At a certain scale, hesitation stops looking like prudence and starts functioning as a strategic liability because they wait for alignment that the market will never provide on schedule.
This episode of The Breakout CEO examines that inflection point through the decisions of Shay Levi, co-founder of Noname Security and now CEO of Unframe. Across two companies in fast-forming markets, Shay repeatedly faced the same tension: act on conviction shaped by firsthand signals, or delay until consensus catches up.
The distinction matters because in these moments, speed itself becomes a decision. And in some markets, choosing not to move is indistinguishable from choosing to lose.
As companies grow, leaders accumulate more stakeholders, more capital at risk, and more process around decision-making. Each layer increases the perceived cost of being wrong, and raises the bar for alignment before action.
At the same time, certain markets evolve in ways that compress the window for decisive moves. By the time certainty is available, the advantage has already shifted. The CEO is left choosing between two imperfect options: move early with incomplete information, or wait and accept structural disadvantage.
This is where leadership judgment is tested. Not in choosing between obvious good and bad options, but in recognizing when there is no neutral middle ground.
Shay’s experience highlights how that recognition forms and why consensus is often the wrong forcing function in moments that demand speed.
A central throughline in Shay’s decisions is that conviction is not an abstract belief or personality trait. It is earned through direct exposure to the market.
When Shay and his co-founder were determining Noname Security’s focus, they did not begin with a polished category thesis. The direction emerged through repeated conversations with security leaders, listening for what problems resurfaced unprompted. Over time, API security kept reappearing as an unresolved tension customers circled back to.
When Shay brought that conclusion to investors, the response was blunt: the space looked crowded; the focus seemed wrong. Consensus pointed elsewhere.
What mattered more was not that disagreement existed, but where Shay’s confidence came from. It was grounded in firsthand signals — not projections, not secondary research, and not investor pattern-matching.
As he put it plainly, “I trust my gut instinct.” Not as intuition divorced from evidence, but as judgment shaped by proximity to real customer behavior.
Once the focus was set, the operating posture followed. Noname entered a market that was already forming rapidly. In Shay’s words, “You either move that fast or you fail.”
This was not a motivational stance. It was a structural reality of the market they were in. API security was coalescing quickly, and leadership would accrue to the company willing to commit fully before the category stabilized.
In that environment, playing it safe carried hidden costs. Slower execution would quietly remove the company from contention. There was no middle ground where caution paid off.
Shay’s framing here is instructive: speed is not always a virtue, but in some markets it is the price of admission. CEOs who misdiagnose this end up optimizing for certainty in conditions that reward decisiveness.
One of the reasons conviction can outpace consensus is that markets respond more quickly than organizations do.
After Noname committed to API security, feedback arrived fast. Sales traction, customer demand, and deal velocity began validating the choice within months. The question of “Was this right?” was answered not through debate, but through results.
This pattern repeated later when Shay chose to leave a rapidly scaling company to start Unframe. From the outside, the move looked counterintuitive: stepping away from a trajectory that would eventually lead to a $500M acquisition.
Internally, the logic was consistent. Shay recognized another fast-forming wave — enterprise adoption of AI — and saw that the opportunity window was open but narrowing. Waiting until conditions felt fully safe would mean arriving late.
“Someone had to build it,” he said. “So I just went ahead and did it.”
Again, conviction came first. Validation followed.
A recurring theme in the conversation is that timing is often misunderstood. Leaders talk about timing as if it were something to be observed, rather than something to be recognized and acted upon.
Shay draws a sharper distinction. Timing creates advantage only for those willing to commit before the picture feels complete. Once clarity arrives, the advantage has already been competed away.
This is especially relevant for second-time founders. With financial pressure reduced, the temptation to wait increases. Yet Shay describes the opposite dynamic: experience heightens sensitivity to timing because the cost of missing a wave is more visible.
The decision becomes less about safety and more about whether the problem is worth committing to at all.
Across both companies, a consistent operating principle emerges: when the market eliminates neutral options, leadership must be comfortable choosing without consensus.
That does not mean ignoring dissent or acting recklessly. It means understanding which signals deserve priority. In Shay’s case, those signals came from:
When these signals align, waiting for universal agreement becomes a form of avoidance.
The lesson here is to recognize when consensus is the wrong input for the decision at hand.
In fast-forming markets, the cost of hesitation compounds quietly. Playing it safe often ensures irrelevance.
Shay Levi’s decisions illustrate a harder truth: leadership judgment is tested most when there is no safe middle ground. The market will not wait for alignment. It will simply move on.
For CEOs navigating similar inflection points, the question is not whether conviction feels comfortable. It is whether the signals you trust are close enough to reality to justify moving before consensus arrives.
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Shay Levi is the Co-Founder & CEO of Unframe, a company built to help enterprises adopt AI through rapid, execution-driven solutions rather than long planning cycles. Unframe’s model reflects Shay’s belief that in fast-forming markets, value is created by acting quickly on real customer needs, not by waiting for consensus or perfect clarity. Earlier in his career, Shay co-founded Noname Security, an API security company that scaled rapidly and was acquired by Akamai.
Shay's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaylevi2/
Unframe: unframe.ai
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Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
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The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
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Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? Apply directly at go.intellectualstrategies.com.
Transcript Summary
09:41 — Shay Levi introduction and background
11:19 — Early builder mindset and risk tolerance
14:41 — Founding Noname Security and market entry
17:40 — Market timing and catching the wave
20:00 — Leadership role evolution during scale
22:54 — Investor disagreement and API security focus
26:04 — Conviction and gut instinct
29:55 — Leaving Noname and starting Unframe
33:40 — Exit reflection and motivation
37:01 — Unframe thesis and execution model
43:54 — Execution constraints and economic logic
46:40 — CEO operating style
50:41 — People, culture, and second-time founder shift
54:12 — Unframe trajectory and future vision
7:48 — Advice to first-time founders
Full Transcript (AI generated and might include errors)
Jeff Holman (09:41.747)
All right, everybody. Thanks again for joining us. I'm Jeff Holman on the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host and I'm here with Shay Levi. Shay has a very interesting background and I'm excited to talk to him today about his experience because I think he's got two layers, probably multiple layers, but two we're gonna try to talk about today. Shay, welcome to the show.
Shay (10:08.216)
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Jeff Holman (10:09.939)
So if I understand this right, you're the co-founder and CEO of Unframe. That's your current business. And you previously built No Name Security. How'd that one go for you?
Shay (10:14.2)
correct correct
Shay (10:21.728)
It went pretty well. We ran for about four years, grew really, really fast, did really, really well, and got acquired by Akamai for half a billion dollars. So it was a pretty good run.
