Resilience: Team and the Company

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Eli Farhood, Chief Executive Officer at Katsh Digital ID. Hailing from Greece, Eli is a prior financial services executive and, with Katsh, a second time Founder. After experiencing fraud first hand, he pivoted a business in the making to create Katsh; separating one’s device from the need for authentication.
Katsh aspires to democratize identify protection.

For the month of October, they speak about cybersecurity and how to structure resilience into your company.

You can find out more about Eli at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/efarhood/

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2228414/episodes/15385106-stop-using-insecure-passwords-with-eli-farhood

https://missionmatters.com/defending-digital-frontiers-meet-the-hosts/

You can subscribe to Next Act Advisors at https://nextactadvisors.com/product/subscriptions/ and be sure to use the special discount code "sandbox25" for friends of The Founder's Sandbox for 25% off your subscription.

 

Transcription: 

00:04
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01:01
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01:22
Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am your host, Brenda McCabe. We're now into our third season and over 38 episodes. This monthly podcast, it reaches entrepreneurs and business owners who like building and learning about resilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses with great corporate governance undergirding them. At the Founder's Sandbox and in my work,

01:52
I have a very simple mission, and I want to help build the scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. The guests that come to the podcast are founders, business owners, corporate board directors, investors and professional service providers who, like me, want to use the power of the enterprise, small, medium or large, to effect change for a better world.

02:17
Through storytelling with each of my guests, we're gonna touch on topics on their own journey that includes resilience, purpose-driven enterprises and sustainable growth. And my goal is to provide a fun environment in a sandbox where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Eli Farhoud. Eli is joining the podcast today.

02:47
in many roles, but primarily he is chief executive officer of Catch Digital ID. This is his second company that he's founded. And he also is an immigrant. So we're gonna touch on several of his stories while we go into this podcast. So thank you, Eli, for joining me today. Hi, Brenda, thank you for having me. I'm really glad to be here. Excellent.

03:13
So again, to my guest, you know, you can find this podcast on any major platform. And I do like to choose jointly with my guest a title. And Eli and I settled upon resilience. And it's gonna be about his team, the company, and the resiliency that's necessary when you're building a company. And we're specifically gonna go into what Catch Digital ID does, cybersecurity.

03:42
and democratizing. So I want to go back to my own journey before I get to your tagline, Eli. My work at Next Act Advisors, which is my consulting arm, and the Founder Sandbox is yet another channel to get to my guest and my clients, I was undeniably influenced by a major life change and moving back to the United States after living 25 years or more in Europe.

04:12
And I talk about being really purpose-driven, scalable, and resiliency in my own journey. So what would your tagline, Eli, be? I share that tagline with you. Resilience is everything. If we don't have resilience, we give up quickly. We don't keep pushing. We don't stay on foot. We don't build the foundation that will help us get there. Resilience is, in my view, I put it under,

04:42
know, being tenacious, having that tenacious and being tenacious and not giving up. And yeah, resilience is very, very important, not just in business. I think on a personal level, resilience brings success to your life. And with respect to the current company that you are leading, Catch Digital ID, does it also have a tagline?

05:10
Yeah, I would say resilience also matches. We're purpose-driven, but resilience definitely matches because most of our team members have had fraud in some shape or form in their life. And that was giving us the energy to keep pushing. For example, our marketing manager had her social accounts hacked multiple times. I was a victim for fraud twice, financial fraud. So...

05:36
My team members also, you know, they're coming from multinationals like IBM and the Raytheon and Symantec. And, you know, they've dealt with, you know, all the identity security, and they know the market very well. So they also understand how to be secure, you have to be very careful about yourself, about your information. And they've seen it over and over in those businesses, you know.

06:03
I mean, IBM sells identity products, semantic cells, and a virus, right? And Raytheon also does great weapons and other stuff, but basically they were working on the security, they've seen it all. And so resilience definitely, you know, is, it has to be, every one of us is an entrepreneur, let's put it this way, and you have to be resilient. That really is a great segue to, you touched on the resiliency of the teammates that, you

06:33
come with very large logos where they've served. They've also been as yourself victims of fraud. So what was your mission when you actually established the company Catch? So we want to really democratize access for everyone. This is basically the goal. We want to have Catch IT in the hands of most people for free. Okay.

