Village Global Podcast - From Milking Cows in Kyrgyzstan to Building a _98_-Approval Law Firm _ Aizada Marat _Alma_

0:00Aizada MaratSome traditions are wrong and I don't accept them and I get to choose which traditions I want to follow. I was very rebellious since I was very little. We wanted to build a big company and we wanted to show that female founders from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan can build a big company. Why do you think the future of immigration law will look like Alma versus what it looks like today? The answer is short. They will not be able to compete with us.

0:34Amit RaoWelcome to another episode of the Village Global podcast. My name is Amit Rao, general partner of Village Global. My guest today is Aizad Amirat, founder and CEO of Alma, an immigration law firm that combines the expertise of seasoned attorneys with AI to streamline the complex immigration process for individuals and businesses. Alma has achieved a 98% approval rate on its cases, and it can prosecute in half the time of a traditional firm. After pivoting from selling software to law firms to selling solutions to individuals and businesses trying to hire immigrants, they've seen rapid growth and strong customer love.

1:19Amit RaoToday, we're going to discuss Isada's immigrant journey to America from Kyrgyzstan, starting Alma with co-founders Assel and Shuo, her marriage to fellow founder and villager Chingiz, and of course, her advice to aspiring founders everywhere. So, Isada, tell us about your journey to America. My journey to America actually started in Kyrgyzstan, obviously, where I am from.

1:48Aizada MaratAnd I grew up in a very small village and rural area. So imagine just this life where I used to actually milk cows. I could take care of the field workers. I do all of those things. And I'd go to school. I was a very diligent and good student because my parents kept telling me the only thing that will pull you out of this rural area village is education. That's what they told me every day.

2:16Aizada Maratevery dinner. It was on repeat. And then I was like, yes, I'll do all of it. I'll do all of it. And then one day we, well, we bought a TV. I think when it was maybe 12 or 13, we bought a TV and then there was this sort of Welcome to another episode of The Village Global Podcast. My name is Amit Rao, general partner of Village Global. My guest today is Aizad Amirat, founder and CEO of Alma, an immigration law firm that combines the expertise of seasoned attorneys with AI.

2:50Aizada Maratto streamline the complex immigration process. They used to sit separately, the gym, the uniforms that they were wearing. Everything that was depicted in that video, I was just very, very fascinated about. Welcome to another episode of the Village Global Podcast. My name is Amrith Rao, general partner of Village Global. And the restrooms were located outside, and we had to actually walk. Founder and CEO of Alma, an immigration law firm that combines the expertise of seasoned attorneys with AI.

3:19Aizada Maratto streamline a complex immigration process for individuals and businesses. Allma has achieved a 98% approval rate on its cases, which she can prosecute in half the time of a traditional law firm. He was done in another city. So my sister and I, we took a bus, she's like, She's young. I'm young. We just took a bus, go to another city and then we took a test to participate in this future leaders exchange program. This is supported by US Senate actually. It was initiated by US Senate for former Soviet Union countries to bring high school students that are not yet subject to propaganda and to show them what

4:03Aizada MaratUS is, this is after the collapse of USSR, so they wanted to show the younger generation that US is not hostile and that the main purpose is the cultural exchange, but it's also very selective.

4:14Aizada MaratSo we went there and my sister and I were just like very adamant about learning English. My mom she went to like local bazaar and she got us a book which was English vocabulary. So my sister and I would listen to like Britney Spears songs and then later to Beck Street Boys songs and then they would say words and then we would write them down and we would try to find in vocabulary.

4:38Aizada Maratand trying to understand. And sometimes it didn't mean anything to our local. We got the words wrong. So it was a hard way of learning English. But then we were also lucky. There was a US court volunteer from America. And basically, wherever I was in the city, if I saw Americans, I'd just go and talk to them. And my mom would be like, we need to go home. We were just stuck at Bazaar and talking to tourists. But I was obsessed about learning English because I figured that this was my way.

5:07Aizada MaratLong story short, I made it through this program. And when I was 17, I came to the United States with future leaders exchange program. This was a program that...

5:18Aizada Maratchanged my life. My life was before and after and ultimately it was Britney Spears and it was my dream to meet with her to attend her concert but you know she now has mental issues so I unfortunately that's a dream that cannot come true but I really had an urge to write her a letter and say look at where I am now and many years ago, she's she's inspired me. And it's funny because, you know, we've talked about it with my co-founder, Asal. And I was asking her what inspired you. And she's like, when I was 14, I watched a video of Steve Jobs. And I was like, when I was 13, I watched Britney Spears. But it doesn't matter what inspires you. It matters like what outcome did it bring? That's right. That's right. Speaking of outcomes.

6:05Aizada MaratTell us about Alma. Yeah, Alma is an AI immigration law firm. We basically combine top immigration attorneys with technology and AI to first make them 10x more efficient so that we can scale that expertise in a consistent way. But secondly, how do we offer technology to streamline and give transparency into the immigration journey? And it's interesting, I never ever thought that I will be doing anything related to immigration because I went to law school because I read this book to kill a mockingbird.

6:41Aizada Maratone of my favorite books. I was so impressed by it and deeply affected. So I decided there I'll be a litigation attorney. That's what all the attorneys want. You want to be a litigation attorney. You want to defend the poor. You want to defend people.

7:00Aizada Maratyou go into law school, and then you're like, you need to go into corporate law. You need to do all of those things. You need to take the bar exam. And after all of it, you end up doing corporate stuff. That's the reality that happens to a majority of people. And I was also a corporate attorney. Never did I think that I will do anything related to immigration. But, you know, as an immigrant, I firsthand experienced immigration.

7:28Aizada Maratin different ways and shapes. I departed the country twice, right? Like the first time when I finished Flex Program, I was subject to J1, Homestay rules, so I had to go back to Kyrgyzstan, and I didn't know that I could get a waiver and I could do my undergrad in the United States. I didn't, so I departed the first time. The second time when I graduated from Harvard Law School, The lottery process is like the likelihood of you winning is so low. So a lot of law firms just don't sponsor H1B. So then I went to London because it was easier to get a job authorization, work authorization there. And then when I met my husband, I was like, okay, this is it. I'm marrying a US permanent resident. My immigration problems are solved.

