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Brian Bell · Nov 11, 2026 · 14 min read

Ignite Startups: How Cactus Is Building the AI Operating System for Trades Businesses | Ep309

Cactus founders Ajith Govind and Avinash Joshi reveal how AI is transforming trades businesses, why voice AI is becoming a commodity, and what comes next for business automation.

Ignite Startups: How Cactus Is Building the AI Operating System for Trades Businesses | Ep309

A single missed phone call cost an HVAC company a $45,000 job. The customer called after business hours, nobody answered, and by the time the owner returned the call 15 minutes later, the customer had already booked with a competitor.

For Ajith Govind and Avinash Joshi, co-founders of Cactus, this experience exposed a problem affecting thousands of trades businesses: lost revenue from missed customer inquiries, fragmented software, and operational inefficiencies.

But their vision goes far beyond answering calls.

In a conversation with Brian Bell on the Ignite Podcast, Ajith and Avinash explain why voice AI is becoming a commodity, why they deliberately refused to integrate with ServiceTitan, and how they are building an AI-powered operating system that could fundamentally change how HVAC, plumbing, and other trades businesses operate.

Their story also offers important lessons about startup pivots, customer relationships, Y Combinator, and what it takes to build a defensible AI company.

The $45,000 Missed Call That Exposed a Massive Problem

When the Cactus founders visited an HVAC business in Utah, they heard a story that clarified the opportunity they were pursuing.

The company's customer service representative had finished working for the day when a potential customer called around 7 PM.

Nobody answered.

The owner returned the call approximately 15 minutes later, but the customer had already hired a competitor.

The lost opportunity was worth approximately $45,000 for a complete HVAC system replacement.

For a small business, that is a significant amount of revenue to lose simply because nobody was available to answer the phone.

And it was far from an isolated problem.

Trades businesses routinely miss customer inquiries because their employees are working on job sites, handling other customers, or unavailable outside normal business hours.

Calls, text messages, website forms, and marketing inquiries all create opportunities that businesses must capture quickly.

Cactus initially approached this problem with AI-powered phone answering.

The company began charging approximately $500 per month to handle incoming calls. However, the founders quickly recognized that answering the phone was only one part of a much larger operational challenge.

Cactus expanded into capturing customer inquiries, booking appointments, scheduling dispatch, and managing ongoing customer communications.

Ajith described seeing reports suggesting that the platform had influenced approximately $500,000 in customer revenue in a single month.

The larger opportunity was becoming clear: AI could do much more than answer missed calls. It could help manage the revenue-generating operations of an entire trades business.

Why Voice AI Is Already Becoming a Commodity

One of the most provocative arguments in the conversation is that voice AI alone is no longer a meaningful competitive advantage.

Ajith and Avinash believe the technology has become increasingly accessible.

Companies can now build voice interfaces using existing platforms, meaning basic conversational capabilities are no longer especially difficult to reproduce.

As the technology becomes easier to deploy, competition increases.

Trades business owners are already receiving numerous pitches from companies offering similar AI receptionist products.

That creates a fundamental challenge for founders building standalone voice AI businesses.

If competing products can answer the same calls using similar underlying technology, what makes one company meaningfully different?

According to the Cactus founders, the answer is the complete customer experience.

A useful AI system must do more than recognize speech and produce a response. It needs to understand how a business operates, connect with its workflows, perform useful actions, and reliably support customers.

For Cactus, this means moving beyond voice interactions into scheduling, dispatch, payments, customer communications, and other operational processes.

The defensibility comes from becoming deeply embedded in how customers run their businesses.

The founders also emphasize something that AI startups frequently overlook: traditional businesses do not necessarily adopt new software simply because the technology is available.

Implementation matters.

Businesses need people who can help introduce the technology, establish operating procedures, and ensure that systems work together.

In their view, successful AI adoption requires three connected elements: software, processes, and people.

That is a substantially more demanding business model than selling access to an AI chatbot.

But it may also create stronger customer relationships.

Why Cactus Refused to Integrate with ServiceTitan

One of the founders' most consequential strategic decisions was refusing to pursue a deep integration with ServiceTitan, an established software platform serving the trades industry.

For many startups, integration with a dominant industry platform would seem like an obvious growth strategy.

It could provide access to an existing customer base, established workflows, and distribution opportunities.

Ajith and Avinash saw a different risk.

They believed that building their business around another company's platform could eventually constrain their ability to develop a complete operating system.

The concern was straightforward.

If ServiceTitan controlled the customer relationship, Cactus could become dependent on a platform that might eventually introduce competing capabilities or limit access to its ecosystem.

That dependency could make it difficult for Cactus to expand beyond a narrowly defined AI feature.

The founders therefore chose the harder path.

Rather than building primarily as an extension of an established platform, Cactus is developing its own infrastructure and pursuing direct relationships with trades businesses.

This decision potentially sacrifices faster distribution in exchange for greater strategic independence.

Ajith argues that deep partnerships with dominant software platforms can become limiting when a startup's ultimate ambition is to compete for ownership of the broader customer experience.

The distinction matters for AI founders across industries.

An integration can accelerate early growth, but dependence on someone else's distribution and customer relationships can become a structural weakness.

Cactus is betting that controlling more of the operating workflow will create a stronger long-term business than providing a single AI capability through another platform.

From a Private-Chef Marketplace to an AI Office for Trades

Cactus did not begin as a company focused on HVAC contractors or plumbing businesses.

The idea originated during a family visit to Legoland.

Ajith and Avinash overheard a group discussing the difficulty of balancing demanding careers with preparing home-cooked meals.

The problem resonated with their own family experiences.

They recognized an opportunity to connect busy households with private chefs who could prepare meals in customers' homes.

That insight led them to create Craved, a marketplace connecting private chefs with families.

During the early stages, the founders were heavily involved in operations.

They drove chefs around, helped with grocery shopping, and personally managed parts of the customer experience.

The marketplace attracted approximately 30 to 40 families.

But as they developed the platform, they discovered another opportunity.

The chefs themselves needed tools to manage their businesses.

This led the founders to begin building software for independent service providers.

Their application to Y Combinator described the concept as an AI copilot for chefs.

However, their broader ambition was to build tools that could support many types of independent entrepreneurs, including fitness trainers and professional coaches.

During Y Combinator, a conversation with partner Tom encouraged them to think about the larger market.

The founders eventually renamed the company Cactus, drawing inspiration from the plant's resilience and ability to survive in challenging environments.

As they explored different business segments, they discovered the operational challenges facing trades companies.

The opportunity was particularly compelling because these businesses had significant customer demand, substantial revenue potential, and complicated administrative workflows.

Cactus shifted its focus toward helping trades companies capture more revenue while reducing operational complexity.