07:02
the end user, the consumer. And the reason why is, well, A, we're able to do that. And B, that's how you provide or democratize access. If everyone has a digital ID that can protect their sensitive information from abuse, then you're onto a thriving digital economy. And you're able to unlock a lot of value there where people can exchange goods.

07:31
services, send money to each other, share payments, they can do a lot of things. And some of the things that today we have to do in person, because we're concerned that it's not secure to do that online. So how about if we're able to bring that security to the online world, you would think, like we once tried to imagine how people can use our product and it was so many like venues there.

08:01
You know, we're going to get to how you're raising funds right now. And I can't ask you, you want to not only democratize, but actually provide this for free. So we're going to get into this a little bit later. But there are a lot of cybersecurity products out there. Why is your solution different? And is it enterprise grade, or is it really for individuals, right, citizens? And that's that.

08:30
that leads to how you're raising money. Talk to me about how your solution is different. That's a great question. When we first built Catch, it wasn't Catch. Catch became Catch after I fell victim for fraud. But it was an identity solution to the military. So we wanted to build something military-grade, that the military community can use, can rely on, a reliable product.

09:01
And when we looked at biometrics out there today, all the biometric systems that are available, we noticed that the most reliable ones are dependent on a device, like clear at the airport, for example, your face ID on your iPhone, perhaps Amazon one at the Whole Foods and maybe other brands that I maybe don't know of. And that was the handicap, if you want, of biometric technologies.

09:29
is that requirement that hardware need, right? Yes. If you need a special hardware to operate a biometric system, then it's only convenient where the hardware is available. Got it. And not just that, you would still need to have to use passwords. And when I fell victim to fraud, the big lesson I learned is that fraudsters today can leverage data breaches.

09:59
use that information to their advantage, they can hack our devices, they can hack our identities and hack our accounts. So, and history also has shown, you know, when you see the likes of Microsoft being compromised, you know, hundreds of millions of accounts, AT&T just a few weeks ago, 70 million accounts, 3 billion social security numbers. We were talking about large numbers here. It's not a joke.

10:27
when you see those data breaches and cannot be stopped even by Microsoft, then what can the average Joe do here to protect themselves, right? These are 20 dollar companies who keep pockets, they have teams of engineers, I mean, they have all the resources they want and they're still getting compromised. So we came to that conclusion, like it's really hard. Once information is available on the public domain, it cannot be protected.

10:54
one way or another one day, it's going to be compromised. And so our solution was to eliminate credentials from the security equation. Can you say that again? So it's you're eliminating credentials? We are eliminating credentials from the security of our identities so that hackers have nothing to compromise or to steal anymore. Is that the same as in HIPAA where it is sanitized or it's

11:22
that the private data is disassociated from the health record? No, it's not. Because you're eliminating a credential that existed, and now it no longer exists. We're placing that credential with a hand biometric, but a strong security hand biometric. I can't emphasize enough on strong security, because if you ask people to replace their passwords

11:52
it has to provide a better security than password. You know, the beauty about password is that if it's compromised, I can change it. But can you change your biometric? No. You cannot. And accordingly, it has to be really strong security so that people can trust that technology or that product and use it. And this is really the genesis of cache is that we wanna provide that convenience on any device

12:21
using your hand or we call it palm, right? And it's a strong technology because it involves a lot of technicalities, we can discuss that later, but basically it's a very strong technology that even if a copy of your hand, a picture of your hand, or even a video of your hand has been compromised, that won't affect you or affect your identity security. And this is our promise to our consumers. And it's probably your secret sauce.

12:50
It is a process, but we can go over that quickly. Yeah. Yes, we can get into that. I like that it's independent of device, right? So device agnostic, right? And you eliminate the credentials. So it's fascinating. Fascinating. Got lots of ideas to explore. Because we know credentials are a pain. Absolutely. Right? Who doesn't manage hundreds of passwords? Yeah. That's on an individual level. Let's see in the enterprise world.

