Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:12
Yeah, this is great. If you’re looking at the page, we’re here on your website and we can see, you know, we could go we could talk for hours probably on each one of these. Right? I mean, if we’re looking at retention hacks, partnership power, leveraging influencers, app store optimization. So if you’re interested in this stuff you can go to the website and download the book. Right. Is there an audio version?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 12:36
Because it will be okay.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 12:39
Good. Because I listen to Audible. So I want to make sure that there is so I can actually buy it and listen to it. Selfishly. This is great. People can check this out. Now talk about some of your tech stack that you use as a company, and maybe some of your favorite apps and software?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 12:56
Yeah, it’s a big list of things and majority of them are used by my team. Obviously I use my every day is obviously Zoom, Slack, ChatGPT cloud. I’m a heavy user of these, so I use a lot more deeper ChatGPT use the projects, the GPT. So yeah, those are the main ones. But then we use Canva and our business, we use Adobe tools that we have a WordPress for our website, a lot of tools for creating different voice and images. We use Descript. I think there’s a big list of tools that we’re using on the development side. We use Jira, we use GitHub, we use Cursor, which is.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:51
I’ve heard a lot of things about Cursor.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 13:52
The Cursor is really good. My team love it. Because it’s embedded inside the IDE and the instructions, it’s aware of the context. So the instructions given to Cursor are have a lot more better response than if you’re using other tools.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:09
What about on your phone? Like is there any personal apps or maybe I’m sure all these have, you know, you’re using on your phone. Some people use ChatGPT on the phone, but any personal productivity or health apps that you like to use.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 14:24
I use Apple Health every single day. Because the first thing in the morning, after I wake up and look at how much sleep I had. I’m tracking my.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:33
What’s your goal of how much sleep do you want tonight?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 14:36
I want eight hours, but I’m not getting that as much.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 14:41
Sometimes it’s a tough one.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 14:44
That’s true. And then. No. Yeah. Sorry. You were asking about the absolute Notion is. Another one on my phone, even though I use a desktop as well. But it’s handy. I’m at any conference everywhere that helped me getting those quick, quick notes. Obviously Spotify for my music while walking. And another one I mean, we can talk later on, as well as the Blinkist for my book reading because it gives you a summary of books.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:15
What is it called?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 15:16
Blinkist.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:19
I’ve heard good things. I’ve never used it.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 15:22
It gives.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:23
Is it audio and reading or is it just one or the other?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 15:26
Both audio and reading. So it moves the cursor along the way. So you could do both, but some people prefer.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:34
So is that a competitor Audible or just different function?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 15:39
Audible is probably full book.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:44
Blinkist they’re all summaries?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 15:45
Summaries only. Only summaries. And you only pay the app subscription. You don’t pay per book an audible you pay, I mean, based on your plan.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:56
Well, you sold me. I’m going to get it. Thank you. Yeah, I’m a big audible person. What about, like, I know you mentioned you use ChatGPT and Claude. Are there any interesting use cases of how you’re using each of those personally or business-wise?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 16:14
So the main use case is using the projects. So this is where we load different assets. And each of those projects. Now the chats inside those projects already know. So, for example, in Claude, I have an instruction set. And I just gave, for example, just a company name. I said Rise25. I’ll go to my email, look at all the last whatever the number I’ve told, like 510 emails, it will go to Google Drive, and look at all the files that were shared, and it will generate a proposal based on a different template. So with one word, it can generate a proposal.
