Speaker 0 | 00:09.482

All right, welcome everyone back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today is a very special day. This might be the most special day ever on this show because I have two of the youngest, I don’t even know if it’s appropriate to call you guys nerds, but we have two of the… the youngest guests ever on this show. And what’s mind-blowing about this, at least to me, for someone, because I still think of myself as young, but my kids now, I mean, well, anyways, welcome Aboukar and Zakaria to the show. You guys, like the founders of PID Enterprise. Aboukar, you’re 19. Zakaria, how old are you?

Speaker 1 | 00:55.902

I am 18 years old. I was born on April.

Speaker 0 | 01:00.404

first 2003 so wild because i graduated in 2000 really really wow like 2001 you know graduated college in 2001 and what’s so crazy about this i was thinking today i was my daughter my oldest daughter who’s 17 right um we’re having a conversation in the car today i was i said you know what’s really insane is that we used to not be able to order anything online. Like you could just, you couldn’t order anything. I was like, this wasn’t long ago. You had to go, you couldn’t just like Google and price shop and like go on Amazon and do these things. And now like every, you know, 48 cents of every dollar is spent on Amazon online, right? You went, you like went to the mall. She’s like, the mall is like a desolate place now. It’s like this rundown. We’re talking about where we moved. We’re all great towns. It’s like this rundown place. You know, the mall is like a joke. But back in the day, it was huge. And I know I sound like an old person. But I’m talking with two of the youngest founders of an MSP IT company. And neither of you two were around for the birth of the internet.

Speaker 1 | 02:19.649

That is correct.

Speaker 2 | 02:21.050

You’re right.

Speaker 0 | 02:21.951

That’s crazy to me. That’s just absolutely wild. And one of the topics that comes up on the show a lot is, can you really be good at IT without having a lot of years of experience? And can you be good at IT and really understand the vast, I don’t even know vast, maybe it’s a short-term history. Can you really appreciate the internet and how it’s built? And I’m talking with two people right now that I’ve never been able to have on the show and just kind of ask. So why don’t I just ask you guys this? First of all, I tend to drink a lot of coffee and go off topic. So you can feel free to bring me back in because I’m talking with I was talking with Aboukar before the, you know, like the other day. One of the things that you guys do really, really well is communicate, which is might might make me cry. That’s so beautiful. I don’t know where to begin. First, let me just introduce your company and what you guys do and tell me a little bit about how this happened. Because that’s really what’s going to get, I think that’s what’s really special.

Speaker 2 | 03:33.967

Go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 03:35.327

I’ll do that real quick. So it was, this all started a few months ago when I first turned 18. So I always had a dream that I wanted to be a business owner. So I was just tired of… being bossed around by people, you know? Who wants that? You know what?

Speaker 0 | 03:53.273

The day that I quit and I never had a boss again, and I never had to work for another man again was like the greatest. You’ll find out real quick that you always have a boss. You’ll find out, you know, you’ll find out that even though you work for yourself, you’ll find out that you still answer to somebody you’re going to answer your clients. But yeah, not answering to another person ordering you around is a beautiful thing. Go.

Speaker 1 | 04:14.045

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So it was a few months ago during April. you know uh abu kura was talking about how he wanted to move out so i was like okay so basically all we do is in our friend group we criticize every single thing that the other person okay

Speaker 0 | 04:36.199

you muted by the way you’re on mute that’s like the that’s the um quote of 2000 yeah you’re on mute you’re on mute is like the meme of 2000 so anyways anyway you criticize each other and and keep going so What we heard was you guys know each other so go yeah,

Speaker 1 | 04:53.399

so we criticize like anything that could go wrong You know if we could have like okay, I’m gonna get a car I’m like, okay, how about if you get fired tomorrow? If this goes wrong, if that goes wrong.

Speaker 0 | 05:06.318

I love it. And I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry. This is so deep. I don’t think you know how deep this is. This is special. And I want everyone out there to listen to this, especially one that has kids. And I have eight kids. And anyone out there that’s in this common mentality of everyone gets a trophy world and this common mentality of we’ve got to, oh, it’s. All positivity, no negativity, no negativity, no negativity. You hear that a lot nowadays. Stay positive. This, but that is positive. A true friend, a true friend will give you harsh advice. A true friend will not just tell you what you want to hear. A true friend will tell you, yeah, man, go get the car. It’s going to be awesome. It’s all going to work out great. You know what I mean? Like a true friend will, yeah, criticize you. And, and. If you’ll know a true friend That does that And you should take that advice But go on That’s like Huge learning point Number one And shows a high level of maturity So congratulations I’m not trying to like Yeah Another good person Won’t like praise you to your face either But go ahead

Speaker 1 | 06:12.614

Alright so We just Basically said I just started criticizing With one other friend His name is Amr Yep That guy He can criticize you on anything Huh

Speaker 0 | 06:25.490

You’re a bunch of haters.