13:19
they even have a stronger pain there. As an employee, you have to keep changing those credentials, take care of this, they keep them in a secure place. Enterprise are spending hundreds of millions of dollars just to store that credentials and keep it away from the hackers. So this is a strong pain and it's not efficient. They go back to the sustainability, it's not sustainable. So if we were to go back up a little bit.

13:48
What have been the shortfalls or continue to be the shortfalls of cybersecurity? That's a great question. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big one, right? We know that 80% of fraud globally stems from stolen ID credentials. That's a whopping big number. I've been a victim. That's a big number. Right. And then they send you, you know,

14:16
crawl or experience and for a year it's free, but then you get another hack like that of Microsoft or Blue Shield, all right? So what have been the shortfalls of cybersecurity and perhaps we'll continue to have shortfalls that that catch can eliminate? Yeah, the shortfall like this big headline is that 80% of fraud globally stems from stolen credentials and.

14:42
That's how we came about this approach. Like, how do you solve this? Okay, we need to eliminate credentials. This is not sustainable. It can just keep rolling like this. The biggest shortfall is that we're aren't able to protect our data. I remember maybe eight, nine years ago, I hear of a data breach maybe once a year. Right. Maybe every other year. Now every other week, I hear of a data breach.

15:12
And this is not a surprise to, it's not surprising to us because we know that back in the days also fraudsters and scammers didn't have the technology on hand to conduct those preaches. Now they have access to the latest technologies as we do as well. And so they have access to AI, they have access to that automation that can make their job really efficient. You know, scamming or being a fraudster is a business. It is.

15:42
it is a business. And so they actually study, they do an economic study, like, how much are we going to spend to hack that database and how much we're going to make money out of the database. And the moment you make it extremely expensive for them to hack a database, this is where you're starting, you know, your, your, your, your goal to reach your goal of getting some security. The problem is that history shows, like I said earlier,

16:12
we couldn't just stop these data breaches. And now they're becoming more often, more often than ever. I can give you something a little scary. Like sometimes you can input ideas in a chat bot and it can give you a solution on how you hack a network. Think of just like a fraudster that has a lot of experience. He's asking AI how to hack a network. And I know AI will sometimes respond, I don't do this, like this is not ethical. But there's a way to actually rephrase the question.

16:42
and get the answer. And so now they have that artificial brain that is helping them, automating things for them. And now we can see it, you know, it's around us. And this is really the shortfall. We're not able to stop data breaches and they're providing access to fraudsters to our account. And that's why we need to do something. So can you walk us through

17:12
How you, I wanna download CatchID. How do I do this? Is it available in the market today? Where are you? Because it sounds like it can potentially be ubiquitous or is it you need to do the crowdfunding first? Walk me through some of the features and some of the data that you have already because I'm certain you have beta testing done, please.

17:40
Yeah, so we're made a testing right now with some clients. It is not available to the public, unfortunately. We're trying to get that availability in 2025. At this point, we're trying to validate also if there's any psychological barrier from an end user point of view. You know, sometimes users can be paranoid of biometric technologies. That's right. And that could be a barrier for market entry. So...

18:08
The reason why we launched the crowdfunding is that we wanted to validate. Do people want to choose convenience over passwords, which is already not providing the security that it's aimed for, the stuff they're trying to. Because the fact, the matter of fact is that in cybersecurity, if you ask anyone in the community, they will tell you that if your device is compromised, nothing can save you. Face ID can be bypassed.

18:38
One-time codes can be caught there. Google Authenticator can be accessed. So basically, if your device is compromised, which is a very common thing, by the way, a lot of people do not realize that their device is already compromised and someone has a back door and is able to track every move they do on those devices. I'm not trying to freak people out, but this is a fact. And I have to say things as they are. And so...

19:04
Once that scammer gathers enough information about you, or they need a piece of the puzzle, they can also visit the dark web and get the complete set of data from your social security to your email, to your phone number, and then what? They have that puzzle available now, and they have a fully-fledged identity that they can use to create an account. So I also get this question a lot, and I'm happy to share that with your audience.

19:34
Some people tell me, well, I'm not Elon Musk or like I have $0 in my bank account. I don't care if someone takes my private information. Guess what? Most fraudsters don't want to steal money from you. In fact, they want to use your name to create a fake account and funnel illicit activities using your name. That's the big goal. Some of them obviously they want to steal money but others...

