Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Thoughtful Edge Podcast: AI Disruption, H1B Shifts, and Rethinking Consulting
5 Plays5 days ago
In this thought-provoking episode with Evan Shy — serial entrepreneur, former VC, and now CEO of HTD Talent — we dive into the tectonic shifts reshaping the tech talent landscape. Evan shares his unique perspective from both sides of the table: as an operator scaling staffing businesses, and as an investor spotting market signals.
- Why market tailwinds matter more than grit alone
- How AI is amplifying and disrupting the consulting model
- The controversial H1B visa fee hike and its impact on U.S. innovation
- Rethinking talent pipelines: bootcamps, guided development, and enterprise simulations
- The future of software consulting and the role of embedded experts
- Why surrounding yourself with the smartest people possible is the best career hack
Whether you’re a founder, operator, or tech leader navigating the AI-infused future — this episode offers grounded insight and real advice for staying relevant and thriving.
Recommended
Transcript
Intro & Evan's Background
00:00:02
Dmytro Savchenko
Hello, hello. Welcome to the Thoughtful Edge podcast.
00:00:05
Evan Shy
Thanks.
00:00:06
Dmytro Savchenko
And today we have a very interesting guest whose name is Evan Shai. He's the founder and the CEO and his background in tech, different roles, positions. And I would give a word to him to introduce himself and tell about his experience, background or like whatever is on top of your mind.
00:00:29
Dmytro Savchenko
Evan, please.
00:00:31
Evan Shy
Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me Looking forward to to the conversation. um you know I've been a ah lifelong entrepreneur for for better or worse.
00:00:41
Evan Shy
um My journey to the to the organization that I'm at now actually started when I was hiring folks coming out of ah Coding Temple, you know effectively a tech training platform.
00:00:54
Evan Shy
um I was building a couple startups, ended up doing a tour of duty on the other side of the table at a venture firm called Vitamin Capital, where it's helping pre-seed and seed stage companies um raise capital. We're investing in those companies as well. Everything from robotics to quantum ah to primarily software
Coding Temple & Industry Impact
00:01:17
Evan Shy
ah programs. So that was fun as it learned a lot from other people's journey and got to see a lot of different business models and think really deeply about a lot of you know complex problems uh without all the you know pain sometimes that comes with entrepreneurship you know being able to have weekends and and all that good stuff but ultimately ah getting back in the operator seat it was just yeah i'm an operator at heart so it just kind of pulled me back into the ring if you will um
00:01:49
Evan Shy
And one of the the kind of ah insights that was clear across all of the companies that I was working with and investing in at Vitamin Capital was just that we are very clearly driving towards a world where both you know people and companies are going to need new capabilities in order to both earn a living and and compete in the marketplace.
00:02:11
Evan Shy
And as I started to kind of evaluate the different solutions out there that were you know well positioned to address that challenge, um it seemed like there was a bit of a gap in the market and there was an opportunity. So I stepped in as CEO of of Coding Temple and we've doubled the business since then. um And just recently, ah we acquired two other companies, both App Academy and HTD Talent, which To kind of summarize for everyone what these businesses do real quick, ah both Coding Temple and App Academy were two of the top tech boot camps in the country.
00:02:49
Evan Shy
um you know Between them, train several thousand people every year ah in AI, data, cyber, software, QA. ah HTD brings 20 years of of enterprise technical staffing experience of large enterprise clients, EY, Selective Insurance, Bank of America.
00:03:10
Dmytro Savchenko
yeah
00:03:10
Evan Shy
And together, have built kind of a new solution that's really designed to improve the capability of organizations. So we've been rocking and rolling ever since.
00:03:20
Evan Shy
The team's you know almost 100 now, I think, strong.
H1B Visa Fees & Talent Sourcing
00:03:24
Evan Shy
um So it's been an interesting time.
