[Music] [Music] good morning I'm Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday legal my guest for today is Suraya Turk the managing partner of Legal Circle good morning s thank you good morning it's a pleasure to be here thank you for having me thank you very much for coming it's a pleasure to have you no I introduce you very briefly but I would like that you uh introduce yourself but before I do that I would like you to tell me what's your morning drink do you drink coffee actually surprisingly I don't don't drink coffee sure you're a lawyer yes yeah but it's only because my stomach can't really handle the the the coffee these days but otherwise I'd absolutely love to drink it if I had a choice so it's not by choice that I don't drink okay but what's your morning drink then what do you do in the office if you don't drink I know my morning drink surprisingly is now water I have to start the day with water and then I within the hour I have to have something to eat so I'm just on a bit of a strict regime for okay for dietary requirements but that's the only way I seem that's the only reason I'm an anomaly at the moment okay so no offense for coffee no no no I absolutely love it I just can't drink it good so I would like that you a little bit introduce yourself and tell me uh and the audience about your your story part in the legal field what's your background where did you study for example and how did you end up in Dubai yeah okay so um so I've been a lawyer for almost 20 years now just just shy of that I studied back in Australia so I'm Australian born and raised with Lebanese Heritage but I went to University in Sydney and I studied law and law at the time was was pretty much a no-brainer it was for me it was like you I went down the list at the time of all the different professions that you could be and I remember thinking to myself it was either going to be psychology or law and so I put the two together so I actually did a double degree where I did social science and majored in Psychology and criminology um and then I combined all that with law as well so that's how I sort of started my career and then I was a prosecutor for the first seven years of my career back in Australia working at both the um local and federal level of government in prosecution and so a lot of it was advocacy courtroom drama but of course then life has it way of you know tting and turning and and and I guess putting you in a different direction when you least expect it and and that's what it did about 11 years ago and I ended up being in Dubai and I remember when I landed here I was like oh okay so prosecution my arabic's not great went to the court a few times I'm like not going to cut it and then the good thing was prior to prosecution um I did have some corporate commercial laws I thought okay well corporate commercial also was something that I could do quite easily and I worked as as well in a lot of sort of in my prosecution within white collar crimes so I had to understand a lot of the corporate commercial Dynamics and what some of the white Colo criminals were doing in that space I'm like okay it's quite easy to transfer and so then I did I moved into that so for the past 11 years um while practicing here in the UAE I was you know doing very much corporate commercial the typical you know lawyering in that space But about 6 years ago I could see that the landscape was changing right it was not so much anymore bigger conglomerates that were setting up here it wasn't all about you know a corporate commercial in a multinational corporation anymore there was starting to be lots of startups there was lots of you know young people who were moving into business and innovating innovating um and of course you know the government put out their Direction and Innovation and digital you know the landscape and technology and I thought o that's quite interesting this is definitely a space I don't know as much as I'd like to about and then that really started the entrepreneurial Journey for me and moving into to the startup and the landscape and understanding what was happening globally within the startup and entrepreneurial space and eventually I find myself practicing um you know private equity and and venture capital and really immersing myself in that to the point where that was what I was just doing day and night day and night and have been for the past six years it's been a really fun Journey yeah so the past six years are with legal Circle so the past six years been with legal Circle and before that and before that I was working in a few different law firms here so I worked in a local law firm and I also worked in a German international law firm which had set up an office here in the UAE yeah yeah yeah so I was doing corporate commercial with them for some time yeah and then moved into my own practice and legal Circle and focusing really on a niche I guess a niche startup and entrepreneurs yeah so tell us more about this Niche like your clients are all entrepreneurs or uh startups that already exist abroad and they want to come and and have a Bas in the UAE that's pretty much yeah so we have a mixed bag of clients so a lot of them or the bulk of them I would say are from the UAE and startups and Founders who you know have been like ex Google or ex Microsoft or you know one of these big names and now have a really Innovative idea and have decided to start up and they're on to something which is fantastic and great and so we helped them through the Journey of you know the incorporation and set up all the way through to you know if they were to go to IPO um and then the other part of I guess the portfolio you could say our client that come from abroad they may have set up there but now we're expanding and scaling across for example the Middle East and then we help them to scale and build into the minor region yeah yeah one of the things that is very common for entrepreneurs and startups is is is to make mistakes right I think that's how that goes without saying they have to they have to do that