October 22, 2024 • 45 mins
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
Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke
00:32
corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors.
01:01
As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you.
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 t
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
We're standing on the edge of something big.We're going to make some changes. Hi, I'm pleased
to announce something very special to me, anew subscription-based service through Next
(00:25):
Act Advisors that allows members exclusive accessto personal industry insights and bespoke corporate
governance knowledge. This comes in the formof blogs, personal book recommendations, and
early access to the founder's sandbox podcastepisodes before they released to the public.
(00:46):
If you want more white glove information onbuilding your startup with information like
what was in today's episode, sign up with thelink in the show notes to enjoy being a special
member of Next Act Advisors. As a thank youto Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use
code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% offyour membership costs. Thank you.
(01:22):
Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I amyour host, Brenda McCabe. We're now into our
third season and over 38 episodes. This monthlypodcast, it reaches entrepreneurs and business
owners who like building and learning aboutresilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses
(01:45):
with great corporate governance undergirdingthem. At the Founder's Sandbox and in my work,
I have a very simple mission, and I want tohelp build the scalable, well-governed and
resilient businesses. The guests that come tothe podcast are founders, business owners,
corporate board directors, investors and professionalservice providers who, like me, want to use
(02:11):
the power of the enterprise, small, medium orlarge, to effect change for a better world.
Through storytelling with each of my guests,we're gonna touch on topics on their own journey
that includes resilience, purpose-driven enterprisesand sustainable growth. And my goal is to provide
a fun environment in a sandbox where we canequip one founder at a time to build a better
(02:36):
world through great corporate governance. Today,I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest,
Eli Farhoud. Eli is joining the podcast today.in many roles, but primarily he is chief executive
officer of Catch Digital ID. This is his secondcompany that he's founded. And he also is an
(03:01):
immigrant. So we're gonna touch on several ofhis 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. So again, to myguest, you know, you can find this podcast
on any major platform. And I do like to choosejointly with my guest a title. And Eli and
(03:26):
I settled upon resilience. And it's gonna beabout 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. and democratizing.So I want to go back to my own journey before
(03:50):
I get to your tagline, Eli. My work at NextAct Advisors, which is my consulting arm, and
the Founder Sandbox is yet another channel toget to my guest and my clients, I was undeniably
influenced by a major life change and movingback to the United States after living 25 years
(04:11):
or more in Europe. And I talk about being reallypurpose-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.
(04:33):
We don't stay on foot. We don't build the foundationthat will help us get there. Resilience is,
in my view, I put it under, 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
(04:55):
on a personal level, resilience brings successto your life. And with respect to the current
company that you are leading, Catch DigitalID, does it also have a tagline? Yeah, I would
say resilience also matches. We're purpose-driven,but resilience definitely matches because most
(05:16):
of our team members have had fraud in some shapeor 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 fraudtwice, financial fraud. So... My team members
(05:38):
also, you know, they're coming from multinationalslike IBM and the Raytheon and Symantec. And,
you know, they've dealt with, you know, allthe identity security, and they know the market
very well. So they also understand how to besecure, you have to be very careful about yourself,
(05:58):
about your information. And they've seen itover and over in those businesses, you know.
I mean, IBM sells identity products, semanticcells, and a virus, right? And Raytheon also
does great weapons and other stuff, but basicallythey were working on the security, they've
seen it all. And so resilience definitely, youknow, is, it has to be, every one of us is
(06:21):
an entrepreneur, let's put it this way, andyou have to be resilient. That really is a
great segue to, you touched on the resiliencyof the teammates that, you come with very large
logos where they've served. They've also beenas yourself victims of fraud. So what was your
(06:42):
mission when you actually established the companyCatch? So we want to really democratize access
for everyone. This is basically the goal. Wewant to have Catch IT in the hands of most
people for free. Okay. the end user, the consumer.And the reason why is, well, A, we're able
(07:07):
to do that. And B, that's how you provide ordemocratize access. If everyone has a digital
ID that can protect their sensitive informationfrom abuse, then you're onto a thriving digital
economy. And you're able to unlock a lot ofvalue 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, becausewe're concerned that it's not secure to do
that online. So how about if we're able to bringthat security to the online world, you would
(07:52):
think, like we once tried to imagine how peoplecan use our product and it was so many like
venues there. You know, we're going to get tohow you're raising funds right now. And I can't
ask you, you want to not only democratize, butactually provide this for free. So we're going
(08:13):
to get into this a little bit later. But thereare a lot of cybersecurity products out there.
Why is your solution different? And is it enterprisegrade, or is it really for individuals, right,
citizens? And that's that. that leads to howyou're raising money. Talk to me about how
(08:34):
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
(08:58):
on, a reliable product. And when we looked atbiometrics out there today, all the biometric
systems that are available, we noticed thatthe most reliable ones are dependent on a device,
like clear at the airport, for example, yourface ID on your iPhone, perhaps Amazon one
at the Whole Foods and maybe other brands thatI maybe don't know of. And that was the handicap,
(09:27):
if you want, of biometric technologies. is thatrequirement that hardware need, right? Yes.
If you need a special hardware to operate abiometric system, then it's only convenient
where the hardware is available. Got it. Andnot just that, you would still need to have
to use passwords. And when I fell victim tofraud, the big lesson I learned is that fraudsters
(09:56):
today can leverage data breaches. use that informationto 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,
(10:19):
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 ajoke. when you see those data breaches and
cannot be stopped even by Microsoft, then whatcan the average Joe do here to protect themselves,
right? These are 20 dollar companies who keeppockets, they have teams of engineers, I mean,
(10:42):
they have all the resources they want and they'restill getting compromised. So we came to that
conclusion, like it's really hard. Once informationis available on the public domain, it cannot
be protected. one way or another one day, it'sgoing to be compromised. And so our solution
was to eliminate credentials from the securityequation. Can you say that again? So it's you're
(11:04):
eliminating credentials? We are eliminatingcredentials from the security of our identities
so that hackers have nothing to compromise orto steal anymore. Is that the same as in HIPAA
where it is sanitized or it's that the privatedata is disassociated from the health record?
(11:29):
No, it's not. Because you're eliminating a credentialthat 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, becauseif 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 canyou change your biometric? No. You cannot.
