Jordan: Yeah, let's do it. Just to start off, you know, typical question, just give us a quick intro. Who are you? What does your company do?

Eshan: Yeah. I’m Eshan, and my company does a lot of things... starting with protecting your brain. I don't know how to put this, but, you know, we're operating in the space of cognitive security, and it's very different from what people are used to. So, you know, you're spending a good chunk of your time on social media. You're getting your news from social media. You know, your dopamine receptors are getting fried, and you are not able to pay much attention to anything anybody is saying. So, you know, you kind of become a zombie with your thoughts, and, you know, if somebody says, "Hey, let's go do this," you're gonna mindlessly say, "Yes, let's do it."

Mike: Eshan, I need this right now. My brain is fried.

Eshan: There you go.

Mike: How do you protect brains? How do you do this? And protect from what?

Eshan: Yeah. So, I mean, there's a lot of manipulation… Like, we live in a very big surveillance state at the moment, right? Like, you see a camera on every block of the street, and you see so much stuff just happening, and your social media algorithm. You know, when you're on your phone and you're talking about, like, a toaster or something, you see an ad for a toaster.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: What we do is we build a profile on you as a person, and we figure out, like, okay, how can this person get attacked? So what are Mike's first, second, third-degree connections across Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok? Like, we map out everything. What do you like? What is the algorithm feeding you? And we'll say, "Hey, this is his likeliness to fall for this link click," or, "Hey, this is his, like, likeliness to, you know, fall for like a..." One of the most recent experiments we've done is a romance scam because that's been really big.

Mike: I'm not falling for those.

Eshan: [chuckles]

Mike: Don't tell my wife. I'm good. I'm safe.

Eshan: Yeah. We did a romance scam. It was like, hey, we're gonna go map this person out. We're gonna go map out their LinkedIn. We're gonna go map out their Twitter. We're gonna go map out, like, every other aspect, and then your dating life is very different from everything else. So when we go there, we build a cognitive profile, and we're like, okay, he's more vulnerable on these apps because he's trying to make a connection, and you see what you can kind of get the person to do. The scary part about it is most people really don't know who they're talking to.

Jordan: Yeah.

Eshan: I don't know, man, I have, like, three apps left on my phone, and it's, like, LinkedIn. Like, I don't have anything installed anymore. 

Jordan: Mm.

Mike: What are the worst apps? What should we get rid of first?

Eshan: Definitely Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

Mike: Oh, man!

Jordan: Great. [chuckles]

Mike: Those are all my favorite things.

Eshan: Come on, man. You need to be able to pay attention to us.

Mike: Yes. All right. So LinkedIn, what else is safe?

Eshan: Um, my Notes app.

Mike: [chuckles] Okay. All right.

Eshan: And Slack.

Mike: Wow! Yes. All work. 

Eshan: Oh, I don't know if you count WhatsApp, but, like, WhatsApp, too.

Jordan: Got it. Okay. It's funny you're saying all this. I think the name of your company is very fitting, which you also haven't shared yet. Do you want to tell us about the name and how you got it?

Eshan: Yeah, sure. So the company is called GhostEye, and I was a -8.0 prescription in my eyes, and my eye doctor looked at me, and he was like, "Dude, you need to get surgery, man." And I was like, "Okay, dude, I'll do it." I walk out of that room, my mom looks at me, and she's like, "You have f*cking ghost eyes."

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: And I was like, "Yo, that's sick."

Mike: [laughing]

Eshan: And then a couple months after the surgery, I will not share any pictures of my eyes after surgery, but it looked like just blood. It was terrible. But after a couple of months, I was like: Okay, I'm starting a company. What do I call it? And then we were like, "Yo, let's call it GhostEye." And now we're doing, like, intelligence, so you know, very fitting.

Jordan: Oh, [chuckles] that's great. Yeah, that's a funny story. I didn't know that. So what exactly inspired you to start the company, though? Like, take us back to that.