The company now primarily targets businesses generating approximately $2 million to $25 million annually, although the founders envision eventually serving smaller operators again.

Building an AI Office Instead of Another Software Tool

Consider a trades company generating $10 million in annual revenue with approximately 20 employees.

Despite its size, the owner might still be coordinating numerous software products, external vendors, administrative employees, and field technicians.

Managing these disconnected systems can become a full-time responsibility.

The founders describe business owners working extremely long hours simply to keep everything functioning.

Cactus wants to reduce that burden by becoming a single operational layer between the owner and the people performing work in the field.

The proposed system would handle customer inquiries, appointment scheduling, dispatch, payments, marketing, and eventually other functions such as procurement, payroll, and accounting.

Some capabilities already exist in the product, while others remain part of the company's longer-term roadmap.

The founders are also exploring revenue-sharing arrangements as Cactus becomes more directly involved in helping customers generate revenue.

This changes the relationship between software provider and customer.

Rather than charging only for access to a tool, Cactus wants to become a deeper operating partner.

For business owners, the potential benefits are twofold: increased revenue and reduced administrative workload.

The founders believe their platform could eventually help smaller trades businesses grow without necessarily needing to sell to larger consolidators.

That is especially relevant as ownership transitions occur across long-established businesses.

They describe encountering an HVAC business that had operated for roughly a century and still relied heavily on paper-based processes.

As younger generations inherit or take over such businesses, they may be more willing to modernize operations with AI and automation.

Cactus sees an opportunity to support that transition.

Why Y Combinator Was Worth Doing Twice

Ajith previously attended Y Combinator with Turing Labs during the Winter 2020 batch.

That experience was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the batch did not receive its traditional Demo Day.

Despite already having startup experience and investor relationships, Ajith chose to return to YC with Cactus.

He argues that the benefits extend well beyond fundraising.

The accelerator provides access to experienced mentors, ambitious founders, and an environment where rapid progress becomes the expectation.

It also changes fundraising dynamics.

Outside an accelerator, founders may spend months identifying investors, securing introductions, and pitching their companies.

Within YC, investor interest can become much more concentrated, allowing founders to spend less time searching for capital.

Ajith also values the pressure created by being surrounded by founders building rapidly growing businesses.

The Cactus team was so committed to returning to YC that they moved their families to San Francisco before receiving acceptance.

They rented an apartment near the accelerator while continuing to build their business.

For Ajith and Avinash, the second YC experience helped sharpen their vision and contributed to the evolution from Craved into Cactus.

The $20 Million Lesson: More Funding Does Not Solve Every Problem

Before Cactus, Ajith and Avinash worked together at Turing Labs, a company applying AI to research and product development for major consumer packaged goods companies.

The company raised approximately $20 million.

But Ajith's experience taught him that raising capital does not eliminate the underlying challenges of building a business.

One difficulty involved the cost and complexity of conducting physical product experiments.

For example, using AI to develop a new consumer food product still required real-world testing and validation.

That process could be expensive and difficult to scale.

Another challenge was the concentration of potential customers among a relatively small group of major consumer packaged goods companies.

These experiences helped shape Ajith's approach to Cactus.

He became more focused on choosing the right market, understanding what customers genuinely need, and building a business that can expand without excessive dependence on a small set of buyers.

He also learned the importance of the co-founder relationship.

Ajith and Avinash had known each other since college, and a university mentor later helped reconnect them professionally.

Before launching their new venture, they spent time discussing their values, the kind of company they wanted to build, and their long-term ambitions.

They believe this alignment gives them the ability to navigate changing products, difficult decisions, and unpredictable markets.

The AI Era Is Changing How Founders Build Products

Another significant shift discussed in the episode involves software development itself.

Ajith says he previously believed strongly in structured product development processes, including traditional sprint cycles.

AI has challenged that assumption.

He now believes founders need to reconsider how much planning and process are necessary when software can be built and tested far more quickly.

Avinash shares an example of building a cross-platform calculation application in approximately 30 minutes using AI.

The experience demonstrated how dramatically the barriers to creating software have fallen.

For founders, this creates an opportunity to experiment faster and launch products with fewer resources.

However, it also introduces a competitive challenge.

If almost anyone can build software quickly, simply having a functioning product is less valuable as a competitive advantage.

That reinforces the Cactus founders' broader argument.

Technology alone is insufficient.

The stronger business may be the one that understands customers most deeply, executes consistently, and becomes essential to everyday operations.

The Startup Metric That Matters Most: Are Customers Paying?

Near the end of the conversation, Ajith reflects on advice he received early in his entrepreneurial journey.

He was repeatedly told to charge customers as soon as possible.

For several years, he largely ignored that advice.

Like many founders, he placed too much emphasis on other signals of customer interest.

But product usage does not necessarily establish that customers are willing to pay.

Ajith now believes two questions deserve priority.

Are customers paying for the product?

And are they continuing to pay?

Those questions reveal whether a business is delivering something customers consider valuable enough to support financially.

Usage, engagement, and other metrics can provide useful information, but they do not replace evidence of willingness to pay.

For founders building in the rapidly expanding AI market, this distinction is particularly important.

The ability to attract users with impressive technology does not automatically translate into a sustainable business.

The Future of AI in Trades Businesses

Looking ahead, Ajith and Avinash envision a future in which Cactus becomes the central operating platform for trades businesses.

The owner would oversee the company, technicians would perform fieldwork, and AI would coordinate much of the administrative activity connecting the two.

Eventually, they believe AI agents and robotics could extend automation into additional parts of the operation.

They also see an opportunity for independent trades companies to become larger and more efficient without relying on acquisition by industry consolidators.

Their longer-term vision includes revenue-sharing and payment-processing models that could substantially change the economics of their business.

The founders suggest that, under such a model, relationships with approximately 250 to 300 businesses could potentially support $100 million in revenue.

This remains an ambition rather than an achieved result, but it illustrates how they are thinking beyond traditional software subscriptions.

Their larger objective is to make trades businesses more profitable while giving owners more time outside work.

Final Takeaways: The Future of AI Belongs to Companies That Own the Workflow

The Cactus story illustrates an important evolution in the AI startup ecosystem.

As foundational AI capabilities become easier to access, companies need to differentiate themselves through more than technology.

Ajith Govind and Avinash Joshi are betting that the next generation of valuable AI companies will build complete operational experiences around specific customer needs.

Their journey from Turing Labs to a private-chef marketplace and eventually an AI platform for trades businesses demonstrates the importance of following customer problems rather than remaining attached to an initial product idea.

Their refusal to depend on ServiceTitan also highlights the strategic trade-off between short-term distribution advantages and long-term independence.

And their emphasis on paying customers reinforces a timeless principle of entrepreneurship: a product's real value is demonstrated by what customers are willing to pay for and continue using.