to to to learn what are the most common mistakes that you feel like startups especially the ones who Who start already outside of the UAE and they they kind of want to come and relocate here what is the main mistakes from their experiences abroad and when they come here to the UA they make yeah so it's really interesting so what we see with those startups or entrepreneurs that are coming from outside and then going to be scaling here is often they they have a different expectation or they nobody's properly helped them to manage their expectation like for example they might come to the UAE and they're like okay well I would just want to set up shop now and they think it's going to be done overnight um and it's as easy as you know going online making it payment of a small amount cuz I get this all the time from you know those that come out from the UK oh but in the company's house it's just ,000 you know p and I can get to sit up and I set up overnight and they have to understand that it's quite it's a little bit different here in the UAE you know in UAE there's multiple jurisdictions we've got obviously you know the mainland versus the free zone so where to set up why would you set up there what are the advantages of sitting up there so just understanding what the local nuances even of just setting up and then of course there's the nuances of even doing business here it's quite different you know the UAE when I say different I don't say this in a bad way at all I say in a good way but it's a Melting Pot of so many people from all over the world that have a different way of doing business and so you know when you come here depending on your the the area that you're in or the I guess the business and activities that you're in that looks a little bit different for different people and so again you know how do you do business here how do you for example if you're dealing with government how do you deal with private sector how do you even land the contracts what are the expectations of how to negotiate the contract cuz the land landscape is so different and it's still very much about relationships and about trust and about building that and that doesn't happen overnight so if you've come from overseas and you've just come to the U and you want to hit the ground running I mean that's great the ambition is great the energy is great but then you have to manage the expectation that it may take a little bit longer than what you expect or there might be some nuances that you've not considered that are unique to this landscape that you got to have to navigate which takes a little bit of time yeah yeah absolutely you did practice a little bit in in Australia as you said with the prosecution and you did some time as well in the cor corate commercial before that yes how did this switching happen and and let's say how long did it take you to actually switch your work style and your brain into the UAE in a civil law jurisdiction that is completely different than austral totally how long did it take you yeah so look I have to say to feel really confident in my own sort of knowledge skills and ability to to give clients you know the the level of care and attention and professionalism and advice that I wanted to took a good two years because I had to really rethink and relearn you know not so much rethink but relearn because I guess as lawyers the skill is there no matter where you practice around the globe the skill of lawyering is exactly the same however the knowledge base was a little bit different but the good thing was you know Australia is common law and so I need common law very well and the good thing in the UAE is that DC in the ad GM is based on common law although it's more closely aligned with the UK laws UK and Australia are very similar anyway and so really it was just tweaking the knowledge with the common law but from a civil law perspective that was quite different so I really had to start learning the knowledge base again but it didn't take very long look I'd say it took me a good two years but I mean at the end of those two years I could fairly say that I you know knew the real estate laws knew the employment laws new corporate commercial laws I mean to the point where I could recite articles in the different laws and talk about the application and I guess I was learning on the job and when you learn on the job it's always um it fast tracks as well your knowledge because you get to go all right well this is what I what I know and you're learning within a team of you know experts which is I had the benefit of doing when I was working in the law firms and then you had real life cases that you had to now apply your knowledge to and so I think that really helped me to really update my knowledge in terms of UAE laws and then bring the skills that I already had and together apply that in a real life situation and and I think by two years I was like okay I've got this yeah yeah and after 11 years I believe that right now you advising your clients coming from common law background is much easier and probably you have an advantage over other lawyers or coming only or studied only with the civil law or practice only with the civil law system that you you you might think you have some advantage over the other professionals when when you deal with clients coming from different from the common law system exactly well that's it so I had obviously a lot of training in common law before coming and then now over the 11 years I've had with the civil law putting those together I do feel like I I have now a good and very broad but also indepth knowledge of both and so regardless of where the client wants to set up or do business I can say well okay this is the advantages this is the disadvantages this is what it might look like for you if you progress this way in this jurisdiction or in this way and the good thing obviously with practicing here in the other law firms you know I did a few years in a litigation law firm as well so I don't only just see it from a consultancy or advisory perspective but