Speaker 1 | 06:26.891

That guy could criticize you on anything. Go. Yeah, he’s on another level of criticizing. But, so what happened is, I was just criticizing Abu Qadir, and he was saying, okay, but I could do this, I could do that. And all of a sudden, I’m like, okay, I’m about to turn 18. No, this actually happened to me. I’m like, okay, I’m about to turn 18. In a little bit, I don’t have to wait for anyone’s signature. I could do whatever I want. Not do whatever I want, but at that point, I could sign my own stuff, basically. Yeah. So, literally, we’re playing bottom warfare during this time on Discord, talking to each other. I’m like, okay, let’s start a business. He’s like, okay, let’s start a business. We’ve been talking about this for…

Speaker 0 | 07:15.136

This is something that didn’t exist when I grew up. This is something that didn’t exist when I grew up. So, one thing I do… I’m a jujitsu addict, right? This is like my, like jujitsu and surfing pretty much. I love jujitsu. Right. And there’s younger guys in my jujitsu class. We’ve got the old jujitsu guys. We’ve got the young jujitsu guys. We’ve got the old wrestlers, but we’re all equal once you get on the mat. Right. It’s all, it’s all about, you know, I don’t know, skill level and different things. We’re all equal. But what I found really interesting to me was I overheard, there’s another younger guy, millennial. You guys aren’t even millennial. I don’t know what you guys are, like Z generation or something, right? Yeah. There’s another group of guys and they’re like, yeah, we finally met up. I was like, what are you talking about? And it was some video game that they played and you guys would all know, and I’m going to sound real old, but like they had been for years playing. Oh, Fortnite was Fortnite. So for years they were playing Fortnite.

Speaker 1 | 08:12.039

Fortnite,

Speaker 0 | 08:12.619

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they had like a group of guys, like, like four of them all over the United States. And they were like really close. but they had never met in person. He’s like, for the first time, we finally all got together. And I was like, what? This is so crazy. This would never happen. So you guys were talking while playing. You were talking live online.

Speaker 2 | 08:31.227

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 08:32.288

Okay. I was just telling you, this is a different mentality. This is a different thing. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 | 08:39.870

Yeah, but like I was saying, I was going to do it by myself, right? But like.

Speaker 0 | 08:46.980

Are we talking about the birth of the IT company?

Speaker 1 | 08:51.782

Well, I don’t know. First, I wanted to do a painting company. And I would tell my mom, okay, I’m going to start with this. I’m going to start with painting. Then I’m going to move over to this. Then I move over to that. Yeah,

Speaker 2 | 09:00.385

yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 | 09:00.965

But since Awuqa has these degrees and I also am getting into the field right now. I’m like, okay. Actually, I did not know what Awuqa was talking about until about a couple weeks ago or a month ago. So I thought we’re going to. Open up a room and start fixing computers for people. But this entire time this guy is just talking about how he wants to Do partnership with companies. Yeah I’m all literally in the dark with this and he’s like every time he tried to explain it to me I’m like, okay, so someone named John is gonna come in we’re gonna fix it.

Speaker 0 | 09:38.043

Okay, gotcha

Speaker 1 | 09:40.144

That was the mentality I had for the longest time then one day it’s like at nighttime i’m trying to um i’m just applying for stuff so all these business stuff trying to make a google account trying to uh show you how to do this stuff right yep so all of a sudden i’m like okay i start putting in information like okay if someone comes in we’re gonna fix the computer for this much he’s like yo what are you talking about i’m like yeah i’m like yeah that’s what we’re gonna do it’s like no that’s not what i help this is i’m like yeah that’s what i hope this is then we have a two-hour argument about what a help desk is yeah then at the end he finally tells me about how he finally explains what a help desk is so you’re like on the phone with different companies You can sign a contract.

Speaker 0 | 10:29.795

He’s like, hold on.

Speaker 1 | 10:30.755

Literally. That’s how it is.

Speaker 0 | 10:32.156

What can happen? We can get paid a couple thousand dollars a month, every month, every single month for doing this. We don’t have to fix any physical thing. We just have to help people fix their broke selves.

Speaker 1 | 10:48.983

That’s the longest time. I didn’t understand that.

Speaker 0 | 10:53.184

Great. Okay. Oh, all right. So fast forward. Um, What happened? Where are we at now, right now, today? Where are you guys at? What’s kind of the vision? We talked a little bit about the vision, so let’s fast forward, because I’m sure we could talk about how this whole thing, how you guys argued and learned and kind of formed everything. Maybe let’s jump to the vision, Aboukar. What was the vision you guys have, and what did we kind of meld into?

Speaker 2 | 11:20.205

First of all,

Speaker 0 | 11:22.587

thank you. Just so you know, everyone listening to this show, The majority of them is going to know what an MSP is or a managed service provider or a managed IT service provider, or they’re going to be an IT director at a larger enterprise company. Go ahead.

Speaker 2 | 11:36.195

First of all, I have to say thank you, Phil, for hosting me on the show. And the vision I had for me, first of all, I was a big picture thing. So I was thinking, you know, my plan was to start an IT hop test company because I have some experience, like about two years of experience in IT. Yep. So. I just wanted to start to help this company, like, you know, kind of see where it goes. But where we are right now is actually, we, within a month, we actually, like, partnered with a company called NCUS Tech. Yep. Made a partnership, and they’re working our way up right now, actually. You know, we have one client with them. Yep. They’re helping their high schools out. We’re supporting almost 500 people.

Speaker 0 | 12:13.840

So, that’s crazy. So, you’ve got, well, first of all, how many, I don’t know if you call it employees. It’s always such a… Bad term.

Speaker 2 | 12:24.822

Yeah,

Speaker 0 | 12:25.242

he members partners. How many partners you know what I mean, though How how big is the is the gang?

Speaker 2 | 12:32.487

So right now it’s a four of us meeting Korea

Speaker 0 | 12:36.909

My friend Omar and another one in Hamza and you guys are supporting a high school with 500 end users or five

Speaker 2 | 12:45.274

Not only one high school like think what wise was like three.