Voice AI may already be a commodity, but making that technology indispensable to how a business operates is a much harder challenge.

For Cactus, that is precisely the opportunity.

Chapters:

  • 00:00Introduction to Ajith Govind, Avinash Joshi, and Cactus
  • 00:48How the co-founders met and started building together
  • 04:09Why Y Combinator is worth doing twice
  • 06:39Lessons from Turing Labs and raising $20 million
  • 09:00Why co-founder values matter more than the initial idea
  • 13:47The challenges of Turing Labs
  • 15:06How a Legoland visit inspired their first marketplace
  • 18:38From Craved to Cactus and the second YC journey
  • 22:42The $45,000 missed-call problem in HVAC
  • 25:04How Cactus drives revenue for trades businesses
  • 27:11Building an AI office beyond voice automation
  • 30:02Why Cactus refused to integrate with ServiceTitan
  • 34:48Why voice AI is becoming a commodity
  • 37:27The future of AI, robotics, and trades businesses
  • 42:15Why AI is changing traditional product development
  • 44:43Why paying customers matter more than vanity metrics
  • 45:54Where to find Cactus

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Brian Bell (00:00.699)

Hey everyone, welcome back to the night podcast. Today we are delighted to have two found founders on the mic. They've been friends since college and building together for years. Ajith and his co-founder, Avinash, who's the CTO. Cactus, what they're building is the AI office for trades. Before this, they helped Turing, they built Turing Labs, which brought AI to product development at most of the top CPG companies and also raised a series A from Insight Partners. welcome on the on the pod, guys.

Ajith Govind (00:30.722)

Hey, thanks for having us, Brian. Thanks for having us, Brian. Really excited.

Brian Bell (00:34.127)

Yeah. this is my favorite kind of podcast I was saying before we record, you know, talking to founders in the portfolio. I'd I'd love to start with, you know, your origin story. What what's your background? How'd you guys meet and start building stuff together?

Ajith Govind (00:48.258)

Yeah, both of us are batchmates from college and we met in the corridors, we became good friends. Avinash went on and became, I would say, like one of the best engineers out there. He ha he's always a builder. I let him talk about his journey a little bit later. But yeah, we always kept in touch and We joined together for the pre my previous startup. He was founding engineer. We immediately knew we were co we'll be co-founders at some point. So yeah, it's been a it's been a journey over a long period of time, but also feels quite short because it's so exciting, it's so intense. And we still feel like we are at the very beginning of something really awesome. So yeah.

Avinash Joshi (00:48.258)

Yeah. And you know, I still remember like, you know, Ajith was always an a born entrepreneur. It was very clear that he was going to go and build companies better. I also wanted to build my own company, but he had that vision from the get-go. he went on to you know join startups like Musigma, where he saw it go from you know its early stages until you know growing into much later stages, right? And also working with the CMO of Dell, you know, Doing data analysis, but he has a background of computer science. So that's what makes him special, I would say, because he has a computer science base and he's an entrepreneur on top of it. Put that together, it's a recipe for success, right? And one of the best things that happened to me, again, we lost a bit of touch as Ajith mentioned. when I when you know I came to US United States in 2011 for my masters, and I you know finished my master's I joined a job in Dallas, built many platforms like portfolio management system. Long story short, our common mentor, he kind of reconnected from university. It's funny we st we are still in touch with our universities, we university and we are very close to our mentor. And he put us back in touch together and I just knew that I had to

Avinash Joshi (03:01.538)

joined his previous startup which went through YC during labs. And from there it is all history. it's it's like it's been the best decision of my life, I would say. and we are here now building Cactus together. So yeah.

Brian Bell (03:18.747)

Yeah, it's amazing. I'm kinda jealous. I wish I would, you know, was on a on a startup, on my second startup with one of my oldest friends. And you guys see I can I could tell you guys like each other a lot. And I think that makes, you know, the founder journey a lot easier because it's kind of like being married, right?

Ajith Govind (03:34.039)

It is actually. It's very funny because it's a roller coaster ride and you need to have that support system. As you said, it's like marriage, right? Even when you know you're married to your spouse, it's the same thing. You have it's a roller coaster ride. Every day is a new thing. And if you're not able to support each other, it's going to be really a tough journey. And we both are fortunate on that front as well to have really supporting and amazing wives and family, to be honest. as well that are supporting us through this journey.

Brian Bell (04:09.435)

That's amazing. And then you guys chose to go through YC for a second time. you know, I might call that the YC rebound. Tell tell us more about why do it a second time if you've already done it the first time. I mean, you already have the connections. You can go raise. Why why do it again?

Ajith Govind (04:22.508)

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question and I've got this question like hundreds of times with founders and the simple answer is that YC is totally worth every single equity that it takes, right? And so I did winter twenty and Winter20 batch was the only batch in the history of YC which did not get a demo day. And that's because COVID hit. and for me, it always left a feeling that I didn't complete YC. Like I wanted to do the demo day, right? And that was like one aspect of it. But also in YC batch, I still remember there was a founder, She was the founder of Pully. Pully was in our batch and she was doing it for the third time, right? So I asked her this question that why are you doing it the third time, right? Like when I went through it the first time. And she was like, you'll you'll you'll see. And she just she didn't explain and she said, You'll see, right? But when we started Cactus, it was immediately clear why we should do YC. there are three reasons in our minds. Like one is You get mentors like Tom, Gary, they were our they are our growth partners and they've built billion dollar companies themselves and it's you need that right you need to you need that kind of advice plus you get access to like the best companies in the bay right yesterday we met one of our batch mates from the from the YC batch and they're doing so great like it's it's inspiring right so it's it's about a little bit of peer pressure which is really awesome and of course it's it's a hack to

Ajith Govind (06:07.376)

raise your seat, right? Instead of doing it for six months and you're reaching out to investors in the process and all of that, investors basically come to you and they are trying to get onto your cap table, which is a very different thing, versus a regular race. So I mean and it's it's VCs for life, right. So there's a I mean we could go on

Brian Bell (06:25.689)

Yeah, most YC calls I'm pitching you guys on taking my money, right?

Ajith Govind (06:28.642)

Yeah, exactly. That's what it is, right? I mean we could go on and make this podcast all about why YC is worth it for the second or third time. There's it never stops. There's a lot more reasons. So yeah.

Brian Bell (06:39.621)

Tell us about the Turing Labs. So this was the first startup. take us through that journey, what you learned, what you'll do differently this time, kind of yeah, t walk us through that journey.

Ajith Govind (06:50.646)

Yeah, so Turing Labs was my first startup. Now, I made literally every mistake in the book. I became an entrepreneur at twenty four, twenty five. I was just turning twenty five. That was not a mistake, I would say. Yeah. That was not a mistake. That was not a mistake. I mean Yeah.

