Welcome to Women Disrupting Tech.
My name is dear Kanupkas, and on this podcast, I give the women
who work in tech the platform they need to inspire and empower
each other. Join me on a journey into the
world of entrepreneurship, funding biases, and role models
to discover the strategies for success in the tech industry.
In other words, how women can disrupt tech.
Are you ready to listen? Hey, welcome back to Women
Disrupting Tech, and thank you for tuning in to episode 117.
What happens when the path you're on no longer feels right?
For Ku Singh, working in marketing gave her skills but no
meaning. Remote work, broader
flexibility, but no connection. It left her burned out and
searching for something more. That search letter to create
amber and therapy like AI companion built to make mental
health support more accessible and culturally sensitive.
In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, Kuhu shares the
lessons from her journey. How growth turns into
responsibility when people all of a sudden depend on your
product. How resilience comes from
treating doubt as background noise and why meaning is more
powerful than happiness. Her journey is 1 of
stubbornness, wisdom, and clarity, and I can promise you,
it's one worth listening to. So when you're ready to listen
and learn how burnout fueled cool thing to build a bridge
between AI and therapy with Ember, please welcome to women
disrupting tech Ku Singh. Hey, good morning guru.
Good to have you. Please tell us how you got into
your current role or current position as founder of Amber.
Hi, Turkey, and thank you for having me on the podcast.
I'm really excited to have this conversation with you.
Good question. How I got into this position is
pretty funny because I used to work in marketing for tech
companies. That's what I did for three
years and then I was really burnt out with because I used to
work for AUS based startup in Boston and it was remote so my
hours were really, really, really messed up.
So naturally and it was also work from home.
So there were no boundaries, nothing being created and all of
that. So I got really burnt out and
then I came up with this idea of having an AI based workplace
well-being solution. Long story short, that didn't
really work out because I saw a bigger problem which was why not
make it for general access where because mental health problems
are for everyone, not just for employees.
And it was AB2B platform. So that was also very hard to
market just, you know, as a solo founder.
So I was like, I'm just going to open it up.
And at that point of time, AI was super on hype, which is 2024
and you had all these awesome tools that you can use even as a
non-technical founder, which at that point I was, I was like,
why don't I just go ahead and make a mental well-being
platform for everyone who can use it just, you know, for their
well-being. So that's really how I came up
with the idea of pivoting from, you know, a previous product,
which is more generalized to a more, sorry, more focused
product to a more generalized product.
Yeah, that's how I really, but being a founder wasn't really
the the goal. The goal was really to just have
solved that problem that I really found was important,
which was accessibility of mental health.
I was just trying to solve that problem.
And really, honestly, being the founder just is like a byproduct
of it. It just happened.
OK, so why is that accessibility important to you?
I think I come from, I come from India and back in India, back in
home where I was born and brought up, mental health is
really a big stigma. People usually say, you know,
it's nothing, doesn't, doesn't really exist and all of that.
We're still opening up to it in metropolitan cities.
But even though my parents were pretty educated, we also lived
in the metro. It was just that I was in high
school and I told them, I don't know, I'm not feeling OK.
So I felt that from when I was a teenager where I could not
access mental heavy mental health and really, you know, a
therapist or any of that. So I went to a lot of platforms
which were like community driven platforms, like I think it was 7
cups or something and I was talking to people on that trying
to feel better. It don't really help.
My parents didn't understand. Then when I came to college to
uni in the Netherlands, I had different set of problems and I
really needed someone to talk to.
At that point of time I just didn't have the money to be able
to afford therapy because it's about 100 to, you know, $200 or
even EUR because you don't really get insurance, doesn't
pay off a therapist, it pays off psychiatric help.
I don't think I needed psychiatric help at that point
of time. I only needed someone to talk to
and help me with my problems. So I just couldn't really find
anyone to talk to for a long time.
When I was able to find someone, the first therapist I met wasn't
really a good match and I think he did more damage than good to
me. So it was just really not really
working out. By the time last year, I was
going through a really rough batch.
That's also when the the idea of Amber came on where I was like,
I really need someone to talk to, can I please talk to
someone? And I really built something
that I wanted which I could talk to.
And then it was really helpful to me.
So I just opened it up to the public, sort of.
OK, so I'm going to ask a really ignorant question here.
So tell me the difference between talking to a therapist
and talking to friends about this.
What what what is the the sort of emotional load that makes
this different? Yeah, I think when we talk to
friends, this is at least from my own observation and also
from, you know, my friends who talk to me about their feelings,
is they don't, they don't tend to be that understanding because
they have their own set of problems.
They're not a clean slate. I'm not saying that therapists
are always a clean slate, but they don't know you.
They don't have expectations. You're not going to hurt your
therapist if you say something, but you may hurt your friend.
You, for example, have a problem with them or you're going
through something, you know, hard.
You just need someone to understand your problem and
really work through it. It's not just about talking but
also working through your problems.
So I think that's what a therapist really brings in is, I
would say sort of a clinical perspective to your life and
really help you, you know, reframe your thoughts or get out
of a tough situation. Yeah, it's much more systematic
and much more solution oriented. Whereas a friend would be
conversation like hey I'm having this problem and either they
whine with you, whine is the wrong word here, but they grieve
with you, or they start immediately solutionizing the
whole thing. And sometimes you just don't
need a. You don't need a solution for
everything. You just need to rewire what
you're thinking and how you're thinking and explore it further.