Jeff Holman (10:32.499)
That's amazing, amazing. We're gonna dig into some of those stories, I hope, about that. But I'm really curious to hear about your breakout moments in either or both of those businesses, the kind of the pivots that you made. I mean, you certainly don't get to a half a billion dollar exit without having some breakout moments along the way, right?
Shay (10:53.825)
Of course.
Jeff Holman (10:54.791)
But now there's probably some compare and contrast, right, with what you did before and what you're doing now. So that'll be interesting to get into that a little bit too. To start off though, you've built and exited a company at pretty much a phenomenal pace, right? Four years to that. That's, not many people do that, right? Where does the chapter really begin though?
Shay (11:03.31)
Sure, sure.
Shay (11:19.469)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (11:24.495)
It didn't begin with a half a billion dollar exit. Where did it begin before No Name started?
Shay (11:31.395)
Before No Name. So if we look back at my professional career, if you want to know where it kind of started, and put aside the dry facts, I always had this drive in me to do more things than I was actively doing. So let's say I was working somewhere, working for a startup, working for a large company. I always did more things on the side that there were personal passion or things I believe could have become.
could become a large business or could become an interesting company. And I always, always, always had like another thing going. It's not an easy thing to do because imagine you're working full time and then you go home and then you have your hobby, which is, I don't know, somewhat working more. But yeah.
Jeff Holman (12:15.187)
Yeah. Well, so is that, is that just your personality?
Shay (12:21.55)
yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I always, I always think of the next thing. Another thing I want to do. Another, another challenge to achieve something to, yeah, yeah. That's part of who I am, I guess.
Jeff Holman (12:34.199)
And you've just, have you been that way since you were a child? Do you have like a lot of people who are in this, they say, my mom, my dad, they were business owners or they were very busy people and that kind of rubbed off. Is that your case?
Shay (12:49.418)
no, not really. no, I don't, I don't know the reason that I always had that drive. always had that drive to do something bigger, better to, to, I didn't, I never were, was too worried about taking risks. you know, I felt pretty comfortable doing that.
And so, I don't know, I just went and did a bunch of stuff. So that's kind of where it started. I always had another thing going, always had another thing I wanted to work on or another thing that excited me that I was going and doing. think there's a, you know, many times you know people out there that have like ideas or things they want to achieve and they don't actually go and do the build.
Jeff Holman (13:31.645)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Shay (13:33.775)
I always went and did the build for everything that I could have had on my mind. was like, let's go, let's do it, let's do it, let's do it. So I think that, what's that? Yeah, yeah, so I think there's a big, because everyone has ideas and things that they want to achieve and believe that it will be good. The question is, will you execute on them? Are you actually willing to work hard and work hard at it to make it happen? So that's kind of where it started for me before knowing. It's like,
Jeff Holman (13:44.211)
Very action oriented.
Shay (14:03.103)
I did a bunch of stuff before that that maybe were less successful. Some of those were successful. They're just not as successful as No Name. But that led up to the fact of, you know, No Name Security.
Jeff Holman (14:13.991)
Yeah, that makes sense. And before the show, I asked you what your profile was and you said part was builder, right? Nobody thinks their way to a half a billion dollar exit, right? You've got to build your way to that exit. So that makes perfect sense. Tell me a little bit about No Name then. How did that start? Who was on your team? And how did you guys, not to jump too far forward, but how did you guys move so quickly?
Shay (14:26.444)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shay (14:41.55)
So look, No Name was an API security company in the cybersecurity space. We started in 2020. I co-founded it together with Oz, my co-founder, which was the CEO. I was the CTO. We knew each other from the intelligence unit in the IDF, unit 8200. The reason we moved so fast, because we joined the market that wasn't completely new.
It was already in motion was the API security market in the cybersecurity space. And it was one of those situations where you either move that fast or you, you fail. Like there wasn't, there wasn't a middle ground. I always tell, you know, founders that I speak with that you have to adapt your company to the type of, to, to, to the market you're addressing. And if the market you're addressing is building out right now, then you have to play really, really fast play really, really aggressive and go at it. And you're either going to fail miserably or succeed.
Jeff Holman (15:14.033)
Mm-hmm.
Shay (15:39.503)
but there's no middle ground. If you'll kind of play it safe, you're not gonna catch the wave, which is basically your market. So Noname didn't have much of a choice. Like we had to play that fast. We always said a pedal to the metal. We had to play pedal to the metal. And so, you know, we raised our seed round in the beginning of 2020, A round also in 2020, B round in 2021, C round in 2021, grew really, really fast in the amount of people, grew really, really fast on sales.
Everything was fast-paced, fast-paced. And yeah, and basically around mid-2024, we got acquired by Akamai for half a billion because by that point in time, Noname was the leader of the API security market. We were probably the number one player out there, working with a lot of enterprises. So as you can imagine, API security is mainly for the enterprises. And yeah, it was a great run.
Me and Oz knew each other from before, so it wasn't, know, it's not like I built it with someone I didn't know from before. Yeah, that's in a nutshell, I guess, if I...
Jeff Holman (16:46.323)
Well, I love the summary. I love that you also mentioned catching the wave because before you even said that I was picturing, you know, these huge wave surfers, right? And I'm not necessarily a surfer, although I'd love to be in another life. But in Utah, we don't have a whole lot of waves. But I picture this, you know, you see these huge wave surfers and they're on these monster waves. What are they? 60 feet tall, stuff like that. And they just...
Shay (17:04.202)
Yeah
Jeff Holman (17:14.173)
There's no like, like you said, you can't be halfway in, halfway out. Like you are, I don't know what speeds they reached, but I'll bet they reached like 70 miles an hour or something going down that wave on a surfboard. And when they tumble, they're tumbled and they, someone's got to rescue them with the wave runners. Like that's what I pictured as you were talking about that. So when you said, yeah, I catch the wave, I'm like, yeah, you just, you guys dropped in and just were.
Shay (17:24.835)
Yeah.
Shay (17:40.323)
Exactly. Exactly. And it depends on your market, right? Because if you think about it, you might go into a space or a market that you know the wave is ahead. Don't start, you know, don't play as aggressive because you know the wave didn't, is it, you're not riding the wave yet. You're just getting ready. Don't, you know, pump yourself up with, I don't know, 50 sales reps. don't, you don't need 50 sales reps. Your market isn't there yet. You're, you're, you're gonna be too early to the wave.
Jeff Holman (17:55.889)
Yeah.
