Don’t miss our latest conversation with Anita Soni, founder of Cognition, on ShopTok! Discover how she helps children overcome cognitive challenges and excel in life. Learn the power of persistence, the importance of focusing on goals, and the role of parents in nurturing independence. Tune in now!

Discussion Topics: Have Faith and You Will Succeed

• Intro
• Customer Acquisition.
• Issues children face.
• Outlier Kids.
• How to make kids outlier. 
• How to increase focus.
• Parents over-control their kids.
• Challenges.
• Success
• Word of mouth. 
• Edtech in today’s world.
• Monetary benefits vs growth. 
• Adults and cognitive skills.

Transcript: Have Faith and You Will Succeed

Amit Ray: Hi everyone, this is Amit once again with another CrazyTok Live. So today we are actually trying a new format, so hopefully, this is going to be interesting to everyone. Many of you know that CrazyTok does podcasts and I think over the course of the last year or so, I personally have probably recorded maybe 70 to 80 episodes.

But they’ve all been done in private, quietly in a room and then we’ve edited those shows and then we’ve brought them out as actual podcasts in audio. So today we are trying something new and this is a format we hope to keep going, which is to do these podcasts live. For today we have our first guest in our new Live format which is Anita Soni and Anita is the founder of Cognition.

This is a company that actually does something interesting and I’m a parent, so something that I think is particularly important for this world, is that she works with students to help enhance their cognitive skills. And she can do that because she’s a trained, I think, psychiatrist, psychologist, something to do with people’s psyche so I think she will explain all of this better, but we are very excited to have this conversation with her. And to try out this new format. So if you like this, please do leave us comments and a thumbs up so that we can do more of this kind of thing. So Anita, thank you so much for joining us today and I definitely massacred your introductions. So perhaps you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and what you’re trying to achieve. 

Anita Soni: Hi Amit. Thank you for having me in. Hello everyone hope you all are safe, sound, and happy. I’m a founder of Cognition and have my specialisation in child psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. I’m presently working as a coach, a mentor, and a counsellor, and about cognition. Cognition facilitates knowledge-based learning, which focuses more on enhancing the cognitive skills of the students for a better and brighter future. 

Amit Ray: So that, like I said I really think it’s a really important thing that you’re doing, and obviously I think it’s born out of your background, out of your training and education, but how did you actually get started on this journey?

Anita Soni: The journey started with an intention to support my family and the first few steps were with apprehension, and I had my own doubts about things, was anxious about whether it would go as desired or not, but towards moving through the deeper inner roads. It all went beyond my imagination. 

Amit Ray: I understand the apprehension part because when we started CrazyTok I had a couple of businesses in the past, which did not really succeed. So I totally understand this whole apprehension towards starting something new. And it is impressive.

One does want a higher power to help and stuff, but ultimately one has to take the step ourselves. And so therefore, I think it’s really a very credible thing, to not take up a job or do the traditional kind of thing.

Customer Acquisition

Speaking about downside risk and making money, how did you actually get your first few customers? Because obviously when you started, I’m assuming people didn’t know about you. 

Anita Soni: The first few customers came by word of mouth. And from the near and dear ones, a lot of people joined us along the road.

And being a mentor, a coach, and a counsellor, we started to understand the psychology of our client kids, what made them unique, their character traits and much more. And this actually helped me to get grades for my students beyond imagination. 

Amit Ray: So when you say, your students started performing at North Star levels, so help our audience understand what kind of maybe age groups or what kinds of outcomes are you working toward.

Anita Soni: We have students from different age groups we have a bachelor, and students are from grade 1 to grade 5, and then the middle school, which is 6 to 8, and then the high school, which is 8 to 10. We also train students for the SAT, the IMT exams, and other competitive exams.

Amit Ray: Okay, got it. Which, you’re actually helping students do better in school or, towards their entrance exams and stuff for higher education. 

Anita Soni: Exactly. 