20:03
They want to just use your name. And the thing is when they fall, you're falling, not them. You're basically, they're piggy-bagging on your identity. Identity, right? Right. So that's in the financial world, in the medical world, I mean, our healthcare system, sometimes you can just know that someone conducted a surgery using your account. When you get the co-payment, you didn't know about it, but you learned then.

20:32
Taxi then also. Oh yeah absolutely. Absolutely. And so that brings you back to the core reasons on like why we approached finding a solution. Today you're using password, you think you can't change it, but then hey you're at risk, you're vulnerable. We recommend you try something else. If you're not convinced with our concept, that's perfectly fine. But try something else. Maybe you want to use two-factor authentication or three-factor authentication.

21:02
It can be really complicated at this point, right? You just hear stuff, but it's something you should do. Just don't rely on passwords. That's our advice. All right, so you are currently crowdfunding, as well you're testing also, beta testing with different user groups for a 2025 launch. How is the crowdfunding going? Are you doing on Kickstarter? Where are you doing the crowdfunding?

21:32
Another question is how has that fundraising journey been? Because today there is no longer a stigma associated to crowdfunding. Whereas 10 years back, I was like, ah, didn't want it to go that way. But more and more, there are more and more crowdfunding platforms that are truly enabling, particularly in the past two years, it's been incredibly hard to raise early stage money.

21:58
Can you, I know that's a loaded question. That's two questions. So what is your experience with crowdfunding and how soon will that get catched to the market to have it in our hands? No pun intended. Yeah, I mean crowdfunding, yeah, it did transform over several years in the past. So it had this bad connotation, but no, actually I've seen great products, growing and starting with crowdfunding.

22:28
And we've taken that course because we were interested in that aspect, validating that consumers want that. Um, we, we didn't, we didn't find problems selling this to businesses, to be honest, because there's a strong pain for them there, especially on an employee level, right? Because employees are our first market, to be honest with the enterprise, not the end user. But when they come to sell it to their end users, we wanted to make sure that

22:57
and users also want that, right? At the end of the day, I was offered voice verification at my bank. I refused it, right? Like many, the reason why, we've heard it before, right? How AI can synthesize your voice and someone can maybe use my synthetic voice to access my account, so I wouldn't do it. And so again, banks cannot force you to use one technology, they can offer it for you.

23:23
And if you're not convinced, you're not going to use it. So we wanted to validate both ends of the market. So far it's going well. We raised about $30,000 in the first six weeks. And now we're extending our campaign to raise more to get more validation there. But again, our customers now are not, like I said, end users. Our customers are enterprise and they're employees.

23:49
which is something they can enforce. If I'm an employee working for an enterprise and they tell me, well, you have to use your hand, no more passwords, I'll have to do it. I don't have that choice of saying no. And this is where now we're focusing on our niche, to be honest. So it will be enterprise grade, right? And it will be the employees will be substituting. That is the first.

24:17
uh strong pain that we're trying to resolve. And um you've raised 30 000 are you going to continue to do crowd funding through the end of 2024 Eli? Yes it's going to end by November. Okay all right and do you have information that I can provide my listeners later in the show notes in terms of the crowdfunding platform?

24:42
Yeah, we're crowdfunding on net capital. So it's not a Kickstarter just to differentiate. So people who put money in our project, they're investing. So they're capitalizing on this amazing opportunity. They're capitalizing on a strong market. It's an $80 billion market. This market is growing at 17% compounded annual growth rate. So by 2030, this market will turn into a $200 billion market.

25:09
So this is something really important for retail investors or consumers to capitalize on and invest with us, back us. Because by backing us, they're doing two things. A, they're saying, yes, we want to get rid of password. We don't want this vulnerability in our life anymore. So they're giving us validation and we thank them so much. Also, they're capitalizing on that by investing in us and getting shares in our company. So yeah, Kickstarter is different because Kickstarter sells products. We're not selling your product here. You actually...