00:03:25
Dmytro Savchenko
no that's that's impressive impressive career and i believe you've seen a lot throughout these years and uh while working different color companies the a big part of my career also went in ah the software consulting companies so i was doing a lot like uh even before moving to us i was doing i was working a lot with us clients and like you know what is what the consulting
00:03:58
Dmytro Savchenko
Software consulting looks like from the very heart of it, so it was in the different positions as well and seeing that from within and from outside, like from my current from my current position and role,
00:04:12
Dmytro Savchenko
And then as we're talking about the software consulting, as you mentioned, as you're an operator now, I've seen you was also posting about this H1 visa increasing fee, which I believe is a disaster for the whole industry.
00:04:18
Evan Shy
Yeah.
00:04:28
Evan Shy
yeah
00:04:29
Dmytro Savchenko
Because like H1B is the source of very great and amazing talents in the US. was fueling the tech the whole tech industry for years and for decades and now they decided to abruptly like change the rules and like increase this fee to 100 000 case which is like i believe pretty pretty big number i wonder if there are any company would be willing to pay this money what's your opinion
00:04:53
Evan Shy
Oh yeah.
00:04:59
Evan Shy
yeah yeah Look, I think you know the objective may be although you logical in terms of trying to ah you know ah protect or bolster or fortify entry-level opportunities for US-based citizens. I think the consequences and ramifications here of ah you know this new policy could be very, very impactful. And I think could be yeah very consequential and a huge burden for a lot of companies.
00:05:34
Evan Shy
um So I think it's like a lot of things with with politics. There's a really challenging problem that is important to a lot of people to address, but there is a very imperfect set of of solutions at addressing it.
00:05:49
Evan Shy
and You know, I certainly... ah like Just, I guess, the other side of the coin, as you can imagine, we see
AI's Role in Tech Transformation
00:05:57
Evan Shy
kind of you know on the front lines, the entry-level talent. So folks coming out of you know college universities or boot camps, for that matter, have really struggled to you know compete with ah offshore talent and solutions.
00:06:12
Evan Shy
Yeah. So you know maybe that'll present or amplify some of the opportunities for those folks. But again, I think really critically to your point, it has been so important just culturally even, but also for you know growing companies to be able to access the best talent wherever that talent is.
00:06:32
Evan Shy
And I think that's an important part of you know ah a healthy and robust ecosystem.
00:06:38
Dmytro Savchenko
Will you say that that might even incentivize people to reduce investments here in the US and like in tech specifically from the near shore, offshore, whatever other countries or markets?
00:06:55
Evan Shy
Yeah, that's a fair point, actually. Yeah, I could see it actually. um Yeah, incentivizing a kind of binary or a a bifurcation of of extremes, right? Like just actually investing further in offshore options.
00:07:13
Evan Shy
um But then for you know for certain roles and maybe even some companies who have ample cash, they'd probably still be willing to pay the fee for for some folks.
00:07:24
Evan Shy
But it'll be very interesting to see how this shakes out.
00:07:27
Dmytro Savchenko
No, interesting times we're living.
00:07:29
Evan Shy
Yeah.
00:07:32
Evan Shy
When you were in software development, the the the team that you were working with and leading primarily onshore, offshore, what did the makeup look like?
00:07:43
Evan Shy
Very
00:07:44
Dmytro Savchenko
It's a mix. It's a hybrid model. We have some people here, different cities.
00:07:50
Evan Shy
cool.
00:07:51
Dmytro Savchenko
in yes few people here bay area are We have some representation in Chicago as well, by the way.
00:08:01
Evan Shy
Very cool. ah
00:08:02
Dmytro Savchenko
And then, yeah, a few offshore locations as well.
00:08:05
Evan Shy
Sure. Sure.
00:08:07
Dmytro Savchenko
So I believe it's still to be decided, like, what would be our way forward and what what would be a strategy for
Career Strategy & Market Insights
00:08:15
Dmytro Savchenko
us as well. as which
00:08:17
Evan Shy
yeah
00:08:17
Dmytro Savchenko
so lot uncertainty that matter and ah switching it here a little bit and let's talk about the internships and the startups and stuff I've seen in your profile that you were part of Techstars at some point and yeah I participated in some Techstars events too I was once invited as a mentor
00:08:26
Evan Shy
chair
00:08:37
Evan Shy
I was.