Eshan: Yeah, it's actually how I grew up. My mom came to the US for medical school and got a call or, you know, communication from somebody claiming to be IRS, and was like, "Hey, if you don't give me your Social Security number, I'm gonna make sure you get deported." And, you know, being an immigrant, if you're threatened with deportation, you're gonna do what the person says.

Mike: How long ago was this?

Eshan: Late '80s, early '90s.

Mike: Wow! These scams have been going on forever.

Eshan: Yeah, man. The FBI did not do much to help anybody, and you don't want to go to somebody for help when you're an immigrant because you just got threatened.

Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, so what happened? What happened to your mom and what did they do with the Social Security?

Eshan: Oh, man, she's like several million dollars in debt. 

Mike: What?

Eshan: They basically took out a bunch of loans in her name and just did a bunch of random things just as her. And she never finished med school, so I'm first in the family to actually finish any school.

Mike: What?

Eshan: Which is cool. 

Mike: Congratulations, but still, what?

Eshan: Yeah.

Mike: That's crazy!

Eshan: Thank you.

Jordan: It's crazy.

Eshan: ... Yeah, sh*t sucks, man. 

Mike: Is she still dealing with it? Like, does she still have the debt? What happened to it?

Eshan: Oh, no, man, I paid it off. We're good.

Mike: Wow! All right.

Jordan: Yeah.

Mike: Nice. All right.

Jordan: Amazing.

Eshan: But yeah, I mean, it affected me a lot growing up because we would just move around to wherever her job was, because she'd be, like, a desk assistant or, like, an assistant at mostly anesthesiology places, the sleep doctors, the people who help the people that can't sleep. And we go from there, we were in Queens, and she had to go to the Bronx, so she had to take a train through Manhattan, go up to the Bronx, and she would be there from like 1 AM to, like, noon, and it would be rough. So, you know, just seeing the pain and struggle that she went through, I didn't realize what and why I was doing it until very late, but I was always attracted to some level of security.

Mike: Right.

Eshan: So, my dad had a pizzeria, and there's a really funny story there. But he basically got an education and part-time was working at a dollar store, and one of his customers used to come in and be like: "Hey, you should come work for my pizzeria. You should come work for my pizzeria."

Mike: [chuckles]

Eshan: He handed it down to my dad after he retired, and my dad did that for fourteen years. But there was a four-year gap in those fourteen years where my dad was like: "Hey, can you come help me at the pizzeria?" And I was like: "Dude, sure, man."

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: So I was in high school at the time, and it was, like, an hour and a half away from where I went to school.

Mike: Oh, wow.

Eshan: So I used to get on the bus every day and just mess around on my phone, not do any actual homework.

Jordan: Yeah.

Eshan: So, I graduated high school with a really sh*tty average GPA or whatever.

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: And I applied to, like, twenty-seven colleges. I got into two, and one of the schools I got into was for cybersecurity, and it was RIT. So, you know, I had started building companies that bypassed anti-bot, bought sneakers, bought tons of crazy things. And then we got into the part where my dad was giving me money, and I was saving it to just buy random things. I bought Pokémon cards from Target, and I was like: "Dude-

Mike: Those are investments.

Eshan: -I'm gonna open these packs."

Mike: Yeah.

Eshan: This is my early sign of a gambling addiction with Pokémon.

Jordan: Yeah.

Eshan: Please don't do this, by the way, whoever's listening to this.

Mike: [chuckles]

Eshan: So I opened my first pack, and I get, like, a shiny Charizard. I get it graded, and it's, like, six hundred something bucks at the time, and I'm like: "Dude, I just hit the jackpot. I'm gonna sell this, and I'm gonna buy more."

Jordan: How old were you then?

Eshan: I was, like, seventeen. And I started just writing Python to automate checkouts on Target's website, and then I was like: "Sh*t, there's other people doing this, too, because it was going out of stock fast."

Mike: Yep.

Eshan: So it was perfect timing because COVID and all the crazy stuff happened, and everybody was just buying pools, buying graphics cards, buying shoes. Like, I was already reselling shoes. So, you know, just doing all the other stuff and owning a product, that was just very eye-opening, and it was, like, my very first exposure to entrepreneurship, and I didn't even know I was doing was being an entrepreneur.