Speaker 0 | 12:48.375

Okay gotcha Okay now actually four okay beautiful yeah the vision yeah what is it no so the vision so what’s the vision like because you don’t just like four high schools don’t just drop into your lap out of nowhere what you know there’s something happens something special had to happen and you know what i mean like what’s the vision like what happened like what do you guys want to do like you know you your company’s pid enterprise You mentioned earlier that that stands for passion, integrity, and development, right? But what’s the vision? What do you guys want to do? How do you, you know?

Speaker 2 | 13:29.624

Honestly, the vision, like right now, for long term, like I guess I have the big picture. So the vision for me is like to get bigger as a company and grow. And I become a really big company in the future. And also to help people, you know, like to help all the people I can. Whether it’s minorities, anyone that needs help, you know, communities, reach out to people. To give back to the community. That’s my goal. I have my goal to help people out.

Speaker 0 | 13:51.046

Yeah, because you had one kind of viral.

Speaker 1 | 13:52.686

Yeah, to give back to the community.

Speaker 0 | 13:54.808

I ran into you guys because I saw kind of like a viral LinkedIn post where you’re talking about basically, you know, helping other minorities and I guess other even people your age get focused. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many. I know when I was 18, I know I was not focused and thinking about starting a managed IT service company. In fact, I was… getting into trouble. So, I mean, just honestly, so, you know, kind of maybe just speak for a few minutes about like what do you see going on in the community and what do you see where you guys can fit in and help and what is it that, you know what I mean? Like, what do you see going on and where do you guys see how you can fit in and help and give back?

Speaker 2 | 14:41.996

For sure. To be honest with you, we’re setting examples for a lot of people. Like, we might not be losing right now, but we are setting a very big example. A lot of people are on our age right now, they’re doing bad things, you know, they’re not really, they don’t know what they’re really doing. So when we sit out there and do these things, they might see it, might encourage them, you know, like, hey. These people your age are doing good things. Why don’t you try to, like, you know, try to do these things? You can do it. Like, it’s like kind of a motivation kind of thing, you know?

Speaker 1 | 15:06.203

Yeah, so basically an example about how anyone could become an entrepreneur or a CEO or a business owner any day.

Speaker 2 | 15:13.227

Exactly. You put your mind into anything. So, what I was saying is if you put your mind into anything, you can do it. So, always have that mentality, you know, just you can do it. Anyone can do it.

Speaker 1 | 15:23.573

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 15:24.273

Yeah, and that’s not For some reason, that reminded me of Logan Paul. I was just saying that last night. Look, if you put your mind down, you can do it.

Speaker 2 | 15:34.741

It’s true, though. What you’re saying is actually true. I don’t disagree with that statement at all. I firmly believe that’s true.

Speaker 0 | 15:41.087

Yeah, yeah. So one of the themes that comes up on the show a lot is the how is IT people of speaking the language of business. And you guys at a very early age are already kind of speaking the language of business. You’re already thinking about how can I create a business at an early age? So I think that that’s going to put you far ahead of the game. I think you’ll have a very quick crash course and you’ll be drinking from the fire hose and you’re going to run into a lot of things. It’ll be great. It’ll be great. You know, it’s kind of like fail forward type of thing, which will be excellent. And, you know, I don’t, I don’t know you other than for, you know, the brief conversations that you had, but I’m already proud of you. And I’m sure a lot of people are proud of you and be saying that, um, and that’s not to go to your head, you know, stick to it. You’re going to go through a lot of, you know, there’s going to be, you know, struggles. This isn’t going to be like, you know, the easiest thing, you know what I mean? You’re going to, you’re going to, you know, run into a lot of things and learn as you go kind of drinking from the fire hose. Uh, with that being said, give me a couple, you know, a couple of things that have happened so far. Like what’s your, um, Kind of like what’s your support group? What do you, how are you guys surrounding yourselves? How are you guys learning as you go type of thing? And what kind of resources do you guys have?

Speaker 2 | 17:02.861

Should I ask that question or you want to ask that question?

Speaker 1 | 17:04.481

Go for it.

Speaker 2 | 17:05.762

So about support, I mean, I’m actually proud of the support we have. Because like I said, there’s things you can’t do by yourself. So like I have my teammates, you know, Zach and, you know, Omar and Hamza helping me out. Especially the kids. So that’s a big help to all of us. And the community as well. My community is also helping me out. So we have other people. Like, older people that, you know, know what they’re doing. It’s kind of guiding us. So, I always like to reach out to people that know what they’re doing. Because, you know, you can’t do everything by yourself. You have to have support. Like, especially since I’m a little bit younger, I might not know some things, you know? So, I always reach out to people that know better. And also, like, the SOS Tech, they’re helping us out as well. They’re kind of guiding us to become successful.

Speaker 0 | 17:45.858

Excellent. And I just want to take a moment for you guys, just to let you know, and anyone else out there listening, you can have access to… any, I’m sure any of the IT directors, any of the IT leadership that have ever been on this show would be willing to talk with any of you guys and help you out in any way. You can have access to my back office team and my network engineers. You can have access to my team to ask any questions anytime you guys want. What most people don’t know on the back end of dissecting popular IT nerds is that I’m also a managing partner at a company called AppSmart. We have a very large, I mean, 70 plus, you know, network engineers, et cetera. You guys have any time, let me know and I’ll put you in contact with anyone that you guys need. And if we don’t have the answer, then someone that’s been on the show at one point in time will have the answer.