Brian Bell (07:05.007)

That's a good time. That's a good time to be a founder. If anyone's listening in their twenties, could you start a startup in your twenties? Absolutely. Go start a startup, you know.

Ajith Govind (07:12.024)

Think you should and you should do it as early as possible before you have kids, before you have a wife, a partner, before you have yeah, and mortgage and all yeah, everything, right? all of that. So yes. So yeah, I think the thing with Turing Labs was yeah, made all the first-time mistakes as a founder, didn't take a salary for four years, right? and it was it was a journey which taught me.

Brian Bell (07:20.023)

A mortgage, child care, you know, yeah. D dirty diapers.

Ajith Govind (07:41.923)

The whole thing about entrepreneurship. Luckily we got into Y Combinator. That was the big breakthrough, I would say. got stuck in a hotel room for like ninety days, hundred days almost, and literally raised the seat during COVID time. Very, very testing times. I yeah, it's there's a lot to talk about that. But essentially the learnings from Turing Labs is pretty simple, right? Like all the money in the world is not going to solve your problems. That is the first learning, right? You might, I mean, we raised 20 million, but that doesn't mean that you solved the problem. That is and you can always kind of yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And

Brian Bell (08:16.953)

The beginning of your problems, actually, because more money, more problems, and yeah, bigger raise, bigger problems, right?

Ajith Govind (08:25.462)

I think the biggest thing for me personally and is that I got a chance to work with Avinash. Like Avinash said, you know, when he joined it was like I was so excited. this is because I knew how what kind of an engineer and builder he was and what he wanted to build. When he was in college, he was like he got invited to SF, he was the top contributor of Open Solaris and all of that, right? Like he it was like an exceptional builder and I was so desperate to have him on board. So that was great with Turing journey. But it also taught me that the most important thing is the co-founder relationship. Right. And why you do a company with a co-founder is the most important thing. Right. It's the Not the what. The what keeps changing, right? Like yes, what you're building, especially in today's world of AI, like man, I you will change. Like if you don't change the what, then you're dead in like Three months that it has to change, right? But the why is the so important thing, and how you go through that journey is the most important thing, right? Like you need to have fun. It cannot be like the worst time of your life. Then what are you doing? Like, is it really worth it, right? So it taught me a lot of things. I'll I'll let Avinash also talk about his learnings.

Avinash Joshi (08:25.462)

The one thing that you know Ajith mentioned about this, which is It's not about the what, it's about the why as well, right? That's the most important thing. So even before we started Cactus, well, it was not called Cactus before. We can jump into that later. Even before we started

Avinash Joshi (10:05.152)

A company together. We first sat down and talked about what our values are. What kind of a team do we want to build? What kind of a company do we want to build? And why do we want to do it? Right. The long-term vision, the 30-year goal. again, we don't know what's going to happen in six months, but you've got to have and manifest that. vision for ourselves and I believe strongly that we have manifested this situation for us, right? Like where we are at today. And we'll continue to manifest our growth as well. So the we sat down and talked about our cultures, our values of what kind of people we are, what kind of people we want to work with, things like that. So that laid the foundation and groundwork for what Cactus is today. So even through all the journeys that we have had, matter how great it is, no matter how hard it is, it always comes back to the core values that we define for each other and for the company as a whole. For this partnership, I would say, first. And then it reflects on the company and on you know people who we work with as well. And we have been very fortunate to have great to have been working with great people around us.

Brian Bell (11:20.603)

Yeah. And you guys ki became dads around the same time. Was that during touring or Cactus?

Avinash Joshi (11:26.998)

Yes, it was during Turing. I have two kids. they are now seven and three years old. He has a son who is three year old. so d during when I joined Turing, we had a one year old baby and then, you know, or one and a half and then two years later we had our second kid, right? So it was a tough time being in startup. I'd never worked in startups, I'd worked in smaller offices and it was kind of crazy. But it's always great to have this kind of support that we have. I'm pretty grateful to Ajith because he brings a different side of you know The product as a whole, right? Which is that he has the growth mindset. He excels at sales, he excels at customer success. I love customer success. I we I think we do that great together. And we all and I love building products. Like I love actually building it, writing it. Not that he doesn't love doing it, it's just that he's great at what he's doing. Same thing, not that I don't love selling. I wait, I can sell if I want to, of course. But we have our accountability kind of parts, right? And that's why I think we work great together. We don't cross-contaminate, meaning that we support each other, we are responsible for the entire thing, but we keep hold each other accountable. and support through it, not nitpick, not kind of gripe on each other, but try to be supportive. That's I think very important in the partnership. It's a win-win at the end of the day, right? Like there's no win there's no like one person winning or one person losing. That

Ajith Govind (13:16.94)

That is the thing that usually kills co founder relationships, we have what we have seen. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, he you know, during Turing he had a baby as well. He went through, you know, a lot of things because being a founder, having a kid, it's it's not easy. Like it is you know, it is a journey to endure. We had we had just raised Series A and I had just moved to Canada and it was it is a very tough testing time. Yeah.

Brian Bell (13:35.375)

Yeah.

Ajith Govind (13:43.724)

But yeah, we all came through it all. So yeah.

Brian Bell (13:47.003)

So at some point you guys shut down Turing. What what was the outcome there? What was the you know, just put a coda on that story? Yeah.

Ajith Govind (13:51.597)

No, no, Turing is still going on. My previous co-founder is running it. I think so the thing with Turing is that I think the idea is awesome, right? Like the idea is to become like an AI CPG for R D for CPG, right? Like AI lab for CPG. Yeah, like a digital automation, right? Like imagine if you had to come up with a new version of like a Heinz ketchup. Could you do it virtually, right, without having to run the whole testing? Now, the problem with Turing was that testing is expensive, right? That's the problem, right? Like it's not easy to go to craft and say that, hey, let's run like 500 physical tests, right? So that's the challenge. And I think the other problem with that market is that there are like 10 to 15, right, really big CPG companies, outside of which It takes a different c sort of a product to kind of expand. so I think the idea is awesome. hopefully Turing gets acquired, that's my hope, right? we definitely have that you know, like with AI, a lot more things are possible. So yeah.

Brian Bell (15:06.427)

So what's the Legoland story and how does a family vacation turn into a company?