Mike: Mm.

Eshan: I was like: "Dude, I'm-

Mike: You were just hustling.

Eshan: -I'm f*cking around, and I'm just making money."

Jordan: Right.

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Jordan: [chuckles] Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, so you were so young then, and so then this is your first intro to entrepreneurship. When did you start GhostEye? How old were you then?

Eshan: Um, this one's boring, but, I started GhostEye when I was twenty-three, and I am still twenty-three.

Mike: [laughing]

Eshan: Nothing's changed there.

Jordan: Great. Yes. Yeah. [chuckles] Got it. So you're still very much in the early days. So can you tell us some more about that? Like, how did you get your first customers? Were there any important learnings in those first literally, like, few months or...?

Eshan: Yes. So this is gonna be, like, super contrarian. There are players that establish categories, and people think those categories are gonna solve your problem because people are able to raise in it, people are able to do this, like, the VCs can give you customers. Okay, whatever, man. I think that we're genuinely on to building something new because we're taking a completely different angle. We're applying human psychology, cognitive science, to how interactions work in the modern day. We interact so much more online than we do in person nowadays because we were conditioned through that year of COVID, right?

Mike: Yep.

Eshan: We were sitting home. Now, we prefer working from home than seeing our peers, and that's actually quite damaging to the brain. So typically, human interaction helps naturalize and normalize your dopamine.

Mike: Yeah.

Eshan: And when you are home, you're just gonna be doing other things. You're not gonna be able to focus, and there's a lot of misdiagnosis for ADHD because of this. A lot of people are spending their time Instagramming, TikToking, doing all of this kind of stuff, and they're just going on crazy rampages on all these platforms. 

Mike: Right.

Eshan: What they're not realizing is instead of doing what they're supposed to be doing, or what they set out to do, they're actually wasting a lot of time. And they're wasting that time, and it's affecting how they think and how they perceive things. Because if I wanted to manipulate you, I could totally geo-target you, and I could put specific ads or specific reels. Like, I could influence your algorithm. And the problem that comes with that is just like… I don't know, like, there's so much.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: Because if we look at how our generation, Gen Z, is getting news, they're getting most of their news through social media.

Mike: Yep.

Eshan: And, you know, everybody's formulating opinions based off of what their algorithm says.

Mike: Yep.

Eshan: So who says somebody can't manipulate your algorithm?

Mike: Right.

Eshan: So, really, that is what we're protecting against. I want to genuinely protect our ability to form opinions and continue living as a society and be able to voice our opinions and do things.

Mike: Eshan, is your target customer or user, is it individuals, or is it enterprises? Like, are you protecting companies from, I don't know, ransomware and people giving away logins? Or are you protecting your mom and my mom, and maybe even me from, like, romance scams and Social Security and even your algorithm being biased in one way or another?

Eshan: Yeah. So at the moment, we're just testing it out in commercial, so we're giving it to enterprises. We're getting feedback, and we're planning on building this app, called Reaper. So it will “reap” all of the dopamine that you've lost. [chuckles] And, basically, it will serve there to screen for incoming, I mean, this is an add-on, but, incoming deep fake calls, texts, all these fake personalities, because there's security awareness, and then there's being cognitively aware and being secure here. So, you know… I'm not gonna get into that yet, but yeah. I mean, at the moment, we are selling to enterprises, and after maybe a couple months, we're gonna be going into the consumer space, and we're gonna be protecting your mom, my mom, Jordan's mom, and, like, [chuckles] everybody.

Jordan: [chuckles] All the moms. It's important. Cool. This is great. I mean, excited to hear more about all of that later. And yeah, I know you just had a really recent launch. Maybe you can dive into that a little bit at the end. I think it would be good to pivot a little bit into more about you as a founder and how you kinda deal with all this. It sounds like you have a lot of thoughts and maybe rituals that you do. So I guess first question is just like, do you have any habits or rituals that keep you productive or sane, in this founder life?

Eshan: Yes. So I am a very firm believer of brain points and, you know, setting yourself up for the next day, the day before.