8:13Aizada MaratAnd then when we moved to California, I unfortunately, an immigration law for mishandled my case and I couldn't work for more than a year. And this was time of reflection, but also I was very desperate back then and I was borderline depressed because All of my life, I was like, every year, I had to have a big achievement. That's how I would conclude my year. 31st of December, at midnight, I'd be like, what are the things I've done and I must have a big accomplishment. And that year, I didn't. And I still remember that year, I did not accomplish anything because I was jobless.

8:51Aizada MaratI couldn't work. I couldn't leave the country. I was just stuck inside of the US. And funny thing is that my husband was attending Stanford Business School. So I had attend classes with him and I just felt so bad because you see all of these cool Stanford kids, all of them are so cool. They're like, oh, I've sold my startup and I worked on this deal and I've done this.

9:12Aizada MaratAnd I was just so embarrassed to even talk about myself because I was like, I'm jobless. Like I don't have a job. So it was very, very difficult time for me. But as Steve Jobs says, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. That time I spent reflecting, but also Stanford has had a huge impact on me because, you know, their motto, change, lives change, organizations change the world. It really spoke to me. I was like, You know about this. I want to go back to Kyrgyzstan and have a political career. But I was like, I should start with small things. And then they constantly talk about if you want to start a company, solve your own pain point. And they thought about it. And I was like, immigration. I know it in and out. And if you think of it, it's a problem at scale. So that's a long story of how I got to Alma. But there are more details if you want to know. I love that.

10:07Amit RaoI kind of do. Tell us about the journey to Alma in particular. Obviously, there are so many stepping stones along the way, but how did you decide to start Alma? Yeah. So from Stanford, I already knew that I want to be a founder and that it was about how do I get there.

10:27Aizada MaratAfter my immigration issue was resolved, I still went to work at Cooley. I was very grateful to Cooley, and I'm still grateful to this day because they waited for me. They did not revoke my offer, and I went to work there. And the partner that I work with now, retired John, he's just amazing. John Hale, he invested in Alma as well, and he's a friend of mine for life. He is, and he...

10:52Aizada Maratwas my biggest supporter. So I spent some time at Cooley. But from there, I knew that I wanted to learn about business. So the ultimate question was, do I go to a business school or do I do something else to learn business? So I decided to go to McKinsey. It was a non-conventional path from law firm to McKinsey. But I did that. Then McKinsey was my business school. And I'm very grateful to McKinsey as well. I spent there one and a half years. And AI happened.

11:20Aizada MaratI was just obsessed about AI when I learned about it first. This was in 2023, like January. I found myself to be the only one in McKinsey to talk about AI. I was like, do you know about this large language models? There was this thing, and I was constantly talking about it.

11:40Aizada MaratAnd I was talking to someone more senior and they told me, yeah, it will take time until it gets to McKinsey because we serve, you know, SAP 500 companies. And their risk tolerance is not there to adopt AI. They're not an early adopter. So there, I thought, OK, I'm in the Bay Area. This is it. Because these revolutions, if you think of the internet, the mobile, the cloud, It didn't happen like, first it was the PC, of course. It didn't happen like all back to back. And according to James Currier from NFX, he says like, it happens every like 14, 15 years. So I was like, this is it. And I'm in my prime. Like, I cannot wait for another revolution. Like, I read books I watched movies about.com, you know, so I was like, this is it. I got to leave. So I talked to my husband and he's also a founder. We were like... You've heard of him. Yes. We were like...

12:38Aizada MaratThis will be so hard on our family to have two startups in one family. But if anything, I can say that I started this company illusionless. Like I knew all the ups and downs of building a company. And I was like, no, I'll do it. If I'm in the United States, if this is happening while I am here, what else I can do? If I'm not doing the most exciting thing, if I'm not realizing my potential to the fullest extent, then what am I even doing in the U.S. where all of my family and friends are in Kyrgyzstan, right? So that's how I took a leap. And there's also an interesting story before Alma. As you know, I used to host this dinner for Stanford students. I plugged myself into the Stanford community and

13:30Aizada MaratInterestingly, in the beginning, I thought, maybe I want to be a chief of staff to someone at a startup and see how it goes before I start my own company. So I had three companies. And I'm going to announce, yes. A grand reveal. Yes. It was actually Richard Socher at u.com.

13:51Aizada MaratIt was Arvind at Glean and it was Dario at Anthropic. There we go. Yes, and in fact, I hosted them all. You have a great taste. Thank you. I hosted them all and I wanted to see if I can work with them. You know, it's like I was interviewing them before they interviewing me. What year was this? This was 2023. Okay. So before I started Alma, I interviewed them. I interviewed Arvind and Dario in our backyard.

14:19Aizada Maratand with Stingis and then to Richard. Like literally in the backyard of your home. Yes, literally in our rented house in Menlo Park. They were in our backyard eating Kyrgyz food. I love that. And I really wanted to get them and see if I can work with them.

14:38Aizada MaratBut, you know, I've hosted so many founders and VCs that by the time I hosted them, I was already so convinced that I should start my own company that I was basically like, yeah, we shouldn't engage. I want to start my own company. And I started Alma because the more I spoke to all the founders and VCs, I was like, okay, this is a revolution bigger than anything that has happened before. This is going to change everything, especially legal. This was super clear. So I thought, This is it, like my legal background. When I left from Cooley to McKinsey, not a lot of people understood it because they were like, but you were having a great career at Cooley. You could become a partner. They pay so well. You went to law school. You took bar exams in both California and New York. Why would you want to abandon your legal career? John told us that you're the best person he's ever worked with. Thank you. John is just so kind. And I think

15:38Aizada MaratI tried my best at every single job I've had because I've done so many different things. I've done academia, I've done a practice of law, I've done consulting and now a startup. I always try to do my best but at the same time I would think like, can I do more? And my husband, he's my biggest supporter. He constantly kept telling me, but you just...