Amit Ray: Okay, great. So this is exactly the kind of thing that I mean my son is 14, so it’s one of those things that we are thinking about now, and I’m sure a lot of people who are watching this now or may watch this video in future or listen to the podcast would probably identify with. And the fact that you’re trying to get people to maybe understand their North Star and then work towards that, I think it seems quite credible.

Issues children face

So tell me more about outlier kids. It sounds very exciting because, of course, I want my kid to be an outlier in the right way. So what is that? And or rather, what are the problems? Maybe we start with that. What are the challenges that you see with children right now, or the kids that you’re working with? And then maybe we can get to outliers. 

Anita Soni: So the challenges faced by students these days are they have attention deficit and they have hyperactivity disorder. Apart from that, they also have mental issues, mental health issues, extreme passivism and low self-confidence as well. 

Amit Ray: I think I identify with some of these particularly not taking risks because everything is so Marks-oriented, especially, I guess especially in India. But even for the kind of children who are trying to prepare for, let’s say, trying to get into Harvard or any major institution. You tend to want to go in a straight line and try to get there versus maybe exploring other things that you might be interested in or actually figuring out your North Star.

Outlier Kids

So I think I understand where you’re coming from. So if this is the kind of thing that is afflicting children. So let’s talk about in that case, what are these outliers or what are you trying to shape people into?

Anita Soni: Outlier kids. As Malcolm Glad Will says in his book Outliers, every individual who does things that go beyond the realm of the ordinary are outlier kid. And the key attributes of outlier kids are they’re highly focused, they’re hardworking, and they are resolute towards the goal. So these are the key attributes of outlier kids.

Amit Ray: Okay, focused, hardworking, and goal-focused. I think that makes sense. It would make outlier adults as well if generally, everybody could be like that. I think that makes a lot of sense. I also like that you distil it into three points because there are so many ways of defining outperformance, but these are, I think three good ways of saying this, that you’re focused, you are hardworking and you’re persistent.

How to make kids outlier kids

So since we are talking about taking kids from maybe not so outlier to trying to make them outlier, how do you actually work with them on this journey?

Anita Soni: Frankly speaking, every kid is an outlier kid, we just need to train them accordingly. So the rules of high-performing or outlier kids, are they highly focused? That’s rule number one. Rule number two is you should not forget rule one. As Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, he says, “Sanskrit saying”.

This means that if you implicitly do one job and that one job alone and all of the jobs are forgotten, all of the things are forgotten and of no importance at all. That individual becomes a brilliant entity. So geniuses are not gone. They actually made, so if a kid, okay, if the kids are moving towards one to relentless goal, all their mind becomes pointed and integrated.

The concentration increases and they become razor-sharp focused. Just if you bring a piece of paper and place it under sunlight, nothing happens, right? But if you bring a lens and adjust the focus on it, the paper starts burning. The same with kids. Kids’ minds should not be distracted by multiple things.

They should focus on one single thing, and it should be brought to one focal point. And. If you see many people who have been very successful, they’re highly focused, except the 0.001% 

How to increase focus

Amit Ray: Which actually does beg the question, which is how do we make this kind of focus actually happen?

Anita Soni: Upbringing has a great impact on how the child is shaped. I hope everyone would’ve heard the famous story of baby elephant syndrome.

Okay, let me illustrate it a baby elephant is tied to a rope or a chain at a very young age and is unable to break free of the constraint. So when the elephant matures, the elephant has grown strong enough, to uproot the trees, and surely break. But the elephant has been conditioned to accept the constraint.

Even if a weak rope is used, the elephant will not attempt to break free, and the constraint is now in the mind of the elephant as opposed to an actual physical constraint. So the elephant is held back, not by the rope, but by its belief system. And we as parents need to help our kids break free of the mindset to help them. Get rid of the innate fears, which make them think otherwise.  

Parents overcontrol their kids

Amit Ray: Okay. You also mentioned, I think, what is, I would say, commonly known as mental health.  So do you see, either the way that we do education is negatively contributing towards that, or do you see this as something to address?