Jordan: Mm.

Eshan: And the entire thing goes into just, like... I have a whiteboard that I  line up in front of my desk, and I write down everything I need to do-

Mike: Do you have it in front of you now?

Eshan: - the next day. What?

Mike: Do you have it in front of you now?

Eshan: Dude, I'm in SF.

Mike: Ah, yes.

Eshan: I have my notes app.

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: Right now it's my notes app, man.

Mike: Yeah. I would love to see it. Describe it to me. Like, what's on it? How big of a whiteboard are we talking about?

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: I don't know, man, like, hold on. It's, like, a little bit bigger than this TV. I can't flip my camera. It's a little bit bigger than this TV.

Mike: Wow!

Jordan: That's a really-

Mike: Okay.

Jordan: ... large one there. Okay.

Mike: And what do you write there? Like, describe to me your process. What do you do? 

Eshan: As a CEO, you have so many things to do. What do you have to do on development? What do you have to do on outreach? What do you have to do with your team? What does your team need? Where do you unblock your entire company? ‘Cause for me, leadership is making sure everybody is able to sit down and do their jobs without blocks.

Mike: Right.

Eshan: So, you know, what I wanna do is just, I wanna sit down with you. I wanna figure out what's blocking you, and I wanna figure out how to unblock that and how I can help do that.

Mike: Right.

Eshan: Because I think that at the end of the day, that's my job. 

Mike: Eshan, are you sure you're just twenty-three?

Eshan: Yes.

Mike: Feels like very mature. [laughing]

Eshan: Well, I mean, when you work in a large enterprise… I went into BlackRock when I was twenty-one, and navigating a very large enterprise like that, it's just very learning. I don't know the way you describe it, you mature so quickly because you realize you're just an absolute immature idiot.

Mike: Sure.

Eshan: And you take all of those lessons, and you just say, like, "Okay, this is like, this is the real deal now." I mean, that was the real deal, but like, this is the realer deal to me. And just applying all of that and saying: Okay, this is how I'm gonna build the next frontier of how humans are able to continue thinking. I don't know.

Mike: Yeah.

Eshan: I'm still working on that one-liner.

Jordan: [chuckles]

Mike: So your whiteboard's just like a brain dump. It's just like you thinking through every single piece of your to-do list and your priorities and the company's priorities.

Eshan: Yeah. I had a friend over a couple weeks ago, and she was visiting New York, and she was like, "Dude, what the hell is going on here?"

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: "Like, are you schizophrenic?" I was like, "No, dude. [chuckles] I'm just thinking." [laughing]

Jordan: ... It's good to get it out, definitely. Nice.

Eshan: I mean, you solve fifty percent of the problem by writing it down.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, I find that to be true.

Jordan: Yeah, it's a good quote to live by.

Mike: Yeah, yeah.

Jordan: Nice. That's a good one. I've realized a lot of the founders that we've talked to say that sometimes simplicity is almost better, you know? Like, a lot of them say, writing out things on the Notes app or, like, our last founder was saying writing out on pen and paper is super helpful. So yeah, I think you're onto something with that.

Eshan: It serves as a to-do list to me at the end of the day. Like, I set absolutely unachievable goals every day, and it's like, if I even get to, like, half of that, I've done great.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Mike: What's your unachievable goal today?

Eshan: Um, go get another customer by sitting in front of their office and waiting until they let me in.

Mike: I love it. Are you doing that?

Eshan: Yeah.

Mike: Oh, I love it.

Eshan: I'm dressed up all snazzy for it.

Mike: Yeah, [chuckles] yeah.

Eshan: But yeah, no, that's kind of... Like, when you're in SF, you have to do SF things.

Mike: You can do that in New York, too, man.

Eshan: No, dude, they would just think you're just standing in the street.

Mike: [laughing]

Eshan: Or security would be like: "Get out."

Mike: Yeah, the security might get you.

Jordan: Okay, I mean, a few other questions, about, like, founder life-

Eshan: Let's do it.