16:00Aizada MaratYou're just like you capable of way more than what you're doing now. I feel like this job is very limiting. He would constantly tell me this and you know like he tells me every day so it's like over time I was like I was so convinced that I'll be a such a good founder so I decided not to pursue that option with you know being someone's chief of staff and just you know, start my own company. So from there, it was clear that I will choose legal. And back then, there were already a couple of startups that started, and I was thinking, okay, what can I do where my passion is? And what do I feel like I can really solve? And that's how I started with immigration. Yeah, very cool. And you've already alluded to Excel as one of your co-founders. Tell us about the path to meeting Excel and Shuo.

16:50Aizada Maratand what worked, how the magic was made. Yeah. I think choosing your founders is the most important when you're starting a company and with a sell. She, you know, she went to Harvard Business School. So we sort of had similar profiles, but I felt like at a startup, it doesn't really matter. Like everything, everyone does everything, right? So like, you're going to pick up on so many skills. I am never built a startup. Neither has she. So I was like, we're just going to do it together. The most important thing for me was the trust. She comes from Central Asia. So we share certain similar backgrounds in a sense that Central Asian countries are very patriarchal. So

17:34Aizada Maratbeing born a girl, you're already disadvantaged in Central Asia. It's like, all everyone wishes you, since you like little, is to successfully marry and to be an ideal wife and someone's mother. That's also important, but like, it doesn't sit well with ambitious girls like myself and Esal. So it just like, I would always say like, but why? I would always challenge and my parents were like, don't challenge everything in the world. Maybe you don't, you don't like, there's also a thing of subordination. You're not supposed to talk back to all the people, but I was just like, why? I don't get it. Some traditions are wrong and I don't accept them. And I get to choose which traditions I want to follow. So I was very rebellious since I was very little. So it was a sale. We immediately clicked. She's from Kazakhstan. I'm from Kyrgyzstan. So similar back.

18:26Aizada Maratthe context that we share of the patriarchal society. And we just, I guess, both of us had a chip on the shoulder that, like, we need to prove we wanted to build a big company, and we wanted to show that female founders from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan can build a big company. So that's something that really united us, and that's how we started with her. But then a funny story is that it was two non-technical founders, and, you know... We still backed you.

18:55Aizada MaratExactly. Exactly. Which was kudos to you because a lot of VCs were saying like, oh, but you're both non-technical. How are you going to do it? And I'm like, it doesn't matter. We'll do it. We'll do it. We will find means, how to do it. We'll find ourselves a great technical co-founder.

19:12Aizada MaratAnd interestingly, when we landed Shuo and when we announced that day, I had so many inbounds from all the VCEs. And I'm like, I'm not talking to you at this point. Sorry. But Shuo was also my husband's co-founder introduced me to Shuo.

19:31Aizada Maratworked both at Uber and interestingly they both represented different teams at Uber and they competed in like in this dragon boat. They were both captains. So he introduced me to Schwoll and I spent like we were supposed to meet for 30 minutes and I think I spoke with him for like until the coffee shop closed and we had very honest conversation about everything from the get go. He's very direct and I'm one of the most direct people out there. So we had very honest and direct conversation about everything about startup, about family, about everything. So we both were sure settled on what really united us is that we're not going to

20:14Aizada Maratbuild some small company. This is not for us. If you are in it not to build a big company, let's not do it at all. If you are in it to build a big company, and we do not give up until we build a big company, that's really sure was like, I'm 100% in. I don't want to waste my time until we build a big company. So that's how we really connected.

20:36Aizada Maratboth very direct, very open, and very similar in our, I think, intensity as well. Shuo and I are very intense. I, most likely, the most intense. And then Shuo and then Asal is the one who actually brings up some light. Really? Yes. The Harvard Business School grad. She's the nicest.

20:59Aizada MaratAnd Shuo and I are constantly trying to work on our intensity level, but like, not so much on like, it's more so how our intensity shows up, but like, you can't really change. Like Shuo and I have discussed this and I'm like, unfortunately, this is not going to change. I'm not 20. Like no one can mold me at this point. I'm just the way I am. So, so sure. Aisha can't mold you? I don't think so. So talking about my daughter, you know, it's like, now I already see she's so stubborn as well. And I'm like, I'm just.

21:28Aizada MaratI'll just let her be. She's one and a half years old, and she's already so stubborn. But one credit I need to give to my parents, I was so stubborn and rebellious, and they never broke me. They just let me be. And that's Chingiz and I, what we have discussed, and he's like...

21:46Aizada MaratChinggis is the biggest feminist out of Central Asia. I think he's like, he's like, I admire how your parents brought you up. So he's like, we should never break our daughter. And I'm like 100% aligned. So, yeah. That's beautiful. You weren't always an AI immigration firm. Tell us about the navigating the idea maze with a cell to where you are today.

22:13Aizada MaratAnd what can founders learn from your journey pivoting? Yes. So we started in 2023. late to Southern 23. This is when we talked to you. I think in December we raised the funds. We were a B2B SaaS company and we were trying to sell immigration software to law firms. And I think we need to just touch base a little bit on what was so broken in immigration that I decided to start a company in the first place. I worked at Gully and I used to charge billable hours and The model is very different there. You work with companies that have deep pockets, and they just want their work to be done. And these are very important things to the company. You're doing their important corporate documents, corporate governance, or you are doing an IPO for them, or you're doing an M&A, or you're handling litigation. Those are all such important things that go to the core of the business. And then when companies think about something important that goes

23:21Aizada Maratto core of the business, they want to go to big law firms. And if you look at big law firms, this is like MCHAM 100, the market is pretty consolidated. Like 20% of the big law firms almost own 80% of the market. That's how it works. And then if you look at immigration, it's very, very fragmented because it's just the entire business model is different. Immigration charges flat fee. So for example, it like other than a couple of law firms that charge hourly. But if it's like a horizontal law firm that does everything, and sometimes they might do immigration, but it's very few law firms that do that, they might charge hourly. But usually it's just flat fee for everyone. And when you charge flat fee, really low flat fee, how big law firms like Fragman were able to go around it? They have huge Indian office. And this is where

24:15Aizada Maratall the work, the low value that requires manual effort gets done in India. And this is fundamentally broken, right? Because the actual attorneys just don't have bandwidth to do it because they're not charging $1,000 an hour. They're charging like $3,000 for a visa that takes like, I don't know, like 10 to 20 hours. And it's they must outsource some part of the work to non attorneys and low qualified, you know, low-skilled people and that's results in very inconsistent quality of legal services, and the general frustration that everyone has with immigration. I had my issues with immigration, but if you talk to a lot of companies, it's the same. They compare with their corporate law firms, and they say, like, oh, our corporate law firm is amazing, but our immigration law firm is not. But I'm like, you're paying your corporate law firm, I'm sure, like hundreds of thousands, like for every engagement. They're like, yes, yes, but also it's like, we're still paying money to immigration.