Ajith Govind (15:08.782)

Yeah, I used to like visit Avinash a lot. So he lived in Dallas for about fourteen years. and we used to hang out quite a bit. It was one of those days when it was a weekend and we were taking like he was taking his kids to like a land and we were just walking around, right? Like, and then I think we were just sitting on a bench just waiting for the kids to like finish playing or something. And we saw this like group of like house I think it was ladies, like people who were running their homes, right? And they were all talking about this problem that We need somebody to come in and help with our specifically the food, right? So it's so important to them that their family has like really home cooked meals. and it's also really important for them that you know they take care of their careers, right? So that there's a lot of things there. And essentially, just to summarize it, they wanted a A private chef would come to their house and just take care of the whole thing for them, right? Including all the meals and everything. And it was interesting because we both were kind of going through the same thing. Like Avinash, like he just had like the second baby, and his wife is working in Cisco. So it's a crunch to take care of the meals at home. Now he their family is like very Particular about home cooked meals, right? They don't like eating out and all that. so and that's that's I think how most people are. And my wife and my mom-in-law are great chefs and they kind of figured out that they could just go to people's homes and you know earn like a good side income. Like at some points of time, they were actually paying the rent for me in Canada, right? So it kind of fit the

Ajith Govind (17:06.412)

The blocks fell in place where it became clear to us that we need to build a marketplace for private chefs, right? Like for busy home busy people. So that was the thesis and Yeah, I think Avinash can talk about how it quickly just came about. Yeah, I mean it was pretty intense and interesting because I was able to view it from the lens of a consumer, he was able to view it from the lens of the chefs, right? So we started building the platform for the marketplace platform that connected private chefs and busy families. That's the thesis. And we saw a lot of traction because Ajith and his family were in Toronto. So Toronto, sorry. So he and his family were there and they we were able to quickly bring it up to scale, right? And In just a couple of weeks or months we had a platform and we had like I don't know how much may thirty house families. Yeah, I think we had about thirty to forty families. Yeah. Early days we were just literally driving them around just to understand the behavior. We would do grocery shopping. It was it was in it was insane. we do the whole thing for them. Yeah. And through all this we saw that there's huge traction and we started, you know, raising our pre seed round for

Ajith Govind (18:38.796)

This idea. It was called Craved because you're craving for food, right? And we, you know, it was that was an intense process as well, because again, this is a point that we that you mentioned in the beginning, which is why do YC, right? So the process again, since Ajith had his previous backing, he had a lot of contacts through his you know, investor contacts and all of those. It was, I would say a little bit more easier, but it's still a grind. It was not like people are coming to us and saying, hey, you know, here's my money, take it. a lot of friends and families helped as well through this round, right? So it was an intense time. and I don't know if you have anything to add to that, but after that we started building tools for these chefs. Yeah. We started building point. Yeah, that was kind of the turning point. We started building tools for the shifts. By the way, through all this, we were applying to YC. It's not like we were not, right? we were building tools for the chefs, and it kind of doesn't there was a moment where we realized, wow, we are actually building AI tools. Again, it was not AI at the time, but we are building AI tools for these chefs, right? So we applied to YC, and our one-liner for YC was AI co-pilot for chefs. That was a one-liner, and that's what got us into YC. But we did have the vision that it is not just for chefs. We have our wedge is the chefs, but we're going to expand it to any solo entrepreneur. be it, you know, Fitness trainers, be it professional coaches, we had you know private chefs, we had many such you know industries. We had a ton of industries, yeah. So that's what got us into YC. YC was pretty intense. we moved to SF even before YC. So here's the thing about manifestation, right? We moved to SF in I think February of 2025. Yeah. And

Brian Bell (20:43.055)

Whoa, so you you told your wives and we're we're moving the families, you know, we're going. just wow.

Ajith Govind (20:46.766)

Just We got an we got an apartment in the landing which is we're like we are going to get into YC, that's why we're getting this apartment right next to YC. It's so wild now that you think about it. And we're like, we are going to do this and we started, you know, going doubling down on you know on Craved and got into YC it was pretty wild. And after that things took kind of a turn, meaning that We realized, or our actually our partner, Tom, he was the one, you know, he was like, this crave, it's an interesting name, it's an interesting idea, you know, but I mean this is not exactly how it's said. but you guys need to think of the bigger vision, right? It's the A Copal for Solapanas. And that's when we went back and we were like, let's come up with a name for this segment or for this company. And Ajith overnight was like, okay, how about Cactus? I'm like, Cactus, that sounds nice. And it also repla represents a very resilient plant. Right? You can put Cactus in a desert and it will survive. it has spikes that will protect, you know, protect itself. And I think that resonated with us really well. And we're like, okay, we're going all in on Cactus and Cactus is the name of the company going forward.

Brian Bell (22:15.417)

And it kind of invokes solo kind of the solo entrepreneur, right? You know, this like solo plant in the middle of the desert, resilient, standing up to the elements. It it it's you know, it's I don't know, has lots of water and and nutrients inside, but it kind of has the prickly sort of defenses. and you know, so now kind of explain Cactus to a plumber who's never heard of AI. What happens when their phone rings at nine PM?

Ajith Govind (22:22.306)

Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Ajith Govind (22:29.73)

Yeah.

Ajith Govind (22:34.498)

Yeah.

Ajith Govind (22:42.434)

Yeah, so we kind of stumbled into trades right after this and there's a good segue into this where we talked to the very first HVAC in Utah, we went to their office and she explained it to us that hey, nice my CSR, my customer service person, and did not answer the phone at like seven PM in the evening. Yeah.

Brian Bell (23:06.127)

Yeah, they work nine to five, right? Maybe eight to six, but yeah.

Ajith Govind (23:09.484)

Yeah. They just missed that call. The owner called the customer back in about fifteen minutes and they had already gone and booked the job with their competitor, right? And She knew that it was a big job, like it was a full HVAC system replacement worth like $45,000, right? And that really hurts a business owner. Basically, you just lost a huge job, right? This is just one small example. These companies' trades, they miss hundreds or thousands of calls every month. And what they do not realize is that the single most important thing is to just capture the leads, which not just it's it's not just the phones, but it's also text, it's also web forms, their marketing leads and the whole thing. If you don't capture the leads, you don't grow and then you die. That's it. Yeah.

Brian Bell (24:04.833)

And then, you know, respond to them too. There's this study, you know, I ran demand gen teams for VC back startups and one of the studies, I built a marketing automation platform for real estate agents. So kind of, you know, that's why we connected. I was like, okay, I get what you guys are doing. I did that like 15 years ago. And if you respond to the lead within five minutes, your conversion rate is I think it triples or something like that. Yeah. It's like five X.

Ajith Govind (24:13.954)

Yeah.

Ajith Govind (24:28.47)

Yeah, it's more than triples, yeah. Yeah.

Brian Bell (24:32.059)

So you're five X more likely to win the business if you respond within five minutes. But the problem is like I'm a I'm a plumber. I'm an HVAC person. I'm out on the job. My customer support person who's d doing the intake is not always there, can't take more than one call at a time, only works nine to five. So it's it's a huge problem. And then, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of calls every year go on unanswered. So I'm like leaving so much money on the table. It's like

Ajith Govind (24:35.437)

Yes.