00:08:45
Dmytro Savchenko
to some of their events, hackathon or something. That was really fun. Because it was telling me about your experience.
00:08:52
Evan Shy
Yeah, yeah. So as I alluded to, you know I've been entrepreneur my entire career, and primarily those first you know several startups were bootstrapped startups. And that's a whole different experience than going the venture path.
00:09:06
Evan Shy
I would encourage anyone who you know is serious or at least has a serious intent of being an entrepreneur in in their career to move quickly, especially when they're young, into some kind of like venture-backed startup experience. I think the learning ah process, both the depth and the the velocity with which you're learning is just so much more intense.
00:09:30
Evan Shy
um And you're surrounded you know really you know smart minds and the kind of pressure... you know cooker that that that experience is, I think, is is really formidable and valuable for um ah for folks going through it. So I would have done that earlier. I ended up doing that later after I had several startups at that point.
00:09:50
Evan Shy
um The bootstrapping is nice because you know you're in control of your own destiny. you can build a profitable business, but it can be a really hard grind on the way there. Venture, it's like all or nothing.
00:10:02
Evan Shy
And to your specific question, Techstars and YC, a couple of these like well-known accelerators, I think they do a really good job of... um you know creating this cohort community-like experience, which I think is important, and you're meeting other like minds and you know learning from peers, et cetera, taking you through a very, very intense experience, and then ultimately you know raising capital and and launching you into ah into to the real world, if you will.
00:10:33
Evan Shy
That was really valuable. And the network that was provided, that was probably the most valuable part of the experience is the network that is unlocked. and what that meant for future opportunities.
00:10:45
Dmytro Savchenko
Yeah, I would agree on that. I would agree definitely.
00:10:47
Evan Shy
Yeah.
00:10:49
Dmytro Savchenko
And I believe like you're in tech, you would rather experience both sides, right?
00:10:49
Evan Shy
Yeah.
00:10:57
Evan Shy
ah
00:10:57
Dmytro Savchenko
The corporate and the startup life, they might seem similar, but they are totally different and completely different and completely different requirements, expectations, and um everything that you build like is
00:11:08
Evan Shy
oh
00:11:13
Dmytro Savchenko
has a different value as well different scale too and different challenges, not only technical but different people challenges.
00:11:21
Evan Shy
Sure, sure.
00:11:23
Dmytro Savchenko
oh
00:11:23
Evan Shy
and There are things you can learn in ah and ah and a in like a corporate environment that you can't learn and sort of and vice versa, of course.
00:11:23
Dmytro Savchenko
um
00:11:32
Evan Shy
right But I think to your point, there's probably a really, especially early in your career, there's a good opportunity
Navigating AI Challenges
00:11:39
Evan Shy
to see what good looks like and you know and see have have mentors and you know people that you can look up to that have been doing it a while and see what you know a code base and and tech infrastructure looks like across a large organization. There's probably really good, you know valuable insight and perspective that comes from that.
00:11:59
Evan Shy
um And then again, the startup experience is something different, which is also important. You can also see which one you end up gravitating towards better as well as a career.
00:12:09
Dmytro Savchenko
yeah Yeah, absolutely. So you already mentioned some learning lessons from being a part of Techstars. What would you say was your most valuable insight from the start of life?
00:12:28
Evan Shy
There's couple important ones probably. um One would be I fundamentally underestimated how important like finding the right tailwinds in a market are. And you know there's a bunch of classic quotes from you know Charlie Munger, you know Warren Buffett. It's like, um you know you could have an exceptional team. ah you know exceptional Exceptional team meets a bad market and it's the bad market that maintains its reputation.
00:13:00
Evan Shy
um i think just seeing how hard, like ah achieving success in a startup is challenging in any circumstance, but you put really strong headwinds ah from a market that just isn't great or it's contracting or the buyer dynamics or economic dynamics are not favorable And you it's just like you know chewing glass and looking into the abyss, as as Elon would say.