Speaker 1 | 18:36.819

That would be great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 0 | 18:39.101

Yeah, obviously security stuff can get very, you know, security is something where you really need someone that’s had, you know, a lot of experience. Normally I ask people. what was your first computer? Because most of the guys that I have on the show are kind of like, you’re even older. And I asked that because it’s funny because, you know, we had disc drives and, you know, stuff that you had to boot up and, you know, a modem. It’s just, that stuff’s just got to seem so silly and foreign to you guys. It’s kind of like, it’s like, you know, Hey, back when electricity was invented. So I, It’s a stupid question to ask you. I mean, your first computer is going to be like, I don’t know, it was like some Dell, you know, whatever.

Speaker 2 | 19:24.065

It’s funny you ask that question because we both got our computers really recently. It’s been like, not even like five years ago.

Speaker 0 | 19:31.091

Oh, it was, let’s see, a MacBook Pro, you know, two or something. Anyways, this, yeah, I mean, you literally just graduated high school. So instead of asking me what your first computer was, how about I ask this? Um, Aboukar, how did you get started in technology? Um, you know, and I know I realized that’s kind of like four years ago, four years ago, you were 15 and my son’s 15 right now. So your learning curve must’ve been pretty fast. How did you get into computers? How did you start to learn? How’d you learn?

Speaker 2 | 20:06.802

Actually, I’ve always been into computers since I was a kid, you know? I was always into computer technologies, I’ve been into phones. I’ve always been a topic since I was a kid, you know? I’ve been jailbreaking iPhones, even though I wasn’t supposed to. I’ve been doing it for fun. I’ve always been trying to get to hacking, find loopholes in the phones. That’s when I was a kid, growing up. So I kind of already had that kind of knowledge in the back of my head.

Speaker 0 | 20:31.326

My kids do it to me too. They human hack my stuff. They all figured out that they could program Siri, that dad doesn’t use Siri. So they all programmed it to their voices so they could like log into my phone. Anyways, that’s just one. But keep going.

Speaker 2 | 20:45.113

Keep going. That’s what I was saying. So when I got to high school, like the last year, senior year of high school, it just hit to me like, hey, I want to do IT. You know, it looks cool. I’ve actually been fixing like, you know, computers for my school, like the wires of it. Like the modern, like people like don’t really know how to do it. And that’s cool. And I fixed some of them. I’m like, hey, I can do this. So I got into it there, actually.

Speaker 0 | 21:08.495

Let’s get serious, man. You actually have certifications. You actually went to tech. Like, you actually went to have taken quite a few courses and everything. So tell me about that pass. And tell me exactly how you did it. Because this could be other technology nerds and people like myself that have kids that are your age. We don’t really, parents can only do so much and parents are also human beings. Right. So we don’t, as much as I’d like to sit down and put my kid through a training course and be like, do this, do this, do this. I would, it would be helpful for you guys to help me out as a dad, you know, like, Hey, this is what I did. Right. And because did you have parents encouraging you or did you just have parents being like, Hey, stop being a knucklehead, stop doing stupid stuff. You know, you know what, you know what I mean? Like,

Speaker 2 | 21:59.681

yeah.

Speaker 0 | 22:01.362

What happened?

Speaker 2 | 22:02.403

My parents encouraged me. They supported me 100% with everything that I’ve been doing. They actually liked the idea. They told me to always study hard and focus on school. They didn’t have this kind of chance. They’re from Somalia, so they didn’t have this chance. Immigrants coming from Somalia. I have to work hard to make them proud in general. It’s kind of motivation for me. They didn’t have the chance. They’re working hard, so I have to do better. That kind of mentality hit me. Yeah. I’ll tell you the exact path. If you want to know the exact path I went through, I can tell you. It’s been a journey.

Speaker 0 | 22:35.672

Yeah, do it.

Speaker 2 | 22:36.793

So right after high school, which was 2019, I graduated high school. But not even a month after high school, I took a month break from high school, and I started this program called Tech Corps. So Tech Corps is like… Yeah.

Speaker 1 | 22:50.501

Tell them what happened between that.

Speaker 2 | 22:52.802

What do you mean?

Speaker 1 | 22:54.563

So what happened is you were doing another program. Remember that?

Speaker 2 | 22:59.185

Which one?

Speaker 1 | 23:01.286

the one I’m I was going to you’re going with him and I was I told you I was like okay let’s go to tech corpse together but how happened though it was by luck by my luck oh

Speaker 2 | 23:16.530

I know he’s always right he’s right he’s right like actually like all this kind of just happened we’re supposed to do another program they actually just kind of luckily happened where I joined this particular program so it’s kind of like you know kind of lucky lucky thingy but

Speaker 0 | 23:30.414

there’s no luck everything happens for a reason everything happens for a reason but

Speaker 2 | 23:34.797

I understand what you mean like this fell out of the sky kind of it wasn’t expected it wasn’t expected exactly right but what I was saying was I kind of joined that tech course program at that time there was four of us so we were IT intern for them the teachers IT like you know actually that program is great for someone in high school they teach you IT and they pay you money to learn so you get very good not only is it free you get paid you get paid Yeah, and you get paid for learning.

Speaker 0 | 24:02.223

This is, like, better than Job Corps. This is, like, better than Job Corps. Like, every time that, like, one of my kids gets out of line, I’m like, look, here’s what we’re doing. We’re signing you up for Job Corps. Get out of the house. Learn how to make some money. Learn how to live on your own. And then they, like, quickly get back in line. But, you know,

Speaker 2 | 24:19.455

Tech Corps. Yeah. Okay. I definitely encourage anybody that’s a parent, like, to look into this, like, Tech Corps programs. Yep. It’s, like, it’s amazing. High school, start a working summer job. It’s, like, three months. Get some experience, IT, landscaping, whatever. Did they teach you tech?