Obviously, we’re expanding it to generate more deeply. So that you could have even a specific type of proposal created. We still have to. But if it gives you 80%, that’s still a big achievement. And then we use for example, even WordPress, we use MCP just like you have a blog that’s in a Google doc. Now you use AI to convert that into text because it messes up the formatting. And then with MCP, you just push us into, oh, sorry, I’ve just went into that. It’s called MCP, which is a model context protocol. It’s by Anthropic. It is a new standard. So it’s like an API for AI. So anything in the past, like you build a software, you have an.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:47
It connects, then? MCP, you said it connects WordPress to what?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 17:51
So okay. So, MCP would expose any software that is charitable by AI like Claude and MC. Now open ChatGPT also exposes that. So let’s stay with Claude for now. So I have a WordPress MCP. So in Claude I can on my desktop. Once I connect with the WordPress MCP, I can give instructions. I say, well, give me a list of blogs that are in edited shape or change this thing. I can just give instructions. It can change metadata, everything. Right from there I can connect my, for example, QuickBooks, and I just query how much subscription software I have paid for this year. I don’t need to open those software. So it’s about querying all the different software from my cloud desktop.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:38
Got it.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 18:38
It’s an API for AI. That’s how you expose your API.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:42
So is it true? You said Anthropic or is that what it is connected through?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 18:47
It’s a protocol, but Anthropic is the one that came up with.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 18:51
I mean, Anthropic. Are you? I’m just trying to visualize. Are you? Are you on Anthropic?
And then you’re connecting QuickBooks to Anthropic and then giving commands?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 19:04
Yes. If you are, if you’re on, if you’re on Claude when you chat. There’s an icon there you click. If you if you go to Claude Desktop. If you go to like click on Try Claude.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:23
Oh God yeah yeah yeah. You just walk me through it just so you could go through Claude here through Anthropic.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 19:32
Do you have Claude Desktop on your computer?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:35
So that’s why I don’t want to.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 19:38
Okay.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:39
Take the time. But but I get I get what you’re saying. You have to, like, basically like.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 19:44
Or if you go to ChatGPT, I can show you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:47
Yeah. No. Go ahead. You can just. I just want to get an overall sense so people know, okay, you go to Anthropic and then you click on whatever you’re using. And then you can actually talk through it in connect it and pull in data from wherever you’ve connected it to. Is that the general sense?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 20:04
So when you plot desktop where you’re adding where you say add files, you know how upload in the ChatGPT just at the same place it’s called it and connectors. And then you can connect with your Google Drive notion email whichever way you want to search to. And then whenever you are searching or you’re you’re giving a prompt, the source is not the public web. It’s actually your data.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:30
So that’s cool.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 20:31
You can you can connect Google Drive and it’ll give you all the answers from your Google Drive because it’s now querying your data.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:39
That’s cool. I mean, I don’t think it’s quite like Zapier for AI tools, but it is a connector. And it.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 20:49
Like a Zapier for because when you connect it, you configure which one do you want to expose? What data. So yes. So Zapier is for, I would say just the regular software. This is for AI. So nowadays it’s becoming more new standards. Any new software that you build, you build MCP server as well. You expose it as MCP so that anybody can query those things. Like for example, in JIRA, we use it for project management.
I can just let’s say Claude, I can let’s say I generate some mockups in Claude. I just give a path to push to JIRA like it will add it to my JIRA, or it will add to a specific ticket, and I can get a list of tickets and I can update the status of those directly. Just like how you do in a slack, you have a Slack connector. You could do different instructions. You could do the same thing in Claude, but a lot more broader, because now it’s giving you more free hand. It’s more like you’re doing it like a prompt.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:50
I see it makes it easier to brainstorm and then actually execute, because if you’re just brainstorming in one. And for people who don’t know JIRA, I mean people use Monday, they use Clickup, they use Asana. There’s a million project management software out there, but like I could see allows you to brainstorm and then then it just can die on the vine there. Okay, this is great. But then pushing it to a project management tool, assigning to someone actually getting it done is another story. And that’s what you’re using it for. Yeah, yeah, this is great Ghazenfer. See what’s normal to you. And natural is not normal to me or someone else. So I love digging into this a little bit.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 22:32
Yeah. And so talk about books for a second. Right. I don’t know if there’s any AI other AI tools you want to mention before we get to books, because, I mean, it seems like obviously you’re using Claude and you’re using ChatGPT and Anthropic to connect things. Or any other, you know, tools that you’re using in Cursor. Obviously, any other AI tools that people should check out?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 22:55
No, I think those are the main ones. On top of that, like we’re using two so many, it’ll just be maybe.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:02
Exactly.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 23:04
