The Power of Cultural Intelligence in Business: A Founder's Perspective

In this episode of the Beyond Normal Podcast, we sit down with Khalil El-Amin — co-founder of NicheFire and a true cultural strategist. Khalil takes us through his journey from the football field to founding a tech company that helps brands understand culture in real time. We talk about the hard choices that shaped his career, including stepping away from his father’s business and learning tough sales skills through door-to-door copier sales.

Khalil shares how growing up in a culturally diverse environment inspired him to build NicheFire, a platform that turns complex data into actionable cultural insights for brands. From spotting unexpected consumer trends to using AI to empower teams (not replace them), Khalil gives us a deep look into how culture and data can work hand in hand to shape brand strategy.

Tune in to learn how resilience, curiosity, and a willingness to bet on yourself can lead to big breakthroughs — both in business and in life.

Thanks for tuning into the Beyond Normal Podcast!

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🔗 Learn more about NicheFire‘s work at: https://nichefire.com/

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Transcript

Kenny 0:33

Welcome, welcome everybody to another great episode of the Beyond Normal Podcast, where you all know, every founder story is a journey worth exploring. Today we have a very special guest for you all, a chief strategist, somebody who is focusing on culture that is a heavy word in today's time They are, Khalil El Amin, who is the co-founder of Nichefire. For those of you who are not familiar with the Nichefire Tool, it's a tool that focuses on understanding cultural trends at any moment across a whole host of, platforms that we all know and use, and it just removes that heavy lifting for users. So without further ado, let's bring Khalil to the stage so we can get this conversation going. How's it going, Khalil?

Khalil 1:17

It is going well man. I appreciate you having me.

Kenny 1:20

Yes, for sure. you, I had the, the, the luxury of, connecting with you, in the amazing city of Cincinnati. the, the, you were, you showed me a good time. You, you let me know like what the tech scene is looking like in that, that that beautiful city. so I appreciate you for, you know, Taking me in, with the brotherly love for sure, when I was on that visit. and we've been connecting ever since, and I just had to have you on the platform, for the amazing work that you're doing. so I, I just wanted to say appreciate you for coming on the platform. Let's start out first question though. Before you were working on Nichefire, tell us a little bit about your story. You know, what you were doing with your life. What was your life focus before being a, taking that gamble on yourself and, and being a founder?

Khalil 2:10

Oh God.

Kenny 2:11

That's

Khalil 2:11

a, that's actually an excellent question it it. Always comes up. I was a, I was an athlete, so for most of Most of my life working towards, be becoming a professional athlete was, my main goal. So, after high school, I, I, a full, athletic scholarship. I had a had a lot of choices. chose to stay in Cincinnati and I played for the University of Cincinnati where, was able to, win a couple championships do a whole lot. So really before all of the tech, entrepreneur, you know, stuff that I started to pick up on, it was all about football, man. So, waking up early, working out protein shakes, you know what I mean? the, normal athletic, routines and lifestyles. What, what I was living into and, um. I made it, well, I, I got picked up as a free agent after college, with the Arizona Cardinals, but I got cut, I got cut in mini camps, so I never really even got a chance to get my professional career going. Now, I did play some arena football, couple years after that to kind of get football out of my system, but, that's kind of where it started with for me is, is just kind of figuring out how to reinvent myself. Um. And then naturally, father is an entrepreneur. My, my father was an entrepreneur, successful entrepreneur here in the city. so so I went, you know, started working with the family business, but quickly found that I didn't didn't. too much. I jumped into, where was that enterprise rental car. I did the whole, you know, they, they hire athletes, they love athletes there. So I did enterprise for a little bit, and then I moved to B2B sales, at Xerox. So, for a Xerox company. Got a chance to get that good sales training and, learned how to go door to door. selling copiers. that was, That was, that was kind of my start. like the corporate side. And at And at that same time, learning, You know how to how to become the, that I that I'm today mm-hmm. that I was

Kenny 4:35

Working.

Khalil 4:36

well.

Kenny 4:37

I appreciate that background. you closing this out with, selling door to door, that. That is a, that is a path to learning how to do sales. rather, that's not a great experience for most people that I, I've talked to who go down the path of door to door sales. But you definitely, everybody I talk to, they know they have some takeaways from that experience that they leveraged for their whole career. So I will say that much about the door-to-door sales

Khalil 5:07

Just, Just literally literally think about like knocking on residential homes

Kenny 5:11

homes door to door.