Brian Bell (24:57.891)

I and I'm sure you guys after you've gone and implemented this, have measured this. Like how much revenue are you impacting at the average HVAC person?

Ajith Govind (25:04.962)

Yeah. It's it's massive. I would say some of them are like mind numbering. When we initially saw the report, we were like, Is this really correct? Like five hundred thousand dollars like this month, that's like crazy, right? So yes, yes. Yep. And

Brian Bell (25:20.939)

thousand in one month is what that what you impacted. Wow. And then how what do you what is your pricing start at?

Ajith Govind (25:29.654)

So initially we started as 500 per month, right? We were just doing, just answering the phones. Yeah. But then we started going and becoming their bigger revenue engine, right? The growth engine, which not only just captures the calls, texts, starts now booking jobs into their calendars, right? Scheduling dispatch, doing texting back and forth.

Avinash Joshi (25:29.654)

And Avinash has like ship product.

Brian Bell (25:34.031)

Yeah, trying to test it out. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (25:57.915)

It's it's unbelievable what is being shipped in the last like four months. Like it's just unbelievable. Like it's it's miraculous actually. right. I mean but also Yeah, yeah. Exactly. AI is AI is helping a lot. Of course, we have the foundation that we built, which is helping a lot, like

Brian Bell (26:06.811)

Well yeah, AI is you guys are implementing AI in these small businesses. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (26:18.064)

you still got to have the systems and the taste to actually build the right thing, right? It's easy to build things today. I mean AI can pretty much do single prompt. I agree with that, but our customers also get pitched voice AI. Just we are not voice A anymore, right? But we they get pitched like hundred voice AIs every single month. And they still say that Cactus voice is Way magnitude's better than anything else that you heard. So, yes, I agree with AI and everything, but eventually what really means is the voice alone. I think what they're saying, underlying what they're saying is that the experience is different. Yeah. Because technically, if you think about it, the voice is kind of it's similar, right? Voice is one part of it, yeah. Exactly. But exactly. But what are they actually underlying saying that the experience is actually different? I think that's what they're doing. No, no, that means that's that's correct, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Brian Bell (27:00.697)

It's a channel. It's a channel. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Bell (27:11.525)

Yeah. I love that. I love that the you know, five hundred thousand in one month impacted. I mean that's but I'm guessing you've raised the price a little bit. And and now are you are you taking are you taking a percentage of what you're able to close for them?

Ajith Govind (27:19.243)

Yes.

Ajith Govind (27:23.816)

That's a great question. We are starting to get into Rev Share. We are starting to get into different models now because we have been thinking about this, and now we are starting to get become true partners to these companies. where we are saying, guys, you guys have like 20 people, right? and you have like 15 different softwares, and you have another 10 vendors. So a business owner typically B his main job right now, his or hers main job is just to coordinate this whole like mess of software, vendors, staff, the whole thing. And there is no time, like it's so chaotic. Yeah. On paper they are making 10 million with like twenty people. But their life is so chaotic. it's worse than a pre-seed founder's life, right? Like it's terrible. Like it's 18, 18 hours, 20 hours, and then they have no, they have not they have nothing to give after that. So the pitch that we are doing is we are, we'll be the single layer, we'll be the AI office that manages everything between the business owner and the on-field text. Now, that's a very broad spectrum, right? There's like CSS, there's CMOs, we want to build an AI CMO, we are already on it. Right, we will handle the payments, the booking, scheduling, the whole thing, procurement, payroll, accounting. Right. So there's that's the vision that we have. Or we are going towards that vision and

Brian Bell (28:50.907)

It's the small business operating system from end to end, starting with the lead flow that's coming in, running the ads for you, I would imagine too, generating those ads, responding to those ads, booking the appointments, managing your calendar, doing the invoicing, everything. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (28:58.668)

Yep. Yep.

Ajith Govind (29:03.692)

Yes. Yes. The whole thing, right? And we see a world where they'll have much higher efficiencies with everything, but I think more importantly, they'll have a great way of life, right? That okay, here's one single system that I need to work with versus these this big mess, and it'll help them grow as well. So that's that's

Brian Bell (29:25.231)

What I always loved about building small business software. You know, I built lots of small business software. I worked at Vertical Response, which is an email marketing company. And then, you know, I built a couple marketing automation, AI-powered marketing automation platforms for small business, you know, this 10, 10, 12 years ago. But you're really impacting the lives of an average person, right? It's not you're not you're not building some enterprise software or some baseless, headless corporation, right? You're building

Ajith Govind (29:48.462)

Yeah.

Brian Bell (29:51.568)

People's livelihoods and you're really impacting their bottom line and making their lives better. I'm sure like do you have any interesting stories of small business owners that you've impacted that you're really proud of?

Ajith Govind (30:02.914)

I think you should talk about the major decision that we took early on versus service tight and then.

Avinash Joshi (30:02.914)

Yeah, so you know, it's funny you bring that up because these days, again, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier to go into enterprise, it's very lucrative. That's the right word I'm looking for. Yeah. It's so lucrative, but it's so tempting. By the way, you have no clue how tempting it is because we're like, we can just

Brian Bell (30:21.359)

Yeah, you get like seven figure contracts. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (30:29.41)

Get enterprise deals and then show like 10 million ARR like revenue so quickly, right? It's super empty. And the SMB world is so freaking hard. But it is so rewarding because it builds the basis and the trust for these small businesses to actually you know trust Cactus to handle their entire internet, right? So that basis is what foundation is what we're laying and we are working we are working on top of. Now there are some of the decisions that we took early on was in the beginning, you know, everyone loves integrations. You integrate into hundred different softwares and it you know it's it's perfect, right? one of the biggest players in the trades business is service writing. And We had early on made the decision. It was very hard. It was very hard, but we made the decision that we will not integrate with ServiceTitan. For whatever reason, we had kind of the conviction that we will not because it was it's easy once you integrate with ServiceTitan, once you have a not just integration, when you have once you have a partnership, a deep partnership with ServiceTitan. You are one at their mercy and two, you get a lot of customers as well because of the partnership, right? But we decided earlier not to do that and I think that has rewarded us tenfold, hundredfolds in my opinion.

Brian Bell (31:55.92)

And and what drove that decision? Was it just you kind of looked at it and you're like, Hey, this is old software, we can build this better, faster, cheaper, and and tune it better than we could ten years ago to to the trade use case. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (32:03.139)

Yeah.