Speaker 0 | 24:33.412

So for tech corps, did they teach you general networking or anything like that? Like what an IP address is and stuff like that? Well, here’s a switch. This is what a firewall is. I mean, like, how do you learn that stuff?

Speaker 2 | 24:42.417

So it’s a three-month summer program where they taught us basic IT. And I kind of, before this, I kind of already took a course. I took a CompTIA A-plus course, like 901, back in high school. Like when I was in, actually in high school, I took that course by myself. So I kind of already had knowledge going into it. Okay. But. I took that course and I you know, they actually you know took us into another course, something called Per Scholars. So not even like a week after, not even like a couple days after I finished that program, I went to that Per Scholars program.

Speaker 0 | 25:11.164

So for anyone that hasn’t heard of that Per Scholars, which is P-E-R space S-C-H-O-L-A-S Per Scholars. If you don’t know about that, you can look it up. It’s perscholars.org.

Speaker 2 | 25:22.487

Yes.

Speaker 0 | 25:23.968

And it’s like another amazing free program.

Speaker 2 | 25:27.869

Yep.

Speaker 0 | 25:28.369

It’s really cool. Keep going.

Speaker 2 | 25:30.149

So that That program is actually even better than the set coach program because people like, you know, anyone can join in any age. It’s not about like, you know, age. They teach you IT. It’s free, free of charge. And they give you certification and they also try to get you a job after.

Speaker 0 | 25:45.073

What kind of certification did you get?

Speaker 2 | 25:46.954

So I got CompTIA A plus from them. Wow. I learned CompTIA. Yep. That’s the certification test, you know, the whole course. So this is when we’re in like October. This is all this. happened after high school and then October come October I actually like right away interview with a company called Tech System which is a recording agency and they helped me get a job in the field of IT that’s kind of and all that’s kind of all where I started but after I got a job I didn’t stop there you know you have to keep going if you want to succeed in life so what I did was actually I went to my local community and I uh some guy that I know teaches IT courses so the money I got from that job I reinvested it and I paid money to the guy and he helped me get another certification called Cisco CCNA.

Speaker 0 | 26:33.149

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 | 26:35.951

So I worked hard for a couple more months.

Speaker 0 | 26:39.314

You have your CCNA. Yes,

Speaker 2 | 26:40.034

I do.

Speaker 0 | 26:41.576

And again, how old are you?

Speaker 2 | 26:43.317

I’m 19.

Speaker 0 | 26:44.278

That’s amazing. That’s something that I learned late in life. I learned late in life to invest in myself. Most people don’t see the value in… They see the value in a college education and I’m not, and don’t get, I’m not giving the bad, I don’t want all of the parents in the world to go crazy here and like, don’t listen to dissecting popular IT nerds. But if I knew what I knew now, probably wouldn’t have gone to college. I would have gone a different route. I have my own debate on that too. And the only reason why I say that is because I have invested highly in my education after college. And I’ve spent, invested more money in my education now than I invested in college. And it’s very, very dialed in very focused courses and very focused education based on something that I need to accomplish in my business or in my life or something that I want. Like, you know, I take Arabic, for example, right? And I was a horrible language student in college, like Spanish. I just forced to take it. So I never really liked it. You know what I mean? But now like I’m really heavily invested, you know? So I’m just saying there’s a lot of people go to college just because if you don’t go to college, you’re a loser. And that’s just something that you have to do in this world. Right. But you may just go and be like that undecided major. Whereas if you take a year off or you become an entrepreneur or you’re really laser focused on what you want to do, then you’re going to take the courses that you want to take. you know are going to benefit your vision or your goal, which is exactly what you did. So I guess the main point here is invest in yourself. Investment, you know?

Speaker 2 | 28:39.108

Yeah. So to continue my story, first of all, I have to shout out to the guy that gave me my certifications. His school is named Bridgepoint Training Center. So also you guys can check him out too. He’s really-Bridgepoint? Yeah, Bridgepoint Training Center.

Speaker 0 | 28:54.478

Spell it.

Speaker 2 | 28:55.598

Bridgepoint B-B-R. Bridge. So B-R.

Speaker 0 | 28:59.401

Yeah, I got it.

Speaker 2 | 29:00.442

Yeah, point.

Speaker 0 | 29:01.542

P-O-I-N-T.

Speaker 2 | 29:02.803

Yeah, training center.

Speaker 0 | 29:03.824

Did you say 27?

Speaker 2 | 29:05.365

No, Bridgepoint Training Center.

Speaker 0 | 29:07.166

Oh, training center. Sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 2 | 29:08.967

There’s another school like first college, but just that I pay money for. But right now they’re working on like grants and, you know, other things. He’s working really hard.

Speaker 0 | 29:16.393

What’s the guy’s name?

Speaker 2 | 29:18.254

The guy’s name is Ali Sharif.

Speaker 0 | 29:20.175

Okay. Ali Sharif?

Speaker 2 | 29:23.397

Yep.

Speaker 1 | 29:24.022

Okay.

Speaker 0 | 29:27.123

So shoot me his link or something. Shoot me whatever he’s doing. And we’ll put that in the notes on the website as well. When we, when we release the show,

Speaker 2 | 29:34.026

I definitely will.