I could see that you know in the case of a dispute and where things were to go wrong what that Journey or what that process looks like and I think you know God's the best of planners right because I didn't imagine that this is what the career my career would look like but when I look back I think wow yes there's there's so many I guess facets to learning and and practicing law and probably having the advantage of practicing and and learning here the multi- jurisdictions has given me definitely an advantage and made law bit more fun yes yes I know that you Advocate I mean you you're a public speaker and you do a lot of speeches especially when when it comes to advising entrepreneurs and I think you have the the speciality of advising Tech startups right can you tell us a little bit or about that like how do you help startups um in in coming to the UA or being introducing them to this uh jurisdiction yes so so you're right in saying that the public speaking is I think just an add-on to what I do in terms of Law and and I've just done so much of it that now I do get asked to speak globally and I talk about entrepreneurship and I talk about startup and I do talk about what it takes to know set up and scale and really grow successfully here in the UAE and what's my advice was your question my advice an entrepreneur how can you how can you help them how can you help the tech startups to come and and start up or set setup shop in the UA what what's your journey there help them with their Journey yeah so essentially we helped startups and entrepreneurs with their Journey from the outset so and when I say the outset it's from incorporation and setting up and knowing you know where to set up because you know as we were speaking about earlier the uee actually has so many jurisdictions within one country and it's got you know close I think over 45 free zones now and there's the mainland and so when a startup is first deciding where to set up they're often really confused okay well I've got so many options what do I do and so we really helped them identify what the options what the best options for them and why they would choose to set up in the particular free zone or in a Mainland so that's the start of the journey it always starts with licensing you know your activities and making sure you can actually do those activities in the UAE legally and then we look at right what are the different areas that they need now to help them scale now typically with a startup technology company after they've set up license after they've started say their product product maybe they've got a little bit of investment or they might be bootstrapping but then at some point in time they need to start fundraising and so typically within the first 12 months of their life cycle they will go to raise funds and that Journey lasts for quite so many years depending on the technology and so we helped them throughout that journey of preedee fundraising all the way to series a b and c and that journey is a is is a long one and and it's constantly you know it's one that you have to be constantly planning for so they might raise in the first 12 months but then they're already planning for the next raise and what does that look like and so that entire Journey now as they're fundraising they've also got to scale and they also have to grow and so we help them through the growth stages of hiring so there's you know employment contracts and negotiating those with your staff there might be vendor contracts because now your products go on to Market you have to I mean generate some Revenue so whether that's a service for example if it's you know SAS it could be a platform or it might be a technology or product or AI so how do they actually monetize that product or offering or service and we help them through that process with drafting all their contracts and negotiating that for them um and then really it's just as they scale they might now need to expand to other jurisdictions so we have Partners across jurisdictions that they might want to expand to so we look at how then do we help them to set up there so I mean typically with a startups Journey they'll may start in Dubai but then they look at Saudi Arabia being you know one of the bigger markets to to play if we want to put it that way and so how do they scale there how do we get them to go there um and then lots of little things along the way that they'll need to navigate they'll need to circumvent they'll need to find ways through and it's really helping them through that journey and then of course the more successful startups now post you know series a b or c are either looking at a merger or acquisition or going to IPO and we help them with that as well so really it's the full life cycle of the start Entre it's not only legal advisory no it's everything for startups yeah it's really the entire journey I mean just yesterday I sat with one of the startup and he was like I don't think you just do the lawyering bit I think you're also a bit of a psychologist um because you really have to see there and sometimes you've got to tell that startup uh no that's not what this is going to look like or I know you've desperately want this to happen you're just not there yet Hold Steady let's do this first do that second do that third you know take it in stages I know you want to get to number 10 but you're here now so just you go stay stay where you are now and then let's take it in stages and so often I find myself or telling them to calm down it's okay don't worry I mean because there's so many things in the startup and entrepreneurial journey I mean you go from hiring and then you realize okay I've just hired somebody that's not a fit for the team and now I need to fire okay great but the next thing you've got a claim by the you know Ministry of Labor saying you've terminated this person and now you need to pay x amount and as a startup it's like you know they get nervous they get worried it's something that they didn't expect on their trajectory it was more like I just needed to