And accordingly, it has to be really strongsecurity so that people can trust that technology
or that product and use it. And this is reallythe genesis of cache is that we wanna provide
(12:18):
that convenience on any device using your handor 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 copyof your hand, a picture of your hand, or even
(12:38):
a video of your hand has been compromised, thatwon't affect you or affect your identity security.
And this is our promise to our consumers. Andit's probably your secret sauce. 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
(13:04):
fascinating. Fascinating. Got lots of ideasto explore. Because we know credentials are
a pain. Absolutely. Right? Who doesn't managehundreds of passwords? Yeah. That's on an individual
level. Let's see in the enterprise world. theyeven 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
(13:26):
place. Enterprise are spending hundreds of millionsof dollars just to store that credentials and
keep it away from the hackers. So this is astrong 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. What
(13:48):
have been the shortfalls or continue to be theshortfalls of cybersecurity? That's a great
question. Yeah. It's a big one, right? We knowthat 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.
(14:13):
And then they send you, you know, crawl or experienceand for a year it's free, but then you get
another hack like that of Microsoft or BlueShield, all right? So what have been the shortfalls
of cybersecurity and perhaps we'll continueto have shortfalls that catch can eliminate?
(14:35):
Yeah, the shortfall like this big headline isthat 80% of fraud globally stems from stolen
credentials and. That's how we came about thisapproach. Like, how do you solve this? Okay,
we need to eliminate credentials. This is notsustainable. It can just keep rolling like
this. The biggest shortfall is that we're aren'table to protect our data. I remember maybe
(15:01):
eight, nine years ago, I hear of a data breachmaybe once a year. Right. Maybe every other
year. Now every other week, I hear of a databreach. And this is not a surprise to, it's
not surprising to us because we know that backin the days also fraudsters and scammers didn't
(15:21):
have the technology on hand to conduct thosepreaches. Now they have access to the latest
technologies as we do as well. And so they haveaccess to AI, they have access to that automation
that can make their job really efficient. Youknow, scamming or being a fraudster is a business.
It is. it is a business. And so they actuallystudy, they do an economic study, like, how
(15:47):
much are we going to spend to hack that databaseand how much we're going to make money out
of the database. And the moment you make itextremely expensive for them to hack a database,
this is where you're starting, you know, your,your goal to reach your goal of getting some
security. The problem is that history shows,like I said earlier, we couldn't just stop
(16:13):
these data breaches. And now they're becomingmore often, more often than ever. I can give
you something a little scary. Like sometimesyou 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 anetwork. And I know AI will sometimes respond,
(16:37):
I don't do this, like this is not ethical. Butthere's a way to actually rephrase the question.
and get the answer. And so now they have thatartificial brain that is helping them, automating
things for them. And now we can see it, youknow, it's around us. And this is really the
shortfall. We're not able to stop data breachesand they're providing access to fraudsters
(17:01):
to our account. And that's why we need to dosomething. So can you walk us through How you,
I wanna download CatchID. How do I do this?Is it available in the market today? Where
(17:22):
are you? Because it sounds like it can potentiallybe ubiquitous or is it you need to do the crowdfunding
first? Walk me through some of the featuresand some of the data that you have already
because I'm certain you have beta testing done,please. Yeah, so we're made a testing right
(17:42):
now with some clients. It is not available tothe 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 pointof view. You know, sometimes users can be paranoid
of biometric technologies. That's right. Andthat could be a barrier for market entry. So...
(18:09):
The reason why we launched the crowdfundingis that we wanted to validate. Do people want
to choose convenience over passwords, whichis 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,
(18:34):
nothing can save you. Face ID can be bypassed.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 donot realize that their device is already compromised
and someone has a back door and is able to trackevery move they do on those devices. I'm not
(18:58):
trying to freak people out, but this is a fact.And I have to say things as they are. And so...
Once that scammer gathers enough informationabout you, or they need a piece of the puzzle,
they can also visit the dark web and get thecomplete set of data from your social security
to your email, to your phone number, and thenwhat? They have that puzzle available now,
(19:22):
and they have a fully-fledged identity thatthey can use to create an account. So I also
get this question a lot, and I'm happy to sharethat with your audience. Some people tell me,
well, I'm not Elon Musk or like I have $0 inmy bank account. I don't care if someone takes
(19:43):
my private information. Guess what? Most fraudstersdon't want to steal money from you. In fact,
they want to use your name to create a fakeaccount and funnel illicit activities using
your name. That's the big goal. Some of themobviously they want to steal money but others...
They want to just use your name. And the thingis when they fall, you're falling, not them.
(20:09):
You're basically, they're piggy-bagging on youridentity. 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 surgeryusing your account. When you get the co-payment,
(20:29):
you didn't know about it, but you learned then.Taxi then also. Oh yeah absolutely. Absolutely.
And so that brings you back to the core reasonson like why we approached finding a solution.
Today you're using password, you think you can'tchange 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
(20:55):
perfectly fine. But try something else. Maybeyou want to use two-factor authentication or
three-factor authentication. It can be reallycomplicated 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
(21:19):
different user groups for a 2025 launch. Howis the crowdfunding going? Are you doing on
Kickstarter? Where are you doing the crowdfunding?Another question is how has that fundraising
journey been? Because today there is no longera stigma associated to crowdfunding. Whereas
(21:43):
10 years back, I was like, ah, didn't want itto go that way. But more and more, there are
more and more crowdfunding platforms that aretruly enabling, particularly in the past two
years, it's been incredibly hard to raise earlystage money. Can you, I know that's a loaded
question. That's two questions. So what is yourexperience with crowdfunding and how soon will
(22:05):
that get catched to the market to have it inour hands? No pun intended. Yeah, I mean crowdfunding,
yeah, it did transform over several years inthe past. So it had this bad connotation, but
no, actually I've seen great products, growingand starting with crowdfunding. And we've taken
(22:29):
that course because we were interested in thataspect, validating that consumers want that.
Um, we, we didn't, we didn't find problems sellingthis to businesses, to be honest, because there's
a strong pain for them there, especially onan employee level, right? Because employees
are our first market, to be honest with theenterprise, not the end user. But when they
(22:52):
come to sell it to their end users, we wantedto make sure that and users also want that,
right? At the end of the day, I was offeredvoice verification at my bank. I refused it,
right? Like many, the reason why, we've heardit before, right? How AI can synthesize your
voice and someone can maybe use my syntheticvoice to access my account, so I wouldn't do
(23:17):
it. And so again, banks cannot force you touse one technology, they can offer it for you.