25:15Aizada Maratlaw firm so we would want consistent legal services and we also want some technology because immigration, unlike other areas of law, you actually have to manage. Imagine, like, you are a company on behalf of Village Global. You're sponsoring, let's say, like, hundreds of foreign nationals. And at any given time, you want to know what's happening to their cases, right? Like, is there a bottleneck with your employees? Is there a bottleneck with their attorneys? Why things are moving? Why things are not moving? Because it's actually costs money to you. The same was with Cooley, right? Like, when they couldn't get me to start on time, they were like,

25:51Aizada Maratactually didn't know, should they hire a temp? For me, what should they do? Do I know when my work authorization will be available? And I just kept saying, hopefully next month. And we didn't even know. We didn't have any clarity. We didn't have transparency. And those are the problems that we're ultimately solving. First is how to provide great quality of services. And this is possible with AI. And this might be some controversial take.

26:18Aizada MaratI don't know if people will agree or not, but large language models have passed California bar, who's flying colors, right? And California bar is one of the hardest tests in the country. I bet if you bring anyone from India that is working on your immigration documents on behalf of Fragman, can they pass the California bar? So why would you trust them versus?

26:41Aizada Marata large language model. So our belief is that we need to just hire expert attorneys who provide great quality of services, but we need to augment them. We need to make them 10x attorneys, right? Like so that they can actually outsource all the low value manual effort to jobs to AI so that they can focus on strategic things and they can actually control the outcome to make sure that you get approvals because ultimately what matters in immigration is approvals that are done fast because companies If you think of like, why even companies sponsor immigrant talent? Because companies just want to hire best talent regardless where it comes from. And if there are delays, if there is uncertainty, then they're just losing money because their best engineer cannot start working and they need to ship products fast. So this is how immigration is actually a competitive advantage for companies. And that's like assault with the quality of services that we provide. But also the technology, because when you manage hundreds and sometimes thousands of foreign nationals,

27:43Aizada MaratHow do you even like stay on top of things? Because usually how the day of someone who manages immigration looks like is that they get like hundreds of emails from their employees asking, what's happening to my case? Attorney is not responding. I want to travel to India. Can I? And all of those questions, they're flooded with emails, but they also have to do meaningful work. So that's what we automate. We bring technology not only to our attorneys, but also to the companies that we work with so that their life gets easier. They get the time back so that they can focus on strategic things. This is how I decided to solve the immigration problem.

28:22Aizada Maratgoing back to Schwo. Schwo, he led the team that built Michelangelo at Uber, and he's incredibly talented. And that was super important for me to learn someone who had very deep tech expertise and skills. And he was an ML engineer from day one. And interestingly, as I told you, when I landed him, there was so much inbound. But we were able to actually, before we even landed shaw, we were able to launch an MVP. We were able to ship it in two months. And we started testing it. But when you ask about pivot, It was really about I attended a conference in Chicago. It was a legal conference, one of the biggest conferences. And what was obvious to me, what we had in our MVP, a lot of companies incumbents promised that they'll get there.

29:18Aizada MaratAnd in 2020, this was early 2024, the shipping velocity was not there. So they were still behind. But they would promise like, oh, this will come in like Q3 or Q4 of 2024. And I'm like, we can build this fast. But I felt like this is not a sustainable advantage long term.

29:37Aizada MaratThe large language will get better. The cost of building will go lower. The velocity will increase. So how do we even build a sustainable business? So at that conference, it was just obvious to me that we need to make a pivot and we need to become a law firm. So we came back from the conference. I gathered my co-founders and I said, we need to pivot. And we decided the same day that we need to pivot and we pivoted. And what were the trade-offs, if you ask?

30:06Aizada Maratsome track record that we've got, right? Because we had some clients testing out, we had around like five law firms testing out our product, we were getting feedback, but it was about whether we want, you know, like a temporary setback, but strategic.

30:21Aizada Maratwin a long-term. So we decided to go for the strategic win long-term. And it was very, very obvious choice. It wasn't even that difficult because it was so obvious, so obvious to us. Not so obvious to the market, I think, back then, but it was very obvious. And this is one I understood it's like startup founders are so deep that they actually know, but sometimes the problem is how to take a step back and just understand that you're not going in the right direction. That because you can work hard and try to do something that's not going to get you anywhere, but you can work, you can put the same amount of hard work in something that's going to yield like hundred X results. So it was.

31:05Aizada MaratIt was clear for us that we need to focus on where it will be the most promising. And at the end of the day, we just understood that we need to control the entire workload end to end, and we need to control the outcome, and we need to guarantee the outcome. And 100% it was the right decision to make. We've grown so much since then, and Alma is building.

31:31Aizada Maratthere's definitely a need in the market for it. Because we just talk to customers, and it is so interesting. Sometimes we talk to prospective clients, and before they talk to Alma, they're like, I'm not sure. I'm pretty happy. And then once they talk to us, they're like, OK, before we met you, we didn't know we need you. So we're like, see? Do you want to take a moment and share a case study that that really brings that to life? Yes, yes, 100%. At this point, we have built out a couple of case studies with companies. But just most recently, we did a case study with a company called Rundu. They're also trying to automate a very, like, a traditional way of doing business. It's like these small shops, how to basically automate them and give them a lot of leverage with technology. And they work with paint shops and whatnot.