hire they weren't the right person now it's fire but with that comes so many things you know oh I've gone into a contract the contract was a bit bigger than what I you know anticipated I could actually handle at this point in time and so now you're in breach of a contract and now you're negotiating to get out of the contract but that could be $100,000 that you don't have so um and so there's so many things along the way that will come up that you can't plan for necessarily and so yeah it's about how do we take them through the entire journey and and get them to see it through to the end cuz it's not easy it gets tough doesn't it yeah working with entrepreneurs in general I believe it's it's not is not a very easy job but I will ask you about entrepreneurs that because it seems like you you've worked with many of them yeah I think we 450 the last time I counted wow that's that's a great of entrepreneurs yeah tell me about the most common trait you will find in an easy to work with entrepreneur and the opposite hard to deal with say that I don't know if it's an easy to work with entrepreneur okay I don't know none of them no but when I say that it's not that again it's not that they're not easy to work with h they are it's just the entrepreneurs who really know where they're going and what they're driving and are and are so passionate about what they're doing wants everything done yesterday and so they're on the go go go go it's always like where's that document well you just asked me to draft the document so you're not going to get it in this moment they wanted it yesterday you know or we're scaling like let's open up tomorrow whereas it's fantastic I understand you're doing great here now you want to set up in Saudi but the reality of that is it's going to take 3 to four months to set up there so we can start today but you know um and so it's constantly about managing expectations communicating and managing expectations communicating and managing expectations and of course weathering the storm with them so and it's interesting but like when you're going through that Journey it's almost like you're a part of it if they don't close that raise or they're just about to close the ra you're just as anxious as they are you know for me so yeah so I'm always sort of on my toes and and jumping for the one entrepreneur to the other but it's fun right it's and it keeps you going and it keeps you I guess mentally agile until until it gets tiring yes what is the favorite jurisdiction when it comes to technology startups for example because you've work with many of them I think we work with many jurisdictions here inside the UAE out of the 45 different options that we have and maybe in the region as well because you work with Saudi Qatar and other countries what is the main jurisdiction that you advise startup and Technology to go to absolutely so from an operational perspective the startup has many choices and it all depends on what the business activity is so for example if you're going to be in if you're in fintech then I advise always ad GM or the DFC right that's this you know Financial sectors that's where the DF dfsa and and ADM Financial regulatory body is and you you need to be governed by those bodies and I ideally I think to be in an ecosystem with other fintech players they're the two jurisdictions I'd go to of course if you're in a platform if you're in e-commerce you don't need necessarily need to go to those and you've got multiple options available to you you might go to get example for to May down you might go to Media city you might go to in5 there's some of the common ones that you know early stage startup might go to then you have other technology startups and it depends when they come to me and they say oh we've got a lot of government contracts okay what are those contracts looks like if you're going be dealing with government that perhaps you need to be in the mainland somewhere so from an operational perspective it will look different for startup to Startup depending on the activity and business type yeah however in a startup life cycle I always recommend that they have to have a dual structure and what I mean by that is you have to have your operational license where you know your employees your staff your business activities your contracts are all housed in this operational entity but a dual structure looks like you have to have a holding company above it the holding company is very important for when you're raising funds because you might have investors that come from outside jurisdictions and they want to be in a common law jurisdiction and so I typically encourage startups to have a holding company in a jur in a common law jurisdiction and obviously within the UAE there's the two which is the ad at the DFC if they want to go outside then that's fine too but it might be the BV it might be kayman it might be Delaware Singapore or somewhere else that is also common law but if we you know restrict or limiting I guess the answer to the UAE then I'd say the holding company to be in either the ADM or the DFC and so that's yeah I mean I know you I thought you I think you wanted it to be a straightforward answer but there's always different nuances to be taken into consideration toally totally relate to this answer and I I I feel that you you just said what I what I always say and sometimes when the client come to me and say hey I would like to open a company in Russa I just tell him like sorry you don't tell me where you going you have to tell me what you want to do is it you're trying to achieve exactly so don't come to me with the solution because that's my job I need to understand what I want to do because then I will tell you it's possible or not well that's exactly it so I I face the same thing so many times you have a startup that's just done a bit of research and then or spoken to some other people and they've said you need to go and do this and so they come to you and say this is what we want to do that's all well and good but as you're navigating with them the