And if you're not convinced, you're not goingto use it. So we wanted to validate both ends
of the market. So far it's going well. We raisedabout $30,000 in the first six weeks. And now
we're extending our campaign to raise more toget more validation there. But again, our customers
(23:43):
now are not, like I said, end users. Our customersare enterprise and they're employees. which
is something they can enforce. If I'm an employeeworking 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 focusingon our niche, to be honest. So it will be enterprise
(24:09):
grade, right? And it will be the employees willbe substituting. That is the first. uh strong
pain that we're trying to resolve. And um you'veraised 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
(24:34):
right and do you have information that I canprovide my listeners later in the show notes
in terms of the crowdfunding platform? Yeah,we're crowdfunding on net capital. So it's
not a Kickstarter just to differentiate. Sopeople who put money in our project, they're
investing. So they're capitalizing on this amazingopportunity. They're capitalizing on a strong
(24:58):
market. It's an $80 billion market. This marketis growing at 17% compounded annual growth
rate. So by 2030, this market will turn intoa $200 billion market. So this is something
really important for retail investors or consumersto 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
(25:22):
of password. We don't want this vulnerabilityin our life anymore. So they're giving us validation
and we thank them so much. Also, they're capitalizingon that by investing in us and getting shares
in our company. So yeah, Kickstarter is differentbecause Kickstarter sells products. We're not
selling your product here. You actually... buyingshares of the company and investing in exactly.
Excellent. Right. So let's switch gears. Let'sswitch to your immigrant founder story. Do
(25:55):
you believe that it's even more arduous as afounder to raise money or open those doors
that if you were not an immigrant? would openmore easily. Talk to me about your own journey
coming to the United States and working in thefinance industry. Yeah, of course. My background
(26:19):
is in finance. I worked for more than 20 yearsin financial services. Before I stopped working
in finance, I was a portfolio manager. So Iwas running portfolios for my clients. We were
managing those portfolios in equities, commodities,option markets. But again, so as an immigrant,
(26:41):
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 UnitedStates. My first startup, for example, was
in Cyprus and I was able to raise money. I wasn'tokay. I wasn't in a really good way. So I have
a Greek roots. But I mean, Cyprus is considereda very kind, so I'm not sure if it falls under.
(27:06):
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, youknow, obviously, if you have done. multiple
(27:30):
access in the past, if you've been a serialentrepreneur or you have a lot of success stories,
raising money would be definitely much easierthan being a second founder or perhaps a first
founder. First founders definitely struggleand I've seen it over and over. They struggle
to raise money, whether they're immigrants ornot. I don't think it's really related, but
(27:51):
for some reason I've learned from investorsthat they like immigrants slightly more. And
it's for a fact maybe because these people arecoming 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
(28:12):
and it's, I think it's in the heads of everyimmigrant. Like I want to go to America. I
want to take that opportunity and be able tomake success. And they're not really by money,
they're driven more by their story, driven moreby their mission, they're driven more by that
(28:32):
energy they have. I wanna have a successfulstory, I wanna change people's life, I wanna
make a difference. I think they're driven bythat. Why, maybe if I was locally grown here,
I was raised here, I might be in a differentmindset. I'm just saying, again, I can be in
the other person's too, but that's my humble,you know? Thank you. So the land of opportunity,
(28:58):
right? And perhaps even a bit, a greater degreeof resiliency. And tenacity. Yes, that's true.
That's true. Excellent. So I'd like to giveyou an opportunity, Eli, to provide to my guests
where they may find information about yourself,Eli Farhoud. And is it your LinkedIn and your
(29:20):
website? How else can listeners that want tocontact you get in touch? contact with you.
Sure. I'm happy to connect with anyone who wantsto learn more about the patch. So they can
definitely visit our website, where all thelinks 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
(29:53):
button. If they click on that, it takes themto our crowdfunding page. They can learn more
about our story, how we started this, aboutour mission and vision, what are we trying
to achieve there. If they can learn about theopportunity, the market, our team, they're
mostly veterans in their space. And so we'revery excited actually. I'm actually very fortunate
(30:17):
that I have a strong team, a team that has alot of experience on hand. And they're really
helping me so much to get catch to the marketand 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 companywas incorporated in 2016. We were building
(30:45):
actually a social platform back then. I'll tellyou quickly about it. That was really cool
experience. So we were building a social platformthat 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,
(31:10):
no images. Just connect through a live video.That's the first mean of communication. 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 sameway they show in the picture and we can eliminate
fake accounts. Now that doesn't work today becausethey can use AI to create deep pics, unfortunately,
(31:34):
right? So just to show you the fortunes of howtechnology is a gateway to opportunity, the
same way, if you can't reinvent yourself, youwill end up, you know, not doing any achievements
there. So unfortunately back then though thebroadband availability was very limited. We're
(31:59):
talking in 2012. That's when we started thiscompany. And we kept growing it until 2015
where we faced that problem that the user experiencewas really bad. Yeah. limited availability
of broadband, the user experience was not good,the video footage was not also very satisfying.
(32:24):
And obviously people were turned off by thatand we started dwindling down and our company
failed big time. We learned that timing is soimportant. Yes, underline technology, yeah,
that's available. Absolutely, you can have thebest technology in the world, but if it does
not align with a pain point or with time Ifthere's no need at this point, the strong need
(32:49):
for it, and you're not able to provide thatvalue, it's probably going to fail. And so
that's why we're excited also about Catch becausewe 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 growingand getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Actually,
(33:13):
I no longer try to say to my... for my personalinformation from harm, because I know they're
already there. Everyone know it, like it's onthe dark web, it's probably on someone's drive
now. And I just got an email this morning frommy bank that my credentials were compromised.
So just to give you an idea that I already liketook all the precautions on a personal level
(33:35):
because I felt obliged to victim, I don't wannafall a third time. And so, yeah. And then...