Yeah, Yeah. So it's different from scenting
in the sense that it's at the end of the day there needs to be
sort of progress on that particular problem.
Yeah, yeah. You need to really unpack
things. And you're not going to talk
about your childhood trauma, for example, with your friends.
I mean, you can, but you're probably going to make fun of
it. That's how I I deal with things.
I make fun of things. And when I used to go to my
therapist and make fun of things, he was like, I'm not
going to laugh with you. We're going to unpack this.
I was like, oh man, what have I done?
Maybe I should have made fun of it.
How was that for you to to to talk to a therapist?
Because I know you do. Yeah, it was really eye opening
to be honest. A lot of problems I had and I
was pretty. I was very self aware client.
She said that to me on my face. You know things, you know, you
know things about yourself. You still do them.
And it really, I think it changed me as a person.
I am not the same person I was six months ago when I started
therapy. It really, really changed me to
my core. I'm not.
I cannot give people as much as I used to give because it's not
good for me. So I've started putting myself
1st and that would be the last thing I used to do earlier.
So it really changed me. It was different.
It was like having someone who you don't know but really
understands you, and other than you know, your partner or your
friends, it's really important to have this one person who
really, really believes in you and is able to help you through
anything. So that bond that you make with
your therapist is, I think that's unmatched, which is why
when she went on a sabbatical, I think in November, I didn't look
for another one. I cannot do this.
I cannot do this again because she really got me and I cannot
start unpacking things with someone new.
So yeah, it was a different experience.
OK. So also on the, on the mental
health front a bit a longer time ago you worked for, you used to
work for an marketing company and you had a burnout.
How did that burnout, maybe for lack of a better word, help you
reframe your your future and look, look, look for other roles
to to play? Yeah, I think it really just
opened my eyes. And I mean, I was pretty young
at that point, but I was thinking if this is going to be
it, if I'm just going to keep working and just feeling like,
you know, crap the the other day, you know, at the end of the
day and it's 9:00 PM and I just don't have anything to do.
I don't have a social life I don't have.
And I wasn't even passionate towards what I was doing because
my burnout was really just trumping all the passion I had
towards the jobs. I would really physically go in
exhausted. And it was just not something
that I was willing to do to myself.
It was just not sustainable. So it really made me think, And
that's also why, you know, having my own startup is that no
matter what happens to my startup, I, you know, I'm so
passionate towards it that I'm still going to keep working on
it without feeling like, you know, physically tired.
But other than that, it was also important to find things to do
outside of your work. Have an identity which doesn't
really have anything to do with your work.
I think it's. Different.
Why is that important to to have that balance?
At some point of time, you're going to.
You're going to get rid of you're going to be too old to be
on that job or you're just going to get bored or something or the
other is going to happen. And I'm a very I think about my
mortality just too much. And if I'm like, if this is the
last day that I was going to be on earth and this is what I've
been doing, feeling tired, not feeling good, just, you know,
cursing my job. Why am I here?
What's it what's it going to what's good is going to do to
me? So that's how that's how I think
of things. And which is which which is why
it was important that every day that I live, I do at least one
thing special which is not truly related to my work.
So I, it doesn't mean that, you know, I need to get recognition
at work or, you know, be able to push out a new feature or
whatever. It's more in my personal life.
What special thing can I do today that if I die tomorrow,
I'm still going to be like, yeah, at least I, you know, I
went on a walk with my dog and she played so much and it made
me really happy. So anything outside of your
work, it's really important to have an identity which doesn't
surround your work. I think this is also for people
who get laid off. It's a different story.
But if you, you know, spend your life dedicated to your work and
you're laid off, then you just have like, a big identity
crisis. Like, what am I supposed to do?
And it's not just about the job, but it's also that you've spent
hours and hours at end at that job.
And they just, you know, they had problems, so they laid you
off and now you just don't know what to what to do, where to go.
So that's not a good feeling to have.
No, no, no, for sure, for sure. Did you learn anything good
though in the, in the as a marketing person in that tech
company that you worked for? Did you use use anything that
you actually use right now in your current startup?
A lot of things, I think especially working for AUS
startup, it really taught me great really going at it even
when things are not really working out.
I then, even though it's different kind of startup, like
it is B to CI used to do for B to B, it still gives you that
perspective of right messaging, how to reach out to customers,
how to just position yourself in a very crowded market, which
mental health is how to, you know, reach out, how to just, I
know a lot of things like, you know, bringing customers back,
even if they're like, you know, cancel my subscription, like no,
what can I do to bring them back?
How do I push the right messaging?
So all of those things have really stuck with me.
My previous jobs I had a lot of mentors who really taught me
really good things and I they'd really stuck with me even
through today. I use them and as and when we
grow, I see myself using my older skill set more than I am
using the newer skill set that I'm building, which has been
building Amber. But also, you know, marketing is
a big part of it of any company. If you build it, it's not going
to work out. You need to put it out.
And how am I going to put it out?
That's something that my previous job has really taught
me. Yeah, so you're a solo founder,
right? Yes, I'm a solo founder.
Yeah. Do you also, do you have a team
right now? No, it's it's just me.
OK, it's just you. OK, so how do you, because then
you had to sort of teach yourself or learn also the the
technical part, how did you approach that?
Because it sounds sort of difficult if you don't have a
marketing background. So, so that's question 1 is how
did you get the skill set? And two, how did you avoid?