Khalil 5:13

but business.

Kenny 5:16

Yep. So, the more,

Khalil 5:18

more, more, you gotta be light on your feet, right? You gotta be able to kind of talk and, and deal with people's objections and build up some, you know, pretty tough skin.

Kenny 5:31

You know? Mm-hmm. Rather quickly. So, I think, as you gave us that, that breakdown there, a, a common theme is, like you said, you've been. You worked, for your, your, your family business for a while, like there's some legacy there. I'm, I'm curious, like what were the conversations like, shout out to pops? Like what were the conversations like when you, you had to tell them like, Hey, this isn't for me because. You know, when we think about somebody starting a business and then you have it, you hand it over to your kids, there's this ro romanticizing of that idea. But that is not always the case. So how did that conversation go for you?

Khalil 6:19

it was really hard. it, it really changed me and my dad's relationship too. as a little boy, I was like stuck to my dad's hip, right? I did everything he did. I always tried to go to work with him and, and all those. So naturally, I guess. you build up some type of like, affinity for that thought, right? That, you know, someone's gonna take over this one day and, and naturally be my, my oldest or my oldest son or the, the, the child that shows the most interest in the business. And that was me. I think the, the issue was there, there were a couple different issues, right? entrepreneurs, and, and you know, just as much as me. Um. ups and downs, right? My father ran a, commercial landscaping business, did really, really well for many, many years, but right Right around. where I was coming out of college is where he was having the most issues with this business. So back to the business at that time wasn't ideal for, a, a new college grad, and it was 2008, so we're in the

Kenny 7:32

Oh yeah.

Khalil 7:34

I mean, I don't know how many of my friends end up going to Korea to go teach and stuff

Kenny 7:39

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 7:40

No

Kenny 7:40

No one had a job.

Khalil 7:41

what? They graduated from college, with, like, I'm not, I'm not

Kenny 7:45

I'm not,

Khalil 7:46

one,

Kenny 7:46

one

Khalil 7:47

few people had a job

Kenny 7:49

a job that.

Khalil 7:50

with their degrees at that time. So for me to jump into entrepreneurship, that was like a, you know, I graduated with marketing and entrepreneurship degree, so. I

Kenny 8:01

I got

Khalil 8:02

the

Kenny 8:02

the rough part of entrepreneurship, very, very early.

Khalil 8:06

By kind of

Kenny 8:06

Kind of seeing

Khalil 8:07

my

Kenny 8:07

all my dad

Khalil 8:08

was dealing with

Kenny 8:09

with that

Khalil 8:10

because of the

Kenny 8:11

of the stress and

Khalil 8:13

inconsistency inconsist of, you know,

Kenny 8:17

revenue coming

Khalil 8:18

like

Kenny 8:18

back.

Khalil 8:19

it was

Kenny 8:19

It was hard.

Khalil 8:20

dad to

Kenny 8:20

dad

Khalil 8:21

kind of

Kenny 8:21

manage

Khalil 8:22

that same entrepreneur. He had always been. I hadn't seen him, tread water,

Kenny 8:28

Mm.

Khalil 8:28

makes sense.

Kenny 8:29

Yeah.

Khalil 8:30

So it

Kenny 8:30

So it became,

Khalil 8:31

for me. And at the

Kenny 8:33

at the time, you know,

Khalil 8:34

I had a

Kenny 8:34

I, a girlfriend, I had a child on the way. I had to make that decision.

Khalil 8:38

was

Kenny 8:39

It was hard talking

Khalil 8:39

to my

Kenny 8:40

to my dad about,

Khalil 8:41

but we talked and he didn't

Kenny 8:44

he didn't

Khalil 8:45

but he dealt with it. And, it was the

Kenny 8:50

it was a

Khalil 8:51

thing

Kenny 8:51

thing for me at that time because what I was able to

Khalil 8:54

was

Kenny 8:54

twist c.

Khalil 8:56

at scale how.

Kenny 8:58

Scale.

Khalil 8:59

Surviving businesses running right. that, training program at Enterprise is world

Kenny 9:07

world class. Right?