To go back to your question, we started Catchin 2019, 2020. After I have fallen victim,
we conducted a lot of market research. We lookedat so many competing technologies in the biometric
(33:57):
space. We tried to hack those technologies inour lab tests to learn, you know, what is their
strength? What are their weaknesses? And thathelped us a lot to shape up the product and
to create the solution we have today. So doyou have white hackers on board? We do, actually,
yes. Yes, I imagine so. If you started military,great. And the pandemic happened, right? So
(34:24):
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. Imean, the numbers tell you, Brenda, $1 trillion
were stolen from that $5 trillion were printedduring COVID, or fortune. So one trillion or
(34:45):
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'vepaid and lost during COVID. And COVID like
(35:10):
also... in a way reshaped our mindset and business,to be honest. Like who would meet virtually
pre-COVID? Very few people, right? Now it'sthe norm and people are asking for remote.
Who would go to the bank now? Actually, if yougo to the banks, most of their branches are
(35:33):
like ghost towns. Yes. So that also tells youthat COVID has changed a lot of things and
that actually why we believe know, the timeis right also for a product like catch. And
it's quite unique. I can't say that I've encountereda biometric that uses your palm, right? Your
(35:53):
hand, the immutable, unique, biometric measure,right? Yeah. Well, interesting. Interesting.
All right. I wish you further resilience asyou come into the last quarter. of 2024 and
(36:14):
a launch in 2025 with enterprise companies andtheir 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 thesandbox and ask a round of. questions, which
(36:39):
is around what the type of work that I do. Andthey the words resilience, purpose driven enterprise,
and sustainable growth, what resiliency you'vetalked to me about it, what's the meaning your
tenacity? Do you want to add anything else tothat? What's that, you know, meaning to you?
Perhaps as founder, immigrant? You like please?Yeah, you know, You want to have a lot of ethics
(37:09):
as well. You want to make sure that you're beingvery transparent with your clients, especially
with your clients, because they're your successstory. They're the ones who are going to become
the beacon for you. They're going to talk aboutyou. I remember back in the days, this is just
a great example, how my friend convinced meon using an iPhone where I was stuck with my...
(37:34):
physical keyboard and I was like no way I amnot using an iPhone and he was literally an
ambassador for Apple. Even though he never workedfor them. Just because he was excited. Like
the product was so amazing for him. It was soeasy 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
(37:58):
don't like it, just give it a try. And the firsttime I put my hand on the phone, I loved it.
So this again tells you a lot about being transparentwith your clients, being very ethical, make
sure that you're providing value on a long-termbasis. Yes. The only way to do that is not
(38:18):
just to be of course transparent and ethical,but also to provide sustainable products that
can work for the long run. And of course, wehave to be obviously, you know, making money
and profitable because sustainability is partof that, right? Right. But having a success
story for the long term requires that ethicalpart and being very honest with your clients.
(38:42):
I remember like I've been sold a lot of productsthat were very deceptive. And I know how I'm
sure a lot of people did too, right? But thatdeception feeling you get when you're sold
something, it's so harming to that brand, tothat product. And actually it's harming also
for the good guys. It makes you just on anythingelse. No, I'm not going to try this anymore.
(39:07):
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 ownbrand, but also cause harm to other people
that are trying to make a difference in theecosystem. What about purpose driven enterprise?
You began catch out of your own mission. Right.But what is purpose driven in general? Right.
(39:32):
Mean to you. Eli. I'm driven by my experiencewith fraud. Identity for me is very personal.
It's very personal. And I'm not going to allowit to happen again. Right. So you're out on
a small story. Yes. You're doing something aboutit. Exactly. I'm doing something about it.
(39:53):
And I'm very happy that many of our team membersalso are purpose-driven on the same problem
they face, like I did, in different ways, ofcourse. Identity theft can take several shapes
and forms. Sometimes it's as simple as an unauthorizedtransaction on your credit card, which is something
maybe you can absorb and manage and deal with,which happened to me last year, actually, and
(40:17):
it can be sometimes something very big wheresomeone accesses your checking account and
now you're kind of like going through a twoor three year process to clean your records.
move your innocence and you become a risk toeveryone. No one wants to do business with
you because you've had an identity theft. It'sjust not a joke. And, you know, now it's probably
(40:45):
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'salso about taking back control. This is very
important. Maybe we didn't focus on that somuch, but I wanna mention this. We wanna take
back control over our information so that athird 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 peopleto decide who can use their information, when
they can use it and why they're using it. Becausethis is very important today, identity or personal
(41:36):
identifying information is used all over theworld. This information represents who you
are. And now, that information and other informationabout us, our lives, are being sold day and
night from enterprise to, I mean, we've allheard it about how Facebook or other firms
(41:57):
were selling our information, they're makingmoney off our information. We don't wanna change
that. We want to bring that control back toyou. You own your own information and you decide
who can use it and who, and no one can sendit. The access. Yes. That's really important
in our view. And that's what we're trying toachieve. Very exciting. Finally, sustainable.
(42:20):
What does sustainable growth mean to you? Sustainablegrowth is the growth actually that just can
be a normal, I would call it a normal mathematicalequation. I'm making being full of philosophic
here, but it's really when... when you're growingorganically because people see the value, this
(42:41):
is a sustainable growth. It's also sustainablebecause you're not harming others, you're not
harming the environment when you do this. You'renot harming, or sometimes business requires
that someone is using for you to gain. And that'snot sustainable. We don't want that sustainability.
We want a sustainability where it's a win-winsituation. And that's what we're trying to
(43:07):
achieve at Catch. Of course, I can't tell youenough about the environment. Like if you think
about just plastic cards we use for our creditcards, they are piling somewhere every year,
all those cards that are being stolen and thrownin a dumpster. Or if you think about like digital
(43:28):
identities can have a strong effect on the environmentas well. Because... If you're able to do things
more remotely, virtually, instead of spendingtime, gas, miles, or using plastic cards, which
I think plastic is toxic, it should be out ofour life totally, especially in the food chain.
(43:48):
That's a separate discussion. But yeah, technologieslike these can have a very positive impact
on the environment and sustainability itselfas well. I like the philosophical approach
and very global, how you're thinking about removingthe carbon footprint, right? Right. Lack of
(44:14):
reducing the use of plastic. Right. Yeah, that'svery, very beautiful. Thank you, Eli. The last
and final question. Did you have fun in thesandbox today?
