In this bold and thought-provoking episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, UK-based serial entrepreneur and investor Steve Endacott joins the show to discuss the intersection of AI, entrepreneurship, and legacy. From backing disruptive startups to launching Neural Voice, a conversational AI platform for the travel industry, and Life’s Echo, a digital legacy tool that lets people speak at their own funerals—Steve is turning ambitious ideas into impactful ventures.

You’ll hear why Steve believes AI is still at the “engine” stage, why implementation is the real frontier, and how his AI incubator is matching technical founders with seasoned business leaders to accelerate market-ready innovation.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• Why AI startups need real business models, not just tech

• The danger of overestimating big tech’s dominance in AI

• Why UK founders struggle to scale—and how Dubai is emerging as an alternative funding hub

• How AI can preserve human stories through voice and memory

• The funding death zone: why early UK startups thrive but Series A remains elusive

• Why failure is embraced in the US—but still taboo in the UK

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🎓 What You’ll Learn

• How to build scalable AI startups with B2B2C models

• What it means to “build a car, not just the AI engine”

• How to make your startup fundable through SEIS and EIS

• Real examples of AI products in travel, legacy tech, and politics

• Why founders need to surround themselves with “gray hair” and business realism

👤 About the Guest: Steve Endacott

STEVE ENDACOTT (AI-STEVE)

NON-EXEC CHAIRMAN NEURAL RIVER (AI), NEURAL VOICE (AI) AND TRAVEL SOLUTIONS NETWORK AND FOUNDER OF ECO–ELECTRIC CAR ORGANISATION.

He had an extensive business career before Steve created the SmarterUK party and exploded into political work by standing as AI Steve to become the UK's first AI Member of Parliament in Brighton Pavilion.

Steve has the unusual distinction of having successful careers within both corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Steve is now “Semi-Retired”, having sold Holiday Taxis Ltd (Jan 2019) and Rock Insurance Ltd in multimillion-pound deals. He, however, continues to invest in startup businesses and has recently launched a range of new companies.

⏱ Episode Highlights (Timestamps)

00:00 – Intro and Steve’s entrepreneurial background

03:00 – The “AI car” metaphor: why implementation is everything

06:00 – Neural Voice: building travel-focused conversational AI

10:00 – Running for office as AI Steve

14:00 – Politics vs AI: fear of disruption

17:00 – The UK startup environment: good for early-stage, hard for scaling

20:00 – Why Steve is looking to Dubai for follow-on funding

22:00 – Life’s Echo: creating digital legacies and posthumous storytelling

27:00 – Public reactions: love, hate, and death threats

32:00 – Startup building lessons: team balance, sweat equity, and valuation realism

38:00 – Global-first thinking: building 25-language, 24/7 AI products

42:00 – Final advice: move fast, go global, and build meaningful businesses

In this episode, I’m joined by two tech veterans, Garrett Rice (former Apple) and Philippe Cailloux (former Head of Product Design at Adobe), co-founders of Callings.ai—a platform that’s rethinking how we search for jobs in the AI era. We dive into how the traditional job-hunting process is broken, what’s wrong with the resume as we know it, and how AI can help job seekers know themselves better, stand out, and land more meaningful work.

💡 Key Takeaways:

• Why resumes and job portals are built for companies, not candidates—and how that’s failing job seekers.

• The origin story of Callings.ai and how Garrett & Philippe used their own job hunt frustration to build a new solution.

• How AI can help users reflect, self-brand, and generate tailored applications at scale.

• The importance of personal intention and identity in an increasingly automated hiring world.

• The philosophical and practical shift from “spray and pray” to focused, purposeful job searching.

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🎓 What You’ll Learn:

• How AI is changing the job search process

• The flaws of applicant tracking systems (ATS)

• How to use personal branding to stand out

• Why self-awareness matters more than ever

• The role of LLMs in reimagining career platforms

👤 About the Guests:

Garrett Rice is a former Apple executive and startup operator with deep expertise in technology, product, and business building. Garrett is a

leader with a 25-year record of shipping innovative products, developing meaningful partnerships, designing effective processes and leading dynamic teams. Experience with startups, medium and large companies. Love building things and solving problems to make customers happy and companies better.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettrice/

Philippe Cailloux has 20+ Years of Experience, he engaged in emerging technology product strategy and design, leading teams to develop products appreciated by a global user base (hundreds of millions).