Anita Soni: The mental health of our children must be seen every bit as important as their physical health. Because today’s kids are highly anxious, depressed, and they’re less confident. This happens when they are over-guided, over-restricted, or overcontrolled, and parents reach out. Usually what happens is parents reach out to rescue their kids whenever in pain, or they are in trouble.

With this, the kids move on to either the fight or the flight mode where the brain stops functioning on its own and they seek help for each and everything. I hope all of us have heard the story of the transformation of a pupa into a butterfly, right? Where the continuous effort from the butterfly to come out of its cocoon would actually lead the fluid stored in the body, to convert into wings and hence the body would become lighter and smaller, and the wings would be beautiful and large. So if you don’t want to undergo any struggle, you won’t be able to fly. Struggles actually make us shine. 

Amit Ray: I think that is a really good way of putting it. First of all, I think again as a parent, I highly identify with the over-guided, over-controlled thing. It’s a natural reflex, right? But I agree with you. Being able to let the kid do their own thing and figure it out for themselves, I think is obviously sound advice.

I do like the analogy over here with the butterfly as well. Basically what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But, the reality is most of us are not doing things like that. And I’m sure there were, and continue to be, challenges or choices that you have to make in running this as a business beyond the good that you’re doing for society. So what are some of the challenges that you faced? How do you overcome them? 

Challenges

Anita Soni: Challenges are a part of an entrepreneurship journey, right? And challenges actually make us better each time. And it is just to turn ourselves into the better version of us. When we started cognition, we could see the admission rate increase as students wanted, as the parents actually wanted instant results. Which is not possible when you’re working on the root cause. 

Amit Ray: So this is interesting. So how did you, I’m just curious, how do you actually handle that? Because we are a very instant gratification society, and this is not an instant gratification problem. So how did you, how do you handle it?

Anita Soni: We divided the tasks into chunks where there were checkpoints at every level. And parents would see an amount of progress every quarter. And parents were really very happy to see the progress little by little but consistently. And this actually manifold, multifold over the years.

Success

Amit Ray: So if you are able to show success, then maybe people are more keen on the program that you have. So are you seeing that kind of success? Are children transforming from maybe not, maybe from the middle of the road to becoming outliers?

Anita Soni: Yes, we have students transforming, we have students where and when we started a journey, we had students from the ADHD background. We have students who have severe attention deficit and concentration issues. And now over the course of time, we can see that the students are studying in the top-notch elite institutions, Ivy League Institutions, Harvard, Stanford, and many others.

Word of mouth

Amit Ray: Wow, that’s pretty good. I suppose that in itself maybe gets you more customers. So if your business is growing, is the reason like just word of mouth or people observing success? 

Anita Soni: Your work actually speaks better than anyone else, right? So when you give a hundred percent to one desired goal, consistently and continuously, it gradually starts showing results. And we got students mainly from word of mouth.

 Amit Ray: Do you ask people to refer other people, incentivize that, referral, or do something like that? 

Anita Soni: No, frankly speaking, we’ve never asked anyone to refer to us, but we have. got quite a lot of students because as I said to you, like when the kids start growing, the parents are really very happy and when the parents are happy, it all, it obviously spreads. 

Edtech in today’s world

 Amit Ray: So the reason I ask this is because you are an ed tech in a way. Maybe not so much tech, but there’s definitely the whole ed part of this and in today’s world, ed tech is very much a topic of discussion and a topic of concern for that matter, because, it was like two, three years back it was, oh wow, this is gonna solve all problems because people are gonna learn, self learn motivationally online, and they’re gonna, they’re gonna take over the stuff that schools are not being able to offer, et cetera, et cetera.

And the reality today, definitely in India, and I would say in many other places, is that maybe they’ve grown bigger than the market that they could actually service in a, in the manner that they probably wanted to. 

And so they obviously have grown through many growth hacks, I would say, including incentivized referrals, obviously outbound sales some, a lot of complaints happen to be around pushing sales and then not being able to get refunds and so on.