Stuff people may already know.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:06
What are some books? It could be through Blinkist or whatever with some of your favorite books, business books, nonfiction, leadership books?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 23:16
So my one of my favorite is Who Not How by Dan Sullivan.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:23
That’s Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan. Yeah, that’s a good one.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 23:26
Another one. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. That’s another good one there. My all-time favorite is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence Others. That’s my graduation gift for anybody who graduate, I’d give them this book.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:44
I agree. You know, I, I don’t know if this is bad or good, but I definitely I bribed my daughters to read it because I thought it was so important. So, you know, if I’m like, if I had that book when I was ten, that’d be so impactful and obviously like rereading it. So I, I wholeheartedly agree with that one for sure.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 24:08
And then another one that I use for, I mean, I give it to all the youngsters is Getting Things Done
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 24:18
David Allen, yep. I have had him I’ve had him on the podcast. That was a good episode. People could check that out.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 24:25
Yeah, I have a big list of. I mean, I have a whole library behind me. I have a different.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 24:33
Some more off. It’s always good resources, could change someone’s life. Right.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 24:39
And so I’m a big I’m a big book reader. And then I actually listen to that. So I follow the tips. So for example, the books what’s The Great Game of Business and A Stake in the Outcome
by Jack Stack. That’s one of the one like one of my partnership agreement was based off of tips from that book. And let’s see The One Thing by I forgot who’s the author. The One Thing.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:08
Yeah, I’ve had him on the podcast. Jay Papasan, he’s the co-author of The One Thing, and the other guy was the I think I was the was he the founder of Remax or something?
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 25:24
I’m horrible in people’s name. I remember the.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 25:28
Yeah, I’m horrible in.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:30
Garry Keller and Jay Papasan. Yeah. The One Thing that’s a great one.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 25:35
That helped me focus a lot more because from that point onward, I started thinking about that. Oh yeah. My. Another big favorite is this is a really good business for anybody on the sales and marketing side. They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. That’s one of the good books as well that gives you good tips on. I recently read books from Alex Hormozi, $100M Offers, $100M Leads. And there’s the third one $100M Money Models. That’s a that’s the next version. New version came.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:25
It’s on my to I read that.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 26:30
During my.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:31
Didn’t he have a webinar that was like six hours or something? I can’t remember, you know what I’m talking about.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 26:37
Alex Hormozi I did not attend that. I know they have a workshop. That is a multi-day.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:44
Yeah, but.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:44
It’s on my list. Like people were raving. I think he sold lots of books and things through that webinar. And so I’ve been meaning to to check it out. So those.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 26:55
During my I read that during Christmas break.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:58
Okay. Nice.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 26:59
And then another book that I read recently, I think she was one of the speaker at one of the EO events, Brand Chemistry by Laura, about her last name.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:13
I’ll look it up as you’re talking about the next one.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 27:22
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. That’s another favorite one.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:26
Here it is.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:31
Yep. Brand Chemistry. All right, I’ll check it out. So last question, because first of all, thank you. Everyone can check out his personal site. You can see it here Ghazenfer.com. You can check out TechnologyRivers.com. Last question is just some mentor, like a mentor of yours or colleague that’s given you a good piece of advice that sticks out to you.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 27:59
Oh it’s it’s the hard one. I think there are so many people in my circle. My friends. My. Yeah, there are so many mentors. It’s going to be hard to say the name. I think actually one of the latest tip, I’m listening to Dan Martell lately, so a lot of his advisors are actually his book. Buy Back Your Time is also one of the the favorite ones.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:28
Yeah, he also I don’t know if he still runs it, but SaaS Academy, you know, which is right up your alley with software and people creating software and apps and things like that too.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 28:39
Yeah, I don’t know if he still runs that, but yes, you’re right.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:42
Yeah. That’s great. I mean, yeah, there’s so many mentors. I consider it distant mentors, like all the books you mentioned or personal mentors. And, you know, we’re both a member of EO and that’s been a great group just to, you know, get different life lessons and, you know, experience shares through other entrepreneurs. So because I just want to be the first one to thank you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and some of these great tools with all of us. And we’ll see everyone next time. Thanks so much.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 29:17
Thank you.
Ghazenfer Mansoor: 29:18
Thanks for having me.