00:13:25
Evan Shy
and then you And then fortunately, conversely, I've seen tailwinds. And it's amazing what you can get away with you know when you are in the right market and able to, you know it's it's it's amazing.
00:13:35
Dmytro Savchenko
Yeah, at the right time.
00:13:38
Evan Shy
Yeah. ah So so that that's one big thing. And then one other thing, which I i could not impress on people enough, is I fundamentally underestimated the impact of working with the best possible people and just how important that is.
00:13:57
Evan Shy
um If I were to do it over again, I'd be indexing as hard as possible earlier on my career about being surrounded by the smartest, brightest people I could find. And maybe that meant, to your previous statement, yeah maybe that meant joining a corps corporate or something like that at first.
00:14:15
Evan Shy
um Whatever that path was, though, it would be surrounding myself with the best possible people.
00:14:21
Dmytro Savchenko
No, makes sense, especially like I like this saying which is about like I don't want to be in the room the smartest person like I want someone to be able to tell me something new and to teach me something to show me some shortcuts you know
00:14:39
Evan Shy
Oh, my God. And they are so valuable. It's so, but you can learn it the hard way or you can learn from other people's experience.
00:14:45
Dmytro Savchenko
Exactly, you can spend years just like bumping your head, the same mistakes over and over again until someone will show you, oh, you know what?
00:14:50
Evan Shy
oh So true.
00:14:55
Evan Shy
It's like, but book
00:14:55
Dmytro Savchenko
but it's this small little thing which changed everything
00:15:00
Evan Shy
Oh, it is so true. I mean, even today, you know, it and that what we're describing happens in different levels, if you will. And, you know, of course, i I've had a lot more experience at this point than I did earlier. But even still, you know, we just formed an exceptional board, you know, folks who have even more experience than me and have done incredible things.
00:15:23
Evan Shy
And, you know, they'll still say something in in passing that it would have taken me, yeah you have months to learn and and investigate and they say it in passing and it just kind of has an unlock for us it's just so important to have those types of people around if you can
00:15:39
Dmytro Savchenko
Absolutely, it's so true. Like in every and every area of my life, I recently started to work with a trainer. Like I've discovered that I was doing like 99% of the machines I used at the gym, I was doing like not right, not in the right way, not engaging the right muscles, not doing the right technique.
00:16:03
Evan Shy
Oh my gosh.
00:16:04
Dmytro Savchenko
And once I started to like improve and correct them, like I really felt a difference. I started feeling better. like I started enjoying my workout much more than i used to.
00:16:16
Evan Shy
I feel like it's such a good metaphor for life. um I've always been a really hard worker um and I've tried to work smart, but exactly like you just articulated, like I could be running around the machines in the gym or in life and being very active, but not making a lot of progress. And it's like having the people that we're talking about around you,
00:16:41
Evan Shy
shows you how to use the right machine and engage the right muscles so you're getting maximum leverage and impact. you know and I think the same is true in business.
00:16:50
Dmytro Savchenko
Yeah, yeah. And as you previously mentioned about the tailwind and having the right skill at the right time, i have a few friends who who are in AI space before the Open AI came out they were doing.
00:17:09
Dmytro Savchenko
Not maybe like LLens, but they were still doing some mathematical modeling. They were doing some machine learning. They were doing stuff. And they were in this space before all the hype started.
00:17:21
Dmytro Savchenko
And when the hype started, they were just riding this wave all the way up but and enjoying and and enjoying all of that because they already had a foundation that let them thrive and just go with that hype up and up and up.
00:17:27
Evan Shy
ah
00:17:39
Evan Shy
Exactly. Yep.
00:17:40
Dmytro Savchenko
and So talking about AI and software, and we already see how it is disrupting the whole industry.
00:17:44
Evan Shy
so totally
00:17:49
Dmytro Savchenko
Software consulting, I feel, is the most impacted.