Shay (18:07.318)
And on the flip side, you might be too late. You might come into a market where the wave passed you and you're just trying to run after it and you might miss it. so I think one of, yeah, so I think one of the most important things you have to do as a founder or when you're starting a business is to recognize what type of, in your timing, what type of market you're going into. Is it building right now really aggressive, going full speed at it? Is it I'm anticipating that market six months ahead?
Jeff Holman (18:15.633)
You're sliding down the backside of that wave the whole time.
Shay (18:37.186)
building myself up, because people say timing is really important. It's true, but also realizing it, anticipating then it's going to be, I'm going to build myself for it now. You know what I
Jeff Holman (18:41.298)
Right.
Jeff Holman (18:49.809)
Yeah, well, when you Oz built No Name, do you feel like you were able to be deliberate and intentional about catching that wave at the right time? How did that come together for the two of you?
Shay (19:01.902)
I think we kind of knew because we always said pedal to the metal. It was part of our company values, pedal to the metal. And the reason isn't just because, we want to be fast. That's true as well. But we had to. That was the nature of our business and the market we were in. And so, yeah, I think, yeah.
Jeff Holman (19:06.93)
Yeah.
Shay (19:24.522)
You know, I'm trying to think of different, different points in time. And the beginning is pedal to the metal, trying to get out of static friction, you know, getting the initial customer, initial momentum, stuff like that. Then you have the next phase where it's all about scaling, like, okay, ramping out the sales team that I was able to sell, that is able to sell without founder involvement and all those things. Then it's about ramping up, okay, the customer relations or the customer success, because you have a lot of customers and you have to engage with them, how you do that at scale.
Jeff Holman (19:29.896)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman (19:35.474)
Yeah.
Shay (19:53.721)
So you have like different points in time in which I think we felt the heat of having to move so fast and playing aggressively.
Jeff Holman (20:00.285)
Well, and adapting to the wave as that wave shifts as you go from one stage to the next, like you actually have to adapt your leadership style or your, you know, your focus, right? As you're going.
Shay (20:10.528)
Of course, of course, of course. If I have concrete examples of it, know, think, think about, think about the very beginning, you know, you're, I'm in a CTO hat. I'm sitting with not that many developers and I'm in it with them. I'm not just sitting above, you know, sitting from the back and saying, yo, we should do that. I'm like actually like doing the coding, doing the product, doing whatever, whatever it needs. And as it evolves, I'm starting to see that.
Jeff Holman (20:16.783)
yeah.
Jeff Holman (20:25.789)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (20:35.122)
Yeah.
Shay (20:39.798)
I'm generally quite an outbound facing CTO in my previous role. So I was spending a lot of time with customers and it just happened. Like we had a lot of customers that we needed to talk about our space and our approach and everything like that. So I found myself doing a lot of customer engagement. Then we become, we grew up, we became more scalable. And then the customers I was actually engaging with were the very selective few. I wouldn't engage with any customer because you know, we have a bunch, but the ones that are really high.
Jeff Holman (21:06.941)
Yeah.
Shay (21:08.6)
the really large ticket size, okay, those would be interesting for the CTO to be involved. And maybe then you also want to do thought leadership because when you're really small, no one cares about your thoughts. But once you're big enough and you're leading the API security market, okay, now's the time to do thought leadership. And so you can find in the different areas how we had to play differently or how my role, at least, evolved differently. I'm sure if you would ask Oz as a CEO, his role also evolved differently.
Not necessarily in the same trajectory because CTO and CEO are different, but yeah.
Jeff Holman (21:40.049)
Yeah. Did you find that you had any kind of moments of pause as you were making these progressions? Did one of these shifts or perspective changes, did it catch you off guard a little bit as you were growing or was it all pretty easy and natural to adapt to?
Shay (21:58.931)
No, lot of things caught me off guard, for sure. For sure. lot of things caught me off guard. Being in an org of that scale that happens so fast, it's also hard to keep a culture because you have 50 people joining in a quarter. That's like doubling your company size in a quarter. And it's hard to keep the culture intact.
Jeff Holman (22:17.896)
Yeah.
Shay (22:25.678)
the kind of the culture builds itself. Like the company culture just creates itself. And so a lot of things surprised me. Yeah, for sure. For sure. In that journey, I'm trying to think of one concrete example. I don't necessarily have it from the top of my head, but you know.
Jeff Holman (22:39.559)
Well, do you think, while you're thinking about that, do you think was maybe the one or two key moments in building No Name where you said, hey, Oz, why don't we try this? Or you and Oz are sitting down you're like, wait a second, what if we go after this market? What are the one or two moments where you really gained the insight or you just sat back and you said, wait a second, I think I've got
Shay (22:54.174)
yeah. Okay.
Shay (23:03.668)
Yeah, that's a great point. when me and Oz started, we didn't necessarily have the idea of API security through and through. We knew that we need to secure. We were conflicting like the SaaS vendors, the APIs. We had a kind of murky idea of what it is we're going to do. And then one of the VCs that invested in us likes to do this process of a sunrise when you go and meet actual potential
Jeff Holman (23:19.282)
Yeah.
Shay (23:31.81)
potential customers and you talk with them about the problem that you're thinking about and seeing if it interests them and if there is a potential for a market there before you go ahead and you run through the whole process.
Jeff Holman (23:44.721)
Is that what a sunrise is? I haven't heard that term before.
Shay (23:47.823)
Yeah, yeah, it's a process. I think Sequoia has that. In Israel, Cyberstarts is a VC that does that as well. I don't know if they coined it. Maybe Cyberstarts coined it. I don't know. it's basically, exactly. It's a problem discovery, problem vetting. Some would say reverse selling.
Jeff Holman (23:59.016)
So it's kind of a, it's a,
Jeff Holman (24:03.965)
But it's kind of a problem discovery process where you say, hey, let's.
Jeff Holman (24:14.899)
Yeah, customer led problem, problem selling or something like that, right?
Shay (24:18.582)
I I guess, guess, I guess that's kind of what sits behind it. And then, yeah, and when we spoke with those professionals, mainly they were cybersecurity leaders because we were in the cybersecurity market. It's not like people think it's very easy that you come in and they tell you, well, it's this problem, this is what we care about. And it's never like that. And you start to narrow it down, try to talk about the area that you care about.
Jeff Holman (24:34.909)
Mm-hmm.
Shay (24:48.63)
And you have to read through the signals of what is really interesting and what isn't interesting and kind of go and hear is a good point to say, go after your gut feeling. My gut feeling was telling me like that's, know, API security is the right thing because we know we talked about a few things, but it seemed to be the one thing that they go back to. And so I clearly remember how we came back and sat with our investors and said,
you know, API security, we believe that's the market. That's the right thing. That's what no name should focus on. And I remember the answer that we got initially is you're wrong. Yeah, yeah, the answer we got was you're wrong because me too companies, if you know, not the classic me too, but like I'm also doing that. So a me too company isn't working.