25:38
buying shares of the company and investing in exactly. Excellent. Right. So let's switch gears. Let's switch to your immigrant founder story. Do you believe that it's even more arduous as a founder to raise money or open those doors that if you were not an immigrant?

26:07
would open more easily. Talk to me about your own journey coming to the United States and working in the finance industry. Yeah, of course. My background is in finance. I worked for more than 20 years in financial services. Before I stopped working in finance, I was a portfolio manager. So I was running portfolios for my clients. We were managing those portfolios in equities, commodities,

26:35
option markets. But again, so as an immigrant, I think that it tends to be equally, you know, I think money is equally available to immigrant as much as if you're local or born in the United States. My first startup, for example, was in Cyprus and I was able to raise money. I wasn't okay. I wasn't in a really good way. So I have a Greek roots.

27:02
But I mean, Cyprus is considered a very kind, so I'm not sure if it falls under. But I wasn't born there. I just started there. So I've been Cyprus is amazing. And it's a beautiful place. And so I raised money there. I didn't face problems. So I'm not sure if you can consider that being an immigrant there. But no, I don't think I don't think immigrants have a better edge unless they have been, you know, obviously, if you have done.

27:29
multiple access in the past, if you've been a serial entrepreneur or you have a lot of success stories, raising money would be definitely much easier than being a second founder or perhaps a first founder. First founders definitely struggle and I've seen it over and over. They struggle to raise money, whether they're immigrants or not. I don't think it's really related, but for some reason I've learned from investors that they like immigrants slightly more.

27:57
And it's for a fact maybe because these people are coming to America and they have a lot of excitement about the move to the land of opportunities. You know, America is called the land of opportunities and it's, it's, I think it's in the heads of every immigrant. Like I want to go to America. I want to take that opportunity and be able to make success. And they're not really

28:26
by money, they're driven more by their story, driven more by their mission, they're driven more by that energy they have. I wanna have a successful story, I wanna change people's life, I wanna make a difference. I think they're driven by that. Why, maybe if I was locally grown here, I was raised here, I might be in a different mindset. I'm just saying, again, I can be in the other person's too, but that's my humble, you know?

28:56
Thank you. So the land of opportunity, right? And perhaps even a bit, a greater degree of resiliency. And tenacity. Yes, that's true. That's true. Excellent. So I'd like to give you an opportunity, Eli, to provide to my guests where they may find information about yourself, Eli Farhoud. And is it your LinkedIn and your website? How else can listeners that want to contact you get in touch?

29:25
contact with you. Sure. I'm happy to connect with anyone who wants to learn more about the patch. So they can definitely visit our website, where all the links are available there. So that would be k-a-t-s-h-i-d.com. So it's a k-a-t-s-h-i-d.com. If you visit our website, there's an Invest button.

29:54
If they click on that, it takes them to our crowdfunding page. They can learn more about our story, how we started this, about our mission and vision, what are we trying to achieve there. If they can learn about the opportunity, the market, our team, they're mostly veterans in their space. And so we're very excited actually. I'm actually very fortunate that I have a strong team, a team that has a lot of experience on hand.

30:22
And they're really helping me so much to get catch to the market and commercialize market. That's why I'm very excited about the stage we're in now. Right. And when did you actually form the company? What year was that? We started, so the company was incorporated in 2016. We were building actually a social platform back then.

30:47
I'll tell you quickly about it. That was really cool experience. So we were building a social platform that solves the problem of fake accounts. And the concept we had in mind was very simple. How about if people start connecting through a live video? That was basically it. Very simple, you know? No texting, no anything, no attachments, no images. Just connect through a live video. That's the first mean of communication.

31:16
And we thought, okay, that would be cool. You know, if people can connect through live video, it's obviously not a scammer, right? It's the same way they show in the picture and we can eliminate fake accounts. Now that doesn't work today because they can use AI to create deep pics, unfortunately, right? So just to show you the fortunes of how technology is a gateway to opportunity, the same way, if you can't reinvent yourself, you will end up, you know,

31:47
not doing any achievements there. So unfortunately back then though the broadband availability was very limited. We're talking in 2012. That's when we started this company. And we kept growing it until 2015 where we faced that problem that the user experience was really bad. Yeah.

