Denver Naidoo Transcript

Clint Betts

Welcome to the CEO.com Show. My name is Clint Betts. Today's guest is Denver Naidoo, CEO of Zeligate. Holding 24 years of experience in the software industry, Denver gained not only technical expertise but also an understanding of how to build a team and run a business. When he and his partners decided to start an IT professional services business, they realized the need to create various business components, financial entities, sales, marketing, HR, legal, and compliance, all before even building a product or offering a service. When given early access to an LLM, paired with his experience in building software and running businesses, led to the idea of creating Zeligate. So, the Australian-based startup comes from simple thinking about what would happen if an AI workforce handled all of the tedious, mundane tasks in the business. How much more efficient would we be? That is what Denver is all about and what Zeligate does. Denver, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Denver Naidoo

Yeah. Thank you for having me, Clint.

Clint Betts

Yeah, so tell us about Zeligate, how you became the CEO. What did I miss and all that?

Denver Naidoo

Yeah. I think you've summarized it quite nicely. Yeah, that 24-year journey, going on a 25-year journey now, has been quite an interesting journey. So what seems like Zeligate, which has been established over the past year and a half, was actually 24, 25 years in the making. Yeah. I think the interesting part, well, for me it started in 1988 working with the Commodore 64, and that's where it piqued my interest into IT. Then, being a little kid at that point, watching James Bond movies was just so exciting. So, it was more passion that just continued to grow, and the technologies that we saw in James Bond were not available publicly, or you couldn't really get your hands on them.

I grew up in the era of Commodore 64, when PCs became a little bit more easily accessible. We started to use things like DOS with floppy drives, and it was a really, really exciting journey. Yeah, I'll tell you more about how those 24 years ended up with Zeligate, but I think the summary of that is the passion for technology is just growing because now we have access to data that we never had before. We have access to satellite imagery, and now, with AI, it's a dream come true, really.

Clint Betts

Yeah. Give me a sense for this LLM that you had early access to and how all of that came about.

Denver Naidoo

Yeah, that was pretty interesting. So, working in tech all my life, all my adult life, I've always followed the latest trends. So, we were at that forefront where you've heard of things like Ooh, .net is going to be a new framework that's going to be out. We followed it before .net was available, coding in Delphi and C, et cetera. So, in 2016, I was following a Microsoft newsletter. There was a company that had Elon Musk involved, and it was called OpenAI. OpenAI was talking about AI, and LLMs were not really known to the public at that point, but it was more like research papers that we were looking at.

So, 2016 was the first time I started following that journey. In 2022, I got early access to the LLMs that most people know as ChatGPT. We were able to experiment with the LLM before the public had any access to it, so that allowed us to put that little piece of the puzzle that was missing, that little cherry on the top that I like to call it, to bring all these technologies together to actually do something a lot more meaningful with.

Clint Betts

Yeah, that's incredible. What an opportunity that was because obviously that's an enormous technology that started a revolution here and is still one of the leading LLMs, if not the leading. So, that's pretty cool to have that experience. Give me a sense of what it's like to build in Australia.

Denver Naidoo

Australia is a very interesting place. So, I live on the Gold Coast in Australia, which is pretty laid back. It's beaches, canals, mountains. It's a lovely place to retire, really. With that, it's very interesting to find that there's a startup community that's actually quite large. You find that in Australia, you've got companies like Atlassian and Canva, which are really big names that have come out of it. Recently, we've been talking to the guys from Leonardo just before they sold out. So, what we find is that Australia is really, really good in the sense that startups can have a good base and try out your software in Australia. Australians are quite keen to try out new things as well. With the small population, you have a good opportunity to showcase that you can make business work before taking it across the ocean.

Clint Betts

Is the Gold Coast the place to be? Gold Coast. Sorry, I don't know what I said there, but is that the place to be, or is Sydney the place to be? Where's the place to be?

Denver Naidoo

Well, I'm going to be a little bit biased on this one. So, the Gold Coast pretty much has it all. There are a few Hollywood movies that have been shot in the Gold Coast as well. We have studios in the Gold Coast. So what you would see, Orlando probably has all the theme parks, and Gold Coast has all of the theme parks as well. In terms of coming in with a family and having a nice balance of life, the Gold Coast is really livable in that perspective, so whether it's the surf, the sun, and interesting enough, there's also ice hockey in Brisbane, which is not too far away.