32:25Aizada MaratInterestingly, what really resonated with me, and I thought, this is so deep because the founders are not immigrants. They're both local. They were literally born in California. Both went to Stanford undergrad. And when they started building the company, they both quickly understood that people they liked.

32:48Aizada Maratduring the final interviews were immigrants. And they were like, oh, interesting. And then they started looking into an immigration provider. And they worked with a traditional law firm. And then they found, as they say, it's like startups have this unfair advantage of discovering undiscovered talent. So instead of competing for talent that has been already discovered by Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, whatnot, they started looking into Waterloo.

33:15Aizada MaratThey have this co-op program where apparently they do internships for half a year and study half a year. So they started looking into the basically students in later classes, those who are about to graduate the same year or next year. And they started to bring them for internships and then sponsoring their visas. So they've grown a lot. And as they say, it's like...

33:40Aizada Marattop talent fuels the gross, right? Because that's the only like the company that you built is the team that you built. So they've understood it so early. And they're so smart that they fixed it proactively. They worked with a traditional law firm, but they've understood that like, they shouldn't be wasting time chasing the traditional law firm, trying to understand where the cases are. So they proactively looked.

34:02Aizada Maratfor a solution. They found us through some VC. They asked around and one VC said, you should look into Alma. And then they came to us and they said, this has been life changing for them because now the CTO Andrew, he actually handles immigration matters because they're so important to them. He spends less than an hour a week if he like spends like maybe I don't know sometimes he might spend 10 minutes sometimes he might but he's like everything is clear he's like I don't want to talk to anyone like I just like if I need to sign something I'll sign it and upload it like I don't need to you know go into the detail and he's like I just look at the platform cases are moving along I talked to employees in the office they're all happy and he's like

34:47Aizada MaratI just got my time back. So this is, I think, super critical. And of course, we have 100% approval rate for a run due. And this is something that they're also happy with. But the other thing that we do very differently is how fast we move. We understand is that in this very competitive talent market, if you slow down on anything, you're going to lose your candidate. So we move fastest.

35:12Aizada MaratAll of our basically commitments are life on the platform. Alma is the only company that guarantees it. We guaranteed all of the deadlines are on our platform, and that's what companies love about us. Wow. And that speed must be directly a result of your automation strategy. What have you taken at principled stance or a point of view on that?

35:34Aizada Maratought to be automated and what should not be automated? Yes, the ultimate legal advice cannot be automated. The strategic advice, like for example, what visa this person should apply for or like how do you position this person when we're applying for this visa? Those are the decision-making processes that will stay with attorneys at all times because this is too important and you touch on human's life, so it is super important. But like low-value work when you're filling out the forms or or drafting the first version of the documents, instead of them being done in India and where humans are their errors, we bring AI. And AI at this point, as I said, will do just a better job because it passes California bar with flying collars. So AI gets to a very good place. And then there are still attorneys bridge the gap. Because at the end of the day, Alma is a law firm where California registered

36:31Amit Raoas required by the state bar, we must ensure that every single petition is reviewed by human and this will always stay. That's awesome. And fast-forwarding 10 years from now, why do you think the future of immigration law will look like Alma versus what it looks like today? The answer is short. They will not be able to compete with us. Because if you think of

37:01Aizada Maratthe menial labor involved in immigration with traditional law firms. it's like they really need to invest a lot in engineering talent to change that. Would top engineers go and work for traditional law firms where they don't have the traditional incentives of equity, right? And it's not that cool to work for a traditional law firm as an engineer. So that would be the biggest bottleneck if they want to do it. And I think it's like engineering talent is one. All the product managers that we can attract. And I think it's like, or all the attorneys that are also joining Alma.

37:40Aizada MaratThey just want to change. Like they are currently working at traditional law firms and they're underwater. Like they are, they're working insane hours and they're still mistakes. They're still inconsistency. And like who wants to do a sloppy work? Like no one. They want to be augmented by AI. They want to use AI because at this point, especially in the Bay Area, it's so clear that AI provides a lot of leverage to humans. So.

38:08Aizada MaratThat's where I think it's like just the talent that is ahead of the curve. They will not join traditional law firms that is like so big and so bureaucratic and so hard to change. And that's why startups usually win, right? Like we're focused and we move fast. And that's where the advantage is. And I just think in the future is like when they see over years, how Alma makes improvements, constant improvements, and constant leaps, they'll be so far behind that it will be insanely hard for them to survive. Yeah. So speed, the reason why Alma wins customers in addition to just winning cases? Yeah, 100%. I think speed, but also consistent quality at scale. Because the problem is, if you look at traditional law firms,

38:55Aizada MaratThey're great attorneys, but they all operate in silo. And sometimes I talk to clients of some of the law firms and they say, oh, you know, it's like, my attorneys are great. And I talked to another company that works for the same firm. And they're like, oh, I hate my experience. And it's all because they're just like different people serving them. And that shouldn't be a problem at all, because all attorneys are powered by the collective intelligence of all the attorneys. So it's like, for example, let's say you're drafting a petition, you learn from all the petitions that were filed by ALMA and actually AI helps attorneys to make certain decisions so that they know what other attorney, like for example, if other attorney received some sort of request for evidence, another attorney that is touching a new case, they would know because it immediately goes into our AI intelligence and they would know. But all the data that all of these companies collected over the years, it is not

39:49Aizada Maratbeing used, right? It just sits there and data is not a leverage for them, but for us it is. So I would say like the collective intelligence, we learn from every case that we file to improve outcomes and to deliver better and that results in consistent quality at scale and of course it results in speed because we just deliver things fast because there are so many automations in place for attorneys as well.