Jeff Holman (25:19.027)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (25:29.243)
yeah.
Jeff Holman (25:38.151)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Shay (25:45.411)
But I, know, me and my co-founder were mature enough to say, no, no, listen, we're out there. We're speaking with those security professionals and we feel this is it. This is what we should go after. And so we went at it. We actually like dived in to the API security space and just ran as fast as we can. And that was, I think this was a turning point in the company. It was very early on deciding what to focus on.
Jeff Holman (26:04.979)
Do you, do you feel like you would.
Shay (26:12.194)
But it's pretty important, right? We could have been in a completely different market otherwise.
Jeff Holman (26:16.071)
yeah, very, very sounds like it was, it was key. Do you feel like that you guys, cause when somebody says to you, especially if it was your investor saying, Hey, listen, guys, I don't think that, I don't think this is what you should be spending your time on and my money on. Right. It's a, it's a serious, it's a serious statement. Do you feel like you had, you had gained some deeper insight than just the, the other me twos that they were worried about or what, what gave you the confidence to say, you know, thank you, but this is what we need to do.
Shay (26:30.143)
Right? It is.
Shay (26:45.742)
Yeah. And this goes back. So as we were talking right now, I tried to think with myself, am I really a rule breaker? I don't break rules by general, but as it goes to my professional career, when I have a gut instinct, I tend to not care what an investor or someone else would say. Like I trust my gut instinct and my gut instinct was telling me,
Jeff Holman (27:09.735)
Yeah.
Shay (27:11.598)
judging by the feedback that I got, it wasn't like in random in a warehouse. was actually, you I got, we got those messages from professionals that this is probably interesting. And so I don't, as I said before, I don't mind being a contrarian or going against what is accepted at a certain point in time. And I was like, no, I, you know, I, that's what I believe. And that's what probably we're gonna do. Yeah.
Jeff Holman (27:37.288)
You know, I like to refer to that as the, I asked you earlier just for the audience's context to pick kind of a profile and I gave you some options. Rule breaker was one of them. Builder we mentioned earlier. I think what you're describing is what I would probably call a maverick. I look at a maverick and I say, he's the person, he's not necessarily breaking rules, but he's also not following the known trails, right? A maverick is like, I see this path, I see this path.
Shay (27:59.982)
So yeah, so it's that.
Jeff Holman (28:04.701)
But I think I should go down the middle and maybe forge a little bit new trail and see what's there. Is that?
Shay (28:09.996)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. don't worry too much about it being against the current theme or people telling me this, you know, this or that. I'm just, I go at it.
Jeff Holman (28:18.771)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (28:22.343)
Well, so how did that shift play out with you and Oz and the business and the investors? Was it smooth sailing from there and just, we just built this huge thing? Or were there a couple of bumps you had to overcome and convince people that you were on the right track?
Shay (28:40.545)
It was rather smooth. If you think about that, you find out pretty quickly, like you take a few months into the future and you kind of recognize whether or not it was the right focus, the right choice. And if it wasn't, for example, let's say it wasn't, then we would have moved. It's not like you marry the initial market you try to go after, but it played out pretty well and a few months into the future.
Jeff Holman (28:52.787)
Mm-hmm.
Shay (29:07.064)
we got told that we were right. Yeah.
Jeff Holman (29:09.971)
How did you know you were right? Was it the market telling you?
Shay (29:12.896)
It's the market. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You start seeing sales, you start seeing interest. The company starts, you you start working at scale. see sales happen, deals growing, demand growing. And then you say, hey, this, yeah, this is an interesting problem to solve. And basically there's a product market fit there.
Jeff Holman (29:34.641)
Yeah. Well, I don't want to change short change this story because I know that it leads up to a really big and successful exit. sounds like give, give the audience just a, an overview of how that turned into an exit and maybe what that did for you and Oz and the team with that exit.
Shay (29:55.725)
Yeah. So actually, I'll split it into two. So No Name was doing rapidly. We got more and more successful, larger team, et cetera. But also during the journey happened the LLM moment, chat GPT. And that was a really exciting moment. And the builder slash always doing something rang in my ear. And actually, I
Jeff Holman (30:17.32)
Yeah.
Shay (30:23.202)
during 2023, I already talked with Oz, my co-founder and everyone that is relevant, that I'll probably be leaving No Name in the beginning of 2024. Basically, knew what, the way that it went, I actually knew what I wanted to build, which is unframed, which we didn't talk about when we can go in in a sec. And I thought initially that I'm gonna invest in a company that's doing that.
Jeff Holman (30:35.399)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (30:45.394)
Yes.
Shay (30:49.228)
I can't build it myself because I'm in cyber. just go founded the company. I co-founded the company. I'm working on it. But it kind of bothered me and I was waiting for that company to come and try to raise and then I would have invested and that would be it, but no one was building it. And so at some point in time, I was like, I can't anymore. Like I'm going to just go ahead and do it. And it combined pretty well with known in becoming more in the operational mode. And when a company becomes more operational, like large scale, you know, it's just like a sales machine.
CTO scope can become somewhat limited, maybe a bit boring. Some would say, I don't know.
Jeff Holman (31:25.105)
Because you're not building at the same scale. You're not innovating. that the...
Shay (31:27.918)
You're building, innovating. It's just a different position. It's a different position to be in. And so, I don't know, I found myself saying, okay, I think it's the right time. spoke with, Oz is still one of my best friends. We talk all the time, but we planned the departure and we brought in new leadership to kind of cover the different spots. And I actually left No Name in January, 2024 and immediately started Unframe. Two months later, there was already Unframe up and running.
And the exit actually happened like few months after that. Like two months into my unframed journey or three months into my unframed journey, that's when the exit actually closed. Something I was brilliant because I wasn't part of no name at the exit time. So I didn't have the lockup and all the things that go with it. Because usually when a company acquires you,
Jeff Holman (32:02.291)
Okay.
Shay (32:22.2)
They want to lock you up as the founder or the founders like to stay for a bit. I didn't have to do that. but, it was, you know, it wasn't like I did some crazy plan. It's just, I guess I got lucky, but also like I had this drive in me that I have to go out and build unframed now because now is the time talking about the wave, you know, see how it all comes together. We're wrapping it nicely. I saw the wave. saw this is the time to go after it. And,
Jeff Holman (32:41.436)
Yeah, yep.
Yes.