entrepreneurial Journey you say well you picked you know r or you came to me with that particular license why did you come with that license oh because at the time somebody told us what people tell you and what you think you need may not be what you need because you don't know what you don't know yeah and so this is where sometimes I have to tell the startup and and you know client you just need to trust that I will help you and give you the best advice but don't tell me what it is that you need and want tell me what it is that you want to achieve and I will tell you what you need because you may not need to have a in company today but you need to have your operational first you know even even there are considerations like budget requirements I mean everything you do is going to cost you something and so for you do you need everything today or can you do it in stages can I do something today and do something in the next year you know even when it comes for example trademarking do you need to set up a company and then go ahead and trademark everything or can you just set up the company and trademark once you've built a name and and then you know some revenues and developing some traction and maybe now talking to investors you know when do you actually need to do different things that you want to do is also crucial part of the longevity of the business um because you can burn your money quite easily right so does it happen to you as well because this happens to me a few times is I'm dealing with a startup that I establish the company and we do some steps with them in different contracts and so on and they disappear for about six months and then they come back with a problem totally all the time very oh so many yeah so many times so if they think it's important but not urgent yeah they'll come to you ask you for information of course the consultation with me is always free or with my team so we give them a whole heap of information they often go away they can go away maybe for 6 months even 2 years come back and say we need your help now and they come back with a M huge problem it's like so oh wow why didn't you ask you progressed to that fantastic oh and you've you've done this along the way oh wow okay none of the documents speak to each other none of the subsidiaries for example even owned or have any there's no story the story is not coherent and it's like okay but we we've got some investment from here we got some investment for there okay what did you promise to them and it's even like you know what they promised to the investors they have to deliver but yet they've got this documentation sometimes they don't even know where yeah we we we we we did sign something that in the car somewhere I'm sure we we'll ask somebody from the team but when we did that deal we signed a document can't remember what the document says can't remember what they'd have to deliver and on what theyve promised and it's like okay and the problem with that is now you've got a backtrack you've got to go back to when they started and then to get a really good view and understanding of where they're at you pretty much have to go through and dig and you know review and ask questions to start now to put the pieces all together and that obviously costs time and money and they but they often say but we don't have time or money we want the job done now how do we navigate you have to fix it you have to you're a lawyer you right yeah so EXA that's why I say to you I don't think entrepreneurs are ever easy to deal with right but not from a personality perspective but just that they're ambitious and sometimes they can get ahead of themselves which is totally fine I love that in them and that's what makes them honestly successful however you know I was was just talking to a VC yesterday about this when they're sitting in front of a VC and asking for a lot of money the VC wants to know the story they want to see the full picture they want to know what that journey is looked like from day one to day 20 or day 30 or day you know two years down the track and so it all has to make sense and I think this is what entrepreneurs if they can understand will really make the entrepreneurial Journey easier for them is that everything that they do should tell a story and the more clear that story is for a VC or anyone who's looking to invest in them can understand the more likely they are going to get money and perhaps even more money yeah and so it's really about how do they navigate this space and I understand that money is you know often scarce in on the journey and time is important but it's about balancing the two and understanding that this is a long game not a short one and how do we play the long game one of the main challenges that most of the startups and entrepreneurs have is is funding and I understand that you've been working with many of them with many entrepreneurs and startups in the in the region and uh I'm pretty sure within your circle we you have seen and or you have access to some of the investors as well I want to ask you if you if if you handle that part if they do help the entrepreneurs into securing or at least guiding them in how to secure this funding and as well helping them with regulating the documents and the arrangement as well for or agreeing on the funding at the same time yeah so absolutely I mean I think you rightly said it the founders are always trying to fund raise and so many of them you know in our Circle are asking you know where can I get Fs from can you introduce us and because we're very much in the ecosystem we do have a lot of contact so for example there's incubators there's accelerators there's there's hubs and a lot of them have you know accelerated programs where once you finish that cohort will you could potentially invest in you for ex apple and so we've got access to them we also have access to VCS we've got access to Angel investment Network and so yes when there is a Founder who says look this is my business this is my activity um I'm looking to raise funds can you put me in