So you’ve somehow managed to stay away from this temptation. So I’m curious, did you not get some sort of FOMO about all of these people growing at whatever rates they’re growing? And did you not feel inclined to try some of those tactics?

Monetary benefits vs growth

Anita Soni: Well, as I said, if we were not working on the monetary benefits, we were not mainly money-minded, but yes, we were surely working on. To help the cognition group and help our entity move on to the next level. But yes we have been growing. Yes, Cognition has been growing beyond leaps and bounds and we are extremely happy about it. 

Our basic motive is we identify the kid’s strength and use it to help them excel in their endeavours by counselling and helping them to work on the key areas with checkpoints to test and stress the skills. This helps cognition unleash the true potential of every kid.

Amit Ray: So my question is, in hindsight, what might you have done differently, or maybe just what is some advice you’d give to aspiring entrepreneurs, either in the education space or just in general?

Anita Soni: The only thing we could do differently if we had a chance, is reduce the amount of time we took to reach you. My only advice to every entrepreneur is you have to act smart and act fast. You have to trust your gut be customer-focused and have faith in yourself, which is very important. And the entire world will conspire to make it happen.

Amit Ray: Right? I think it’s good advice. It is a little hard to stick to it, but it’s good to hear it from someone else as well. 

Adults and cognitive skills

How can people use cognitive skills in their professional careers? Going back to the point I was saying earlier, I think even if adults were that focused and resolute, I think it would be good for them. So what are some thoughts you might have on this? 

Anita Soni: The five primary cognitive skills are reading, learning, remembering, and paying attention, which is very important. So I’ve already answered the question, right? You need to be highly focused, focused on one relentless goal.

Amit Ray: Actually there is a lot of conversation and I also tend to write on LinkedIn about these kinds of topics from time to time. One of the things a lot of people have a problem with nowadays is multitasking, right?

Because first of all, you have five different channels with which people are trying to reach you, and then you’re also trying to do two or three things at the same time. Like you’re listening to a call, but you’re making your presentation for tomorrow. And you know that at the back of your mind, you’ve got this chore to do at home and so on.

So I think this is a, it’s quite a struggle for people to kind of address. So how do you stay focused in that kind of environment?

Anita Soni: I think we need to adapt the traditional methods to stay focused. One is we need to meditate because meditation actually calms our mind. It reduces the chattering of your mind. And when you are single-minded, when you’re focused, you can think way a lot better when compared to the chattering of your brain, right?

 Amit Ray: That’s true. I have read this in various forums. Unfortunately, my mind was chattering too much for me to actually implement it, but yes I do agree that this is something that I think a lot of people say and it works for a lot of people. From my side, what I’ve tried doing is time boxing, which works well for me, like just block one hour or two hours and just do one thing.

The knowledge that I have, that time to do that one thing actually helps a lot because even if there are other distractions, I know that this time was already set up. And I will have time for other things after this is done. So that kind of works for me. It’s not as deep as meditation, but it’s a sort of tactical thing, so that way. So thank you very much. One last point is where can people find out more about Cognition or if they want to get in touch or figure out how to work with you. How should they get in touch? 

Anita Soni: People can reach us on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube and they can also reach us via WhatsApp.

Amit Ray: Cool. Anita, thank you very much. I think joining us today was really a nice conversation. It was a pleasure having you with us. Also because it’s our first Talk live, I think it’s a special moment, at least for me. So really appreciate you being our Guinea pig here today and for doing such a great job with this conversation. 

Anita Soni: Thank you, Amit. On the finishing note, I would like to put forward a couple of lines for the budding entrepreneurs. So to every entrepreneur out there, may you build an entity rare, and may you grow leaps and bounds. Break through every record ground, may you rise in, grow tall. Best wishes to you all. Best wishes to you all. 

 Amit Ray: Thank you very much. As a budding entrepreneur, I really appreciate that. So thanks a lot. Very well written as well. Nice chatting. Take care.