Because this is a trap that I find myself jumping into a lot,
looking for, doing the things that I'm used to doing because
they, well, they're, they're the comfort zone for a reason.
Yeah, I think it's a very good question.
In my previous, the the startup that I, you know, pivoted from,
which was Espresso, I went ahead with this is really like
headstrong, but even as a non-technical founder, I can do
this. I was slapped on my face and I
realized I cannot do this as as if I do not if I don't have a
team. If you have a team, even then,
if you're in the technical market and you know, you're
building a product as technical as mine, which is, you know,
basically an AI well-being companion, you need to know how
the product works. Especially I think for me, it's
very important to know how my tech works.
And at that point of time, what I did was I also, I was still
very resourceful. So I outsourced what I was
doing. I hired A freelancer, I made the
product on Figma and all of that.
But there was still a big bridge that I could see because for any
change that I needed to push on the platform, anything my then
customers needed, I just couldn't do it because I didn't
know how to. I was too reluctant to learn how
to do that. So I, I just took a break three
months. I was like, I am just going to
learn how to code. Big ambition.
Very, very big ambition. But I, I, my mom calls me very
stubborn and I am stubborn. She used to say it in a bad way,
but I think I'm stubborn in a good way because I realized,
yeah, I'm persistent. I because I realized I really
cannot do this unless and until I know how my tech works.
And as a founder, even if you're non-technical, even if you're
technical, you need to know the core of your product.
And you cannot rely on the other person wholeheartedly that you
know what if that person goes on leave or your Technical Support
goes on leave, what are you going to do?
Because it is a startup, you're supposed to know how it really
works. And I was like 3 months and at
that time cursor did not come out.
It was only Claude and Chachi PT and YouTube.
So I went on YouTube and I really took a lot of free, you
know, free courses which are really easy to learn on YouTube.
And one month I just learned the basics, just really basics.
I did, I did JavaScript, I did really, really basic stuff.
And I was like, yeah, I can, I think I can do this.
And then I, when I got a basic understanding and that was all I
needed a basic understanding of how to set the tech up, how to
find problems and how to solve them.
And then it was just like a really easy math equation that I
was solving for any problem. And then cursor came out.
It just made my life easier because what I was doing earlier
was going into cloud and talking and then going to YouTube and
then building. And what happened with, you
know, all these AI products is that they really enabled me to
build out my entire platform. Now we're at 700 ish users and I
have bugs coming in and I have problems coming in and I have
new feature requests and I can push them out in 2 days because
that's all I need. I just need to find a problem
solution, how to solve it. Make like a little bit of a mind
map in my head to see how is this going to work.
Find the problem, go to cursor, work with it and just push the
feature out. It breaks sometimes, but it
really makes me very empowered to solve my own problems because
otherwise where I was stuck, I think last year was just not
being able to understand my own tech.
No one wants to back a founder who cannot understand their own
tech. It's very hard.
It can get training. You would rather just take three
months, four months to learn. And I'm not saying you need to
be 100% proficient because who I was competing with is people
who've been coding for years and years and years.
Accept it. You're never going to be there
because they learn to go probably from when they were
1314 years of age and you're like, you know, in your early
20s or something. You're going to need too much of
experience to be as good as them.
But you need to realize you don't need to be as good as
them. You just need to understand and
solve as crappy as you can. But at least it's a solution
that's better than not having any technical grit and not
understanding anything and being totally OK with and just snobby
about it. I was just snobby that, you
know, I'm not going to learn how to code.
I can do it without technical founder.
I can do it without learning about my products.
And that was wrong. I shouldn't have done that.
OK so let me ask you one thing, why did you choose not to look
for a technical Co founder then? Because that's it was, it was my
choice. My first choice was to look for
a technical Co founder because a lot of, you know, VCs back then
were only backing people with technical Co founders and all of
that. And I was like, I don't know how
to do this. I might as well find a technical
Co founder. I think the landscape is very
hard, especially if you come from the bad kind of background
that I come from. Even though I worked at
startups, they were mid scale startups.
They weren't as early, you know, like they were not super early
stage. So you don't, I didn't know
people in the field where I should, where I was heading
because I was heading to just starting your company scene and
where I came from, especially for marketing.
I was at a different stage where I wouldn't know people who were
going to be a match for a technical Co founder.
The other thing was even on these matching platforms, I
honestly just found really, really weird people on the YC
matching platform. I've tried a lot of Co founder
matching platforms. I've sat on a lot of calls and
it just felt very uneasy for me that am I just supposed to make
make this XYZ person my Co founder?
I barely know the person. How am I supposed to work with
this person if I do not trust him or her?
And how am I supposed to just close my eyes and give my
platform to someone? And then there was the people
who were charging money for it. They're like you're going to
give us $10,000? It's a startup, you know, you're
supposed to work without money and then we're gonna get money
at some point of time, hopefully.
You have to be okay with the bad parts of starting a startup too.
You can't just think that I'm gonna give you my own money that
I would rather put in the company than have you with your
skill set. So it's hard navigating if you
do not know people because it's a game of trust.
You need to trust your Co founder.
You need to trust the person you're supposed to work with.
And for me it doesn't come easily.
And I think that's just, you know me.
So I really didn't find someone who I could make my Co founder.
I always say I'm open to it, but it's going to be a journey.
You know, you work with me and then we work together and then I
come to trust you. I think that's going to take a
while to that would trust someone.
But isn't that sort of the normal thing with trust?