the direction it's only natural that part of what we do is to support them and encourage them um to where to go to raise the funds however we're not focused on that as a business at the end of the day what we do when we do well is the the legal business and so that's where you know as you were saying we would then handle all of the transactional investment documentation that needs to be negotiated with the investor and the founder um but we definitely we definitely do try and facilitate investment and I'm currently on the board of um 2022 female angels which is a movement to really support uh and facilitate investment by female angel investors into female Founders so you know when we're talking about Founders raising funds that's one thing but then you've got the additional challenge um of female Founders raising funds because we know that they're a lot less funded for example and so I'm currently in that you know on the board there and we're quite active in in promoting developing encouraging um and really facilitating the the chance for female Founders to Showcase themselves and to receive funding from hopefully other female angel investors and so we have regular pitch nights it's like once a month and we do it all over the UAE and um or mostly in Dubai but but also over the UAE and we really encourage the facilitation of that communication and support yeah yeah that will take me to the next question when I when when you actually uh help them or guide them rightly to to secure the funding and now the there's an investor or there's a VCU that is ready to to put money into the project your work basically is to protect the entrepreneur and the startup and and with with a lot of focus to secure the funding and make sure that they are the shares are not diluted and they are actually supported for the agreed amount of time who's who's taking the part of the investor who's who's protecting the investor against the failure of the uh of the founders or the startup in general okay so we as a lawyer sometimes I wear two hats so I can either you know it depends who's instructing us it's either the startup and the founders or the company rather the company not the individual founder themselves and then of course there's the investor so sometimes as well we wear the investor hat or um have to advise them on their invest M into a company so we do both however we don't do them at the same time so we're not convicted when you're asking the question of for example an investor and how protects their you know investment into that company so the idea is that they would have their own lawyer who would be negotiating and helping them to understand the documentation that they're using or entering into with that company now how do how do they protect themselves well they protect themselves through the legal agreement and it all depends on what investment agreement and how they funding that startup or company yeah so it might be for example a safe note now if it's a safe note which we call a simple agreement for future Equity that's quite easy in a sense that it's a template document came out of you know y combinator you make a few adjustments to it but really the two main things you're going to be negotiating on that is the valuation of the company and the amount that you're willing to invest all the other terms pretty much are quite standard if there is something that you want to add to that then you will however at the early stage of an investment it's expected if you're an angel investor or really you know investing in the early stages that you would use this document and essentially what that means is you don't have much say in the company at all until that Safe Note converts and typically it converts in an equity financing round right which is a priced round and doesn't happen often to a series a so it could be 12 to 18 or 24 months down the track of the life cycle of that business so when you're talking about protect your interest there's not really much to protect there because you're not a share shareholder and you're not going to be active in the life cycle of that business until you are a shareholder and you have any say however typically when you're investing on a safe note for example you would get safe preferred shares and those rights associated with a safe preferred shares just follow and are the same as whatever rights are going to be negotiated by a lead investor in a priced round so really if you're an angel investor investing in a very early stage on a note for example a safe note not much interest to protect there there's not really much to do there or to negotiate until subsequent rounds where perhaps you reinvest or now want to become a more active shareholder in the business and actually have a say or for example negotiate to have a board seat but other than that you're going to be a very much a passive investor what I wanted to ask for maybe maybe you will give us a little bit of more clarity on that especially on the angel investor side is what kind of questions they should ask when they are trying to get into a certain investment and they say okay there must be a due diligence phase there must be some questions that they ask what are the most important questions that an engine investor should put on table in front of the entrepreneur the founder to ask them to build my trust into your project that's what how I with money what are these questions for example absolutely so when we talking about an angel investor typically they come in at the really early stages of a business and so at that stage the due diligence is not very detailed or extremely thorough because really the startup doesn't have much so what are the key questions that an investor would ask the first in my view and and speaking and obviously through the entrepreneurial Journal speaking with other Angel Investors and even VCS they always look at the founders you know how solid are the founders the vision the track record of being able to set up and build and scale something like this they want to look at the