32:16
limited availability of broadband, the user experience was not good, the video footage was not also very satisfying. And obviously people were turned off by that and we started dwindling down and our company failed big time. We learned that timing is so important. Yes, underline technology, yeah, that's available. Absolutely, you can have the best technology in the world, but if it does not align with a pain point or with time

32:46
If there's no need at this point, the strong need for it, and you're not able to provide that value, it's probably going to fail. And so that's why we're excited also about Catch because we think that timing is right now for biometrics to replace this credential problem we have, all the data breaches that are happening that will not season our view, that will keep growing and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Actually, I no longer try to say to my...

33:15
for my personal information from harm, because I know they're already there. Everyone know it, like it's on the dark web, it's probably on someone's drive now. And I just got an email this morning from my bank that my credentials were compromised. So just to give you an idea that I already like took all the precautions on a personal level because I felt obliged to victim, I don't wanna fall a third time. And so, yeah. And then...

33:42
To go back to your question, we started Catch in 2019, 2020. After I have fallen victim, we conducted a lot of market research. We looked at so many competing technologies in the biometric space. We tried to hack those technologies in our lab tests to learn, you know, what is their strength? What are their weaknesses? And that helped us a lot to shape up the product and to create the solution we have today.

34:13
So do you have white hackers on board? We do, actually, yes. Yes, I imagine so. If you started military, great. And the pandemic happened, right? So everybody went, worked from home. We had, again, a lot of data breaches that way. A lot of enterprises were not ready. So there's a lot of data. I mean, the numbers tell you, Brenda, $1 trillion were stolen from that $5 trillion were printed during COVID, or fortune.

34:43
So one trillion or about that was stolen. So what happened then? Right? What happened is that a lot of scammers took advantage. They created fake companies, fake identities, and they started claiming through those programs. Yes, I want this program. I want funds. I want loans. I want... It's insane, right? Knowing that how much money we've paid and lost during COVID. And COVID like also...

35:12
in a way reshaped our mindset and business, to be honest. Like who would meet virtually pre-COVID? Very few people, right? Now it's the norm and people are asking for remote. Who would go to the bank now? Actually, if you go to the banks, most of their branches are like ghost towns. Yes. So that also tells you that COVID has changed a lot of things and that actually why we believe

35:42
know, the time is right also for a product like catch. And it's quite unique. I can't say that I've encountered a biometric that uses your palm, right? Your hand, the immutable, unique, biometric measure, right? Yeah. Well, interesting. Interesting. All right. I wish you further resilience as you come into the last quarter.

36:11
of 2024 and a launch in 2025 with enterprise companies and their employees that can bring this new solution into credential management, right? Absolutely. We're very excited to it. That's very exciting. I always like to take my guests back to the sandbox and ask a round of.

36:38
questions, which is around what the type of work that I do. And they the words resilience, purpose driven enterprise, and sustainable growth, what resiliency you've talked to me about it, what's the meaning your tenacity? Do you want to add anything else to that? What's that, you know, meaning to you? Perhaps as founder, immigrant? You like please? Yeah, you know,

37:07
You want to have a lot of ethics as well. You want to make sure that you're being very transparent with your clients, especially with your clients, because they're your success story. They're the ones who are going to become the beacon for you. They're going to talk about you. I remember back in the days, this is just a great example, how my friend convinced me on using an iPhone where I was stuck with my...

37:34
physical keyboard and I was like no way I am not using an iPhone and he was literally an ambassador for Apple. Even though he never worked for them. Just because he was excited. Like the product was so amazing for him. It was so easy to use. It provided so much value and he was like, you know, you have to use this. Like you have to just give it a try. If you don't like it, just give it a try. And the first time I put my hand on the phone, I loved it.

38:04
So this again tells you a lot about being transparent with your clients, being very ethical, make sure that you're providing value on a long-term basis. Yes. The only way to do that is not just to be of course transparent and ethical, but also to provide sustainable products that can work for the long run. And of course, we have to be obviously, you know, making money and profitable because sustainability is part of that, right? Right.