Clint Betts

That's really cool. What is the government like? Is it supportive of these types of things? Would you find it similar to maybe Europe or the United States?

Denver Naidoo

The government is really supportive of startup businesses. There are a lot of incentives to take your business forward, and that's one of the other things I like about Australia. Australia allows you to spread your wings and even export your business to other countries. It's really supportive in that perspective.

However, I think with the US, there's a lot of bigger bets that's being placed in the US. We've seen a lot of investment go into just ideas, not even a company. So, it seems like there's a lot of appetite for risk, and there's a lot of appetite to throw in large sums of money. What I would say about Australia and investors, though, is that they do seem to be a little bit more conservative in the sense that there's a lot more due diligence. I think that's why a lot more investments are successful. So, they look for that return on investment a little bit more seriously than spreading the bets, so to speak.

Clint Betts

So give me a sense of how you're thinking about AI, how you're using AI. I know you guys have recently launched an AI kind of product that you should talk about. Give us your overall overview of AI and where we're headed here as someone who got early access to a lot of the major tools now.

Denver Naidoo

So, having access to AI right now has pretty much-become part of my everyday life and the team's everyday life. It's not just the parts that we're building, but we actually use AI to get our jobs done on a daily basis. So, Clint, you're probably not going to like this one, but what's interesting is you're sitting across from me, and you're talking to me. One of our products is a pre-screening AI assistant that goes in and does a pre-screening interview for you. So, just as you're speaking to me, and I can see you, I can see the AI, and there's a bit of a connection. I get to choose the one that I resonate with, and I can see the AI nodding back. So, it's no longer just bits and bytes behind the computer with some osculating waves. Now, we see a face that we can connect with. When you connect to that, there's a bit of an emotional connection because you build a bit more trust in that aspect.

I think the biggest issue was people didn't trust the computers. We've seen things like The Terminator, and we've seen movies like Avengers where computers or AI have actually just taken over and got it all wrong. It's created that sense of fear, uncertainty and doubt around AI, but the way we use it right now, one is to build that trust. I have a Zeli, which I see and talk to. I would go to my Zeli and say to my Zeli, "Okay, Zeli, what does my calendar look like this morning?" Zeli would say something along the lines of, "You've actually got a podcast this morning, and you're speaking to Clint." I was like, "Oh, great. Can you tell me a little bit more about Clint? Give me some background." Zeli would go get some background information.

It goes further than that. So I could actually say, "Zeli, I want you to set up a meeting with Sam and ask Sam to make sure that all my equipment is set up for the meeting." Zeli would go ahead and send that email. Now, we've gone as far as Zeli making a phone call, so Zeli would pick up that phone and perform a task for you. Where this actually comes full circle is we are leading with the hiring assistant. When you're doing a reference check, Zeli would actually go through your resume and find that reference check number. When you're ready, you say to Zeli, "Can you do a reference check on Simon?" Zeli would pick up the phone, call Simon, speak to Simon, and do the reference check.

To bridge that gap where there's a lot of uncertainty or fear from people about, "What is AI going to do? Is AI going to represent me the way I represent myself?" So, there's a little bit of a bridge. I could say to Zeli, "Zeli, can you call Clint on his mobile? Can you call me on my mobile? I want to talk to Clint." What Zeli does is call you on your mobile, call me, and sit in between that call and get the action items out of that, get the objective of what we're really trying to do. If that objective falls into something that Zeli can actually do, Zeli can go ahead and do that.

So, the way we use it is in the sense of removing all that tedious, mundane work where we get the AI to go ahead and actually do things. The little caveat here is what we've seen for the past year or two: very creative ways where other companies have used AI to help you do what you're doing. We've taken it a step further where the AI actually does it for you, so Zeli would meet you where you are. People are constantly on emails. So, Zeli is in your email. Zeli is able to respond on your behalf or help you respond. Zeli is able to respond to SMSs, give you a link that you need very quickly.