Did you have fun in the sandbox today, Eli?I loved it. And thank you for all your very
(44:37):
meaningful questions. I mean, they were, you'retrying 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 hopewe were able to tell your audience something
new. They learned something new about identitysecurity. Absolutely. To my listeners, if you
(45:00):
like this episode with Eli Farhoud, sign upfor the monthly release where founders, business
owners, directors, and professional serviceproviders 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.
We're standing on the edge of something big.We're going to make some changes. Hi, I'm pleased
to announce something very special to me, anew subscription-based service through Next
(00:25):
Act Advisors that allows members exclusive accessto personal industry insights and bespoke corporate
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(01:22):
Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I amyour host, Brenda McCabe. We're now into our
third season and over 38 episodes. This monthlypodcast, it reaches entrepreneurs and business
owners who like building and learning aboutresilient, purpose-driven and sustainable businesses
(01:45):
with great corporate governance undergirdingthem. At the Founder's Sandbox and in my work,
I have a very simple mission, and I want tohelp build the scalable, well-governed and
resilient businesses. The guests that come tothe podcast are founders, business owners,
corporate board directors, investors and professionalservice providers who, like me, want to use
(02:11):
the power of the enterprise, small, medium orlarge, to effect change for a better world.
Through storytelling with each of my guests,we're gonna touch on topics on their own journey
that includes resilience, purpose-driven enterprisesand sustainable growth. And my goal is to provide
a fun environment in a sandbox where we canequip one founder at a time to build a better
(02:36):
world through great corporate governance. Today,I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest,
Eli Farhoud. Eli is joining the podcast today.in many roles, but primarily he is chief executive
officer of Catch Digital ID. This is his secondcompany that he's founded. And he also is an
(03:01):
immigrant. So we're gonna touch on several ofhis 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. So again, to myguest, you know, you can find this podcast
on any major platform. And I do like to choosejointly with my guest a title. And Eli and
(03:26):
I settled upon resilience. And it's gonna beabout 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. and democratizing.So I want to go back to my own journey before
(03:50):
I get to your tagline, Eli. My work at NextAct Advisors, which is my consulting arm, and
the Founder Sandbox is yet another channel toget to my guest and my clients, I was undeniably
influenced by a major life change and movingback to the United States after living 25 years
(04:11):
or more in Europe. And I talk about being reallypurpose-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.
(04:33):
We don't stay on foot. We don't build the foundationthat will help us get there. Resilience is,
in my view, I put it under, 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
(04:55):
on a personal level, resilience brings successto your life. And with respect to the current
company that you are leading, Catch DigitalID, does it also have a tagline? Yeah, I would
say resilience also matches. We're purpose-driven,but resilience definitely matches because most
(05:16):
of our team members have had fraud in some shapeor 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 fraudtwice, financial fraud. So... My team members
(05:38):
also, you know, they're coming from multinationalslike IBM and the Raytheon and Symantec. And,
you know, they've dealt with, you know, allthe identity security, and they know the market
very well. So they also understand how to besecure, you have to be very careful about yourself,
(05:58):
about your information. And they've seen itover and over in those businesses, you know.
I mean, IBM sells identity products, semanticcells, and a virus, right? And Raytheon also
does great weapons and other stuff, but basicallythey were working on the security, they've
seen it all. And so resilience definitely, youknow, is, it has to be, every one of us is
(06:21):
an entrepreneur, let's put it this way, andyou have to be resilient. That really is a
great segue to, you touched on the resiliencyof the teammates that, you come with very large
logos where they've served. They've also beenas yourself victims of fraud. So what was your
(06:42):
mission when you actually established the companyCatch? So we want to really democratize access
for everyone. This is basically the goal. Wewant to have Catch IT in the hands of most
people for free. Okay. the end user, the consumer.And the reason why is, well, A, we're able
(07:07):
to do that. And B, that's how you provide ordemocratize access. If everyone has a digital
ID that can protect their sensitive informationfrom abuse, then you're onto a thriving digital
economy. And you're able to unlock a lot ofvalue 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, becausewe're concerned that it's not secure to do
that online. So how about if we're able to bringthat security to the online world, you would
(07:52):
think, like we once tried to imagine how peoplecan use our product and it was so many like
venues there. You know, we're going to get tohow you're raising funds right now. And I can't
ask you, you want to not only democratize, butactually provide this for free. So we're going
(08:13):
to get into this a little bit later. But thereare a lot of cybersecurity products out there.
Why is your solution different? And is it enterprisegrade, or is it really for individuals, right,
citizens? And that's that. that leads to howyou're raising money. Talk to me about how
(08:34):
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
(08:58):
on, a reliable product. And when we looked atbiometrics out there today, all the biometric
systems that are available, we noticed thatthe most reliable ones are dependent on a device,
like clear at the airport, for example, yourface ID on your iPhone, perhaps Amazon one
at the Whole Foods and maybe other brands thatI maybe don't know of. And that was the handicap,
(09:27):
if you want, of biometric technologies. is thatrequirement that hardware need, right? Yes.
If you need a special hardware to operate abiometric system, then it's only convenient
where the hardware is available. Got it. Andnot just that, you would still need to have
to use passwords. And when I fell victim tofraud, the big lesson I learned is that fraudsters
(09:56):
today can leverage data breaches. use that informationto 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,
(10:19):
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 ajoke. when you see those data breaches and
cannot be stopped even by Microsoft, then whatcan the average Joe do here to protect themselves,
right? These are 20 dollar companies who keeppockets, they have teams of engineers, I mean,
(10:42):
they have all the resources they want and they'restill getting compromised. So we came to that
conclusion, like it's really hard. Once informationis available on the public domain, it cannot
be protected. one way or another one day, it'sgoing to be compromised. And so our solution
was to eliminate credentials from the securityequation. Can you say that again? So it's you're
(11:04):
eliminating credentials? We are eliminatingcredentials from the security of our identities
so that hackers have nothing to compromise orto steal anymore. Is that the same as in HIPAA
where it is sanitized or it's that the privatedata is disassociated from the health record?
(11:29):
No, it's not. Because you're eliminating a credentialthat 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, becauseif 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 canyou change your biometric? No. You cannot.
And accordingly, it has to be really strongsecurity so that people can trust that technology
or that product and use it. And this is reallythe genesis of cache is that we wanna provide
(12:18):
that convenience on any device using your handor 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 copyof your hand, a picture of your hand, or even
(12:38):
a video of your hand has been compromised, thatwon't affect you or affect your identity security.