38:34
But having a success story for the long term requires that ethical part and being very honest with your clients. I remember like I've been sold a lot of products that were very deceptive. And I know how I'm sure a lot of people did too, right? But that deception feeling you get when you're sold something, it's so harming to that brand, to that product. And actually it's harming also for the good guys.

39:03
It makes you just on anything else. No, I'm not going to try this anymore. I've been there. No, I've seen this before. Right. That's these we're trying to be that person that not just cause harm to their own brand, but also cause harm to other people that are trying to make a difference in the ecosystem. What about purpose driven enterprise? You began catch out of your own mission. Right. But what is purpose driven in general? Right. Mean to you.

39:33
Eli. I'm driven by my experience with fraud. Identity for me is very personal. It's very personal. And I'm not going to allow it to happen again. Right. So you're out on a small story. Yes. You're doing something about it. Exactly. I'm doing something about it. And I'm very happy that many of our team members also are purpose-driven on the same problem they face, like I did, in different ways, of course.

40:02
Identity theft can take several shapes and forms. Sometimes it's as simple as an unauthorized transaction on your credit card, which is something maybe you can absorb and manage and deal with, which happened to me last year, actually, and it can be sometimes something very big where someone accesses your checking account and now you're kind of like going through a two or three year process to clean your records.

40:32
move your innocence and you become a risk to everyone. No one wants to do business with you because you've had an identity theft. It's just not a joke. And, you know, now it's probably gonna happen more often than ever, unless products, not just cash, but anything like cash can help us secure our credentials. And, you know, it's also about taking back control.

40:59
This is very important. Maybe we didn't focus on that so much, but I wanna mention this. We wanna take back control over our information so that a third party can just use it behind our backs.

41:14
very important and therefore democratization, right? Right, right. We wanna bring that to the market, democratize access and allow people to decide who can use their information, when they can use it and why they're using it. Because this is very important today, identity or personal identifying information is used all over the world. This information represents who you are. And now,

41:44
that information and other information about us, our lives, are being sold day and night from enterprise to, I mean, we've all heard it about how Facebook or other firms were selling our information, they're making money off our information. We don't wanna change that. We want to bring that control back to you. You own your own information and you decide who can use it and who, and no one can send it. The access. Yes.

42:12
That's really important in our view. And that's what we're trying to achieve. Very exciting. Finally, sustainable. What does sustainable growth mean to you? Sustainable growth is the growth actually that just can be a normal, I would call it a normal mathematical equation. I'm making being full of philosophic here, but it's really when...

42:38
when you're growing organically because people see the value, this is a sustainable growth. It's also sustainable because you're not harming others, you're not harming the environment when you do this. You're not harming, or sometimes business requires that someone is using for you to gain. And that's not sustainable. We don't want that sustainability. We want a sustainability where it's a win-win situation.

43:05
And that's what we're trying to achieve at Catch. Of course, I can't tell you enough about the environment. Like if you think about just plastic cards we use for our credit cards, they are piling somewhere every year, all those cards that are being stolen and thrown in a dumpster. Or if you think about like digital identities can have a strong effect on the environment as well. Because...

43:33
If you're able to do things more remotely, virtually, instead of spending time, gas, miles, or using plastic cards, which I think plastic is toxic, it should be out of our life totally, especially in the food chain. That's a separate discussion. But yeah, technologies like these can have a very positive impact on the environment and sustainability itself as well.

44:00
I like the philosophical approach and very global, how you're thinking about removing the carbon footprint, right? Right. Lack of reducing the use of plastic. Right. Yeah, that's very, very beautiful. Thank you, Eli. The last and final question. Did you have fun in the sandbox today?

44:29
Did you have fun in the sandbox today, Eli? I loved it. And thank you for all your very meaningful questions. I mean, they were, you're trying to hit on most important aspects of what we do. And I think we did a great job here. So again, thank you so much for having me. And it was such a fun conversation. And I hope we were able to tell your audience something new. They learned something new about identity security.

44:58
Absolutely. To my listeners, if you like this episode with Eli Farhoud, sign up for the monthly release where founders, business owners, directors, and professional service providers share and also learn how to build with strong governance, sustainable, resilient, and purpose-driven companies to make profits for good. Signing off, talk to you next month. Thank you very much.