Jeff Holman (32:49.371)
And the gut instinct came back and you're like.
Shay (32:51.086)
Exactly. And the gut instinct came back and doing things and always working on something. And yeah, and I just went ahead and started on frame. Yeah. And that's, great.
Jeff Holman (33:01.821)
Well, before we, before we talk about unframed, cause I want to hear about that. I'm curious. did you know, was this acquisition or this exit on the, on the horizon? And, and so that was one of the influences that you said, Hey, with everything in play, it's time to jump or.
Shay (33:16.814)
Not exactly. So think about that. I didn't know anything that an exit like that would happen or something, like that would be the acquirer or anything like that. But I knew No Name is an exciting, successful, growing company that I kind of knew in my heart, I kind of felt that that's probably going to happen eventually for No Name. It's probably...
Jeff Holman (33:27.44)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (33:40.893)
So kind of a general trajectory issue, not a specific.
Shay (33:43.213)
The general trajectory told me, yeah, the general trajectory was positive. And I had the general feeling that no name would, would be, it would exit. I, I, you know, I don't think I saw it IPO-ing. So I was like, it's, it was pretty clear in my mind that that's probably going to be the outcome in no name. I thought it would be a pretty good exit. And that, that turned out to be the case. It was a pretty good exit. We exited at 500 million to Akamai and yeah.
Jeff Holman (34:10.131)
And without pressing for details, how do you feel about that exit for yourself on a scale of one to 10? Was it up there?
Shay (34:19.67)
Yeah, yeah, 12. Like you don't, yeah, absolutely. and that connects pretty well to the question of why am I doing this, right? Because I could be on the beach for forever and it wouldn't change anything in terms of like what I need or what I have. Like, it's not, I guess it's not the financial drive.
Jeff Holman (34:21.203)
I love it.
Jeff Holman (34:42.173)
That's not what a builder is, right? A builder, you're a builder because you build stuff, not because you accumulate stuff.
Shay (34:44.718)
I guess I Guess I exactly I guess so I'm thinking about it often, you know Because starting a company building it running it especially when you know you asked about family and stuff You don't spend that much time as much time as you would want with your family And so you find yourself often thinking like why am I doing this? Especially as one that's already sold a company because before you sold a company you can always say well I'm doing this to set us up and like be that you know
Jeff Holman (35:05.81)
Yeah.
Shay (35:13.036)
not having to worry about money or whatever it might be. But as a second time founder, the question becomes, okay, why are you doing this? And the answers become more murky. And so this is why I answered before, back to your question, this is why I find myself asking myself a lot, like, why am I doing this?
Jeff Holman (35:15.197)
Sure.
Jeff Holman (35:28.551)
Yeah. What have you, what, and, and when you were in the moment saying, okay, I'm going to go to unframed, you hadn't had the exit yet. So maybe it made a little more sense to say, let's build unframed. Now that you've had an exit, why are you still building unframed?
Shay (35:42.154)
Go.
Shay (35:45.935)
It's a great, yeah, exactly. It's a good question, but I think even when I started Unframe, it wasn't because it was pre or post exit. It was the drive to build this company and execute on this idea that I sensed had to be executed on. Someone has to do it. I take you back, that's why say, someone has to do it. This is going to be...
Jeff Holman (36:08.359)
Yeah.
Shay (36:12.852)
A very, very big success. It's going to be a huge successful company. One that can actually make a leap in the world is the way I perceived it. And so, you know, it's an exciting problem to work on. It's a very challenging problem to work on. But if we will execute well on this very challenging problem, you can actually build a giant, giant successful company, much bigger than any other.
time or problem that I thought of before that I had throughout the years or no name or anything like that. And so that still excites me. I still think that what unframed is working on and the concept and the work we do is still very important, very interesting, very exciting. And so I think that keeps me going.
Jeff Holman (36:57.373)
Well, give us the thesis for unframed and tell us a little bit about what the team looks like right now.
Shay (37:01.976)
Sure. So the thesis for UnFrame is simple. I was like, OK, there's the chat GPT moment. LLM came into the world. All of us got excited, saw all the great things it can do. And then on the other side of it, you have the businesses and the enterprises of the world. And they will want to adopt that technology across so many different things to improve their efficiency, to increase their top line, to do so many things that this technology can probably do. But the biggest question is how.
How are they gonna achieve that? How are they gonna adopt that technology on so many different things they wanna do? And then I thought about their options at the time. Some said, well, the existing vendors would just add AI capabilities and that's gonna be it. And I was like, no, it's not gonna go that way. And some said, well, they're gonna build it all themselves because it's easier to build now. I was like, no, it's not gonna go that way. Okay, so they'll probably go to consultancies and just bring, I don't know, different consultancies to help them build. I was like...
Maybe, but it's not, it's expensive, it takes too long. I also don't think it's that. And so I came up with the idea of UnFrame and I'll first start with our thesis and then I'll go back to the tech. The thesis says the following. How about, let's talk about a use case you care about as a business, something you think AI can do for you, AI can improve for you, something like that. We'll execute on it and give you a working solution in a week for free.
Don't pay anything in advance. Don't commit upfront. Nothing. Just get what you asked for, for free. Only if it works out for you and you like it, we'll move on to licensing and you'll pay us per solution per year. And the reason this is so exciting, this was so exciting to me. was like, and by the way, in a week, in a week, we're talking about a timeframe of a week. Like you're asking for a software or a solution and you get it working for free in a week. And only if you liked it, you get to move to licensing. And I was like,
Jeff Holman (38:37.189)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (38:45.308)
Yeah.
Shay (38:55.254)
No other market, exactly. No other market currently offers that. If you go to a tailor and you ask for a suit, just custom for you, well, they will want to be paid in advance. No one will say, well, I'll make you a custom suit and then decide at the end if you like it. It's like, no, if I make you something custom, you better be willing to pay. But I was like with AI and the movement and the tech and everything that is available today, I believe we can build that type of company. It will require us to execute.
Jeff Holman (38:55.453)
That sounds crazy.
Shay (39:23.7)
excellently on tech, on product, on everything that goes into it, but we will be able to do it. The reason, by the way, and I'll touch on it just in a brief moment, is that although different AI use cases can come from different departments and industries and anything like that, the tech components they require are very similar. So if we take those tech components, build them once in a high quality, flexible way, a good metaphor is like Lego bricks. If we have those Lego bricks, now we can just
Jeff Holman (39:42.653)
Yeah.