Also, we have this Zeli video meeting where Zeli sits in on that meeting just like you and I are talking. I could say something like, "Ah, we're expecting Simon to join us on this call. Can you call Simon on his mobile and join him in the meeting?" Zeli would go ahead and make that phone call to Simon. Then Simon would say something like, "Oh, sorry, guys. I've been stuck in traffic, and I couldn't get to a computer, but thanks for calling. I'm here now. Can we continue with the meeting?"

Then it gets a lot more interesting. Someone will share a screen, and we could say to Zeli, "Wait, hold on. Can you analyze that graph and tell me what this is about?" Zeli would give you some indication of what's seen on that screen. Then you can go a step further and ask Zeli questions about the sentiment, what someone really meant, and what kind of follow-up questions I should ask because quite often you're sitting in meetings. If it goes on for an hour, there's a lot that's said, and you want to bring it back. You could say something to Zeli like, "What's the real essence of this meeting, and are there any questions that I need to ask?" Zeli is able to assist you in real-time.

So, these are things that we're doing with AI today, and we look at large companies that have been established for a long time in that space. Let's take Zoom, for example, or Google Meet. It's something everyone uses every day. What I've just explained about what Zeli could do are things that we're using AI to bring into an AI-first product, so I think it was easier for us to build these because we started with the AI perspective and built in a solution that used AI to solve problems. Then, everything else was bolted on. So, we still use big data. We still go to the cloud. We still use microservices and all of those technologies that are still used on SAS and every other organization like Netflix, Uber, etc., but all of that now becomes the underlying piece.

The core of what we've got is called the Zeli Artificial Reality Engine. Every time we see a new agent or a new way of doing things, there might be something like computer use that comes out from Claude, et cetera. Those are really cool fancy names, and the tech guys have to get involved to build that, but with our Zeli Artificial Reality Engine, we've actually climbed all the way to the top of the stack. What that means is our Zeli, which you can see and talk to, is the AI that interfaces with all of the technologies below it.

As a user, it's out-of-the-box. You don't need to actually understand or know how the stack works below, but you want to get something done. I want to say to Zeli, "Hey, Zeli, can you make a phone call for me?" You're not impressed that Zeli is going to have to go down; make sure your login and security are in place, make sure that you got your big data systems in place all the way down to your cloud where it's got disaster recovery, failover zones, and you're using the right infrastructure, the right hardware whether that's Inferential or latest Nvidia chips. Then everyone is talking about LLMs. You don't have to be concerned about which LLM because all of that's done for you, and you're having a conversation.

It's almost like having a coworker where you have a conversation. You say to someone, "Hey, Sam. Can you please tell me what I need to do today? I've got a whole lot of emails. Which one is the most important one?" Sam would be able to go ahead and perform that task for you. So, we're at the point where you could do something as simple as that, or you could take it a step further and say, "Hey, Zeli. I need to hire a marketing manager. Can you go ahead and show me all the resumes?" Off that resume, you've got Zeli scoring all those resumes and says, "Oh, great. We have Jane right at the top of the list with 95 and below, Jane, we've got someone with a score of 94." I could go ahead and say, "Oh, that's fantastic. Let's delve a little bit further. Why does Jane have 95?" Zeli is able to give you that kind of information.

Now I'm sitting here having a conversation, and it is voice. You are talking. I can do it hands-free. "Look, Mom, no hands," and Zeli is giving me some information. Now, as a human and a hiring manager, I've hired people, and I've gone through probably 1,000 resumes. You understand patterns. You have your own way of doing things, but you're able to pick out things based on your experience. Every hiring manager or HR recruiter has that same kind of higher-level thinking or experience that allows them to pick out a good one. What we can do is use that high-level thinking but use Zeli more as a doer to say, "Okay, great. If you are saying that Sam or Jane is the best candidate, can you pull out Jane's pre-screening interview?" Now you get a pre-screening interview that Zeli attended, asked questions, gives you a sentiment, a summary, weaknesses, et cetera, the typical things that you'd expect, but it's all done for you.