40:16Amit Raoyou're the only founder where we did a double date before we actually partnered. And that's potentially a good segue to how we met you. So, you know, tell us what it's like to be married to a villager. Yeah. My husband, Chinggis, he is a founder and marrying him was one of the

40:39Aizada Maratmost likely the best decision in my life. But it was a decision specifically because when I met him, I was like, okay, he checked all of my boxes. And then I was like, okay, now I'm gonna give it a chance if we develop romantic feelings. And it's all happened and I was very happy about it because he's incredibly sharp and he always advises me things throughout my life. He constantly keeps telling me, Oh, you're so much bigger than this. You could do so much more. And he believes in me so much. So he's of course my biggest supporter. And because he started his company before me, I could avoid a lot of pitfalls like I whatever things he was like don't do this do this you know because he's done it so my journey was somewhat easier because I had a founder inside of my house and it actually being married to a founder it's great because we just understand each other yeah

41:42Aizada MaratAnd we go to the same events. We share all the resources. If we come across someone great that is part-time, like designer, we share resources. Videographers, we share resources. SEO agencies, we share resources. So it's like we just share a lot of things. And we also give feedback to each other because we know...

42:07Aizada MaratYou know what our strengths and weaknesses are so we basically like okay. This is how you can do things differently over the weekend We constantly talk about our companies So I wouldn't be surprised if Aisha when she talks she would know she would talk startup You know because she would just know everything about startups because that's we we talk about all day long because as a founder you cannot turn off and I'm just so glad because it wasn't a founder. I'm not sure if there would be the same level of understanding because we never turn off. We're constantly working. We sometimes we're like, okay, let's watch a movie, but like 10 minutes into the movie, like one of us pulls a laptop and then second looks and we're like, okay, so pulls a laptop and then we're just working.

42:58Aizada MaratAnd we're okay with it. I'm not sure if another husband from Central Asia would tolerate this. They would be like, what's going on? You're just constantly thinking about your startup. And we just joke. He's like, he tells me, OK, for you, it's Aisha and Alma. And I'm like, number 10. And I'm like, it's the same for you. It's like, you know, it's Kodiff and Aisha.

43:21Amit RaoBut temporarily, everything is fine because we still spent a lot of time because we have a common ground of discussing our companies. I love that. And you're a strong woman. And I know that you and Chingiz have such a beautiful partnership. Now, I didn't really think about the advice that Chingiz has been giving you along the way. What would you say is the best piece of advice? And what is an example of advice that you as a strong Central Asian woman chose to ignore?

43:50Aizada Maratto your benefit. So I think the best piece of advice he gives me continuously. because he has an outside in perspective, I'm always in founder mode. And because I started this company, I care about everything small and big. So I get involved with everything. So he always tells me, take a step back and think about all the 10x things only you can do and focus there. And sometimes like if at midnight, he sees me responding to some Slack messages, he's like, what are you doing? Like, let's talk is this important in the grand scheme of things or not? Like what you should be doing?

44:27Aizada Maratinstead. Like what can you do for the startup to make leaves? So that's why he always like he knows that I am very execution oriented. I go into everything into the weeds. I want to control everything because the company's everything is important about this company to me. And he just tells me like as a CEO, I need to basically take a step back and always focus on what's most important. So he always grounds me and helps me think about it. And he I mean, like he's given so many great pieces of tactical advice, strategic advice. For example, the banner at Raman that we are famously located right next to Raman Nagi in Palo Alto, which is a very popular spot. And we have a banner right next to it which says, why are you waiting for your Raman?

45:16Aizada Maratlike, are you also waiting for your immigration? Like maybe you just might as well step in and check out. And that banner went viral. And we got actual customers because of that banner, because we work with one company. And when I asked, how did you know about us? They said, oh, our CEO was there. And he took a screenshot and told, oh, this is cool. We should work with them. And that's how, and it's one of the very fast growing robotics companies.

45:45Aizada MaratYou know, it just works. So he gives me both tactical and strategic advice and the advice that I didn't take and I just couldn't take was when I gave birth. He was like you cannot go back to work like you need to recover but i had no other option because the company 2024 was still small even now i don't think i could i can take any time off you just cannot so he was like you need to recover you need to take some time off but i just couldn't so after a week i was already at work I started checking my phone like the second day and then like after a week I was back at work full-time. This is when he was like, you should have taken more time because he was like, you're not recovering. This is not good long-term and because he cares for me. But at the same time, like when I say no, but like, you know, would you just step away from your company? Like I give birth, but you can also step away from your company, right? His response was,

46:44Aizada MaratBut I cannot produce milk. So I was like, I don't have to step back. And I was like, well, I can pump. And like, you know, it's the same. So, but he totally understood it. He just wanted me to recover. So that was one thing I pushed back on. That's awesome. Switching gears a little. Well, actually, I have one more question. Do you ever karaoke with Chinggis?

47:07Aizada MaratThat's a good question. Chinggis does not sing. I sing a lot. So Chinggis does not sing and does not dance. He likes to talk about strategy even at 1 a.m. We hang out with our friends. I'm singing karaoke because I need to release all the tension. And he's just talking all the strategy stuff. He's among our friends, the startup founder group.

47:35Aizada MaratHe's the most beloved advisor to everyone. Everyone comes to Chinggis with their hard questions. They're like, I'm having issues with my co-founder. I have to fire this person or like we need to make a pivot. This is not working. Chinggis is very good at advising and...

47:54Aizada MaratActually understanding the problem. It doesn't work with me like they tell me something I already have my point of view and then they say this is what you should do Like I don't understand why you're not doing it, right? So but these are founders they need to have their buy-in and whatnot So it's like it's very different. So I don't advise I just deal with my own company and but Chingiz is very good at advising. He's the Aksa call Yes, exactly. Everyone says that he's very wise and that later in life he should definitely become a VC. All of our friends literally be like, Chinggis, can you please recommend this? Everyone just goes to Chinggis. I go to him as well, because he is very valuable. Because the thing about Chinggis, he reads books like crazy.

48:47Aizada MaratHe reads all the books and then I get the benefit of it. I just ask him, okay, what are the three core ideas or five core ideas in this book? Because everything repeats, but what's different? Maybe what's controversial, what's hot take or maybe something. And he shares, he loves sharing. So I just benefit from it. So that's the best. I don't know how he benefits from me, but I definitely benefit a lot from him. Well, we'll bring him into this room and ask him the same questions about you. I know he'll have some great answers.