Speaker 0 | 29:35.346

Okay. All right. So anyway, CCNA, CompTIA, what else? Like, what else did you learn?

Speaker 2 | 29:45.130

Yeah. So I got my CompTIA on the AWS solution. 80s which architect as well now I got my 80s which architect after I got my CCNA nice So I got that. And then I’ve been working like different jobs, like, you know, getting experience in IT as well. So, you know, being working contract jobs in the meantime.

Speaker 0 | 30:11.642

Okay, so you’re working contract jobs. And now we start to kind of like form this team, the critical team where we all beat each other up and basically try to find faults and find faults in the system to, you know, so we don’t make poor decisions.

Speaker 2 | 30:29.835

Yep, exactly.

Speaker 0 | 30:31.096

Because everything’s on the line. See, that’s the difference. When you get into real world and you’re not just playing around in high school anymore and you’re not just in grammar school and we’re just kind of, you know, where everything’s got to be positive and everything. When you get into the real world, all of a sudden you get real critical and all of a sudden the real world is a lot harsher than, you know, this kind of make-believe world.

Speaker 2 | 30:49.666

So, yeah. So, you’re right, 100%. Like, after high school, my mindset changed completely. You know, I’m more focused, very focused now on what I want to do. So… Right. That’s how I kind of think about it. My life has really changed. It’s not like a joke no more, right? You have to establish a career. Think about future things.

Speaker 0 | 31:09.534

How’d this thing happen with the high school and all that?

Speaker 2 | 31:12.275

High school? I mean, high school…

Speaker 0 | 31:14.036

No, no. How did this first major contract that you guys got with helping the four high schools and the 500 end users, how did that come to fruition?

Speaker 2 | 31:24.118

Well, it actually happened right after I got my AWS Architect certification. What happened was I took another course, another school. So I went to another school. It’s called NCO Tech, actually. I went to the program. Even though I had the higher version of the certification and the training, I still went through the class. I took the lower version of it, which is called AWS Foundations. So I did that for a reason, though. I did that because I know, like, sometimes I wanted to get jobs. What I wanted to do, actually, was to get into the cloud field. Because, you know, that’s where everything’s going right now. Everything moving that way. So I was thinking in my head like I don’t want to work contract jobs anymore I want to get a full-time job in the coffee. Yeah, that was my that was my goal So what I did was I took their course. I actually finished that course in one week because I already had knowledge So I did I finished our course maybe I actually finished a couple days to the test in like one week So I took the test I passed it and I just stayed in contact with them. So I stayed in contact with them and But I just, one day, like, after, like, maybe a month or two, I just contacted them. Hey, I just started my own business. I want to have a meeting with you guys. And everything just fell apart from then. I just said, okay, we have a meeting. I bring my team together, and we just, from there, just continued.

Speaker 0 | 32:46.984

Amazing. So, where do you see the business going from here? What do you guys want? Who do you want to support? Kind of what’s the business model? Do you need help with that business model? Just out of curiosity. I mean, do you have that put together kind of like tiers of support and where you got, who do you guys see yourself supporting and how do you see yourself as a business in the community? What are you doing?

Speaker 2 | 33:13.352

So right now we’re doing help desk. We’re focusing on help desk right now. Just because we’re just starting off, so it’s easier to get like help desk. But my goal is actually to do everything IT, like networking, cloud, like, you know, like wiring, anything that has to do with IT, I want to support it, especially. especially cloud because that’s what I want to get into. So I definitely want to push it bigger. I want to make the company grow and definitely I need support. I don’t want to help anybody.

Speaker 0 | 33:37.915

I guess my other question is, do you see yourself like fitting in, like supporting small business in the community, providing like a monthly IT service for them? Because there’s a lot of kind of local MSPs, local IT shops, you know, that. uh, support small business, uh, or support like a certain niche group of small businesses, whether it be manufacturers or whether it be HVAC guys, that type of stuff. I’m just curious if you have any, um, you know, if you guys see yourself being able to support like a small business in the future, cause a lot of small business owners, they really have no clue. Um, or they don’t know how vulnerable they are or they don’t know how valuable having a good security, you know, this, these types of things, you know,

Speaker 2 | 34:14.142

I want to support anybody. I can’t look like all the businesses, like all the small businesses.

Speaker 0 | 34:17.964

For example, I walked into a, I can imagine, I can remember about a year and a half ago walking into this small business owner who’s been in business for years, years and years and years. Right. With a ton of data, like, like kind of like this, like really just, I don’t know, I guess bad database. I don’t, I don’t know how else to say that, you know, and they’ve got all this customer information, all the computers, like that the best, like. the highest level computers like microsoft is on xp right um everything’s like out of date and it’s just he doesn’t quite you know he’s like he ends up getting he’s like well now microsoft’s not going to support this anymore and he’s stuck right he doesn’t know kind of like where do i go like what do i do what i do with all this customer data you you know, and like, who do I go to? So I, you know, he’s now I, I basically, you know, this is like in like Worcester mass, you know, a couple of years ago. So I referred him to a local, you know, local it guy who can come in and basically put a rack in, re-switch everything, replace his desktops, you know, help them, you know, clean up his data, that type of thing, you know, secure everything. Some older had some old version of peach tree or QuickBooks, whatever application he was doing for his, you know, accounting and stuff. How do you guys see yourself supporting, I mean, supporting businesses like that and maybe even helping them migrate stuff to the cloud because you had a database. You could certainly be in the cloud, you know, things like that.