Now, you could say something along the lines of, "Hold on, Zeli. Jane actually has 20 years of experience, but on the pre-screening interview, your notes say that she seemed somewhat inexperienced. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?" Zeli would say, "Yeah, the reason for that is although Jane has 20 years of experience, Jane has 20 years of experience doing the same thing. So, it's pretty much one year that's been done over and over for 20 years." Then you realize, oh, wait. Yeah, I understand that concept because some people don't grow their skills. They're comfortable in a position, and therefore someone who's had five jobs probably has five different ways to do something, and they've learned. They've expanded their knowledge.

It allows me to make a better decision, but then the AI is just giving me information. It's done all of this quickly for me. I'm still making the decision as a human. I'm still in control. AI is not going to get the best of me. I'm going to make sure that I'm in charge. Then I might want to go a step further and say, "Okay, okay. I trust you, Zeli, but I want to talk to a real person. Who's Jane's reference?" You'd get something like Zeli would say, "Okay, look. Jane has Anthony as a reference." I'd say, "Zeli, go ahead. Call Anthony. I want to have a chat with him right now."

Zeli would call Anthony, call me. I'd speak to Anthony and ask Anthony questions that I want to know because I might ask something along the lines of, "Jane's been with you for 20 years, but Jane hasn't been given any promotions. Why is that?" Anthony would say, "Because Jane has been such a loyal employee. Jane wants nothing more than to do what she's doing, and she loves what she's doing. Therefore, I allowed her to do that for 20 years, but I paid her handsomely."

Then you kind of realize, okay, maybe Jane wants to be comfortable, and I delve a little bit more and ask things like, "Was Jane interested in these latest marketing trends? We see things like Russell Brunson and all these other guys that have come onto the scenes recently. Has Jane been interested in that?" He might say something along the lines of, "Oh no, no. Jane studied 20 years ago. She loves the theory she's done then. She doesn't believe in all of this pop-up marketing and this new psychology. So, she's very comfortable doing things that way."

Then, it gives me a better understanding of what we're doing, and it allows me to make a much better decision. I'd go on to the second candidate and the third one, but where the real value is, I'm looking at the top five candidates and trying to do due diligence around that. Yeah, so what we'd do in that case is I'd probably get about 250 resumes come through for the same position, and that's pretty standard. It's between 100 and 50 consistently. Zeli has actually gone ahead and done the same for all of the candidates. I could go and cherry-pick the ones that I actually want to look at.

I'm going to say something that might be a little bit controversial. With 250 resumes, there are not too many people who can tell you that they are physically doing due diligence by reading every single resume, giving it the same enthusiasm and energy as you would if you started with the first one. You start to skim, you start to look at trends. From the research and the user testing we've done, we know that hiring managers do this. We know that recruiters do this. There is always that little caveat that, "I build a personal relationship with the person that I'm hiring," which is true, but what about the person you're not hiring? There are hidden gems that you never get to speak to.

Now we have Zeli, who's doing the pre-screening interview. I could go in and look at any of those interviews. What we find is not everyone can write a good resume. Jane, who hasn't written one in 20 years, her resume looks very different from someone who changed jobs six months ago. So what Zeli allows us to do in that case is go in and look at those pre-screening interviews. I could see the questions that Zeli asked and see the responses. We understand that people are different.

Sam, our Co-Founder, used to be an organizational psychologist by profession, so she understands the psychology of hiring really well. When we look at the actual interviews and resumes, we see something a little bit different. Sometimes, people will bring energy to that interview, and you realize, "Wait a minute. This person knows what they're talking about." When you look at the resume, you see they didn't really articulate that well. They may have given a broad overview, but when you ask the questions and delve in in the interview, you realize that, "Wow, this is really someone I would love to have on my team."

Can I give you a little real-life scenario? We like this concept of drinking your own champagne, so we use the product for our own hiring and for our own needs, and it's worked really well. One of the star developers on the team, we looked at his resume and it kind of checked out. Then we figured, "Oh, look. We could do with a junior person on the team, and let's call him in for an interview." We called him in for an interview, had a chat, and English was his second language. When someone's English is a second language, there are certain words they wouldn't say clearly. Say something like, "Oh, let me present this to you, or let me present this to you." You kind of get what they're saying, but humans naturally have a reaction to that.