Shay (39:53.357)
be out there and address basically any AI problem that you can bring us, solve it that fast, and move to licensing at the end of it. That's what was exciting to
Jeff Holman (40:04.199)
Yeah, this is amazing because it sounds like it's a newer, better version of the sun rising that you talked about earlier with No Name. You went out to customers and you said, hey, what are you working on? then you, and now you're going out, essentially going out to customers and saying, what are you working on? And we're going to build something for you. then you can, so you're doing a little bit more build upfront, I guess, than you were with No Name.
Is there some of that that carries over?
Shay (40:34.432)
It's a very interesting analogy. You know, I haven't thought about that. It's a good analogy. It's actually a good analogy. Yeah. To some extent, I guess it's right, but in a different way, because in no name, we were talking about cybersecurity and reaching CISOs and things like that. But with AI, companies already have the natural momentum of wanting to adopt AI. Like we all understand how fundamental this can be and how much impact it can do. So when you come and ask them,
Jeff Holman (40:59.997)
Mm-hmm.
Shay (41:04.214)
Well, you know, are you doing something with AI? The answer is always yes. Do you know which use cases you want to achieve? It's always yes. Okay. How about we tackle the first one or the second one? You know, it moves so fast because if you think about that, if you come to a different, if you go to cybersecurity, they don't necessarily know there's a lot of things they could do, cannot do, but with AI it's very practical. It's like, yes, we want to achieve these five things this year. We're wondering what's the best way to do it.
Jeff Holman (41:08.049)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Shay (41:32.364)
And then you come in the door with on-frame and say, well, the best way to do it is you guys get it in a week and then you decide if you want it. And it's like, yeah, exactly. The best way to do it is just ask. And it's like, okay.
Jeff Holman (41:37.661)
The best way to do it is we'll do it for you.
Jeff Holman (41:45.404)
I can see why you're so excited about this, Shay, because you're letting customers tell you what to build. You've got the tools to build it. You know that they've got interest in it being built. It's an easier, lower barrier sale, it sounds like at least. Maybe financially, I don't know, but from a compelling standpoint, like if you build it, they've already told you they want it. They've already told you they know how to use it.
Shay (41:47.797)
Exactly.
Jeff Holman (42:15.153)
don't have it and if you can build it like like this sounds like this this this sounds like it should maybe be called no brainer you know no name to no brainer but that that's it's a are other people doing this
Shay (42:23.864)
I guess, I guess, I guess.
Shay (42:29.92)
No, the reason, no, and the reason they're not doing it is because it's very, very hard to execute on. It's very easy on the customer side saying, hey, I want this. The hard part for unframed perspective, how do you do something like that? Your tech excellency, like your platform, the platform you rely on with the building blocks has to be so good that you are able to execute on different use cases so fast and high quality in a way the customer is actually happy.
Because the power is in their hands. They could easily say, no, this is not what I wanted. This doesn't make what I want. They'd go away, but they rarely do. Like when we come back, the number one feedback we hear is we couldn't, we didn't believe you guys would actually come back. Like we thought it's too good to be true. And now you're back and it's actually working. Like how did you guys do it? But it's because we excel on tech and the platform that we have. It's because we excel on product and understanding like.
Jeff Holman (43:12.754)
Yeah.
Shay (43:24.578)
from the problem that they stated, how a good solution would look like, what type of accuracy they require and the accuracy will meet their expectations. The engagement that they will have with a solution will meet their expectations. And the sell cycle, honestly, you need to also have really good sellers that know how to listen to a customer instead of coming with a premeditated script. Listen to the customer, understanding what is important to them and then sell them on that vision. So you have to execute on
Jeff Holman (43:38.845)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (43:46.567)
Right.
Shay (43:54.035)
R &D and tech, you have to execute on product, you have to execute on sales. This is why this is such a difficult challenge. For example, compared to No Name, which was completely different, it's a much harder challenge, but the carrot at the end of it is so exciting. It's so exciting.
Jeff Holman (44:03.933)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (44:08.787)
Well, what have you found to be? Because yeah, as you're saying that I'm like, this makes perfect sense in theory. It sounds awesome, but if you don't get every piece right, one piece could throw you off. It seems like. Yeah. So, so how, yeah.
Shay (44:23.042)
Completely, completely. I give you an example. If it took us three weeks or four weeks for a solution, then the model becomes not viable. Like you can't offer it anymore, which is very clear why no one else is offering that. Because I remember, even when we started, people said, this is crazy. I said, maybe this is crazy, but I think it can work. Like, so I don't mind working on something that sounds crazy, that is, you know, a bit ambitious if it can work. I think.
Jeff Holman (44:52.989)
But wait, why three or four weeks? Why does three or four weeks not work, but one week works? Is it just the unit economics of it?
Shay (44:59.512)
The model. Yeah. Think about the economics behind it. Think about, yeah, the economics behind it. So for a few reasons. One is the economics behind it on our part. If we had to invest that long, that much time to the economics on the customer side, because a customer that is getting something in one week is very different than a customer that is getting something in four weeks. By four weeks, the momentum is lost.
Jeff Holman (45:21.042)
Yeah.
They're like, maybe we should have just done it ourselves or.
Shay (45:26.03)
You will lose some, you will convert a lot less. Exactly. You have to hit that mark. You have to hit that mark.
Jeff Holman (45:30.323)
And if it takes you four times as long to build it, you might have to charge four times as much and then you've outpriced yourself. Okay, okay.
Shay (45:36.335)
Exactly. Everything changes. Exactly. Everything changes. And by the way, there are companies that are doing the much longer cycles. If you think about the Palantir's of the world, Palantir is a company that comes in, takes a really difficult problem off your shoulders. You'll pay them tens of millions of dollars. It would be pretty expensive, but they will solve it for you probably through the course of seven, eight, nine months.
Jeff Holman (45:44.765)
Sure.
Shay (46:01.018)
And it will work. It will be something custom to you. It will work, but it will take nine months and it will cost you tens of millions of dollars. In the case of Unframe, it will take you a week. You don't pay in advance. You get it and you get to choose if you liked it at the end. So this is why I like it. It's like one of one. There's only one unframed. your options is unframed and everyone else.
Jeff Holman (46:16.552)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (46:21.169)
because you're out there, you're the furthest out on the edge of this cliff looking over, getting ready to, coming back to our analogy, getting ready to jump on that next wave as soon as you see it, right? Well, so now you're the CEO, right? And so what does your team look like right now? Is it big, is it distributed? Who's on your team?
Shay (46:25.154)
Exactly.
Shay (46:32.363)
Exactly.
Shay (46:40.918)
So it's a pretty, we're about 90 people. We started in the early 2024. So we grew again pretty fast as you would think for the AI market, right? Not surprising that it's us moving. The wave is really, really strong. So we're growing rapidly. have obviously all the core functions that you will think, you know, we have product and VP product and sales and VP sales and my co-founders Larissa, which is our COO.