Ajith Govind (32:08.066)

Yeah. I think there's a couple of couple of reasons for that. One is that we knew that if we partner with ServiceTitan, it's a dead end, right? Either either ServiceTitan will see the thing is ServiceTitan is always going to own the customer, right? Because it's their customer. They are giving you their customer and they're saying, Hey, here's interesting use case, do it, right? Here's a partner. And the thing with ServiceTitan is that just like any other big company, they will eventually want to own it if The thing is valuable. And Voice I w was at an experimentative state, right? Like one year back or eighteen months back. Yeah.

Brian Bell (32:44.933)

Yeah, just a couple of years it was pretty novel. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (32:48.694)

It was a big experiment, right? So it is a big experiment for ServiceTitan. And that's where I will mention this, like Awoka and Broccoli, they grew very quickly with that, right? Now that's awesome for them. And they got to like I don't know, tens of millions of ARR, and that's brilliant. But I don't see any way. This is again, my personal view is that I don't see any way where ServiceTitan will let them do their bigger vision, right? Where they can become the OS for trades. I mean they can, but they will cut off. That's the thing. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brian Bell (33:19.227)

Well and also ServiceTitan could just decide like, we're we're you know, you're not our partner anymore, this other partner is our partner.

Ajith Govind (33:24.558)

That's that's exactly what's happening. That's what that's what is happening right now. And it has happened with podium, unfortunately. Yeah. So the minute you say that you're going to be an end to end OS, basically you just lose the tens of millions of heir and say the what are you worth, basically? So that's my question. I don't know. I mean this is a bigger question. Yeah.

Brian Bell (33:42.595)

It's the hard it's the harder path, but it but then you can fit the platform to the customer better.

Ajith Govind (33:48.728)

Potentially. Yeah. So that's our

Brian Bell (33:49.904)

And then and then now and now it's a different conversation. It's like, hey, you have you have 10 software vendors, you're spending thousands of dollars a month, you know, on software. And not only can we save you money there, but we can make you money on the revenue side as well. And that's a huge value prop. Save you money and make you money. I mean, I'm listening, right? Yeah.

Ajith Govind (33:55.032)

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (34:01.804)

Yes, exactly. And the beauty Yeah. Yeah. And these are businesses which are again, we did move a little bit upstream to be tr to be honest, right? Like from solopreneurs, we moved to the segment where they're making I would say like two million to like twenty-five million, that's like our segment. And there's a reason for mid-market. Yeah, mid-market, right? It's I do I yeah, there is a difference mid-market because they are growing, they already have some systems, they have all these challenges going on, right? Versus solopreneurs have a slightly different challenge. Now we will go back to that segment. Once we have a little bit more mature product, a little bit more mature team and all of that. But the focus is definitely the mid-market for now.

Brian Bell (34:48.069)

So what's a popular idea? you know, we've danced around this question a little bit, but what is a popular idea in AI or voice AI that you think is wrong?

Ajith Govind (34:59.106)

You should you should take that. what does it mean? Like w w it'll be good

Brian Bell (35:04.133)

Well, yeah, I mean, the voice AI went from this experimental thing two years ago, to s kind of like a popular idea now, right? And you said yourself your customers are being pitched hundreds of times on voice AI. So what's a popular idea in the space that you guys would say would take a contr con contrarian take against?

Ajith Govind (35:24.618)

I don't know if we're allowed to say go for it. let's let's keep it real. Go for it. No, I mean so there are

Brian Bell (35:27.611)

Yeah.

Ajith Govind (35:35.809)

Voice AI is right now a commodity. Like anybody you get onto GrogBot, you have voice. We have great. So the question comes to what really is your mode at this point, right? What why are you building this? Like any so even though voice A is a commodity, it's hard for you to actually bring it up and build the system that seamlessly works together, right? Yeah. That that part is still hard.

Brian Bell (35:41.007)

Yeah. There's a there's five platforms out there you can go just get voice AI from. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (36:05.792)

Now I think the bigger play here is how can you actually partner with your customers, with the Strades businesses and go a little bit more deeper into the relationship. That way you actually are able to own the entire end-to-end experience for them. and You know, you're able to basically be that becomes kind of the mode, I would say. Yeah. That's one aspect of it. I don't know if you have anything to add on this. No, no, I think the second aspect of this is that AI and voice AI, especially and transmission, like all the digital stuff is awesome. Yeah. But These are not businesses who will take it and adopt it by themselves, right? We need we need that human layer. There needs to be a forward deployed layer who will actually like enable this, right? And make sure that things are happening and this is structure. It's about owning the SOPs and operating structure as well. And it's not just software. So there's software, processes, and people. And there needs to be that layer which works across all three, right? That's the key thing. Here, so that's contrarian, right? Like people think that yeah, technology build a software and give it away doesn't mean they will use it, they're not going to use it, yeah.

Brian Bell (37:27.035)

I love that. So how thinking, you know, what are you guys excited about over the next year or two in the business? And how do you think this category looks different, you know, in five, five or ten years if you guys build everything you want to build?

Ajith Govind (37:39.416)

Yeah, go for it.

Ajith Govind (37:45.113)

We have no idea what's going to happen in the next one or two months, to be very, very honest. I would say our vision for the like the five year vision, if you're closing your eyes and thinking about it, I'm gonna go really wild, right? It is there are many parallels that is going to happen, right? it's just like back to the future where you have parallel universes running at once, right? Huh?

Brian Bell (38:07.899)

One of my favorite movies. Yeah. One of my favorite movies. Yeah, I probably watched that until the tape broke when I was growing up.

Ajith Govind (38:15.746)

Yeah. And I don't think people know what tape is here, so yeah. yeah. That's that's the real world. Yeah. so the one vision that I that we have is that it's quite possible that you know we will be the end-to-end system where you have the owner.

Brian Bell (38:19.673)

Yeah. Until the DVD was so scratched it wouldn't play, I guess. Yeah. But it was a VHS tape back, you know. It was the like the late eighties, you know, I was watching Back to the Future. Yeah.

Ajith Govind (38:44.876)

You have the technicians, and everything in between is Cactus, right? It interacts with the customer, it interacts with the owner and the technician. It's like the hub, I would say. It's the hub for a trades business. Now, why stop there, right? What if there is a world where the technicians are also either assisted with potentially, you know, AI? Agents or robots, right? So we don't know. There is endless possibilities. If you think too much about it, I think you might explode your brain. because the positive and it's it's robots are real today. It's happening already. It's happening already. It's just yeah, how do you bridge the gap and make sure that humans are still in the loop? Because at the end of the day.

Brian Bell (39:21.211)

Yeah.

Ajith Govind (39:35.577)

What is the end goal? The end goal is how can you I guess that's for us, right? How can you empower humans to be much, much more efficient and make money without having to do the grunt work? Right? That's kind of the TLDR. Now there are many ways and many phases that we'll get in, you know, that we go through to make that happen.