He has led product design at Adobe and several other companies, and brings a unique lens to merging user-centric design with cutting-edge AI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cailloux/

Together, they co-founded Callings.ai, a platform focused on empowering job seekers—not employers—with AI-driven tools to navigate the modern hiring landscape.

https://callings.ai/

Episode Highlights:

⏱️ [00:04:20] – Why traditional job search tools ignore the candidate’s experience

⏱️ [00:08:40] – Building tools out of frustration: the founding story of Callings.ai

⏱️ [00:16:00] – Resume ≠ identity: how AI helps uncover the real value behind your past roles

⏱️ [00:27:30] – The “My Insights” feature and how AI personalizes the career journey

⏱️ [00:34:50] – LLMs as enablers: using tech to accelerate self-discovery, not replace it

⏱️ [00:45:00] – The role of purpose, personal branding, and the future of work

⏱️ [01:03:00] – Will AI lead to one-person unicorns? The myth, the reality, and the nuance

In this inspiring episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, I sit down with Ahmed Mahmoud (Founder & CEO) and Ahmed Elshahawy (CTO) of DXwand, a MENA-born AI startup reshaping how businesses unlock growth with generative AI, knowledge mining, and document intelligence.

The conversation takes you through their courageous leap from successful corporate careers (Microsoft, IBM, EY) into the startup trenches, the reality of building a tech company in emerging markets, the transformative impact of generative AI, and their ambitious expansion from the MENA region to global markets like the U.S. and U.K.

If you’re passionate about startups, AI innovation, or scaling tech businesses across borders, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Key Takeaways:

• Why pivoting early is critical for startup survival (and success)

• How the MENA region’s linguistic and cultural diversity shapes AI development

• The real-world business challenges generative AI can (and cannot) solve

• Building AI solutions that balance innovation, hallucination control, and data privacy

• Why document intelligence and knowledge mining are the new frontier

• Lessons on leading tech teams and driving innovation beyond the buzz

• How DXwand cracked the formula to serve SMBs with advanced AI

• The mindset required to jump from corporate life into true entrepreneurship

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What You Will Learn:

• How GenAI unlocked new growth opportunities in enterprise and SMB sectors

• Why combining structured and unstructured data is reshaping data analysis

• Practical insights into deploying AI in highly regulated industries

• Why agent tech is exciting — but not a silver bullet for every problem

• The power of resilience, grit, and passion in startup success stories from emerging markets

About the Guests:

Ahmed Mahmoud is the Founder and CEO of DXwand. With over two decades of experience in technology and enterprise sales, including leadership roles at Microsoft, Ahmed transitioned from a successful corporate career to build one of the region’s leading AI companies. He is passionate about using AI to empower businesses of all sizes and believes in creating meaningful, lasting impact through technology.

Ahmed Elshahawy is the CTO of DXwand. An experienced technology leader, Ahmed has a rich background in solution architecture, delivery management, and data analytics, having worked at global organizations like IBM, EY, and various startups across Egypt and Malaysia. At DXwand, he leads the technical strategy, focusing on generative AI, knowledge mining, and enterprise AI adoption, driving innovation in emerging markets and beyond.

https://dxwand.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmedmmohammed/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashahawy/

Episode Highlights:

[00:02:00] - Founders’ backstory: From Microsoft and IBM to DXwand

[00:05:00] - Identifying a major gap: Arabic language and regional AI support

[00:08:00] - Pivoting into generative AI and knowledge mining

[00:13:00] - Early business wins: Serving financial services and trading platforms

[00:19:00] - Moving beyond chatbots: Document intelligence and compliance solutions

[00:22:00] - Tackling multilingual and multi-dialect challenges

[00:25:00] - How GenAI changed data analysis forever

[00:30:00] - Addressing hallucination, security, and enterprise adoption

[00:37:00] - Real talk on agent tech: Separating hype from real-world value

[00:40:00] - DXwand’s global expansion strategy and new mid-market offerings

[00:43:00] - Honest reflections on entrepreneurship: Courage, risk, and fulfillment