And this is our promise to our consumers. Andit's probably your secret sauce. 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
(13:04):
fascinating. Fascinating. Got lots of ideasto explore. Because we know credentials are
a pain. Absolutely. Right? Who doesn't managehundreds of passwords? Yeah. That's on an individual
level. Let's see in the enterprise world. theyeven 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
(13:26):
place. Enterprise are spending hundreds of millionsof dollars just to store that credentials and
keep it away from the hackers. So this is astrong 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. What
(13:48):
have been the shortfalls or continue to be theshortfalls of cybersecurity? That's a great
question. Yeah. It's a big one, right? We knowthat 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.
(14:13):
And then they send you, you know, crawl or experienceand for a year it's free, but then you get
another hack like that of Microsoft or BlueShield, all right? So what have been the shortfalls
of cybersecurity and perhaps we'll continueto have shortfalls that catch can eliminate?
(14:35):
Yeah, the shortfall like this big headline isthat 80% of fraud globally stems from stolen
credentials and. That's how we came about thisapproach. Like, how do you solve this? Okay,
we need to eliminate credentials. This is notsustainable. It can just keep rolling like
this. The biggest shortfall is that we're aren'table to protect our data. I remember maybe
(15:01):
eight, nine years ago, I hear of a data breachmaybe once a year. Right. Maybe every other
year. Now every other week, I hear of a databreach. And this is not a surprise to, it's
not surprising to us because we know that backin the days also fraudsters and scammers didn't
(15:21):
have the technology on hand to conduct thosepreaches. Now they have access to the latest
technologies as we do as well. And so they haveaccess to AI, they have access to that automation
that can make their job really efficient. Youknow, scamming or being a fraudster is a business.
It is. it is a business. And so they actuallystudy, they do an economic study, like, how
(15:47):
much are we going to spend to hack that databaseand how much we're going to make money out
of the database. And the moment you make itextremely expensive for them to hack a database,
this is where you're starting, you know, your,your goal to reach your goal of getting some
security. The problem is that history shows,like I said earlier, we couldn't just stop
(16:13):
these data breaches. And now they're becomingmore often, more often than ever. I can give
you something a little scary. Like sometimesyou 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 anetwork. And I know AI will sometimes respond,
(16:37):
I don't do this, like this is not ethical. Butthere's a way to actually rephrase the question.
and get the answer. And so now they have thatartificial brain that is helping them, automating
things for them. And now we can see it, youknow, it's around us. And this is really the
shortfall. We're not able to stop data breachesand they're providing access to fraudsters
(17:01):
to our account. And that's why we need to dosomething. So can you walk us through How you,
I wanna download CatchID. How do I do this?Is it available in the market today? Where
(17:22):
are you? Because it sounds like it can potentiallybe ubiquitous or is it you need to do the crowdfunding
first? Walk me through some of the featuresand some of the data that you have already
because I'm certain you have beta testing done,please. Yeah, so we're made a testing right
(17:42):
now with some clients. It is not available tothe 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 pointof view. You know, sometimes users can be paranoid
of biometric technologies. That's right. Andthat could be a barrier for market entry. So...
(18:09):
The reason why we launched the crowdfundingis that we wanted to validate. Do people want
to choose convenience over passwords, whichis 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,
(18:34):
nothing can save you. Face ID can be bypassed.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 donot realize that their device is already compromised
and someone has a back door and is able to trackevery move they do on those devices. I'm not
(18:58):
trying to freak people out, but this is a fact.And I have to say things as they are. And so...
Once that scammer gathers enough informationabout you, or they need a piece of the puzzle,
they can also visit the dark web and get thecomplete set of data from your social security
to your email, to your phone number, and thenwhat? They have that puzzle available now,
(19:22):
and they have a fully-fledged identity thatthey can use to create an account. So I also
get this question a lot, and I'm happy to sharethat with your audience. Some people tell me,
well, I'm not Elon Musk or like I have $0 inmy bank account. I don't care if someone takes
(19:43):
my private information. Guess what? Most fraudstersdon't want to steal money from you. In fact,
they want to use your name to create a fakeaccount and funnel illicit activities using
your name. That's the big goal. Some of themobviously they want to steal money but others...
They want to just use your name. And the thingis when they fall, you're falling, not them.
(20:09):
You're basically, they're piggy-bagging on youridentity. 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 surgeryusing your account. When you get the co-payment,
(20:29):
you didn't know about it, but you learned then.Taxi then also. Oh yeah absolutely. Absolutely.
And so that brings you back to the core reasonson like why we approached finding a solution.
Today you're using password, you think you can'tchange 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
(20:55):
perfectly fine. But try something else. Maybeyou want to use two-factor authentication or
three-factor authentication. It can be reallycomplicated 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
(21:19):
different user groups for a 2025 launch. Howis the crowdfunding going? Are you doing on
Kickstarter? Where are you doing the crowdfunding?Another question is how has that fundraising
journey been? Because today there is no longera stigma associated to crowdfunding. Whereas
(21:43):
10 years back, I was like, ah, didn't want itto go that way. But more and more, there are
more and more crowdfunding platforms that aretruly enabling, particularly in the past two
years, it's been incredibly hard to raise earlystage money. Can you, I know that's a loaded
question. That's two questions. So what is yourexperience with crowdfunding and how soon will
(22:05):
that get catched to the market to have it inour hands? No pun intended. Yeah, I mean crowdfunding,
yeah, it did transform over several years inthe past. So it had this bad connotation, but
no, actually I've seen great products, growingand starting with crowdfunding. And we've taken
(22:29):
that course because we were interested in thataspect, validating that consumers want that.
Um, we, we didn't, we didn't find problems sellingthis to businesses, to be honest, because there's
a strong pain for them there, especially onan employee level, right? Because employees
are our first market, to be honest with theenterprise, not the end user. But when they
(22:52):
come to sell it to their end users, we wantedto make sure that and users also want that,
right? At the end of the day, I was offeredvoice verification at my bank. I refused it,
right? Like many, the reason why, we've heardit before, right? How AI can synthesize your
voice and someone can maybe use my syntheticvoice to access my account, so I wouldn't do
(23:17):
it. And so again, banks cannot force you touse one technology, they can offer it for you.