Our Guests: Anita Soni

Anita Soni is the founder of Cognition, which makes it easier for students to engage in knowledge-based learning that is more concerned with improving their cognitive abilities for a better and more promising future. She is enthusiastic about developing the skills of the Children’s Workforce, especially those working in Children’s Centres, and early childhood/years provision in the maintained, voluntary and independent sectors. This includes teachers, managers, teaching assistants, Family Support Workers, early years practitioners and childminders. She has used a range of approaches to enable this including training, group supervision and consultation. Anita’s particular interests are early childhood, Children’s Centres, the Key Person approach, personal, social and emotional development and supervision, video interactive guidance (VIG) and video enhanced reflective practice (VERP).

The post ST23 | Have Faith and You Will Succeed | Anita Soni, Cognition appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

In this episode we explore the story of FlexiBees, a platform that is revolutionizing the way businesses hire qualified professionals and helping women professionals return to work on their own terms. We’ll discuss the challenges and opportunities Shreya and co-foudners faced, the importance of communication and filtering for flexible work, and their vision for the future. Whether you’re a business owner, a professional seeking flexible work solutions, or just interested in the future of work, this video is for you. Don’t miss out on the insights and advice from the founders on how to a successful startup.

Discussion Topics: Empowering Women Professionals with Flexible Work Solutions

• Introduction
• What is Flexibees?
• Why Flexibees?
• Flexibees gives flexibility to women
• How to convert customers
• Hurdles in the path of Flexibees
• What did Flexibees do differently?
• How to set up clients and customers?
• What differentiated them from competitors?
• How does vetting help?
• Difficult decisions on way
• How the journey aligned to the vision
• How to scale up hindrances
• Advice for entrepreneurs

Transcript: Empowering Women Professionals with Flexible Work Solutions

Amit: Are your small business owners struggling to keep up with everything yet kind of uncertain about hiring a full-timer? Well, today we are talking to someone who in addition to being a successful bootstrapped entrepreneur might also be your ideal solution. So welcome to another episode of ShopTok. This show is about and for bootstrap entrepreneurs. And we discuss people’s stories, their challenges, their wins, and most importantly, the lessons that they’ve learned along the way. So today we are talking with Shreya Prakash, who’s the co-founder and CEO at FlexiBees, which is a talent matching platform that helps experienced women professionals find flexible work, something that I think is quite required in the world today. But first, may I please request you to follow the show, so you don’t miss any of the great episodes that we have coming up? And if you like this episode, and I’m sure that you will, please rate it five stars. Thank you very much. So shear over to you. Before we start, would you like to maybe introduce yourself and also a little bit about FlexiBees.

What made you leave Unilever to set up FlexiBees?

Shreya Prakash: So thanks. Thanks for having me. Very excited to be here on ShopTok. So yeah, like you introduce me Currently, I am the co-founder and CEO of FlexiBees. That’s my full-time job and my passion. But from that, I’m also a parent to a four-and-a-half-year-old kid. And just to give a little bit of, you know, a human perspective. And before this, I was with Unilever, where I worked in sales and marketing for eight years.

Amit: I would be curious as to what made you leave Unilever to set up FlexiBees.

Shreya Prakash: Yeah, I will say the trigger really was the fact that the PA who is a batchmate, was going through an experience that we were aware of post-MBA, she’s worked as a management consultant. And she’s been very kickass very ambitious or her life. And then she had to take a career break for a couple of years. So I and my other co-founder Rashmi were working at that time I was in Unilever Rashmi was a PNG. And we knew her story, we knew that she found it difficult to return after those two years, especially because she wanted a little bit of flexibility. And that really kind of opened, you know, our eyes, even for qualified women, even for ambitious women. It’s hard. And especially if they’ve taken a break, which many of them do. It’s difficult to return and something needed to be done about it in India today. As we all know, today, you know, women’s workforce participation in spite of all the best intentions is declining, is it isn’t the 20s figure versus say 80% For Men just to give a little bit of a contrast over there? So it felt like a problem, you know, that needed an urgent solution. And that’s why we decided to get together and start Flexi vs.