Khalil 9:08

can, you can talk to

Kenny 9:09

Talk. Anyone

Khalil 9:11

and marketing, and leadership and they'll tell you like some of the programs or, or things that, that try to be, that companies try to

Kenny 9:20

Replic.

Khalil 9:21

that's always one

Kenny 9:22

One of.

Khalil 9:22

and it's because they do a really good job of helping you, like down a

Kenny 9:27

with,

Khalil 9:28

down to the spreadsheets. I mean, like everything

Kenny 9:32

matters, what your working, in that rental,

Khalil 9:35

business. So, I took

Kenny 9:38

I took it as an opportunity.

Khalil 9:39

and, you

Kenny 9:40

You know, I, I hated to raise my dad's hard, but

Khalil 9:43

it as an

Kenny 9:43

an opportunity

Khalil 9:44

to go

Kenny 9:44

go be right, still learn more.

Khalil 9:48

And,

Kenny 9:48

all those things that I learned.

Khalil 9:50

working in corporate America were pools that I was able to kind of bring.

Kenny 9:55

My,

Khalil 9:55

my repertoire when I,

Kenny 9:57

I jumped out.

Khalil 9:58

And did enterprise, or

Kenny 9:59

I first

Khalil 10:00

entrepreneurship on my

Kenny 10:03

on my own. So, it, it was a tough conversation.

Khalil 10:06

changed me and my dad's

Kenny 10:08

my dad's relationship.

Khalil 10:09

I don't

Kenny 10:11

I don't think he presented for it, but

Khalil 10:15

it was

Kenny 10:15

it was definitely something that happened.

Khalil 10:17

And I think that,

Kenny 10:18

I think that,

Khalil 10:19

Every son and

Kenny 10:21

Father

Khalil 10:21

relationship

Kenny 10:22

a relationship that exists across that, that path.

Khalil 10:25

point,

Kenny 10:25

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 10:27

for sure.

Kenny 10:28

Yeah. That's, like you said, it, it is, it's bound to happen like it should happen. Having those like conversations and there should be this transition, it's just not gonna be easy for, as I can only imagine, like going to my dad and he's got this plan. And I am like, nah, I'm not going with that plan,

Khalil 10:49

It, it was one of those things where it was like, dad, I got, I, I hear your plan, but I think your plan is broken.

Kenny 10:58

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 10:58

So it's like, well, will you mean my plan is broken? What

Kenny 11:03

Yeah.

Khalil 11:04

what do you know? And I didn't understand that pushback then, as much as I understand it now.

Kenny 11:14

For sure.

Khalil 11:15

However, I still don't think I was wrong, right? That I was wrong in trying to change the way he was looking at his business. But the fact that he didn't want to, I, I think, that gave me enough understanding that I had to change what I was doing regardless.

Kenny 11:31

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 11:32

That was the hard part, is like making the decision to. That's gonna hurt someone that you love. but it's the best decision for yourself.

Kenny 11:41

Yeah, it

Khalil 11:41

it kind of made

Kenny 11:42

kind of made me feel selfish, but be selfish sometimes. Every founder's a little selfish, man.

Khalil 11:48

yes, man Yeah,

Kenny 11:49

You gotta just be honest. So I want to transition a little bit, right? So you, you had the, you, you, you knew you wanted to take this gamble on yourself is what I like to call it, for folks. So I'm curious. You know, what was that fir Like your business is around culture now, right? Like, what was like that first? How did this idea come together? Like what was that first moment like? For, for, for Nichefire? Because this is a broad topic to most people don't say, Hey, I want to have a culture tool, a culture solution.

Khalil 12:23

we launched Nichefire back in 2017, and, and originally it was a competitive analysis tool. what we, what we did was, let me back

Kenny 12:36

Back

Khalil 12:36

right? Let me tell you how

Kenny 12:38

how

Khalil 12:39

my founders. Because this doesn't, this doesn't happen, and this kind of plays into the why. Why would you keep

Kenny 12:47

you.

Khalil 12:47

something if you don't? You know, just bear with me. So I'm selling copiers, right? First year, B2B rep, sales manager comes to the bullpen and he says, Hey, I bought tickets to this networking event. Does anyone want to go?

Kenny 13:06

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 13:06

I'm like, two, three weeks in

Kenny 13:10

Free food and drink. Right. I'm assuming,

Khalil 13:12

Free food and drink.