It sort of comes as, as we say in Dutch, it comes by foot and
it goes by by horse. It does, but I've also seen a
lot of people who don't really know their Co founders and they
just start the company and then they the other person just
leaves because they didn't trust each other and hard parts came
and one of them just was like, Hey, bye.
I'm not going to do this because that happens.
You need to accept the reality that it's not going to be
rainbows and butterflies all the time when you're building a
startup. It's going to be hard.
And the other person that you have, I think I need to trust
the other person as much as I trust my boyfriend.
I've asked him many times, can you be my Co founder?
He said no, sadly because he has his own thing.
And I'm like, no, I'm not going to be your Co founder.
Go do your thing. But you know, I need to be able
to trust that person as much as you would trust your partner,
because this is as, you know, as hard as building a life.
So I would really equate it that you really need to be able to
trust. It's, it's really important.
And I just wasn't able to find it.
And the people that I that I really met with.
Understood that shift to to amber because you're building
amber. Maybe explain what Emperor is?
Yeah, it is an AI based mental health companion.
For marketing reasons right now it's being called an AI
therapist and that's a total different debate that I did not
get into. But essentially it's providing
therapy like conversations. So it is basically trained to
support you in your hard times, you're anxious, you're not
having a good day, anything you would like to talk about?
It's judgment free. We're very culturally aware in
the platform, so we support different cultures.
We've trained it on data that it's, you know, that you're
supposed to be more culturally sensitive.
You're supposed to support people, not just on the, you
know, so it's not like you would go to, you know, a Western
person's office, a therapist's office, and they won't
understand your cultural background.
That's something that Amber could truly do.
It really understands if I'm Indian, it really understands
all the things that really happened back in India or, you
know, my cultural background. So we also made it very
sensitive in that point. And it's basically you can talk
to it about anything and everything.
And it's just here to be your mental health companion as a
bridge with therapy. So we do not recommend that you
that you use it as a replacement because that's not nice.
You still need human to actually still need human support.
But for people who cannot afford it, for people who want to go to
a therapist's office, but they're still hesitant because
that's a whole another journey, you can use it as a supplement
to really work out your thoughts and figure out what you how
you're feeling and maybe feel a little better.
OK, so I want to double click on the cultural sensitivity.
How did you bake that into the platform?
Because to me, that sounds incredibly hard to do.
It is because we still get feedback from our, our customers
are really, really, really nice people.
They understand that it's, you know, one person building the
platform. So any time they're not happy
with the responses that they get back from, you know, the chat
bot, which essentially it is, they'd let me know that, hey,
you know, I had a religious conversation with your chat bot
and it truly didn't go well. I don't think it understood it.
So that's a point for me to go back and change the prompts.
So how all these AI chat bot work is basically a lot of
prompting, going back and forth and telling it what to do, how
to do it. So as much as I could think, I
put in the initial prompts like you're supposed to be culturally
sensitive, you're supposed to understand, you know, how
different cultures work and a lot of other things.
And then what happens is on the basis of user feedback I get, I
go back in and I change those prompts to make it even more
culturally sensitive. So two months ago, Amber was not
doing good with from our customers who were more from a
very religiously conservative background.
But now we've put in more prompts to sort of, you know,
help it understand better that, you know, this is what is need
needed by religious people who are a little more sensitive to
these conversations. So now it is able to handle it
much better than it used to two months ago.
That's how it usually goes. More feedback, more thinking and
really reading a lot of things on how different people sort of
react to different, you know, responses.
So that's a little bit of a nutshell of what how we go back
and forth with the prompts of the chat box.
Yeah. So you use user feedback a lot
also to improve how Amber operates.
So you positioned it as a sort of quote UN quote bridge between
therapy, real therapy and just needing a person to talk to, I
guess. Why is that space so powerful
and how did how did you come to the idea to to start feeling
that's particular space or niche?
Yeah, I think it's really because So we as good as therapy
really is, it's not all good. You know, you have my first
therapist wasn't the best. The person who diagnosed me with
ADHD wasn't the best. So these things happen because
even those people are human beings.
They come with their own preconceived notions, their own
biases, their own problems to the room.
And no matter how much they try to, you know, take it back and
not bring it in the room, it still comes out with you because
it is part of you. So sometimes it's just not the
right match. Some people are really wary of
therapy because it's a lot of unpacking.
You need to be ready for it. Like, you know, you're ready for
marriage. You need to be ready to go to
therapy or just you, you won't just go to a therapist's office.
And otherwise everyone would be taking therapy, right?
Because it's a good thing. But still people are hesitant to
go into a therapist's office. The other thing is it is
expensive. I think it's a hot take, but I
think therapy is for, you know, the, the privileged.
It's not for and there are free resources, of course, but those
free resources act like they're free resources.
They cannot be as good as, you know, if you're going to pay
someone who's really knowledgeable to help you out.
So I think all these gaps really exist, which is why a lot of
people use ChatGPT for their feelings.
So there is a market here. It's not.
It just wasn't that I was feeling so or, you know, that I
built this, which was true. It was also on my own personal
experiences that I was really passionate about it.
But there's also a market because I think there was a
recent study. I don't want to quote the
numbers because I'm not fully clear on them country call them,
but a lot of the population uses ChatGPT to talk to their
feelings. I have a lot of therapists in my
DM who are like, you know, my clients are using ChatGPT in
between their sessions to, you know, talk to it because so when
you go to therapy, you really bring out the major big
problems, not the smaller ones, not the, I was feeling anxious
because I had a fight with my neighbor.