When I spoke to this person, the interview went well in the sense that he understood the technical side of things really well, and I could see that where there's a little bit of a language barrier being a second language English speaker, but let's delve into the technical questions. The moment I started asking technical questions, he was able to answer them absolutely fluently because he understands the technology. He's worked with it.

Then I said to him, "Okay, fantastic. Let's move forward." I asked him what his expectations were. He says, "I'm ready to work. I'm available at any time. I can even start today if you want me to, and I'll work for free." I said, "Wait, what do you mean you'll work for free? You've got a lot of experience and skill here. Why would you work for free?" He says to me, "Look, I've been going in for interviews, and I am not able to land a job. Therefore, I will prove myself when I come into the organization because no one has given me a chance."

What we found was when he went in for interviews, and you find the hiring manager sitting there across from someone. The person is explaining something. They're answering a question. The hiring manager may raise an eyebrow or may have this unconscious leakage that now throws the candidate off track. Now, the candidate is not putting their best foot forward. By the time you're done, the candidate didn't really present well in the interview, and they felt judged, so it made them go into their shell a little bit. You lose the best candidates.

We ended up hiring this person. After I hired him, we started working on a little project. On day one, he hit the ground running. We did pay him, by the way. I have to mention that. Pay him well. We're paying him for what he's worth. Yeah, it was pretty interesting, and he did really well. We went on a little longer than expected for the day. Then he said to me, "Oh, no problem. I can stay a little later to finish this, but I just got to be home at 7:00. It's Uber Eats. He's a second-language English speaker. So, I said, "Okay. No problem."

The second time that happened was a few days ago, and we needed to stay a little longer. He said the same thing. He's got to be home at 7:00 for Uber Eats. I'm thinking, "Wait a minute. This guy said he'd work for free and really needed a job right now. Then I said to him, "Don't you find Uber Eats a little bit expensive, eating it all the time?" He says, "Oh, no, no. I don't eat Uber Eats. I actually drive Uber Eats because I couldn't get a job before this, so I've been doing Uber Eats as a driver."

That's just a good example of where the technology was able to make a candidate shine, make sure that the best candidates came forward. As a result, as an organization, I can't tell you how valuable he is as a person to our organization.

Clint Betts

That's incredible. That's actually such an interesting and perfect use case for AI that will weed out a lot of hiring problems that we've seen in the past and find those jams. That's beautiful, man. That's so cool. How big is the team right now?

Denver Naidoo

Right now, we have a team of 12 people. We're going through the next stage, where we are currently doing a raise. So, we've been seed-funded. Now we're going for a Pre-Series A where we need to actually expand the team. The whole idea was to show that we can create this AI assistant when hiring. The second one we've done is the personal assistant. The reason for expanding the team now is we want to go into the next assistant, which is the customer service assistant, and then the marketing and sales.

So, the whole idea is just how you have an organizational structure that you work with. You've got someone in sales and marketing on your team. Now, you can leverage a Zeli. What that would mean is every person or every employee in an organization would have an entire team that they could direct and get things done for them. Just like Sam Altman said, billion-dollar companies will start to emerge from just one person. The way to do this is to have a team of AI assistants in every aspect, legal, sales, and marketing, taking care of all your business needs.

Clint Betts

Well, if you weren't using Zeli yourself, I'm sure you'd need a lot more people than just 12, right? Isn't it fascinating how much you can get done now with so few people? I mean, 12 is still. If you would've said 12 in 2018, I would've been like, "You need to hire. You need to hire." Now it's like, "No, you're good."

Denver Naidoo

Yeah. Well, look. 12 is still a small number, and I think part of that is the whole drinking our own champagne and what we've done with the Zeli Artificial Reality Engine. It just starts to exponentially add value. So, we use the AI to help us write code. We use the AI to help us test. We use the AI to help us do our product requirements. So, all of these different areas, we use Zeli to do all these things.