Kenny 13:13

oh.

Khalil 13:15

you know, sales manager, he's new. one's giving him the energy that, that he wants. see. As a opportunity to, to,'cause he was cool. I liked, I liked him. he was a super cool manager, so I'm like, nah, I'll go right now. Everyone is just crickets, right? No one wants to go ev like, no one even looks up from their computer. I'm like, Hey, let me go to this networking event. So we get there as a speed networking event, right? red flag number one already. Weird, right? All right, let's go through the tables. Now. I'm peeping the scene and it, it is a lot of like, you know, older women, older people and they, they were real familiar with how they were pitching. Like, Hey, let me watch, do you wanna come watch my video? It was a bunch of network marketing people.

Kenny 14:10

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 14:11

now the light bulb goes off. This is why no one wanted to come. Everyone knew this was a bunch

Kenny 14:17

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Khalil 14:19

I look,

Kenny 14:20

look, I look at

Khalil 14:20

the room

Kenny 14:20

the room

Khalil 14:21

to sit next to the

Kenny 14:22

person,

Khalil 14:22

least likely to pitch me. There's a gentleman

Kenny 14:25

gentleman

Khalil 14:25

pfo, right? I sit next to

Kenny 14:28

next to them,

Khalil 14:29

You go to uc or you went to uc? He said, yeah, alumni. Me too. and this

Kenny 14:36

person,

Khalil 14:37

right? So, halfway through it you

Kenny 14:41

through you get, you know,

Khalil 14:42

all

Kenny 14:42

all these network.

Khalil 14:43

teams getting up, selling stuff. So

Kenny 14:45

So, hey,

Khalil 14:46

let's go

Kenny 14:46

let's go get coffee.

Khalil 14:47

complete trash. it,

Kenny 14:51

it, it was, it literally,

Khalil 14:53

to happen because at that time, I'm learning

Kenny 14:55

I'm learning.

Khalil 14:55

digital marketing. I can't execute on the design. Michael was designer and. know, partial coder, right? And we were like, Hey, why don't we join together and like, just start something. So a week after meeting at that event, him and I started an agency and that was a real business that I started. So fast forward to, fast

Kenny 15:19

fast forward to

Khalil 15:19

know, kind of getting to Nichefire. We

Kenny 15:22

started in 20,

Khalil 15:25

17. this is after we shut down the agency and everything. We

Kenny 15:29

wanted to build

Khalil 15:30

that leveraged social

Kenny 15:33

media,

Khalil 15:33

AI to, to

Kenny 15:35

to provide a

Khalil 15:36

a cultural, or excuse me, a, competitive

Kenny 15:39

kind of analysis.

Khalil 15:40

and doing this

Kenny 15:41

This work.

Khalil 15:42

And, you know, we kind of built this tool out. It, it got really, really

Kenny 15:47

Really good.

Khalil 15:48

and stuff like that from our peers and testing and stuff like that. And we were, we were able to get one customer, one big customer from it, and we just kind of landed, expanded with that customer to survive for a long time. But the pain wasn't painful enough in the market for that tool. it wasn't until the, you know, the one of the departments we were selling into came to us and, and they told us that, you know, they thought

Kenny 16:13

They thought our tool was

Khalil 16:14

really

Kenny 16:15

really awesome.

Khalil 16:15

is like market

Kenny 16:16

Market research

Khalil 16:17

So we're excited. that

Kenny 16:19

that

Khalil 16:20

thinks our tool is good and said, but, but our

Kenny 16:22

But our problem isn't really the kind of analysis thing. It's us understanding, those unknown unknowns.

Khalil 16:29

right? We have these

Kenny 16:30

Social

Khalil 16:31

tools. We have

Kenny 16:32

have these,

Khalil 16:32

know,

Kenny 16:33

you know, workflows

Khalil 16:34

this information from consumers, but we

Kenny 16:36

don't have a way

Khalil 16:38

what to search for when we don't know

Kenny 16:40

that.

Khalil 16:41

So if you guys could build a tool that did that, that would be golden for us. So kind of went back to the drawing board and, you know, luckily Michael was able to kind of think, think, think about ways and confirm ways that we pulled in the data and, and if, you know, through data scientists, if we could make these assumptions around, you know, unknown unknowns and, and culture. And that

Kenny 17:06

That literally was the.