You don't bring that up because you have bigger problems.
Like I'm getting divorced. So, you know, there's a bigger
problem and then there's a smaller problem.
And for the smaller problems in an hour where you're paying 150
to $200, you're, you sort of pick and choose between the
problems you really want to unpack.
And then you have an hour. Then, for example, my therapist
went on sabbatical. Then she just left me.
You know, that was sad. And then I was like, what am I
supposed to do? So all the smaller problems, you
don't really have anyone to talk to.
Your friends, as I already told, are not the best fit for, you
know, talking about your feelings.
ChatGPT, as I always say, it's not really good to talk talk to
it about your feelings because it is more enabling your
behavior than really helping you unpack them, which is really
essentially what you need in a therapy setting or in a setting
where you're supposed to, you know, be helped.
So that doesn't, you know, ChatGPT doesn't really help with
it because it's a very general tool.
You could ask it to make grocery lists.
You could ask it to Raku song or XYZ and it does everything so
it's not specially trained to help you or be there with you.
Is it? Is it also too much solution
oriented so not analyzing enough?
Is that what I'm hearing you say?
It is, it is more solution oriented because I, I think at
the core a lot of chat bots, all the chat bots, even mine can
sometimes be solution oriented. But because it is, you know,
based mostly on, you know, try and help the user more try and
you know, understand how you know, unpack things.
So it really steers away from the solution based approach.
Our chat GPD is especially chat GPD and for or which a lot of
public is using at the moment. It can be a little dangerous, I
would say is because it was really made to enable things.
It is really made to give you solutions and make you feel
better. So even if you say something
which isn't really, you know, good for you, it's still going
to make you, you know, still going to enable things to you.
And that's just because it's how it was made, because it really
wasn't made for your feelings. It's it's really, yeah, made to
provide solutions not necessary to Yeah, as we, as you said to
to deal with feelings. Yeah.
So can Amber be used to augment therapy?
So is that possible now or will that be possible in the future
that, for instance, your therapist will, if you have one,
plugs it in the data into his own platforms?
I think that's something that I've been thinking about, but I
don't think it can do it yet. What we're trying to do is find
therapists who can really just recommend Amber as, you know, a
supplement or like a prescription that you can talk
to it between sessions and, you know, you can practice your
exercise and all of that. But that's an ongoing process
because a lot of medical professionals are not really
open to the idea. I'm seeing more and more people
get open to it, but they're still very hesitant and rightly
so, because it's a very sensitive space to be in.
So I understand their hesitation, but I also think
it's about time to come to terms with reality that people are
using ChatGPT. Would you rather have them use
ChatGPT or would you work with people who are trying to make
it, you know, safer environment? And I'm just saying you need to
work with me. Please go and work with other
people who are making, you know, similar platforms because it is
the reality. It's happening and it's
happening fast, so you might as well.
Jump on the train. Jump on the train, yeah.
Yeah. So on that point there, because
there's indeed you're working with feelings and a lot of
highly personal data, how do you ensure that it's also not, we
dealt a bit with the inclusion part already, but how do you
deal with also the the safety part?
So how do you keep the data safe?
How do you ensure that the the advices that are given are also
safe? Yeah, I think we first of all,
we follow all the the privacy policy and the guidelines and we
make it very clear to the users that, you know, nothing like no
ones in the background selling the data or any of that.
So that doesn't really happen. Why would I do that?
So we make sure that privacy first.
So what we have in Amber is for free users, it doesn't have
memory, so it doesn't really remember things, which basically
means that in the back end we don't have your data just like
goes away, right? We do have aggregated anonymous
data for, you know, purposes of trying to make the platform
better. So we are only able to find out
the, you know, the broad, broad, broad spectrum of talks they're
doing. But that is just for, you know,
finding out how the chat bot is really performing.
So we don't really save anything.
We don't, you know, sell anything and we make it really
clear to the users and I think our users are very they
understand all of this, which is why we've been growing and we've
been keeping our premium users who also get memory.
So they really like that. You know, Amber can remember
things, but that doesn't mean that I remember things because I
don't have, I am not gonna go and, you know, see who talked
about what because we don't really save any of that.
So I think they understand it, which is why they're really,
really just, you know, come back because it's a secure platform
and we follow all the, you know, technical background and all of
that. So none of the platforms are
hacked or none of the things are leaked.
I make it a point to make privacy 1st and all of the good
stuff, which is really important for the users to make it feel,
make them feel really secured when they're using our platform.
OK. Yeah, some time ago you launched
your your beta version and you have actually users now on the
platform. How did that shift your
perspective on on entrepreneurship and on what's
important as as a solo founder? When I was, you know, starting
off, I had no users. I had people who were like 1020
users. I meant nothing.
It was like, OK, yeah, whatever, people are using it.
And then I saw that it just kept on growing.
And it made me panic that now I have 100 people, 203 hundred,
405 hundred. We're almost at 700.
And now I'm like, excuse me, people are using this.
And it's hard to come in terms with it because now people are
really depending on it. A lot of times I need to top up
my credits on, you know, more technical stuff that I need to
so they can keep talking to the chat bot.
I need to pay, you know, our suppliers, not suppliers like
the open router, for example, money.
So they can keep talking to it. A lot of times I forget to top
it up and then the chat bot stops working.
So my users messaged me, Hey, I really need to talk to your
platform. Can you?
