularly now. That was, like, really hard to find the right talents, to be honest. But, yeah, it's, we know it's an ongoing process as part of the game. So, yeah, please add me to LinkedIn, Eli Farhood, and, you know, connect to our website, catchid.com, aatshid.com, and I'd love to connect.
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Thank you. I appreciate you joining today, Eli.
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Thank you, Thomas. I really appreciate you having me and, you know, I I was so happy to share my journey and share what we're building with your audience. And, I hope all the things, as I see them in the future, I'm really, really optimistic on the future. It's gonna be, a very, very, good for everyone, not just, you know, for some people or the 1% club or the 10% club. No. I think it's gonna be abundance and, and, most people will have access to all the services they need. And,
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I'm I'm very optimistic about the future. Let's put it this way. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And Hangout will be I'll get you right off, off, after after the thing here as I as I say goodbye. But, for everyone who listened and and got at this point in the in the show, thank you so much. This has been, you know, you know, you know, Eli is in the early stages of doing this. He's he's a entrepreneur that's, you know, is is succeeding and and and has gone through the failures, and and you can learn from these, these lessons. Like, this is how it goes as an entrepreneur, and this is what's gonna go for you if you're out there trying to do it yourself as well. So don't get discouraged. You're not alone. You know, keep the ideas of abundance, good growth mindset in place. If this was your first time, thanks for making it. I hope you come back. And if you've been here before, thank you so much. Guys, listen, it's super important for the community and our guests. 5 star reviews on Amazon, or, Spotify or or Apple, whatever your favorite player is. And and please give the YouTube channel a a follow if you can at youtube.com@neverbeenpromoted. Thank you so much guys for listening. Until next time, and we meet again. Get out there. Go unleash your entrepreneur. Thanks for listening.




Entrepreneurial Journey With Eli Farhood
Technological Solutions for Identity Fraud
Biometric Security and Entrepreneurial Passion