Jordan: Okay, cool. Next one, just being: Are there any facts or something that you think someone would be surprised to learn about you? I feel like we've learned a lot already, some very interesting stuff, so I'm excited to see what else you have to share.

Eshan: Um, facts about me. I have lived in all five boroughs of New York City.

Mike: [laughing]

Jordan: That's a good one.

Eshan: I don't know if that's a good one.

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: I'm sure... Like, Jordan, you've heard that a thousand times from me.

Jordan: Yes, every dinner. [chuckles]

Mike: I think it's so funny.

Jordan: It's a good fun fact.

Mike: It's such a New York thing to say, people will be like: "I've been all over, I've lived in all five boroughs of New York City."

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: Dude, you're-

Jordan: Very true.

Eshan: ... you're using proper grammar. I don't even do that.

Jordan: Mm-hmm. [chuckles] An important follow-up question: Which is the best borough of the ones you've lived in?

Eshan: Uh-oh, I'm not gonna lie, man.

Mike: It's controversial.

Eshan: This one's kind of rough. Yeah, this is gonna be very controversial, but I'm gonna say Queens.

Mike: Yeah. All right.

Jordan: Yeah.

Mike: Best food.

Eshan: Like, and obviously, there's an inherent bias. A good chunk of my friends live in Queens, and my entire family lives in Queens. And the culture there is just amazing. You go to different neighborhoods, and you just see different cultures spread out, different cuisine everywhere, and just a different way of living, and I don't think you find that in any of the other neighborhoods, like, in any of the other boroughs. Typically, it stacks.

Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for real. Yeah, so you said all your family, a lot of your friends are here. Is that why you would say you're in New York right now, or are there any other reasons?

Eshan: Well, being in SF, I might consider moving here, but, yeah, I think being in New York, it's just... We're still very early in our journey, but I do think when we do have more of-- I mean, we have a great product built out so far, and I'm very proud of the team, but, you know, when we have more and more people getting onto the product and more engineers, it's gonna be an amazing place to build because we are gonna be working with the banks, we're gonna be working with their customers, and we're gonna be working with everybody that needs to keep their brain secure, and in my opinion, I think that's everybody.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: Social media is evil, man.

Jordan: [chuckles] I feel like we could do a whole other podcast just about that, honestly. I'm on the same page. It's really interesting being our age and seeing more and more people in their early/mid-twenties thinking that as well. So I'm curious with the next years, do you have any predictions about how the sentiment towards social media is gonna change?

Eshan: Well, I do think that Gen Alpha is not gonna be able to formulate actual thoughts because they are growing up with these apps. We grew up with them being created. We got used to them. Some of us understand the bad, right? But you look at Gen Alpha, they're growing up with this stuff, and they're growing up with AI. So I have a friend, she's an eighth-grade teacher in New York, and she says a lot of her students are submitting AI slop for papers and homework.

Mike: Yeah, they do.

Eshan: Like, they have no respect for education anymore.

Mike: Right.

Eshan: So taking a look at that and just really seeing they're not being taught how to question things. They're not asking questions. Nobody's teaching them to ask questions because if the parents- I mean, it's on the parents, too, and, like, it's on a lot of us, but you need to be like: "Hey, go figure it out." I learn best in trial by fire.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: Like, everything that you do in a startup is like: Okay, this could make or break you. I've done everything that broke me, and, you know, that's how you get better.

Mike: What is something that broke you? Give me some examples.

Eshan: Yeah, man, I'll tell you this story. So we had built very early stages of GhostEye back in YC, and we were about to go on our fundraise, and I get on this call with a CISO. And the CISO's like: "Hey, man, I wouldn't pitch it as this. I'd pitch it as that." And, you know, I was very stressed out, and I was like, he knows what he's talking about. He's in the job. He's the buyer. And, he didn't buy it, and I pitched... So I had product A built out. We had traction on product A, but I was pitching product B.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: And product B did not line up with anything we were doing, like, nothing made sense. So, I mean, we walked out of the gate with, like, zero dollars, basically.

Jordan: Mm.