It's not working. I'm like, oh shit, I forgot to
make it. I forgot to up the credits up
and at that point I was like, Oh my God, people really use it day
in and day out. A lot of our customers, users
come back and they're really on the platform talking to it
actively and chatting with it. So all of this comes with a big
responsibility, which was that no matter what happens, I need
to keep this platform going up to the quality, up to the mark.
It cannot. It cannot slide.
Honestly, that was a very big panic moment for me.
Now that we're getting closer to 1000 users, that when I think of
it, I don't even know those many people in reality, right?
I don't know 700 people. I don't know 600 people.
And those many people are really using my platform, which just
makes me lose my mind that I really need to be on my toes all
the time and serve them no matter what happens.
So that's that was the actualization to come to.
OK, so on that point there, because my question now is
you've had, you've dealt with burnout, you know what it feels
like, how are you going to prevent that from happening
again? Because there's, I always say
that founders sort of need to be on the brink of a burnout, but
really need to be like almost maxing out their their battery
life, so to say. But how do, how do you make sure
that it doesn't cross, that it doesn't explode?
And how do you recharge your battery to make sure that you're
able to do to keep delivering? Yeah, I think what I, I did, I,
I started setting some goals which are not work related.
So I made this list for myself where, for example, now I'm
training for 1/2 marathon and my goal is to get faster, right?
It's classic founder thing. I think anyone who's the founder
and investor in a high stress job, they just start running and
it's a good thing. And I just set this goal that I
need to get faster. And at the point of time that
I'm running, which is, you know, every three days I go out on a
run and then every other day, six or seven days a week, I'm
just working out or running or, you know, trying to get faster,
trying to get better, trying to look fitter and all of that, you
know, getting checked. So those things are like, I have
different goals, which have nothing to do with my work.
It really helps me anytime I'm feeling like, you know, I, it's
too much. I have too much to do.
I have too much work. One hour in the day is just for
me. And that's, you know, I just
take it out. I go and work out.
I go and run and I have a different goal that I set for
myself, so it can get a little toxic, the whole, you know,
setting a different goal for yourself.
But even then it's just making me feel much better.
And then the other thing that I started getting back into, I
really liked. I'm not any good at it, but I
like to paint and draw and clay and all of that.
Pottery as a kid. So I started, you know, I
brought this air dry clay at home and I just make like really
weird sculptures. They're really bad.
I throw them out. But I still do that like an
hour. When the day ends, I'm just
sitting with my music and just doing that or reading a book.
So it really helps to just disconnect from your work
identity. Even though I work from home, my
laptop is always with me. I make it a rule.
Yeah, me and my partner both that at lunch, dinner and
breakfast, we're not to talk work, we're not to look at our
laptops or our phones. We're just going to, you know,
watch TV or we're just going to eat, do something fun.
And then good thing I have a dog.
So three times a day, I need to take a break.
I need to take her out. And that really helps me just
disconnect from my daily life. OK, yeah, the the running part I
can fully empathize with because I do that twice a week and I
have two workouts per week that are almost, I don't know if you
deal with it the same way, but for to me, they're really
sacred. I need those and I want those.
And I make time for those. Whatever is happening.
Runs raining outside. I still go.
Yeah, it it gets to a point where it's really crazy because
it's in the Netherlands, it rains a lot, doesn't see the
sun, but I still go out and trenching rain.
I still do my 5K4K. Whatever.
Just get out. Just do it.
Come back and then get back to your work.
Do you have a scheme for the for the half marathon?
So, so yeah, build up to towards.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because running 21 Ki can
tell you from experience. Running 5K is sort of you can do
running 10K if you train it's it's reasonably possible.
Running half a marathon is is a different beast.
Already I I was supposed to but I got injured in my knee so I
wasn't able to do that. So I just ran a 10K back in
Norway and I saw my boyfriend run his first half marathon.
It was I was like I don't know if I can do this but I still
signed up because it is also mental.
You really need to push through. It's more mental than its
physical I've heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, true.
Yeah. The only advice I have is train
at least 17 K make sure you have like 1617 K done and the last 5K
you can do on on mental strength.
Good to. Know anyway that's that about
running that shift to fundraising because you're
fundraising too. I was wondering what your yeah
what your expectations and were and how they because there's the
2% famous 2% where venture capital that goes to female
founders. How did you deal with the whole
experience? What was the experience like?
Yeah, I think it's been, I mean, I knew there was going to be
hard, and it is hard fundraising, especially as a
solo founder where you don't really have, you know, you
can't, I can't really spend my entire day just fundraising.
I also need to do other things, right.
So I realized. There's a company to run.
Yeah, there's a company to run, you know, and I, I was just you
when I was running and my partner likes to talk a lot and
give me a lot of lectures when I'm spiraling.
He was like, you know, this 10K that you're doing, one day
you're going to do a marathon and then you're going to realize
you really need to keep your pace, hold your pace.
Because if you're going 42K kilometers, you cannot Sprint
out of it unless and until you're like a professional
athlete. So then I realized it's very
cliche, but it is a marathon, not a Sprint.
I need to save my energy. I need to, you know, hold myself
and make myself understand that this is going to take time.
It's not going to be like I, I'm very impatient to.
And it cannot be that, oh, end of June, I'm just going to
finish fundraising. That's that's not going to
happen because the market is hard.
All of the other odds are also sort of against me, you know,
like the female founder, also brown, a lot of other things,
you know, so a lot of things are going to come to me where people
are going to tell me that this you're not going to be able to
do this. But I've been told that too many
times in my life that it doesn't even affect me anymore.