And if you're not convinced, you're not goingto use it. So we wanted to validate both ends
of the market. So far it's going well. We raisedabout $30,000 in the first six weeks. And now
we're extending our campaign to raise more toget more validation there. But again, our customers
(23:43):
now are not, like I said, end users. Our customersare enterprise and they're employees. which
is something they can enforce. If I'm an employeeworking 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 focusingon our niche, to be honest. So it will be enterprise
(24:09):
grade, right? And it will be the employees willbe substituting. That is the first. uh strong
pain that we're trying to resolve. And um you'veraised 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
(24:34):
right and do you have information that I canprovide my listeners later in the show notes
in terms of the crowdfunding platform? Yeah,we're crowdfunding on net capital. So it's
not a Kickstarter just to differentiate. Sopeople who put money in our project, they're
investing. So they're capitalizing on this amazingopportunity. They're capitalizing on a strong
(24:58):
market. It's an $80 billion market. This marketis growing at 17% compounded annual growth
rate. So by 2030, this market will turn intoa $200 billion market. So this is something
really important for retail investors or consumersto 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
(25:22):
of password. We don't want this vulnerabilityin our life anymore. So they're giving us validation
and we thank them so much. Also, they're capitalizingon that by investing in us and getting shares
in our company. So yeah, Kickstarter is differentbecause Kickstarter sells products. We're not
selling your product here. You actually... buyingshares of the company and investing in exactly.
Excellent. Right. So let's switch gears. Let'sswitch to your immigrant founder story. Do
(25:55):
you believe that it's even more arduous as afounder to raise money or open those doors
that if you were not an immigrant? would openmore easily. Talk to me about your own journey
coming to the United States and working in thefinance industry. Yeah, of course. My background
(26:19):
is in finance. I worked for more than 20 yearsin financial services. Before I stopped working
in finance, I was a portfolio manager. So Iwas running portfolios for my clients. We were
managing those portfolios in equities, commodities,option markets. But again, so as an immigrant,
(26:41):
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 UnitedStates. My first startup, for example, was
in Cyprus and I was able to raise money. I wasn'tokay. I wasn't in a really good way. So I have
a Greek roots. But I mean, Cyprus is considereda very kind, so I'm not sure if it falls under.
(27:06):
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, youknow, obviously, if you have done. multiple
(27:30):
access in the past, if you've been a serialentrepreneur or you have a lot of success stories,
raising money would be definitely much easierthan being a second founder or perhaps a first
founder. First founders definitely struggleand I've seen it over and over. They struggle
to raise money, whether they're immigrants ornot. I don't think it's really related, but
(27:51):
for some reason I've learned from investorsthat they like immigrants slightly more. And
it's for a fact maybe because these people arecoming 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
(28:12):
and it's, I think it's in the heads of everyimmigrant. Like I want to go to America. I
want to take that opportunity and be able tomake success. And they're not really by money,
they're driven more by their story, driven moreby their mission, they're driven more by that
(28:32):
energy they have. I wanna have a successfulstory, I wanna change people's life, I wanna
make a difference. I think they're driven bythat. Why, maybe if I was locally grown here,
I was raised here, I might be in a differentmindset. I'm just saying, again, I can be in
the other person's too, but that's my humble,you know? Thank you. So the land of opportunity,
(28:58):
right? And perhaps even a bit, a greater degreeof resiliency. And tenacity. Yes, that's true.
That's true. Excellent. So I'd like to giveyou an opportunity, Eli, to provide to my guests
where they may find information about yourself,Eli Farhoud. And is it your LinkedIn and your
(29:20):
website? How else can listeners that want tocontact you get in touch? contact with you.
Sure. I'm happy to connect with anyone who wantsto learn more about the patch. So they can
definitely visit our website, where all thelinks 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
(29:53):
button. If they click on that, it takes themto our crowdfunding page. They can learn more
about our story, how we started this, aboutour mission and vision, what are we trying
to achieve there. If they can learn about theopportunity, the market, our team, they're
mostly veterans in their space. And so we'revery excited actually. I'm actually very fortunate
(30:17):
that I have a strong team, a team that has alot of experience on hand. And they're really
helping me so much to get catch to the marketand 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 companywas incorporated in 2016. We were building
(30:45):
actually a social platform back then. I'll tellyou quickly about it. That was really cool
experience. So we were building a social platformthat 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,
(31:10):
no images. Just connect through a live video.That's the first mean of communication. 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 sameway they show in the picture and we can eliminate
fake accounts. Now that doesn't work today becausethey can use AI to create deep pics, unfortunately,
(31:34):
right? So just to show you the fortunes of howtechnology is a gateway to opportunity, the
same way, if you can't reinvent yourself, youwill end up, you know, not doing any achievements
there. So unfortunately back then though thebroadband availability was very limited. We're
(31:59):
talking in 2012. That's when we started thiscompany. And we kept growing it until 2015
where we faced that problem that the user experiencewas really bad. Yeah. limited availability
of broadband, the user experience was not good,the video footage was not also very satisfying.
(32:24):
And obviously people were turned off by thatand we started dwindling down and our company
failed big time. We learned that timing is soimportant. Yes, underline technology, yeah,
that's available. Absolutely, you can have thebest technology in the world, but if it does
not align with a pain point or with time Ifthere's no need at this point, the strong need
(32:49):
for it, and you're not able to provide thatvalue, it's probably going to fail. And so
that's why we're excited also about Catch becausewe 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 growingand getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Actually,
(33:13):
I no longer try to say to my... for my personalinformation from harm, because I know they're
already there. Everyone know it, like it's onthe dark web, it's probably on someone's drive
now. And I just got an email this morning frommy bank that my credentials were compromised.
So just to give you an idea that I already liketook all the precautions on a personal level
(33:35):
because I felt obliged to victim, I don't wannafall a third time. And so, yeah. And then...
To go back to your question, we started Catchin 2019, 2020. After I have fallen victim,
we conducted a lot of market research. We lookedat so many competing technologies in the biometric
(33:57):
space. We tried to hack those technologies inour lab tests to learn, you know, what is their
strength? What are their weaknesses? And thathelped us a lot to shape up the product and
to create the solution we have today. So doyou have white hackers on board? We do, actually,
yes. Yes, I imagine so. If you started military,great. And the pandemic happened, right? So
(34:24):
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. Imean, the numbers tell you, Brenda, $1 trillion
were stolen from that $5 trillion were printedduring COVID, or fortune. So one trillion or
(34:45):
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'vepaid and lost during COVID. And COVID like
(35:10):
also... in a way reshaped our mindset and business,to be honest. Like who would meet virtually
pre-COVID? Very few people, right? Now it'sthe norm and people are asking for remote.