Eshan: 'Cause, like, nobody understood what the hell I was trying to say.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: And respectfully so, honestly. Like, if it looks like I don't have a grasp on it, I probably didn't, and the biggest lesson I took out of that was just genuinely, like, unless they're paying for it, don't listen to them.

Mike: Right.

Eshan: It's just the mentality you have to have.

Mike: Right.

Eshan: And I guess I got that lesson the really hard way.

Mike: Mm.

Jordan: Yeah.

Mike: Eshan, I'm super curious. So other than deleting all the apps, what else do you do to make sure your brain is tight, that your dopamine and everything is on the right level?

Eshan: Um, honestly, man, I'm gonna need you to repeat that 'cause, like, you just bugged out. [chuckles]

Mike: [chuckles] Okay, all right. So you mentioned you deleted most of the apps on your phone, like social media. 

Eshan: Yeah, man, my phone's in black and white, too. [chuckles]

Mike: So my question is-

Eshan: Like, you guys are black and white right now. It's amazing.

Mike: Yeah, my question is– black and white's a great tip! So my question is, are there other tips, like having your phone in black and white, that help you with your focus and help you keep your brain in good health?

Eshan: Yes. I mean, this one's gonna be a little controversial, but-

Mike: Okay. I love it.

Eshan: I intermittent fast, so I wake up, I get ready. I don't really eat until, like, three or four PM, because that's when your focus is going down and it's degrading.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: But the reason that I skip lunch is primarily because the dopamine that you get from eating, it imbalances your dopamine, and you feel tired because of typically what you're eating. And that kind of hurts your focus and your productivity and ability to just formulate the same thought you were able to formulate before lunch. So it's a little bit of conditioning your body, but that is something that I would very highly recommend doing because it has changed me for probably the better. Like, I would not be able to come onto this call and just be like, "Yes, this works," unless, like, it genuinely worked. 

Jordan: So does that include, like, no caffeine or no tea in the morning, anything like that, or?

Eshan: Oh, man, I hate the energy drinks 'cause they, like, suck, and they, like, probably will kill you.

Jordan: Mm. [chuckles]

Eshan: I don't do caffeine in the morning, unless, like, sometimes it's, like, a black coffee.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Eshan: And I have back in New York, you can buy those gallons of, like, Gregory's coffee.

Jordan: Yeah.

Eshan: So, like, I just keep one in the fridge for whenever I need it, and then I pour, like, a half a glass.

Jordan: Interesting stuff. I haven't heard the intermittent fasting thing in a while, actually. So when is your period of eating from? So it starts at, like, three-ish, and then when do you end?

Eshan: Three until I go to bed, basically, or, like, I don't eat, like, four hours before going to bed because it's, like, just not healthy.

Jordan: Mm.

Eshan: Also, I hate the people that say, like, "You need to wake up at 5 AM to succeed." It's bullshit. I wake up at, like, 7:30 and, like-

Mike: [chuckles]

Eshan: -sometimes, like, 9. [chuckles] Sometimes I wake up at, like, 9:30 and I just go into it, and I start at 10. 

Mike: Dude, I love your drive. You're like: I sleep in. I wake up at 7:30. [laughing] I think most people consider that to be early.

Eshan: I'm more realistic. Like, sometimes it's, like, 8 to 9:30.

Mike: Sure.

Eshan: And those are the nights I'm working really late.

Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like there are two types of founders. You know, it's like there's the kind that are, like, exact same sleep, exact same wake up every single day, and then there's the Eshans, you know? Just kind of whatever works.

Eshan: You can't be on a routine, man.

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: Like, being on a routine just makes you, like... I try doing something that's out of place every day. So, last week in New York, this is kind of stupid… hold on. I'm, like, trying to figure out why I was doing that.

Jordan: To break the routine, right?

Eshan: No, no, no, no, no. This is genuinely, like, the dumbest thing. But it was pretty nice, I went to Whole Foods before work, and I walked down, like, the entirety of Broadway, and I was just handing singular flowers to people in the morning as I was walking. 

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: And, you know, it just changes-

Mike: That's very nice.