Khalil 17:07

of our, our first pivot into this cultural listening tool. Um. We spent, we spun up a MVP validated with individuals, and it it got the attention that we always wanted. when That's when we knew, to kind kind of take this move forward. Now, Now, on the personal side, what what resonated for me was that I grew up in a very culturally diverse, world, right? My, my parents were Muslim, we're only Only Muslim in our

Kenny 17:39

are higher family.

Khalil 17:41

of my family's Christian. Right. So I always

Kenny 17:44

I always had that dynamic there.

Khalil 17:45

neighborhood I grew

Kenny 17:46

I grew up in,

Khalil 17:47

and the school that I went to had a lot of Jewish Jewish, I grew, I grew up grew up with a lot of Jewish kids kids. and learning about Hanukkah and, and some of their traditions. and then I

Kenny 17:58

I always like this

Khalil 18:00

nerdy athlete type as

Kenny 18:02

as well,

Khalil 18:03

So so I've always kind of had a chameleon in how how. with individuals. So the, the fact that we landed into this cultural. Technology, it was

Kenny 18:13

It was like.

Khalil 18:14

fake. Right? So, I hope that answers the question I get. I.

Kenny 18:19

No, it definitely does, man. Like, you're, you're, you're, you, you, you, you really went through the whole like, genesis, right? Like that, that thought, like sometimes that can be like a trick question for somebody to ask you. Like you said, like. Like, what was the first idea that you all pulled together for the company? Like, and you gave me the full story, so I appreciate that. Like I saw the movie play out, I, as you were talking about it, and I think that's really powerful because like as I mentioned at the top of the call, right, every I. Founder story, right? It's a journey. Like it's a movie that you, you can share as much as you want, and then it's up to us as the listeners. I'm a listener in that case as you were telling that story. So I appreciate you sharing a little bit about your background. You, you threw in a word there as you were explaining it though. you mentioned it first. I didn't. Folks, we talk about it a lot. The word is called AI, or the term is called AI now. Right?

Khalil 19:13

Oh

Kenny 19:13

So I'm, I'm curious, like how do you keep. All right. How do you keep the work you're doing grounded in like the human element, right? When you're building something that has a focus on AI and there's like this, how do I get to the perfect answer in the, on the back of people's minds? I'm curious, like what, what's your thoughts around that?

Khalil 19:36

So when we, you know, the, the fact that, you know, almost 10 years ago we were entertaining AI, that, that that word was me. key And reinventing or just kind of burning my ships and saying, Hey, I'm gonna do this tech thing now. Right? Because what I what I saw 10 years ago. Wasn't the threatening side that a lot of people think about when it comes to AI. I was thinking about more of the practical applications of the AI, how it helps people do things better. Right. I've I. like the AI should empower teams to help them get more meaningful work faster, and really what the Nichefire tool, even when it was a competitive analysis tool, that's what it did. At its core is that it made smarter, it made smart people smarter because it cut down on the research side. That would have to, that's that one would have to do when you're doing some type of competitive analysis, right? So So instead of, you know, to one to two maybe even three people within a team or a cohort working on a on a project, around understanding. a a, a particular element you throw so AI tool, Now now you. added what's, what seems to be a data scientist, a couple data scientists, a couple Couple analysts, right? right? It it seemed to kind of super supercharged far groups so that they that they spend less time digging and, and trying to figure out out what's happening, and more more time on reacting from. the information. Mm-hmm. So now, fast fast forward that to now cultural listing technology. We're providing businesses the the business to cut cut through 80 to to hour. per project, right? Months that these teams would be stuck doing. So what What that means is that Mr. customer here. spends almost the entire month trying to understand one element of culture. Now they can understand many elements of culture at one time and spend more time ideation, planning, strategic, you know, strategic, having those strategic conversations with the brand. market research, tuning tuning all those areas, with beforehand So again, and like, I think I think when we first started, a lot of people were talk talking about AI because the fear of it taking over, taking someone's job. And and now we're in this era of, you know, AI as my as my partner, AI as I is my friend. which really helps out Nichefire because now when we're selling in, it's not a lot of pushback of, oh, I'm gonna lose my job. Or This is gonna, people see this as a tool to kind of help them advance their career.