49:19Amit RaoYou have interviewed so many people. You talked about Dario, et cetera. Who are your biggest inspirations beyond Chingiz, of course, in terms of what influences your vision and execution at Alma? I think, ultimately, my inspiration are all the founders that are ahead of me.

49:42Aizada MaratBecause I know how difficult the journey is, and I know that it requires a lot of perseverance, resilience, and just not giving up. All these people, they want to win. They're ambitious. And startup journey takes a toll on you, right? It takes a toll on your relationships. I haven't spent any meaningful time with our friends. I just don't.

50:09Aizada Maratbecause if I have any time I try to spend with my daughter and it takes a toll on you. So all the founders that keep grinding year over year, resilient, being resilient and still passionate about what they do, they're so inspiring. It's like, I listen to a lot of podcasts with founders and right now it's like for a lot of founders that did not catch the AI wave and built traditional businesses, it's incredibly hard, right? Like, I've listened to a CEO of Atlassian, for example, right? Like, incredibly good business, but under such pressure, how the future of the business is going to look like. And I'm just amazed at all of these founders because they care for their companies, they try to do what's best. So one of the latest podcasts I've watched with CEO of Uplovin, Adam,

51:01Aizada Maratincredible founder. He's been through thick and thin of building a company so resilient and so intense. And he's very open about it. He tries not to sugarcoat it. He's very intense. And he says, yes, it's been hard on my family, but like, you either do it or you don't do it. Like this is no one is forcing you to do this. And that's what I feel like as well. This is my I was very intentional about building a startup. As I said in the beginning I was illusionless and that's why it's like I'm the same person, I'm illusionless. But at the same time it's like this is the one thing that I enjoy so much. I used to work very hard at all of my previous jobs and this is just how I was brought up. But this is my most intense and

51:50Aizada Maratmost favorite job ever. I don't think I want to do anything else than this job because every day it's problem solving. Every day is a new challenge. Every day I am learning. My slope of learning was just like this since I started this company. And it's just like 2x because I'm also learning the journey of my husband at the same time. Maybe I'll get that.

52:17Amit RaoThat's awesome. You've been very positive about all the folks that you get advice from. It's time for us to ask your advice for founders who are cracking zero to one.

52:32Aizada MaratWhat are the two or three things that you would advise folks as they are starting to think about an idea that they will turn into a vision and then a reality that you would offer our audience? I think the most important to me is to really think about the problem that they want to solve, whether it's a real problem, whether it's a nice have or a must have, because sometimes founders fall in love with the idea too early.

53:00Aizada MaratUm, and this is what, you know, Chinggis says is, um, this is his literally, um, um, words. He says like, you shouldn't treat your startup as your baby because you, you take your baby out and you want everyone to say, what a cute baby. How adorable. Oh, I love your baby. But if anyone says anything bad about your baby, you become so defensive. And this is a little baby. Imagine. So it's like, you become so defensive and you shouldn't be that you should treat your startup like a car that you're building because you want actually to show to people so that they can take a ride and see and say like oh like maybe you should improve this maybe you should improve that so you you cannot treat you cannot fall in love in with the idea too early and then be defensive and just to be too stuck you need to really test it and I think this is where the mom test book is really helpful because your mom will just support you in everything and I think

53:56Aizada Maratthis is another hot take. I think American culture is very supportive where everyone is like you're say oh I want to do this everyone's like wow that's a great idea you know I'd love to buy that it's all fluff you should say like okay give me your money would you pay for it like today are you ready to sign a contract do not marry to your idea too fast actually actually see if people are willing to pay money for it only then start it but I think right now it's even harder than to start a company in 2023 because right now it's like everyone can build a product fast, right? Like the LLMs AI made it so possible. And for big companies, right? Like if your contract size is too big,

54:43Aizada MaratAll these companies will start thinking about, should we just build it internally? But if your contract size is smaller, they might be, oh, we're not going to bother with it. We'll just buy it from them. But it also requires just new level of resilience, I would say, because you need to be solving difficult problems. Because if it's just like a glorified some app layer, it will be really, really hard to survive. Because if anyone can replicate what you can do, then what you can do differently. Can you build distribution fast? Are you a bread tailor that has access to everything in this world? Then if not, why are you building this? Why do you think you have fundamental advantage to build a faster distribution or that you can build a better brand? What makes you believe that your company will survive long-term?

55:36Aizada Maratnow it is the best time to start a lot of services businesses because people want outcome and they don't want to learn your technology. Seriously, like when account like when we were doing like early on we were looking for accountants and there were companies that tried to sell me their software and they were like, this is so easy to learn. And I'm like, believe me, I have zero, zero desire to learn your software.

56:03Aizada MaratI don't want to. I need to focus on my thing. Don't tell me your software, please. If you tell me that you will do my books, just every month, I'll buy it, but I'll not buy your software. And that's what everyone wants. People tell me about tags, whatever software I'm like, please. Don't waste my time. I just want the outcome. Very similar with immigration. People want outcomes. Companies want outcomes, and they don't want to teach software.

56:31Amit RaoSo this is, I think, the best time to start services businesses. It was, you know, when was the best time? It was when I started it and the second best time is now. Yeah, I love that. I'm a child of immigrants. You are an immigrant. You're operating a business for immigrants. You might have a point of view on what gives immigrant founders a strategic advantage. What comes to mind? For a lot of immigrant founders, I think the country is where we come from.

57:00Aizada MaratFrom the bottom of my heart, I don't think I could have accomplished all the things I've accomplished in the US back home, because the country is small. It's a poor country. And they're still corruption. So I wouldn't be where I am today if I was back home. And I'm just so grateful for all the opportunities I have in the United States. And I think I have the resilience that many people don't.

57:29Aizada MaratI'm just talking about specifically myself. I told you, like I milked cows. I, you know, I helped field workers. I myself worked in the fields. So what can be more difficult than that? Like actually, you know, like, I don't know, planting potatoes, like under 40 Celsius, like, what can be like harder than that?