mindset of the founder so a lot of due diligence is actually on the person that they're in going to be investing in because really when you're an early stage I mean apart from the founder and maybe a few other employees and a great product what are you investing in the idea so yeah exactly the idea so so first it's you know who are the founders and that's after obviously they're sold on the ID but then of course they look at what is the business plan what is you know how robust is the business model what is the vision and what is the plan and and perhaps how does this founder is going to maybe pivot if say for example the landscape changes and the idea is great today but now your competitor is doing it a lot faster Pace than what you're doing it at maybe you need to Pivot to get a competitive Advantage how are you going to do that so looking at the I guess robustness of the business model but also the agility to Pivot in the times that we're in knowing that technology space is moving so quickly yeah so they look at that as well and then of course they look at well what does the 12 to 18 months look like who you know who is this founder planning to raise from what are the revenues that they're going to be generating how quickly can they go to market with this ID and generate some revenues because because the quicker that a a a founder or company can scale the quicker it is that they're going to be getting any return and and an angel investor knows or should know that the life cycle and where you're really going to be getting any real growth and return on your investment looks about 5 to 10 years and so you want to start that Journey as quickly as you can to you know get them to a to a place where they can um really scale and so I think there were the three really main things to look at you know as an angel investor in the early stages the business model what that's going to look like the founders because they're going to be driving the business and then and the plan for at least the next 12 to 8 months but H can hit the road and start to scale operations you prefer this job or the public prosecutor oh my God they both had their challenges and they were both so fun so different and so fun I don't know if I prefer one to the other I think it was it's just I'm in a different Journey now and and this is what I'm doing and I'm enjoying it and for as long as I continue to enjoy it I'll keep doing it and the day that I the day that I don't I think I have to stop I know you're very active with uh public speaking with the law with entrepreneurs and startups and I know you have a new project that you working on right now if you can give me a little bit of background about this project yeah sure absolutely so at the moment we're actually putting together a course for startups and entrepreneurs now we understand that they need law but m need lawyers support but may not always be able to afford lawyer support so what we've done is we've taken all of the knowledge all of that experience that we've you know worked for so many years as I said over 450 startups over the six years um both in and outside the region and we've taken their entire experience and are packaging it in a way that an entrepreneu or startup can literally do this self-paced online course and understand the entire journey of a startup and entrepreneur from the Incorporation all the way through to an exit and so it's six modules um I pretty much have curated the knowledge and information myself so I deliver it through videos but we also have a lot of experts um that are coming on and talking about you know specific areas of law or fundraising or IP or um you know protecting their interest and scaling and and all of those you know very important matters that startups need to be aware of and I guess what the course is designed to do is equip startups with the ability and the knowledge so that when they're sitting with a lawyer or sitting with a VC or sitting with another founder for example negotiating a co-founder deal that they understand exactly what it is that they need to be looking for and now they've gone from a place of they don't know what they don't know to a place of they know what they know and they know what they need to be asking for the things that they don't know and I think so it's really empowering to be in a place of education and to have at least a knowledge base that you're not starting up with an overwhelm of you know even when we talked about incorporation where do I set up so this course is really designed to help them have a holistic overview but as well as really get them to focus on exactly what they need to be able to you know successfully navigate the entrepreneurial landscape wow I think this is really much needed because a lot of entrepreneurs are coming with the commercial uh idea or with the startup idea very enthusiastic and and active you want to do it but the a lot of bits and pieces of the details the small problems the the small tricks that they need to learn about it and and it's and we literally cover the entire Journey so everything in fundraising what you can expect the investors to be looking for and what they expect to ask you know we go through looking at you know what does different terminology means there's all this terminology that is so foreign to a Founder who's not you know studied law for example now has to be looking at an investment agreement and talking about you know to investors about all these different investor rights and it's just really breaking down the the common terms and Concepts and and things that they will absolutely have to know throughout the journey yeah wow I'm so looking forward to that I will thank you try to take this course because it's very interesting I think the knowledge in in general sharing your knowledge with the with the public it's it's a really a remarkable thing thank you thank you thank you so much for coming today we really enjoyed the pleasure it's been a pleasure thank you thank you very much me this is your do from M legal see you next week