Jeff Holman (46:44.038)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (46:52.711)
Yep. Yeah, the wave is strong.
Shay (47:08.906)
and Adi, which is our VP R &D. So, you know, a pretty solid team. Yeah, and growing in every single department. So growing in the R &D, growing in the product, growing in the sales, growing in the marketing. I don't, you know, as I'm doing this and I'm the CEO of this, I'm sometimes wondering how do other CEOs operate? And I don't necessarily know. I can tell you how I operate. I still have this, okay, what's the area that is currently...
is struggling the most, or I feel I need to go into and make a real impact. And that's the area you'll find me in. And so you can, one week I can be really deep in sales and like doing everything sales. And the next week I can be really, really deep in R and D and tech and the architecture and sometimes even coding, believe it or not. I, you know, I shy from no problem. Like I go for the one problem that we like, we need to tackle right now. And that's the one I'm doing.
Jeff Holman (47:56.338)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (48:04.573)
Well, and a lot of people say the CEO's job is to remove obstacles so the team can do what the team is supposed to do, right? Sounds like in a sense that might be what you're doing. How do you keep yourself from maybe falling into distractions doing it that way?
Shay (48:22.014)
it's, it's a good question. I think as soon as I recognize the area or the, the, the, the position that I'm like took on right now, whether it's like a CTO for a week or whether it's like sales assistant for a week, whatever it might be. as soon as I feel it, I got it like they got it under control. I zoom out and I go to the, to the next problem. I don't think as. What's that?
Jeff Holman (48:47.827)
So you've got good people in place then. People that you can, you've got good people in place then. You can jump in, help out, and then be like, okay, we're back on track. It's yours again.
Shay (48:52.385)
Yeah, yeah.
Shay (48:57.538)
Correct. Correct. Correct. But I jump in with them, right? If I recognize, for example, let's say it's the sales, then I jump in with our VP sales into the sales and trying to make an impact there. And then, okay, they got that under control or like whatever the obstacle was, I feel it's better now. Let's zoom out. I see they're struggling over product. Let's zoom in into product and let's do some product work for a week. It's interesting that you said that, you know, some say CEO's job is to remove obstacles.
Jeff Holman (49:20.296)
Yeah.
Shay (49:26.67)
Someone, for example, told me that a CEO's job is to hire, fire, and raise money. And for example, that's something that I didn't find very helpful. Like, yes, you need to hire people. Yes, you need to fire people. Yes, you probably need to raise money, but that's a very flat way to look at a CEO. You have so much more work to do. Like, better get your hands dirty in the actual doing and not just expect to sit back and, you know, put people in places.
Jeff Holman (49:35.56)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (49:42.78)
Yeah.
Shay (49:53.198)
That's not working for me at least. I didn't find it to be working.
Jeff Holman (49:55.526)
Yeah, I will say I've seen some CEOs, some clients or past clients who the CEO has been less engaged, more of, like you said, moving pieces around, less solving problems. And those CEOs don't tend to stay around as CEOs for very long, unless the company, maybe despite the CEO, does really well anyways, right? So, well, as you've, as you've
Shay (50:21.728)
I agree. I agree.
Jeff Holman (50:25.009)
been through no name and now unframed, what are you doing differently at unframed? Like what's maybe something you realized leading unframed that you hadn't necessarily realized in your position at no name?
Shay (50:41.206)
I think I understood. So also in no name, I, understood it somewhat, but I think I, and I'm afraid I understood it even more, you know, the importance of, of, of people, like obviously, you know, it sounds trivial, but, what I mean by that is, having the right people in the key positions and having that right, the right culture with those people is, is so, so important in, no name time.
I thought the company is, there's the company and there's the people. And in unframed time, or generally the way I look at the world now, it's the people that make the company. Like unframed is the people in unframed. And so it shifted my perspective a bit. So if you ask me, what is unframed? First and foremost is probably the people that are in unframed and making unframed happen. Obviously, it's a company and it gives value to customers and all that, but...
Jeff Holman (51:25.8)
Yeah.
Shay (51:40.438)
The people of Unframe is what makes Unframe Unframe. And so I think that that kind of shifted with me. In No Name, I was a CTO. I still had the angle of all the people and everyone and et cetera. But in Unframe, I feel it a lot more. I guess as a CEO position, I guess.
Jeff Holman (51:56.18)
Do you think that's partly because aligning with people, good people, building something with good people also brings you purpose? Whereas in your first go around, part of the purpose maybe was more focused on the financial success of it, but now you've achieved some financial success. And so there's added purpose in building with a team. Is that part of it?
Shay (52:23.232)
Yeah, I guess so, by the way. guess that's true, like, correct. I think that that's part of it. But you know, tech person in me, like the past CTO tech person, we, I don't know about other people, but we tend to be, you know, we don't mind working by ourselves, building our own things. Like we don't necessarily need anyone else. But as now leading Unframe and like, you know, co-founder and that.
Yeah, I feel a lot, you know, it's a team effort and it's a team thing we're going after. It's not like just me sitting alone making this whole thing happen.
Jeff Holman (53:01.341)
Well, and I, you know, I will admit my background initially was engineering. I did electrical engineering. So I have some, I'll call it, I have some engineering in me and I can relate to what you're saying. It's that, hey, we can, you know, build this and solve this. the people, I think as my career has progressed, I think having the connections with the people around me has just made everything else I do so much more alive.
Shay (53:06.509)
Okay.
Jeff Holman (53:28.561)
Right? It adds a layer that maybe wasn't there earlier in my career. And I feel like maybe that's kind how you're describing Unframe right now.
Shay (53:29.196)
Right. Right.
Shay (53:36.512)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it lets you achieve much bigger things, much more, you know, much, much bigger goals, for sure.
Jeff Holman (53:45.332)
Yeah. Well, so I'd like to ask one more question about Unframe, but then I'd like to ask about how some of this might apply to other people who are hearing your story and saying, gosh, I'd like to maybe do some of those things, maybe take some of these insights and apply them in what I'm doing. So before asking that question, where's Unframe headed? Where do you see it going in the next two or three or four years?
Shay (54:12.834)
Great question. So look, we're on our very exciting path. I think we're growing really, really fast. We're doing really, really well. I think the premise is really interesting. And so I always like to say that if we execute as well as we execute right now, there's no stopping on frame. It can be really, really, really big. I think it can be a giant software company, one that has an office anywhere you look. I really think so. I really think this is what we're building here.