Kenny 22:48

I love that. Yeah. I think it is the, the tool's here to stay like you, like you said. So it's like, like why not get the most of it? Make yourself that much more efficient. I think that's a powerful way to go about it. whether somebody's a small business owner, you know, they're, they got a business on Main Street, or they're building a tech company, like what you all are building with Nichefire. Like there's a need for AI now to. To scale up, you threw something in there around CPG, consumer, good companies. Right. I, I'm curious, like with you being, and you and your team being based in Cincinnati, how has that shaped how you're growing the business?'cause I know there is like a big CPG focus in, in Cincinnati and the surrounding area, so I'm curious, like, how has being in that, in that city, in that area, led to some opportunities or, or maybe forced you to look in other places? Mm-hmm.

Khalil 24:09

If I'm not mistaken, what you What you have also behind that is some of the from the top you know, data. I don't, I don't wanna call'em like data warehouses, but like, data, the the top, people like using data. Leveraging data, right? So we got like got 84 50, which which is essentially, Kroger's. You know, they house It has all the program data and and many, many, many other retail data, data data, but have you have some of the, top top mind in the space of of working working with data and, and data data and analytics and stuff like that that come come with that as well. So So being here, and being being connected to the you know, the startup like that, it it almost, um. It was it was hard. because being that the, those, you know, those young Young guys that are trying try to do this in this space, these giants that have been doing it, you don't really get heard immediately. So what we had to do is really figure out, where do where do we make that, where do we provide that most? Right? Right? and it was specifically the social intelligence, Right. right? So we found the proof that literally how. Social top social intelligent practi practitioners from all from all over the world was a there's a growing group as well. we we spent at like our last dollars to scholar to be a part of this cohort where we went and inspiring how talk we do do and how how to how to build up the value of social intelligence stuff and stuff like that. So that helped us. You know, kind of, it, it, it helped Helped us get out in front of us that wasn't wasn't, yet. And

Kenny 26:06

mm-hmm.

Khalil 26:07

we

Kenny 26:07

We had to leave,

Khalil 26:08

to do

Kenny 26:09

do that. But what happens

Khalil 26:10

after

Kenny 26:11

that

Khalil 26:11

the

Kenny 26:12

is

Khalil 26:12

Right

Kenny 26:13

now

Khalil 26:14

we are

Kenny 26:14

we're able to kind of get those

Khalil 26:15

here locally. We're able to

Kenny 26:16

talk, those

Khalil 26:17

top data scientists at, you know, x,

Kenny 26:20

X, Y, Z

Khalil 26:21

or that used

Kenny 26:22

that used to work.

Khalil 26:23

and Gamble, or used to do this for Macy's. Macy's used to be headquartered here too. so we're, we're able

Kenny 26:28

We're able to kind of touch,

Khalil 26:30

touch those areas. And

Kenny 26:32

And I think being in Cincinnati and, and all of us being from Cincinnati, um,

Khalil 26:38

or at

Kenny 26:39

or at,

Khalil 26:39

the

Kenny 26:39

from the University of Cincinnati

Khalil 26:41

kind of plays

Kenny 26:42

into

Khalil 26:43

of our image too is like, you know, kind of

Kenny 26:45

kind of

Khalil 26:47

junkyard dog types that, that just don't take note for an answer. So.

Kenny 26:51

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 26:52

I think

Kenny 26:53

I think that that's

Khalil 26:54

of the

Kenny 26:54

one of the things that, the biggest place that kind of shaped us,

Khalil 26:57

gave

Kenny 26:57

gave us that resilience.

Khalil 26:59

to say,

Kenny 26:59

Say, okay,

Khalil 27:00

we're in

Kenny 27:01

we're in this place where we,

Khalil 27:02

of

Kenny 27:02

some of the top mind in the world,

Khalil 27:04

doing this

Kenny 27:04

this type of work.

Khalil 27:05

listening to us. Let's, you know, let's, let's

Kenny 27:09

Lets try these people over here.

Khalil 27:11

you want us to come to London? Okay, we'll come to London and launch our product in London. And, and we came that. That's when it was like, what are you guys doing in London? And it, it, it kind

Kenny 27:23

kind of, you know,

Khalil 27:24

it is

Kenny 27:25

definitely

Khalil 27:26

of

Kenny 27:26

just

Khalil 27:26

resilience, man. Like, I mean, I think a lot of

Kenny 27:29

a lot of people

Khalil 27:30

before we did. And that I,

Kenny 27:34

I, I, I

Khalil 27:35

that

Kenny 27:35

that that is part of like kind of being

Khalil 27:37

in the city is, is definitely gotta show improve because there's a lot of, you know, talented people, working for the corporations here locally.