Avinash Joshi (39:35.577)

I don't know, that's kind of unusual. Yeah, I think the especially in trades, there's there's a lot of roll-ups happening. and we've seen like multiple you know, versions of that. I think in five years We do see ourselves as you know enabling those mid-market and SMB businesses to become more, become bigger, right? And without being half without having the need to be acquired. Yes. Right. And the market is going to explode because we know that there's like a whole segment of business owners who are You know, who are just passing the bat on to the next generation. There's like this silver tsunami happening here. But is the next generation ready for it? So that's the thing, right? So how are they going to adopt? And they want they're going to do it in a different way, which is where we come in and we help them to do it in a better, more efficient way in a with AI and with robot robotics, right? And as the vision is very exciting. For us, the beauty is this, right? Like once we get into Rev Share, once we get into all these payments revenue, we'll be processing all the payments. We technically need like 300 companies or even like 250 companies.

Ajith Govind (41:15.798)

To hit 100 million revenue. This is the reality of it. So the market. Yeah.

Brian Bell (41:20.421)

the addressable market is how many how many companies have you guys calculated that how many companies are out there that could use Cactus?

Ajith Govind (41:25.122)

Yes. At least five hundred thousand. And this is being conservative, right? We're being conservative. So the beauty is this is five hundred thousand who are kind of like logged in the sensors and they're like out there with data and all of that. We ourselves know so many tons of businesses who are not even there, like they're not digitized, they don't have like basic We know of a hundred year old HVAC company here. Here in the Bay. Yeah. And they refuse to

Brian Bell (41:28.633)

Wow. Wow. Yep.

Brian Bell (41:51.024)

Wow.

Ajith Govind (41:53.363)

use technology and you know but they are kind of outdated almost and you know their future generation is now starting to realise man we need to get in on it right literally an eighty five year old own business owner who is ready to pass the bat on to like their grandchildren and the grandchild is like what are all these papers? What is going on here right like what's this stuff? So yeah Yeah so that

Brian Bell (42:03.555)

Need to modernize, yeah.

Brian Bell (42:15.631)

Yeah. Yeah, you don't have any iPads? Like what's going on here? Yeah. Well I'd let wrap up with some kind of rapid fire questions. what's something you guys believed with total conviction, you know, five years ago that you'd argued against now?

Ajith Govind (42:34.318)

So for me, one of the core conviction that I had was that you should build kind of method methodically and like with a structure and like a sprint and all those things. That has like l like changed the whole three sixty. Now I'm thinking like we have to build fast, like forget the sprints and like all those things and AI can just build it. and we have to unlearn. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Bell (42:58.917)

Yeah. Yeah, have sprints kind of gone like I haven't been in a product team in a lot like since AI. You know, my last product team was, you know, five years ago at Microsoft. Like, do you even do sprints anymore? Are you like, nope, we're gonna build this today?

Ajith Govind (43:04.716)

Yeah, yeah.

Avinash Joshi (43:11.682)

Yeah. Yeah. That's we have to unlearn that. And I think that is at the core of why I think nineteen, twenty, twenty-five year old people are able to build so fast. Like that is why YC is also betting on them. And I can see that. Like I see that. So yeah. I mean I thought that AI will not be at this point where it is today, but it is it's you can literally build I overnight I built an app that you know, we were struggling with we were working on some numbers and everything and we had to use a calculator and I like, I don't like it and I loved an app on the Mac which To Linux, so it doesn't exist. So I was like, let me just see what happens. I just said this is the kind of app I want within 30 minutes. It built an entire product on all platforms. It's insane what's possible, and now we are using it fully for every day. It's like a sheet that you know does calculations and things like that. So it's insane what you can build today.

Brian Bell (44:10.479)

Yeah, it's it's a it's the barriers to creation have fallen because AI kind of leverages what humans want. And then you kind of layer on kind of the physical AI, like robotics after that. And now that's all that's left is like people to just go, you know what? I think I'd like to build a business. And you know, and then you just talk to AI and just like, cool, we have all the software for you. We have your marketing setup. and we have work workers for you too. We have robots for you. And now you have a business. So you know, that and that's the future, probably. You know, that'll make your head explode, right?

Ajith Govind (44:24.692)

Exactly.

Ajith Govind (44:31.245)

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Ajith Govind (44:40.034)

Yeah. It will. A absolutely it does, yes.

Brian Bell (44:43.525)

What's the what's the best piece of advice that you ever received that you ignored initially?

Ajith Govind (44:52.046)

That's a tough one.

Ajith Govind (44:59.768)

So initially again, this is in my entrepreneurial journey. I got a lot of advice saying, hey, you need to charge immediately, right? You need to you need to get them to pay. And that's a real indication of if they actually need it or not. And I kind of ignored it for like three years, the first three years. And I see a lot of founders ignoring that. But now I have one. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So

Brian Bell (45:21.391)

Yeah, they kinda they kind of go to the vanity metrics. They're like, Yeah, but they're they're logging in and they're using it. It's like, are they paying for it though? And will they pay for it? Yeah.

Ajith Govind (45:29.064)

Now I have 100% conviction that nothing else matters other than are they actually paying for it? And that's it, right? Without that's it. Those are the two things, right? Yeah. Are you are they paying for it? Are they continuing to pay for it? Everything else. Yeah. Yeah. Will they pay for it or whatever it is? Yeah. There is everything else before that is just yeah, it's just fine. Let's not useful.

Brian Bell (45:38.797)

And are they continuing to pay for it? Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Bell (45:49.53)

Yeah.

Brian Bell (45:54.127)

Yeah. I love that. well, I could chat with you guys for another hour. I've really enjoyed the conversation. but would love to you know, tell the audience where they can find you guys online. Maybe there's some HVAC people listening. Where where can they go find you guys online?

Ajith Govind (46:00.46)

Sure, yeah.

Ajith Govind (46:10.578)

on Cactus.com, you can reach us directly as well. on Cactus. On Cactus.com. we are budgeting for that.

Brian Bell (46:14.255)

You got Cactus.com? On Cactus. I was like, ooh, caca like one word domain would be yeah. Yeah. That's gotta be like a quarter million dollars. So on Cactus.com. Yeah. Yep.

Ajith Govind (46:25.716)

it's more. Yeah. Yeah, oncactus.com or you could just reach us at avinash at oncactus.com or ajit at oncactus.com or easier founders at oncactus.com. So yeah. And also you can you know catch us on X and LinkedIn. Ajith post bangers on X and LinkedIn, so you should follow him there for sure. I'm getting there, not yet there. He's busy building, so this is a problem.

Brian Bell (46:51.898)

Awesome. really enjoyed it, guys. Thanks so much for coming on.

Ajith Govind (46:58.1)

Thank you so much, Brian. I appreciate it. Thank you.

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