Speaker 2 | 35:46.392

Yeah, I mean, definitely for sure. I do see myself supporting those kind of businesses. Like without a doubt.

Speaker 0 | 35:54.474

What do you guys do best?

Speaker 2 | 35:57.595

You know better than me.

Speaker 1 | 36:04.117

What we do best. What we do best is work with customers, basically. I mean, anything. Can we talk about specifically IT?

Speaker 0 | 36:15.093

Anything, man. Because last time when we were speaking, you mentioned you guys communicate and support each other.

Speaker 2 | 36:19.336

Yeah. I mean, to elaborate that question, I could probably ask that question a little better. What I was saying was what we do best, honestly, is support each other and, you know, communicate and really go with each other. So, you know, like always have each other’s back and, you know, like always, you know, keep moving forward. Honestly, it’s like the drive. you know, the mentality, you know, what we do best is just keep pushing forward every day. You know, that’s what we do best. Communication, connections, network.

Speaker 0 | 36:46.775

Yeah, it’s important because, you know, they say like, you know, the reason why most marriages fail are like, you know, communication, right? Like they can’t communicate, you know, and you see that a lot, the metaphor a lot kind of in the business world too. people that can’t communicate, or you’ve got teams that are like all working on separate islands. You have people that aren’t on the same page. And the fact that you said that you guys communicate and support each other very, very well is a very, it’s a strong foundation for a long-term, for long-term success. And I hope that you guys continue to do that. And I definitely, you know, want the best for you and that you continue to communicate and support each other. And I and my group and anyone that I know will do everything we can to support you as well, because it’s special to see a group of gentlemen your age, this motivated with their heads on straight, not to mention actually, you know, driving your own education, your own certifications. It’s surprising to hear, you know, a 19 year old talk about. AWS certs and CompTIA and CCNA. Just out of curiosity, were you the youngest guy in the class?

Speaker 2 | 38:05.823

Yeah, all my classes, I was the youngest guy.

Speaker 0 | 38:09.627

You probably had some people looking at you. I can remember being in classes a couple times and looking around the room. For me, it’s the opposite. For me, it’s the opposite. I’m usually the oldest guy in the class, right? And I’m looking around the room and people are kind of like laughing at me, you know? And I’m like immediately kind of evaluating the room. Like, okay, like I don’t need to worry about you. I don’t need to worry about it. I don’t need to worry about you. Okay. You I need to worry about and you I need to worry about, you know, I can clearly remember this and like my first like technology, like training class. Right. There’s like 13 of us. Right. And at the end of the year, like, you know, quickly within three months, like all the rest of the people kind of dropped out and there was like the same guys that I was like, I need to worry about you. And you like left and at the end of the year, they were gone. And I was the last guy standing. So it was like, I kind of had like the last laugh. So, um, it’s, uh, it’s serious. What else do you, what else do you guys have to say? Like any, any message for, um, uh, you know, other people out there listening, um, this is your chance to either, you know, give a message to the rest of the community out there, um, ask for help or, or say, Hey, anyone that wants to, where, where you want to find us and stuff like that. Um, you know, you know, give me something. This is, this is. you know,

Speaker 1 | 39:30.939

what should I have asked you that I haven’t asked you? And what do you want to say? I’ll talk a little, I’ll talk a little, then I’ll, I will end it off for us.

Speaker 0 | 39:35.902

Okay.

Speaker 1 | 39:37.443

So number one thing I want to say is I read the book, the business of the 21st century. It’s a great book. I recommend it for everyone that’s trying to get into the business field or even not just to read, read over that book. But one thing I took from that book, the, one of the main things is We are no longer in the industrial age. We cannot have industrial age thinking basically. We are in the information age and that’s what we need to be doing, thinking. in that way.

Speaker 0 | 40:10.460

Beautiful. It’s like Sears. Like Sears and Toys R Us. They’re sunk. They’re done. You guys are too young to even understand what Sears and Toys R Us was. It’s back to the mall. It’s the mall method. You’re like, well, mall? Who would go to the mall? It’s just dumb. It’s like, why would you go get in a car to go watch a movie? No one does that anymore. like, you know, those businesses still had that mentality done. They’re sunk. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 | 40:42.735

Yeah. So a lot of people think of getting rich from investing in the stock market, the market, but what if the stock market crashes or real estate market crashes? Like it happened in 2008. So you have to have that mindset and that’s what we call the information, uh, age mindset. And that’s what we try to follow the most. That’s what we try to follow 100%. Another quote is, you are either a slave to your money or the master of it. And that’s what we use as much as the other quote.

Speaker 0 | 41:19.223

And why do you guys use that a lot?

Speaker 1 | 41:22.304

Because the book also explains how there’s different quadrants. So there’s a quadrant where you’re a business owner, but you’re working day and night and can’t go on vacation with your family. and can’t have dinner with your family because you’re always focused on working and building your business. But if you had information that you think you’re going to find a way to transform your business into a passive income business where you’re sitting, relaxing at home with your family, eating dinners, going out on vacation, and the money still coming into your bank account.

Speaker 0 | 41:59.122

That’s a secret. Please keep that to yourself and don’t tell anyone else. Okay.

Speaker 1 | 42:06.865

Money is not part of Genuine wealth Genuine wealth is not much about budding it Enter a ticket and

Speaker 0 | 42:15.412

Escalate that Ticket to Omar And I’m going to hang up now Because I’m at the beach No very important yes So yeah you don’t What’s the point of having a business What’s the point of making money If you don’t have anytime, you know, you don’t have any work-life balance. And, you know, so a similar quote to that, right, is I work to live. I don’t live to work.