Who would go to the bank now? Actually, if yougo to the banks, most of their branches are
(35:33):
like ghost towns. Yes. So that also tells youthat COVID has changed a lot of things and
that actually why we believe know, the timeis right also for a product like catch. And
it's quite unique. I can't say that I've encountereda biometric that uses your palm, right? Your
(35:53):
hand, the immutable, unique, biometric measure,right? Yeah. Well, interesting. Interesting.
All right. I wish you further resilience asyou come into the last quarter. of 2024 and
(36:14):
a launch in 2025 with enterprise companies andtheir 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 thesandbox and ask a round of. questions, which
(36:39):
is around what the type of work that I do. Andthey the words resilience, purpose driven enterprise,
and sustainable growth, what resiliency you'vetalked to me about it, what's the meaning your
tenacity? Do you want to add anything else tothat? What's that, you know, meaning to you?
Perhaps as founder, immigrant? You like please?Yeah, you know, You want to have a lot of ethics
(37:09):
as well. You want to make sure that you're beingvery transparent with your clients, especially
with your clients, because they're your successstory. They're the ones who are going to become
the beacon for you. They're going to talk aboutyou. I remember back in the days, this is just
a great example, how my friend convinced meon using an iPhone where I was stuck with my...
(37:34):
physical keyboard and I was like no way I amnot using an iPhone and he was literally an
ambassador for Apple. Even though he never workedfor them. Just because he was excited. Like
the product was so amazing for him. It was soeasy 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
(37:58):
don't like it, just give it a try. And the firsttime I put my hand on the phone, I loved it.
So this again tells you a lot about being transparentwith your clients, being very ethical, make
sure that you're providing value on a long-termbasis. Yes. The only way to do that is not
(38:18):
just to be of course transparent and ethical,but also to provide sustainable products that
can work for the long run. And of course, wehave to be obviously, you know, making money
and profitable because sustainability is partof that, right? Right. But having a success
story for the long term requires that ethicalpart and being very honest with your clients.
(38:42):
I remember like I've been sold a lot of productsthat were very deceptive. And I know how I'm
sure a lot of people did too, right? But thatdeception feeling you get when you're sold
something, it's so harming to that brand, tothat product. And actually it's harming also
for the good guys. It makes you just on anythingelse. No, I'm not going to try this anymore.
(39:07):
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 ownbrand, but also cause harm to other people
that are trying to make a difference in theecosystem. What about purpose driven enterprise?
You began catch out of your own mission. Right.But what is purpose driven in general? Right.
(39:32):
Mean to you. Eli. I'm driven by my experiencewith fraud. Identity for me is very personal.
It's very personal. And I'm not going to allowit to happen again. Right. So you're out on
a small story. Yes. You're doing something aboutit. Exactly. I'm doing something about it.
(39:53):
And I'm very happy that many of our team membersalso are purpose-driven on the same problem
they face, like I did, in different ways, ofcourse. Identity theft can take several shapes
and forms. Sometimes it's as simple as an unauthorizedtransaction on your credit card, which is something
maybe you can absorb and manage and deal with,which happened to me last year, actually, and
(40:17):
it can be sometimes something very big wheresomeone accesses your checking account and
now you're kind of like going through a twoor three year process to clean your records.
move your innocence and you become a risk toeveryone. No one wants to do business with
you because you've had an identity theft. It'sjust not a joke. And, you know, now it's probably
(40:45):
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'salso about taking back control. This is very
important. Maybe we didn't focus on that somuch, but I wanna mention this. We wanna take
back control over our information so that athird 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 peopleto decide who can use their information, when
they can use it and why they're using it. Becausethis is very important today, identity or personal
(41:36):
identifying information is used all over theworld. This information represents who you
are. And now, that information and other informationabout us, our lives, are being sold day and
night from enterprise to, I mean, we've allheard it about how Facebook or other firms
(41:57):
were selling our information, they're makingmoney off our information. We don't wanna change
that. We want to bring that control back toyou. You own your own information and you decide
who can use it and who, and no one can sendit. The access. Yes. That's really important
in our view. And that's what we're trying toachieve. Very exciting. Finally, sustainable.
(42:20):
What does sustainable growth mean to you? Sustainablegrowth is the growth actually that just can
be a normal, I would call it a normal mathematicalequation. I'm making being full of philosophic
here, but it's really when... when you're growingorganically because people see the value, this
(42:41):
is a sustainable growth. It's also sustainablebecause you're not harming others, you're not
harming the environment when you do this. You'renot harming, or sometimes business requires
that someone is using for you to gain. And that'snot sustainable. We don't want that sustainability.
We want a sustainability where it's a win-winsituation. And that's what we're trying to
(43:07):
achieve at Catch. Of course, I can't tell youenough about the environment. Like if you think
about just plastic cards we use for our creditcards, they are piling somewhere every year,
all those cards that are being stolen and thrownin a dumpster. Or if you think about like digital
(43:28):
identities can have a strong effect on the environmentas well. Because... If you're able to do things
more remotely, virtually, instead of spendingtime, gas, miles, or using plastic cards, which
I think plastic is toxic, it should be out ofour life totally, especially in the food chain.
(43:48):
That's a separate discussion. But yeah, technologieslike these can have a very positive impact
on the environment and sustainability itselfas well. I like the philosophical approach
and very global, how you're thinking about removingthe carbon footprint, right? Right. Lack of
(44:14):
reducing the use of plastic. Right. Yeah, that'svery, very beautiful. Thank you, Eli. The last
and final question. Did you have fun in thesandbox today?
Did you have fun in the sandbox today, Eli?I loved it. And thank you for all your very
(44:37):
meaningful questions. I mean, they were, you'retrying 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 hopewe were able to tell your audience something
new. They learned something new about identitysecurity. Absolutely. To my listeners, if you
(45:00):
like this episode with Eli Farhoud, sign upfor the monthly release where founders, business
owners, directors, and professional serviceproviders 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.
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