57:50Aizada MaratNothing. So that's what I, when I used to do anything manual, my parents would tell me, only education pull you out of all of this, only education or all of your life, you will continue doing manual work. And I hated manual work because I did it every day after school. And that's why it's like, no problem exists that I am scared to approach or address or like no challenge that exists there. I'm like, oh, I'm scared of it.

58:19Aizada MaratI'm like, I just remember where I come from. And it's a privilege to be here. Literally, it's a privilege to be here, to be building a company. And I'm not sure if I've shared this with you, but Chinggis and I, we've talked about it and we're like, this is insane. Like the fact that VCs are willing to give us money, pre-product, pre-everything, just believing in us, it's like a dream.

58:44Aizada Maratto build something that we want to build, that where we want to spend time. So we understand this is a privilege and we do not take it for granted. And at the end of the day, I could have been back home with my family and I am here. I don't see my siblings grow up. I don't see my nephew grow up. I don't attend all the birthday parties. Chinggis and I are just by ourselves. We have nobody here.

59:13Aizada MaratSo if we have nobody here, we want to realize our potential to live fullest so that we never regret our time in the United States. And that's how we think about it. And that's why we were just like, we do the startup, both of us. I love that. And I think it's helpful to point out your long-term goal is actually to return to Kyrgyzstan. Would you like to share that? Yes.

59:39Aizada MaratSo as I said, growing up in Kyrgyzstan, it was the collapse of Soviet Union. I grew up in literal poverty where there was no food, no jobs. We used to like every day, we would ask God so that God give a job to my father so that we could, you know, make a living. And it was, it was, it was not only our family. It was everyone in Kyrgyzstan. And I grew up just always thinking all the privileges that come across my way that you know all the privileges that I get in life I really want to give back to the community and in that sense I think it's like United States has a huge advantage because I came to the United States

1:00:24Aizada Maratwhen Kyrgyzstan already spent all the tax money on my education, on my health, on everything to support me, right? Like, I came to the United States when I was like 25. First, I came when I was 17, and then I came back. When I was 25, I was an adult, and I was an adult ready to contribute, ready to pay taxes, ready to, you know, to provide meaningfully to the economy of this country. So basically, America benefited a lot.

1:00:52Aizada MaratAmerica didn't spend much on me other than the flex program. So that's why I want to give back to Kyrgyzstan. A lot of people from Kyrgyzstan who leave the country never want to go back, but I want to go back. And this is Chinggis and I.

1:01:09Aizada Marathave agreed about returning to the United States. This was one of the first questions I asked him. I said, will you go back to Kyrgyzstan? Because if you will not, then I'm not sure I can marry you because I will go back eventually because this is where I want to spend, you know, when I when I get older and I want to run for the government because everything I'm learning I would want to ultimately give back. Do we want to talk a little bit more about your position in government?

1:01:35Aizada MaratYeah, we can definitely talk about it. Everyone will be like, oh, this girl has no shame. But I'm very open and direct, as I said. And I've already told it publicly.

1:01:46Aizada MaratIn Kyrgyzstan, it's a very top-down country still. We pretend to be a democracy, but we're still not. So the president has a lot of power to change things. And that's the only way for me to go, and within six years, to make meaningful changes within the country. So that's why I'd like to run for the presidency. And whether people choose or not, that's my destiny, if it will happen or not.

1:02:13Aizada MaratBut if it happens, I'll serve a term six years, and I'll try to do my best. And then, yeah, I would. So Kirgisand is the only country where presidents actually, after the term, they resign because in all of our neighboring countries, They're basically I think they're at their second presidents because the previous ones either died, but or no longer could mentally serve Yes, Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Tajikistan Turkmenistan curious on is all is the only country right now This is our sixth president. So we actually have a change in our Presidents, but the only reason is because I can make changes top down fast in six years and I feel like

1:02:55Amit RaoThe the startup journey building a huge company is part of it as well I want to build a huge company so that I know how to You know run a huge company and run it successfully and then I can apply some of the skills to Actually working for the government. Totally. I think I think the last time we talked about this was was around the time that we made the investment I was tickled by you know, you referred to Ching is checking the boxes one of the boxes he checked was he would allow you to be the president of Kyrgyzstan and take a different role. Since in the two years since, have you developed any clarity on your strategy for how to add value to Kyrgyzstan and your people? Yeah.

1:03:41Aizada MaratThat's an interesting question, not yet because right now I'm so focused on the company and all I can think is as the company how to make it successful. So one step at a time, I build a big company. I hire a lot of smart people and I can think about other things. And this is when I will think about Kyrgyzstan. But I think all the skills that I'm learning along the journey will be super helpful because it's a lot about people building the teams, building scalable systems, you know,

1:04:10Amit Raogoing to market, how to make clients happy. So it's very similar, I think, to a government job that I want to have. I love it. Well, once you're a villager, you're always a villager, and it'll be great to see you in office.

1:04:24Aizada Maratafter Alma's IPO. Yes, 100%. You're all invited to my inauguration. And that's what John, partner from Coolie, he's also invited. And he just recently texted me. He's like, hey, Isada, I know this will not happen in the next five years. So is it okay if I go to Kyrgyzstan already? I'm like, sure, 100%. I'm just focused on company building right now. I love it. Well, we admire your focus, your grit, your determination.

1:04:53Aizada MaratThank you so much for doing this with us, Isada. Thank you so much. Village was a very early believer in us when we didn't have shawl and it was pre-product and I will forever cherish that you invested in us before everyone else did. You were the first term sheet we got and we got other term sheets but...

1:05:14Aizada Maratthey were not as important as the first one. And that's how, you know, we were very happy to take the first check from you. And it was just valuable because we were like, well, I was like, wow, someone believes in me, even if I'm not technical, I really have to, you know, work hard so that they never regret their decision. Well, we won't. Thank you.

1:05:38Ben CasnochaHey, this is Ben Keznoka, co-founder of Village Global. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Village Global podcast where we go deep on all of the biggest topics in tech. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can check us out on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love to see you for the next one.