Speaker 1 | 42:45.417

Exactly.

Speaker 0 | 42:46.598

Right. I work to live. I don’t have like, you know, I don’t live to work. Now there’s other people out there that say, oh, no, you’re crazy. And those like, there’s like the top one percenters, right. That are like, or like a doctor, for example, like if you’re going to be a doctor, like, you know, from a very young age, you are going to be a doctor. You’re not going to get it. until you’re 32. You guys are 18 and 19, right? You’re not going to graduate until you’re 32. You’re going to be in debt for all of your college stuff, unless you’re like, you know, I don’t know, you got $250,000 or 300,000 just sitting around. You’re going to not start making money or be out of debt until you’re 45 or 50. And you are going to be working all the time.

Speaker 1 | 43:27.893

Wow.

Speaker 0 | 43:29.875

Right. Like that’s like, But you’re like driven, like I want, like you’re diehard, like this is my calling, right? Or you’re like Elon Musk or something like that. Otherwise not for the rest of the world. Like, no, I live to work. I don’t work to live or, you know, I work to live, not live to work. So anyways, beautiful, beautiful. Aboukar, you got it.

Speaker 2 | 43:51.672

So it reminds me of a little more motivational speech kind of thing. But I’ll just say one thing, you know, always be humble. You know, number one, always be humble with yourself. like don’t let money get to you you know always have good friends that support you you know that you know have good friends if you have bad friends they’ll lead you to bad ways and i’ve seen it happen before so in that in that case also i’m muslim so like um i believe in being doing good so my religion is do good so i just believe like you know always do good things and you know god would treat you right and you know like at the end of the day when i say like don’t let money get to you like i believe that i don’t want money to get to me my head because if i get as this company grows i have a big responsibility you know like giving back to the community you know people out and you know it’s not an easy responsibility for that so that’s the main thing we want to do too give back to our community as

Speaker 1 | 44:45.326

much as we can take all the youth show them that if if a 18 year old did it then no excuse they have no excuse of not doing it yeah may allah bless you the yeah the um that’s a very common

Speaker 0 | 44:58.132

A lot of people don’t, you know, Islam is vastly misunderstood and, you know, most people don’t know. What’s interesting is most people that know Muslims probably know good people. You know, they don’t know like kind of like generally what they see on TV.

Speaker 2 | 45:15.344

Yeah, and that’s the message I’m trying to prove too, you know, like, not all, like, people, not everything you see on TV is true. So I’m trying to make an impact in the world as well.

Speaker 0 | 45:25.188

Another very common, you know, Muslim character or teaching, right, is like, if you want to know someone, look to their companions, look to their friends.

Speaker 2 | 45:34.212

Yeah.

Speaker 0 | 45:34.432

I tell my kids all the time, keep good friends, keep good companions, because those, because you are, you are, you are who your companions are. And if you want to know someone, look to their companions. If you want to know someone, look to their friends.

Speaker 2 | 45:47.181

Yes, 100% true.

Speaker 0 | 45:49.021

So it’s been absolutely a pleasure having you guys on the show. What’s your website?

Speaker 2 | 45:55.043

It’s going to be EnterprisePID.com.

Speaker 0 | 45:58.004

EnterprisePID.com. And we’ll put all of that in the show notes. And anyone that wants to reach out to you guys and offer support, I’m sure they can find you on LinkedIn. and I contact you via the website. Is there any other ways that you would prefer or want someone to reach out and be able to contact you?

Speaker 1 | 46:18.973

Phone number or email would be great. So the company email is going to be enterprise PID. It’s going to be dot info. Actually, my bad. It’s going to be info.enterprisepid.com. That’s our email and my personal phone number. If anyone wants to reach out, it’s going to be 614-687-6.

Speaker 2 | 46:42.669

two one six yeah you might be you might have to change that phone number now but also like me also yeah no go ahead reach out to me on linkedin if anyone wants to reach out to me you search my name up it’s me abukar a b u u k r the same as my last name so if anyone wants to reach out to me on linkedin you can just connect with me you’ll see like a picture logo and you’ll notice it’s me

Speaker 0 | 47:09.620

Excellent. Gentlemen, thank you so much. And I sincerely hope the best for you guys and that this grows as fast as possible. And let me know how I can help out in any way. And for anyone out there listening, when this episode comes out, you can help them by sharing this episode, by going on to iTunes and searching Dissecting Popular IT Nerds and giving Your honest review. We need honest reviews, written honest reviews on iTunes. And you can share this episode. It will be up on the website and any shares will certainly help these guys. And you can also feel free to reach out to me to be put into contact with them or to offer help in any way, shape, form or fashion. Gentlemen, have a wonderful evening, day, night, wherever it is. Where are you guys? You guys are in Chicago, right?

Speaker 2 | 48:05.038

Columbus.

Speaker 1 | 48:06.518

Columbus, Ohio.

Speaker 0 | 48:07.459

Okay, Ohio. Sorry. All right, geez. Ohio. You guys will be all over me. I’ve got an Ohio story. One time when I was a little kid, I picked on the wrong guy. My friend and I picked on the wrong guy. All their big brothers came out of this house and were like, where are you guys from? They’re like, we’re from Ohio. We’re like, oh. He’s like, alright, later. We tried to get a beat down from like six different guys. Alright, guys. Have a great night.

Speaker 2 | 48:32.601

Thank you for having us on the show. Thank you