00:17:49
Evan Shy
how am i
00:17:53
Dmytro Savchenko
ah Tech jobs, I impacted as well. A lot of uncertainty. Layoffs after the layoffs in the big tech as well. I was recently reading some articles saying that in Seattle, after after another like layoff round at amazon software engineers are now applying barista jobs drivers jobs and stuff like that that's insane what's happening like what what the thing
00:18:16
Evan Shy
Oh, wow.
00:18:21
Evan Shy
it It is incredible. Yeah. I and look at it. i This one does feel different, although we have seen um you know paradigm shifts or or platform shifts in the past. And i think historically, it has created new jobs and opportunities that were maybe hard to imagine prior to the shift actually taking place, or maybe even more accurately prior to that shift being kind of realized and appreciated and in people's lives.
00:18:52
Evan Shy
I think the same will be true here, although again, it does feel a little bit more extreme, but ultimately... I see AI certainly in the near term as being you know net an amplifier of role. It's to make us more productive. I mean we see this all the time internally.
00:19:10
Evan Shy
um i think the the jobs that treat humans like robots, the more kind of robotic that your workflows and and kind of daily tasks are, the sooner a robot or AI is going to replace those functions. I think that's kind of like a...
00:19:29
Evan Shy
useful mental model way of way of thinking about it. i think it's going to push the most economically valuable jobs that people do kind of up on the capability spectrum in terms of kind of ah more strategic, more collaborative
00:19:45
Dmytro Savchenko
creative, more collaborative, more like communication, more people talking to people.
00:19:53
Evan Shy
Exactly. Exactly. i That feels like an intuitive kind of first principled you know trajectory that seems clear. you know To what extent?
00:20:04
Evan Shy
We'll see. you know I think there's a lot of shifts happening. ah I think I was just talking to someone about this. i think maybe not for you, but for, know, we are probably very kind of in the weeds, immersed in this space, hearing and learning about this and all the, you know, incredible changes that are happening.
00:20:25
Evan Shy
um i think there are a lot of people that are underestimating how big this this change could ultimately be. and a lot of people overestimating it, but a lot of people underestimating it. What I would encourage everyone to do is be,
00:20:39
Evan Shy
leveraging these tools and try to be on on the forefront and experimenting and applying them so that, ah you know, they are able to ride this wave, hopefully.
AI Tools & Originality
00:20:49
Dmytro Savchenko
no But on the other hand, like i see I started to see different reports and research papers around how AI is actually decreasing the performance in some certain situations, in certain cases, and people might start spending more time on reviewing the outpu output of the AI, trying to fix it and trying to present
00:21:14
Evan Shy
Thank
00:21:18
Dmytro Savchenko
data in some more meaningful way. Because the recent article I was reading, they were looking at they got analyzing some company workflow.
00:21:24
Evan Shy
you.
00:21:29
Dmytro Savchenko
And they realized that usually AI produces so high level and superficial output that doesn't contain any like particular numbers.
00:21:41
Dmytro Savchenko
It doesn't contain any particular devices. It's all high level. It's all very generic. like
00:21:48
Evan Shy
yeah
00:21:48
Dmytro Savchenko
could be applied everywhere and people started to being annoyed at that and because they now they need to spend time of analyzing those reports and seeing whatever could be improved or rephrased or some any particular data added to make that report bearing any like minimal meaning.
00:22:11
Evan Shy
Totally. I've ah read similar things and, and it's, It feels plausible to me. and And I could see that. I could see it even just even ah firsthand experiences, well as other people's experience, where you are spending more time on the kind of editing process. And maybe the net effect of that is actually more time to execute or complete a specific task.
00:22:37
Evan Shy
I do wonder... as the As the tools get better with the output, more precise with the output, more accurate, maybe more efficient with the output, and we get better and more efficient at the muscle of editing,
00:22:53
Evan Shy
but is the net effect you know ultimately still more efficient? Now, of course, I've just kind of articulated at least two different dependencies that are required in order to get there.
00:23:04
Evan Shy
ah But again, it feels plausible to see how how we get there. But that's even just at the individual level. in terms of productivity across an organization, now you're talking at additional levels of complexity because it's it's not just about one individual's production. It's about how that productivity translates across multiple teams and different functions. And that's a whole and nother ball game, you know?