I chatted with my product owner yesterday. He's been doing fantastic work. Everything is just great. I said to him, "One of the things I noticed about you is you always deliver on what you commit to, but the speed at which you do it, I am amazed. I do not know how you can get all of this done because I've worked in big teams before. I've been in an organization that had 3,000 people in the same building, and I know how long certain things can take, especially with the best of people as well. So, it's not a people problem. It's just the task at hand takes so long." He said to me, "You know what? Thanks for those kind words, but I'm actually using Zeli to do all of these things. Before I even submit something, I get Zeli to look at it. I get Zeli to get me started, and that's why I'm able to do it so quickly."

Clint Betts

It's pretty beautiful. It's very, very, very, very cool. So, how's the traction been so far? You've raised money. Did you raise from local VCs or out-of-country VCs? Is the venture capital community pretty strong there in Australia? I'm sure the Atlassian guys are investing in companies there and things like that.

Denver Naidoo

Yeah, so the Australian VC market is quite big. There's quite a big group, and we've raised 5.5 million from Australia. It's from high net worth individuals who've had experience and some good successful exits in Australia as well. Yeah, but in terms of VCs, there are a lot of VCs that are willing to come to the party in Australia. So, whether you're in the Gold Coast or Sydney, there are a few of them that you could actually get in contact with. They're really willing to take it forward. A lot of them have experience taking Australia to the rest of the world as well.

Clint Betts

Yeah. Australia is certainly punching well above its weight class. It's pretty remarkable what the country is doing, the number of tech startups that are coming out of there, and just the whole ecosystem. It's pretty profound. What does a typical day look like for you as CEO of this company?

Denver Naidoo

CEO of a startup is exactly what you'd expect in terms of the books that you might read from Zero To One, Peter Thiel's, Early Experience, et cetera. So, I'm going to tell you what it's not. It's not the glamorous CEO that you see in these enterprises. You pretty much have to do anything and everything that you need to do. The reason for that is it's all speed. It's speed to market. You want to do things very quickly.

I like to say that I serve as CEO. It's a title to keep everything together. It's a way to communicate with shareholders and investors and, at the same time, bring the team together and rally them towards the same vision. For me, the typical day pretty much starts the night before, actually. I plan the day ahead and make sure everything is ready for the next day while taking care of the people on the team. For me, that's the biggest thing because those are the people who take care of the customers. That's the people who make things happen. So, my priority is to make sure that everyone has what they need to be able to move forward, remove any obstacles, and remove any blockers. That requires sometimes a lot of admin, a lot of talking to other people. Being that bridge, a lot of negotiations.

The team will need something to move forward, whether it's other software, vendors that we need to chat with or customers. I do get involved in talking with customers as well, get involved in a little bit of the technical design, and I'd say all areas of the business. I think the biggest thing, yeah, I do want to stress, is people because what I've found is you can get skills, but you need the right people on the team. The moment you have the right people, people rally towards that same vision. I'm not at that point where I can delegate everything. I try to delegate as much as I can. I try to do the old quadrants of Do, Decide, Delegate, and Defer. I think that's how I organize everything that I do, but for the most part, I think this role in this organization is still a fair bit of doing.

Clint Betts

That makes sense. Denver, so great to connect with you. We end every interview with the same question. That is at CEO.com we believe the chances one gives is just as important as the chances one takes. When you hear that, who gave you a chance to get you to where you are today?

Denver Naidoo

Oh, I love that question. I love that question. There are a few people. I can't put it down to just one person because there were lots of different chances that got me to where I am, but I do want to mention there was one person. Rob Oliver, and interesting enough, he was involved with Microsoft's coming to Australia in 1987, so is quite seasoned, which means he really understands the business space really well. He's actually been a bit of a mentor to me. He's the person who believed not just in the idea but also in me, and I can take this forward as well. So, there are lots of people that have given me a chance. There are probably more names that I could name, but Rob Oliver is one person that I'd like to actually mention.

Clint Betts

That's incredible. Denver, thank you so much. What an honor to have you on. Please come back again as you continue to build this thing. It seems like you've got a monster on your hands. Congratulations.

Denver Naidoo

Thank you. Thank you, Clint.

Clint Betts

Thanks, Denver.

Edited for readability.