Eshan: It just changes their expression. I was like, "Hey, have a good day." 'Cause, like, people are freezing. They're like: "Holy sh*t, somebody just did something nice for me." Like, it changes that entire person's day.

Mike: Wow!

Eshan: ... super random.

Mike: You try to do something like that every single day?

Eshan: Something super random, yeah.

Mike: And, and why? What, what do you get out of it?

Eshan: Um, honestly, it keeps me, like, super extroverted.

Mike: Yeah.

Eshan: Because, I'm not gonna lie, I suffer from a level of anxiety because I'm running a company.

Mike: Sure.

Eshan: But, you know, it helps me overcome it because it's like, "Oh, you can't talk to that person." No, I can definitely talk to that person.

Mike: Wow! I love that.

Eshan: Yeah, that one was super random. I thought of it as I was walking to the train, and I was like: Sh*t, I should probably do that. I haven't done that yet. And yeah, it was really well-received, so I might do it more frequently.

Jordan: Nice. That's so sweet. I love that one. Okay, well, yeah, that was really great learning some more about you. I think maybe it'll be good to wrap this up. So next big question for you, just about “the ask” – so what's your biggest need right now? How can people help? If you want to talk about the launch a little bit now, too, that could be a good time. 

Mike: You're good at naming. GhostEye, Reaper, Beacon.

Eshan: The way I come up with this sh*t is so stupid.

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: Like, something stupid always happens, and I'm like, "Maybe."

Mike: That's perfect. [laughing] 

Eshan: So we're sitting there, and I'm like: Okay, I don't want to be a normal awareness product. Like, there are so many normal awareness products on the market. What do we do differently? Well, you go outside the industry, and you talk to the people doing this stuff with your brand, that understand your brand, and you partner with them, and you understand how you can secure the brand. So for us, we're working with the Cognitive Security Institute, and I just gave a talk about the romance stuff, like, last week there, and I'm gonna give another talk tomorrow if you guys want to come.

Mike: Wow! Yeah. Send us the link.

Eshan: Yeah. We're basically getting into that, and it's just showing you that all of your data could really just be used against you and getting you to do something that you would never actually want to do if you were actually building your own boss.

Mike: Yeah.

Eshan: So at the end, you mentioned, like, what am I selling to at the moment? To get some further clarity, it's the enterprise, because they're gonna be using this awareness tool to check the box, and really, I want this to be a benefit tip for employees, right? I want the company to give this to the users, the employees, and say like: "Hey, look, go find your map. Go find the map for your family, and make sure it's, like, locked down." Because everybody has their own digital footprint, and yours is very different than mine. So if I'm able to find that with IRIS, which is our Integrated Reconnaissance and Intelligence Suite, that was good.

Jordan: [chuckles]

Eshan: Um, it's named after, like, the iris in your eye.

Jordan: Oh, like GhostEYE. Yeah.

Mike: [chuckles]

Eshan: It maps out everywhere you're exposed, so past addresses, what your commute is to work. Like, where's your office? How long does it take you to get there? Can you fall for something? Like, "Hey, Mike, saw you wearing this shirt, man. Like, really love the company." You're gonna be like: "Oh, my God, I can convert somebody."

Mike: [chuckles]

Eshan: And you just look at them, and you're like, "Okay, I can talk to this person."

Mike: Right.

Eshan: Because in your head, the idea has been planted that, this person knows who you are and who your company is. So, I mean, that's a very small example, but at scale, this gets really scary. So we're protecting you by showing you a map of where you're exposed and helping you figure out what's real and what's not.

Mike: That's a good one-liner.

Jordan: I'd say that's a great TLDR. That's perfect. 

Mohammad Eshan is the CEO and Co-Founder of GhostEye (YC S25), an AI-powered security awareness platform that uses cognitive security principles to simulate realistic social engineering attacks and strengthen human defenses. He holds a Bachelor's and Master's in Cybersecurity from RIT and has previously served on BlackRock's Red Team and conducted offensive operations at MITRE. Eshan has been an active member of NYC Founders Club since 2025.