00:23:28
Evan Shy
So I don't know where we ended up there.
00:23:30
Dmytro Savchenko
there's Yeah, I agree.
00:23:31
Evan Shy
Yeah.
00:23:33
Dmytro Savchenko
Maybe a we should be getting better at writing better prompts, you know, like whatever prompt you write, you need to ensure that you define the persona that should be acting for.
00:23:40
Evan Shy
oh
00:23:48
Dmytro Savchenko
You need to define the clear objectives. You need to define the guardrails. You need to define some limitations. You also, I learned recently, you also need to clearly define what it shouldn't be doing to narrow it down to the problem that you're working on.
00:24:02
Evan Shy
Yes. Yes.
00:24:06
Dmytro Savchenko
and like i know i personally found it very useful but i'm very cautious about like using the results of that especially for work i would i prefer like double checking everything it says to me and looking at the sort if it is something true it is if it is something crucial
00:24:25
Evan Shy
Yeah, totally.
00:24:29
Dmytro Savchenko
and But it's still an amazing tool, especially it helps me to fight fear of a blank
Software Consulting & Talent Augmentation
00:24:36
Dmytro Savchenko
page. so
00:24:37
Evan Shy
Yeah, sure, totally.
00:24:37
Dmytro Savchenko
and you You know you want to come up with something, like some message, some reports or whatever, but you don't know how to start, so you just say, okay, I have this problem.
00:24:38
Evan Shy
Yeah.
00:24:48
Dmytro Savchenko
Give me a given the structure. And that makes it more easier to go on.
00:24:53
Evan Shy
Yeah, im I'm entirely with you. Writer's block shouldn't be an issue anymore, at least catalyzing the start of of whatever you need to do. um i would I guess, you know, could be a negative consequence is we're kind of alluding to and certainly I've seen and is where you see people become like overwhelmingly dependent on the tool to where you're not getting kind of original thoughts anymore.
00:25:19
Evan Shy
You're just getting these kind of generic, overly architected ah documents. So it's like yeah ah a one pager of raw thoughts would have sufficed here and in fact would have told me how you're actually thinking, you know.
00:25:33
Dmytro Savchenko
Yeah, maybe be even a paragraph.
00:25:35
Evan Shy
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Even better. Yeah.
00:25:38
Dmytro Savchenko
In some cases, in some cases.
00:25:39
Evan Shy
Yeah, totally.
00:25:42
Dmytro Savchenko
So how would you envision like the future of software consulting? As we are both kind of have very tight connections in
00:25:55
Evan Shy
Yeah, you know, ah for the, at least what here's what we're seeing. um We definitely have seen a decrease in the overall volume of demand um for new people. So when it comes to like capacity building and building capacity in the way that you know large organizations have historically done that, i.e.
00:26:20
Evan Shy
hire more people and junior people, et cetera, that is definitely you know but been reduced.
00:26:22
Dmytro Savchenko
no
00:26:28
Evan Shy
Where we're seeing the conversation, certainly the conversations we're a part of, is how can we get more out of the people that that are there and and what can we do as an outside you know vendor or you know consultative partner due to help improve the capabilities of the people that are there?
00:26:45
Evan Shy
So for us, it shifted much more into kind of, you know higher leverage um experts that we're embedding in teams and then to some degree helping with some delivery support, you know to kind of augment existing teams, particularly if there's kind of skill gaps that those teams don't have.
00:27:04
Evan Shy
ah But you know one of the things that we do, it's called guided development, where we embed experts. i Those experts will ultimately train up the people on that team while shipping features on the backlog.
00:27:21
Evan Shy
So it's upskilling in the workflow instead of it being kind some separate ah learning experience.