I'm like, I don't care. I'm going to do it anyway.
You know, it's OK, I can do this.
And I think that's really how I just go through with that, that
no founder, I think. And I, I always take it as you
know, I, I heard that someone rejected Cursor because they
thought it was the not going to do well.
They're doing extremely well. So it's their loss.
That's how I, it can be a little cocky, but that's how I like to
think of it, that people who are going to reject me or who are
not going to invest in me, I don't need to think of them.
They're probably not a good fit anyway.
And I just need to find the right people who believe in me,
who are going to invest in me. I think it's going to happen.
Not today, maybe not tomorrow, in three months, four months.
It's going to take as long it's going to take.
I cannot speed up the process because fundraising is
difficult. It's, it's a hard game to be in.
And you know, especially since I've have had more customers
growing in and the love that really pours into me.
I get messages, I get so much support from my users.
It really just removes all the imposter syndrome that really
comes in that, you know, I cannot do this.
I'm like, no, I can do this. I think I can do this if my
users like me, who's not to invest in this company.
So that's how I really think of it.
Yeah, in the end, the investors are only rocket fuel to make it
grow faster. But you already grow, so you
don't need to. It's not you're what I'm here,
you say is that you're sort of less dependent on on the
validation part. Yeah, I think a friend of mine
asked me this question that, you know, what's going to happen if
you don't fundraise? Like it's just going to be
slower for me to grow because you do need a lot of capital to,
you know, scale rapidly. It's going to be slower, but
it's going to happen. I'm going to make it happen
somehow or some way or the other.
It's going to be slower than I would expect if I wasn't able to
fundraise, but it's not going to be the end of the world that,
you know, everything's destroyed because I still have people
using me. So that's a good outlook to look
at it. OK, what's the worst or the the
weirdest remarks you got from people in the as part of the
fundraising process? It's standard really just they
all they never reply. I think I've seen this with PCs.
They're never going to reply with I'm never going to invest
in this or this is a bad idea because you, you never know,
right? You're not an astrologer, you
don't know what what's going to happen.
So I've always heard this is a very crowded market or, you
know, yeah, we, we think as I, as I'm raising pre seed, a lot
of people ask me for revenue. I'm like, excuse me, there's no
revenue because it is pre seed. And you know, I'm still
validating my idea and reaching people.
And one thing that I've always heard from investors on their
website is like, we are the first check in.
We believe in, you know, yeah, very, very, very early stage.
And then they're like, but we need 1,000,000 in germanium,
like, OK, bye. You know, so that's that can get
a little like, excuse me, what is your headline doesn't match
with your expectations. So yeah, sometimes it can get
like that. But yeah, it's just part of it.
But, and, and did you experience any of the, the part about being
asked about, oh, how are you going to deal with this at home?
Women are known to get different questions from investors than
men. So did you experience any of
that part? No, honestly, I think I've been
really lucky that I haven't really had any strange questions
being asked to me. They've been all the people I've
talked to, they've been really respectful and they've really
not brought up any, anything which has been out of the the
ordinary that I would truly, yeah.
So I've been lucky in that department.
OK, then I'm happy. I'm really happy to hear that.
So, So what, what is next for for Amber?
What does the future look like? So how do you want to build it?
Yeah, I, I think as if I'm going to be very ambitious, and this
is also on my pitch deck, that if I'm going to be very, very
ambitious, I think I want it to be.
You know, you think of meditation, you're thinking of
head space, you think of sleep, you're thinking of calm.
If you think of Amber, you know, someone to talk to, maybe you
want to think of Amber. That's what that's where I
eventually wanted to be. But I think right now I'm on a
right now plan. I'm a great Grey's Anatomy, you
know, I watch it a lot. And Doctor Bailey said, what's
the right now plan? I'm like the right now plan
honestly is to just crowd 1000 users, give them the best
platform that I can truly give them.
Keep up the quality, keep up the good work and just be at it.
So I haven't really, I don't think too much into the future
because it's future is really just, you know, really
unpredictable. I don't know what's going to
what's going to change, what's going to happen.
But if you're able to ask me next week, just grow my users,
maybe ship some new features, get on user queries.
That's all I can really think of.
OK. So it's really also short term
getting to the next step rather that while there is a big, big
goal to to be the, let's say they call them, of mental
health. So is there anything you before
you started that you would have liked to have known looking back
at your journey? Honestly, I think I learned a
lot from my first venture, which was espresso.
I learned plenty from that. I think the other thing that I
would, you know, tell myself is that you don't need to just
because I'm told that, you know, you're supposed to go to
networking events and you're supposed to talk to a lot of
people and you're supposed to meet a lot of people.
I think what I've learned is I need to keep the quality up.
A lot of places that I go to, I meet a lot of mansplainers,
people telling me I can be a little product better than you.
And that drains me because I do not wanna be hanging out.
I mean, sure, go ahead, make it. But I don't wanna be in places
where I get nothing out of it, right?
I need to come back and feel energized rather than really
trained and never show up for an event again.
I think that's what I've been teaching myself, that it's not
important for me to say yes to everything, yes to, you know,
every meeting, yes to meeting everyone.
Sometimes I also need to say no. This is not the right fit for
me. I don't want to be, you know,
sitting in on this meeting, which I don't know the outcome
of. Because I think as as founders
and as I think also as women, we're just too much into yes,
yes, yes to everything. Don't say no.