Kenny 27:45

Yeah, I love that. Um. Yeah, like you said, there's some really big entities in a city like Cincinnati, and then you gotta figure out how to get on their radar. And then once you have those relationships, it's really cool to see how you can leverage that further, to go after some really cool opportunities. last question that I wanna wrap up with you, and it's, um. As you're looking at this, like this, this whole kind of, I, I look at niche fry. You guys are like indexing culture in a lot of ways, right? With all the, just all the different feeds that you all have is really cool. You've showed me the platform before. What's some of the like, or what's like the biggest aha moment you've seen while exploring the data in Nichefire? Because I know you, I know you look at a lot of trends across different, really across different countries, across different groups, so I'm curious like what's the biggest aha, or maybe it is some, a recent aha for you moment that, that you saw.

Khalil 28:41

Let's

Kenny 28:41

Let's kind of, let's kind of take a.

Khalil 28:43

to it and, and talk about, and it's this make, make believe element that, that shows up as a

Kenny 28:52

That shows up.

Khalil 28:52

sometimes because we operate in a, at a very, you have to be very optimistic, right? You don't get a lot of people believing in you. You, you're, you're kind of walking this path lonely in, in a lot of, in a lot of cases. So one of the biggest aha moments that I had is that our tool is actually working. and, and this is what I mean, right? When you're ingesting millions of data points from, you know, many, many different channels, and you're using AI to make sense of it, in those early days of that. You get a lot of noise, right? You get a lot of noise, you get a lot of doubts in what you're, what you're seeing within the technology. So operating in that space of, you know, hey, in our beta it's really noisy. People can't make sense of the data. this really telling me The truth was kind

Kenny 29:52

Kind of where I had to operate as the main,

Khalil 29:55

too. where

Kenny 29:57

where I developed

Khalil 29:58

little bit of, um. I, I developed a little bit of, you know, ident, a little

Kenny 30:06

a little bit of an

Khalil 30:07

crisis, right? If, if, if you

Kenny 30:09

identity

Khalil 30:09

right? I

Kenny 30:10

right. I had,

Khalil 30:10

had,

Kenny 30:11

um.

Khalil 30:12

syndrome and the, the, the fears that I

Kenny 30:16

that I had was that the data

Khalil 30:17

telling me the truth and that

Kenny 30:20

that wasn't the case

Khalil 30:21

just noisy. So as we continue to iterate and develop and get our

Kenny 30:25

get our model more accurate,

Khalil 30:27

It was able to pull in

Kenny 30:28

more accurate data.

Khalil 30:30

And

Kenny 30:30

And one, one

Khalil 30:31

one area

Kenny 30:32

area

Khalil 30:32

I, I

Kenny 30:33

that I, I saw I was doing a project

Khalil 30:36

where I was, look, I was looking at the impacts of inflation consumers and I

Kenny 30:43

And I kept seeing it

Khalil 30:45

pop

Kenny 30:45

pop up like

Khalil 30:46

seen the normal

Kenny 30:47

normal

Khalil 30:47

up of

Kenny 30:48

truth,

Khalil 30:48

prices, skyrocketing inflation. Consumers, you know, there there was this

Kenny 30:54

this

Khalil 30:55

food

Kenny 30:56

food,

Khalil 30:56

right?

Kenny 30:56

right where people were

Khalil 30:58

willingly

Kenny 30:59

buying.

Khalil 30:59

ugly fruits and, you, I don't know how many

Kenny 31:03

How many brands,

Khalil 31:04

off. You can buy like the, the cutup pieces of lunch, meat, or bacon, right? Instead of buying a full pack, right? You all these things kind of happening because of inflation and you had normal things happening too, like people switching from name brands to private labels or store, store. And stuff like that. But then I kept seeing this YouTuber brand trend pop up in, in the data, and it,

Kenny 31:28

And it happened across three different dashboards that I built

Khalil 31:31

monitoring.