00:27:30
Dmytro Savchenko
yeah that's an interesting transition from yeah as you mentioned just give us more capacity give us more people and like let's hire like 10 people here 10 here and then we have a rd office across the world like in columbia in europe and whatever from more deliberate approach of leveraging the existing talent by
00:27:37
Evan Shy
right right right
Advice for New Tech Graduates
00:27:54
Dmytro Savchenko
augmenting them with their new capabilities and ai and stuff
00:27:59
Dmytro Savchenko
Yeah, and like in this era of like the whole industry disruption I still see a lot of people i choosing to go to the colleges to learn the computer science to dive deeper and still finish the education and training in that field So do you have any advice for them, like how they should perceive how they should strategize their career
00:28:05
Evan Shy
Thank you.
00:28:29
Dmytro Savchenko
What is the best choice for them?
00:28:32
Evan Shy
That's a good question. A big question right now, because there's a growing population of smart, motivated people who just finished college and a computer science degree, or even in some cases, bootcamp, and realize that the market, the employer market has moved away from them. And all of a sudden, the kind of entry points into organizations are requiring things that they've really had no way historically of of getting three, four years of experience. right
00:29:04
Evan Shy
I think without a doubt, there's going to need to be some type of, just in terms of like societally and and the overall economy, there's going to need to be a bridge there. And, you know, it' certainly one of the roles that we feel that we play is to be that experience engine.
00:29:19
Evan Shy
How can we create simulations of these enterprises and provide those truly enterprise grade simulations to these incredible folks so they can get those three years experience in a year, right? How can we do it faster and compress that experience?
00:29:37
Evan Shy
That's what we're doing about it. But the advice I would provide to to those folks is quite simple. I would do everything that you can to start earning experience faster, start building, um build in public.
00:29:56
Evan Shy
You know, I think a portfolio is going to speak volumes over, you know, credentials, you know, so.
00:30:02
Dmytro Savchenko
that's the advice I always give to young people as well just go create something like create the GitHub rep and start putting putting something out there just to demonstrate your talent and work yeah that's very exciting and the as we're approaching the end of the interview I have a last question as well the advice for the entrepreneurs who are building stuff and this and certainly
00:30:05
Evan Shy
Yeah.
00:30:16
Evan Shy
Totally.
00:30:26
Evan Shy
and
00:30:31
Evan Shy
Yeah, things are moving very, very fast. um There's no doubt about it. And it's hard to identify you know where the puck is going, if you will, and where value is going to accrue in this ecosystem.
00:30:45
Evan Shy
i think in moments like that, it's smart to... Really hone in on kind of a ah first principle the approach of what are the things that you do know? What are the tailwinds that you do know that exist at least have a lot of conviction over?
00:31:00
Evan Shy
As I said before, spend some time trying to latch on to those tailwinds and identify things. a sharp, acute customer problem and validate that problem as early on in the journey as you possibly can, um it'll make everything else a lot easier. So tailwinds identifying a really, really sharp problem ah that you can solve uniquely and hopefully do it in a differentiated way that you stand out in a noisy marketplace.
00:31:28
Evan Shy
And doing those things is going to help a lot of things downstream be a lot easier raising capital building a team you know uh achieving success
00:31:37
Dmytro Savchenko
I see, I see. And if ever um they will need lu hire someone in the tech space or have some talents, they it can definitely come to you.
Final Thoughts on Collaboration & Market Tailwinds
00:31:52
Evan Shy
that's right that's right
00:31:52
Dmytro Savchenko
Or they can come to me for the tech strategy alignment advice and those kind of consulting as well.
00:31:57
Evan Shy
but
00:32:00
Evan Shy
nice
00:32:01
Dmytro Savchenko
So, Heavenshay, thank you so much. That was really interesting and inspiring conversation.
00:32:04
Evan Shy
Thank you.
00:32:07
Dmytro Savchenko
And yeah, looking forward to having it promoted. And we will post your link to your social networks in the description of the video. And any last words to the audience?
00:32:20
Evan Shy
Just, you know, all the things that that we said, I think the TLDR worked with really, really smart people, find tailwinds where you can. um And yeah, it's an exciting time. I think there's a lot of opportunity ahead of us.
00:32:36
Dmytro Savchenko
Awesome. Thank you. Bye.
00:32:38
Evan Shy
Thank you.