Jeff Holman (54:37.042)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (54:41.807)
On that note, is unframed, I'm gonna turn this into a verb. Maybe you do this, maybe you don't. Is unframed, unframing itself? Are you guys running one week sprints within your company to build your own tools the same way that you build for the people, your customers?
Shay (54:43.182)
Yeah.
Shay (54:58.926)
You know what's interesting? You know what's interesting? I don't know how you view it. Is it positive or negative? Interestingly enough, we don't like working on our own problems because we feel there's so much, it would be much more interesting to work on a problem of our customers, to serve our customers. So you know how they say, I don't know, I guess you have that saying where the cobbler walks barefoot.
Jeff Holman (55:17.725)
Yeah.
Shay (55:25.262)
I don't know if I forgot that, I forgot the shoemaker. Yeah, I heard something like that. So, and that gives you a positive signal and a negative signal. The positive signal that it tells you that even on-frame that excels in AI and can do and build amazing things really, really quickly is first and foremost focuses on its customers and what it can serve its customers. And this is why when people told me, well, all the companies are going to build their own AI tools,
Jeff Holman (55:25.491)
Yes. I've heard something like it.
Jeff Holman (55:47.602)
Yeah.
Shay (55:55.043)
I was like, no, I don't think so. Companies are first and foremost focused on their customers. So if you're AT &T or Verizon, you're not going to sit around and build something that helps you solve JIRA tickets faster because that's not your main business. You want to serve your customers. That's the first and foremost. That's what your team is most excited about. And this is why I knew that they would be looking outside who can build that for them, who can serve them. And so that's my angle to it.
Jeff Holman (55:59.89)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman (56:24.595)
I love that.
Shay (56:24.622)
Um, I'm trying sometimes does dog fooding sometimes to a solution, but only because we are also serving a customer for that same purpose. We don't sit around and like build things just for the sake of building it for ourselves. That's rare.
Jeff Holman (56:29.715)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman (56:39.187)
I it's a pretty raw and counterintuitive response because I expected you to say, yeah, of course we do this. This is our core practice. We're doing it for ourselves. But your logic makes perfect sense, right?
Shay (56:49.386)
No.
Shay (56:56.118)
Yeah, we want to serve our customers. If I have free time, let me serve my customers even better. I'm not sitting around serving myself.
Jeff Holman (57:04.379)
Yeah, and a dirty little secret in the legal world, which I'm not going to reveal 100%, but maybe next time you talk to an attorney, ask them how often they read their contracts in full that they're signing. It might be less often than you think. has been fascinating, Shay, and I really appreciate you sharing all this with me, because you've got so many layers going on. How would somebody else who's...
Shay (57:18.11)
Exactly! Exactly! Right? Exactly!
Jeff Holman (57:32.347)
maybe a little bit behind you on this, on their own journey, a similar path. How would they take some of these things that you're sharing and leverage them so that they can, they can act more like that second time founder the first time around.
Shay (57:48.385)
Interesting. So let me think about the question for a sec. So we are talking about someone that is a first-time founder that decided they want to build something, right? That's kind of...
Jeff Holman (57:57.774)
Sure, yeah. Somebody just behind you on the path.
Shay (58:01.514)
Okay, so if someone is behind me, okay, so I'll split it into two. If someone is behind me and they're wondering, you know, they have all these ideas and they think, you know, how am I going to get it to life? How am I going to... So if someone like is thinking, is entrepreneurship for me? The number one is, are you willing to work really, really, really hard? That means that you have your main job, you stop your main job, and then you work on that other thing that you always wanted to achieve or thought of or thought could be possible.
Just thinking about it and talking about it isn't going to do it. Like, are you willing to take on another job in addition to your main job that is just doing that? And then at some point in time, yeah, will you actually build? Exactly. Exactly. And if you do and you have it in you and you're a builder and now you want to go on the journey, I would say you need to do probably two things. One is pick a team. So one or two or three or four other builders that will join with you as a founding team.
Jeff Holman (58:39.251)
Will you really build? Will you really build? Yeah.
Shay (58:58.924)
Because being a solo founder is, I know some people do it, but to me it's crazy. I don't know how you could do it alone. So that's point number one. And then point number two, just go and speak to other entrepreneurs or other builders that have already done it. You know, there's so many. And as you're going to meet them and talk to them about, you know, what you're thinking about doing, what their tips are, the industry will start hearing about you. People will realize, Hey, there's this team there that is talking about a pretty interesting idea. Maybe we should.
and you're going to get introduced to a bunch of interesting people and maybe venture capital and investors, and you're just going to meet the industry through doing that. So that's probably my tip to anyone wanting to start.
Jeff Holman (59:41.532)
I love that. I think it's, if I can reframe it a little bit, I think what you just described was we talked about being a builder and being willing to go build, but then also building your network. mean, what you just described was being out there in your network, sharing what you're doing, kind of building up that reputation side of the business in addition to the technical or business side of the business.
Shay (01:00:06.273)
Right, that's how you start.
Jeff Holman (01:00:07.815)
Well, I love that. Well, this has been a fascinating conversation for me and I've got a few personal takeaways that I'm going to go reflect on too from everything you shared. So, Shay, I really appreciate you joining me. Is there any last word of advice or wisdom that you would share with just the audience in general?
Shay (01:00:26.998)
Hmm. I don't know. trying to, I think I shared enough. I went long, no?
Jeff Holman (01:00:30.579)
You've shared, you have shared a lot. I'm certainly not pressing because you haven't shared much. You've shared a ton and I appreciate that. So I won't push that further on you. I just want to say thank you again though for joining me. It's been a fascinating and fantastic conversation and I'm looking forward to see where unframed goes. It sounds like a journey to follow.
Shay (01:00:51.17)
Me too. It's gonna be big. It's gonna be really big. I really feel it. It's gonna be huge.
Jeff Holman (01:00:55.795)
And so if somebody wants to follow you and your journey, where would be a good place to do that?
Shay (01:01:01.366)
I am, you know, I'm plus probably LinkedIn is where I'm active the most. Shay Levi on LinkedIn. or you can look for unframed or unframed AI. That's our website.
Jeff Holman (01:01:10.053)
or hire Unframe AI to do a one week build for you.
Shay (01:01:12.878)
Exactly, exactly. If you're an enterprise or a business wanting to adopt AI, talk to us. What can be easier than that?
Jeff Holman (01:01:20.101)
I love it. sounds like a great opportunity. I love it. Well, Shay, thanks again for joining me and to everybody else who came to listen to the show. We're so grateful that you've joined us and are part of the community and we'll talk to you next time.