Kenny 31:32

So I

Khalil 31:32

I immediately, you know what, you know, said it was noise, right? Until

Kenny 31:37

so I, I kind of

Khalil 31:38

what, one

Kenny 31:39

with one of my advisors

Khalil 31:40

said,

Kenny 31:40

said, no, it's, it's a lot more here than

Khalil 31:42

think we're given credit

Kenny 31:44

to.

Khalil 31:44

Let's dive into this a little bit more. And what

Kenny 31:47

What we found was that consumers, despite

Khalil 31:50

The

Kenny 31:50

a

Khalil 31:51

situations for a lot of

Kenny 31:52

lot of people

Khalil 31:53

if

Kenny 31:54

there was a.

Khalil 31:55

YouTuber or a streamer led brand that came on the scene like prime or feasts or lunch sleeves, right? Like these, these things will pop up and then the fans will go crazy for these and say like, I'm gonna buy this at premium price because it's coming from a, a source that I love and I'm a fan of, right? I really count on seeing things like that happening. And I communicated this to some of our customers and things like that. And lo and behold, maybe a month or two after I seen that trend, it

Kenny 32:29

There's a huge barage

Khalil 32:31

I mean, I think Logan

Kenny 32:32

call

Khalil 32:34

somebody

Kenny 32:34

somebody else.

Khalil 32:35

Lunchable, there's a,

Kenny 32:37

there's a

Khalil 32:37

of

Kenny 32:38

bunch of other,

Khalil 32:39

Things

Kenny 32:39

happening. I think it was called.

Khalil 32:41

Year

Kenny 32:42

Your way

Khalil 32:43

Away,

Kenny 32:44

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 32:44

a market,

Kenny 32:45

Market's a market way.

Khalil 32:47

strawberry, like one strawberry for like 25 bucks.

Kenny 32:50

That's crazy.

Khalil 32:51

And they

Kenny 32:51

And they had like all

Khalil 32:53

smoothies for like$45, tequilas and coffees and like all this

Kenny 32:59

all

Khalil 32:59

happening. Or influencer

Kenny 33:02

coffee and stuff like that happen, and it was just kind of like this garage thing.

Khalil 33:05

like,

Kenny 33:05

was like, oh, wow.

Khalil 33:07

my

Kenny 33:07

my aha.

Khalil 33:08

okay,

Kenny 33:09

we're on the.

Khalil 33:10

with this. This is how

Kenny 33:11

How I

Khalil 33:13

within the platform and start

Kenny 33:15

talking about

Khalil 33:16

a little bit more

Kenny 33:17

more louder.

Khalil 33:17

because it's working. that was

Kenny 33:20

That was like my moment

Khalil 33:22

Now

Kenny 33:22

now. We've had some moments in the market.

Khalil 33:24

well, which I, you know, we could save those stories for another time,

Kenny 33:29

Yeah, for sure.

Khalil 33:30

We've helped inspire,

Kenny 33:32

products.

Khalil 33:33

we helped inspire, products that are on the shelves now. Products that are being made, marketing campaigns, all types of stuff with our, but literally seeing that one signal and being able to communicate it. We did a webinar about it and everything, was like my big moment where I was like, oh, right. Now I don't have to be fearful of showing this off. Now I don't have to be fearful of, Misrepresenting or, or you know, the AI hallucinating or anything like that, like I didn't have to deal with that. I could talk straight facts.

Kenny 34:07

Appreciate that. And so in closing, I just wanna say, Khalil, thank you for being on the platform. You shared a lot about your journey, what you're building with Nichefire. Can you real quickly tell folks how to stay tapped in with the brand, with you? What's the best route to, to see all things that are going on in your world?

Khalil 34:23

Yeah, for sure. and I appreciate, appreciate you having me, man. It's always a pleasure. it, it's very easy. Reach out to us via LinkedIn. if you could provide, our, our LinkedIn, personal link. Well, LinkedIn as well, as well as Michael and Stevens. we, we got three founders here, so it's really easy to kind of get in, in contact with one of us. and then you always can check out our blog. we got a newsletter drop in next week. www.nichefire.com is the website

Kenny 34:56

Mm-hmm.

Khalil 34:57

LinkedIn will be the best way to kind of contact this person.

Kenny 35:00

Appreciate you for that. Khalil, for those listening in, thank you for tuning into another great episode of The Beyond Normal Podcast. Appreciate it.