People are going to get offended.
No, say no. They can get offended.
You don't owe them anything. It's OK.
So I think that's what I would tell myself before I started
that don't cut yourself short with meeting the wrong people
and studying in a place where people are just going to tell
you you don't belong because what's the point?
You're just going to make yourself feel worse.
Yeah, true. And I think it's very strong to,
to also be able to say no. So if they're, let's say there's
a female founder listening to this and they're, they're
thinking about launching a mental health app, what, what
advice would you give them? It's it's tough, but it doesn't
mean that you cannot do it. You need to believe.
I think the first thing that needs to come for you is the
passion, the you know that you really need to build something.
Be ready to pivot your product. Don't be stubborn like I was.
Do sit on one product and just, you know, be like, I'm going to
build this, I'm going to do this.
No, in a start up you need to pivot.
You need to have user feedback first.
Then there's anything else. It's always put the users first.
Don't think of anything. So that's one thing.
And the other thing is people are going to keep telling you
you cannot do this. You just get used to hearing
that. Don't get used to hearing that.
Don't think that it's going to be true.
Just treat it as as, you know, white noise, like people play
background music. It's just background music that
you cannot do this, just like they're going to keep.
Yeah, the sound is there. The sound is there, you just
need to ignore it. Yeah, you just think to ignore
it. It's going to.
Yeah, Just let it be. Are there questions that female
founders should ask? So you're not telling me I can't
do this, so how can I? You can, you can.
You should always look at problems with how can I solve
this or how can I do this? What would be a better way to
find more users instead of framing?
And this is from therapy framing questions negatively where
you're like, can I do this? Ask questions like how can I do
this? You know, it really changes your
perspective on your questions. So instead of really questioning
yourself question, you know, how can you do this?
Or how can you be better? How can you make your product
better or just anything? And I think this is also for
life, especially for women. I think you're going to keep
hearing a lot of things. And you don't need to be a big
critic, critic of yourself. People are going to do that for
you. Let them, you know, so you don't
need to keep questioning yourself over everything.
Yeah, it's. Well that that is a really
beautiful place to to move to. My last question.
So I'm on a mission to make inclusion and tech the new
normal by the end of 2032. No, let me let me just rephrase
that out loud. I'm on a mission to make
allyship the new normal by the end of 2032.
What is one thing you think I should do to get there?
I think good question. That's I'm probably going to
have to think on that. Yeah, I think what you're doing
honestly today, right now, I think that's a lot is when I was
like, I, I heard of your podcast now woman disrupting tech and a
man is hosting it. I was like, huh, weird.
OK, Because a lot of times that we go to these conversations
where like, is he going to be like one of those people who are
just going to mansplain me things?
But you know, you weren't. And that is really nice to have
that conversation that, you know, you're just here to listen
to us and support us. And and that's that's not
because I think you cannot just alienate one gender and be like,
oh, we're just going to do this alone or the other way around.
You need to be in it together. So instead of looking at us as
you know, women is in the room, just think of us as people.
You know, we're in the room with you.
We're doing anything that we can do.
So I think this podcast that you've started, I think that
really is just can be one of the answers that, you know, you're
you're helping us have our stories out, asking us the right
questions and helping other women come out and just talk
more. So I think that's it's, it's
really nice to have men support, you know, or just be there, you
know, thinking about that. OK, yeah, they can do this too.
Yeah. So what's what would be the next
step? So listening and giving women a
platform is obviously a step one and also visiting or let's say
assuming we're in the room together, it's not just man
versus women. What is the next step from that
you think? Yeah, I think just, you know,
helping if, if we're in the room together, just not making me
feel any less, I think that would that would really mean a
lot. And then because I don't feel
less, I don't feel like you're going to say the wrong thing
because you're being just a normal person.
It really empowers me to, you know, make the right decisions
and really talk open with openly with you.
And that's really just empowers me and that's all you can do as
I think. I don't know if that was the
right answer to the question because I can't really think if
what would be the next step because I think that's the the
first step is what you need. And I think the change is going
to keep, you know, happening from that.
OK, cool thing. Thank you very much for an
amazing conversation, really enjoyed this.
If people want to learn more about you or about Amber, where
can they find more information? Yeah, well, you can follow me on
LinkedIn. I'm Ghu Singh and Amber.
It's www.ambermind.ai. You can go to the website, try
the product out. If you don't like it, please
come back, tell me what you don't like, I'll fix it.
Hopefully you like it there. So yeah.
OK. So also, and that's an invite
that I extend to listeners really provide, it's good to use
the platform, but these also provide feedback because that's
how people learn. Yeah, so constructive feedback.
Please. Yeah, of course don't bash it.
We have other people for that. Yes.
OK, cool thing. Really enjoyed this
conversation. Thank you very much listeners.
Thank you very much for listening and until the next
episode, keep being awesome. Well, that's it for episode 117
of Women Disrupting Tech with Guru Singh, titled How Burnout
Fueled Guru Singh to Build a Bridge between AI and Therapy
with Amber Koohoo. And I hope you found our
conversation as inspiring and empowering as we intended it to
be. And if you have any questions
for Koohoo, please leave them in the comments on Spotify, Apple,
or YouTube. I'll make sure you receive an
answer. When you want to connect with
Koohoo or learn more about Amber, please check out the
links in the show notes. As usual, you can find the show
notes at Women Disrupting Techno Blog and the link is also in the
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