Amit: Okay. And so, since we are on the topic, so what exactly is FlexiBees? How does it work?

Shreya Prakash: Right? So we started with the intent to help qualified women return to work. And we thought that flexibility was the answer to that. So while the reasons why women drop out are multi-fold, one way, we thought that we could address it quickly. And in a way that was also shaping up to be a trend of the future. FlexiBees today is not just for women professionals, it’s for everyone who wants, you know, a little bit of diversity in their lives. Definitely. Yeah, so we decided that flexibility, or rather, we saw that flexibility was the answer the ability to work, say for fewer hours, the ability to work remotely from wherever, wherever that you want to the ability to work in a way that could be on for some months, and then you know, couldn’t be off for the next few months. So project-based kind of work. So we started talking to businesses, small businesses, and we were very pleasantly surprised to know that there was a lot of receptivity, businesses wanted a way in which they could hire experienced professionals for a little little bit more affordably, which was possible due to the flexible models in a way that was far more on-demand than say the more traditional form of hiring offered in a way that enabled them to be more dynamic, more fragile to the external demands. We are especially talking about small businesses in an era that was pre-pandemic. Of course, post-pandemic, all businesses have kind of you know, however big however vintage, they’ve kind of woken up to the idea of the Magi being more lean, but at that time it was smaller businesses. Startups the, you know, the especially bootstrap startups or startups, which don’t have huge amounts of funding, or, you know, which seemed like the best kind of fit. And that’s when we jumped in, we thought that it was, you know, demand was there. And of course, supply was there. So flexibility came into being, which is basically a platform that helps businesses hire qualified professionals in a flexible manner, which is part-time project-based and remote working. And on the other hand, it helps qualified women professionals return to work via flexible opportunities and on their own terms.

The concept of a portfolio career

Amit: Yeah, I mean, this all sounds extremely good. Because there’s also this concept now of a portfolio career, right? Yeah, one thing, you know, 12 hours a day, or eight hours a day or whatever, you want to do two or three different things, because you want to explore different facets of your personality interests, and so on. So this gives a really good way to kind of do that. And interesting story. So about 12 years back, I had launched a startup, you know, which was a travel tech sort of a thing. And at the time, it was bootstrapped. And, you know, I couldn’t get funding, etc. So at that time, I’d actually hit upon the thought process that maybe there are women who’ve taken a career break, and perhaps I could work with them. So the fact that you’ve built a solution, which is a more structured way for both to interact, is fantastic. So that’s pretty cool. So there’s clearly a need, and you’re saying that there’s a fair amount of validation now. But when you first got started, how did that work? I mean, I’m sure this was novel because obviously no pandemic, and people were really working from the office full time. Yeah. How did you get your first few customers? Or what? What were the conversations like back then?

How to match women to the right opportunity?

Shreya Prakash: Yeah, so I think it was very easy for us, relatively speaking, to get customers, you know, because like you said, I mean, you 12 years ago, you had the idea to employ women professionals and you know, flexible manner, right. So it was an idea that had, you know, its own receptive as I said, people were wanting to, and everybody intuitively got it, you know, businesses that we spoke to the cortex, so it wasn’t difficult for us to find customers at all. I first 50 customers came from our networks, so people that we knew, and people who connected us to others. And we reached out to them also, I mean, we put out the word we actively went and spoke to, you know, folks who are working in the startup ecosystem. And that’s how our customers came. So, it wasn’t difficult to get the demand, what was a journey for us was to be able to find the right offering for them to find the right model. You know, how to do the matching. So basically, that’s been the end never reflexively, is over the last few years is to become better and better at the matching that we do between these two, there’s a demand and a supply, but how do we make sure that the interaction works? And, you know, we arrived at what we think is the optimal mix.

Amit: So this is quite interesting because unlike, you know, many other businesses I’ve spoken with where there was either market education to be done, or it was, you know, there’s a lot of competition in this space. But you actually somehow found a space that was ready for such a product. So it was relatively easy to get started, which is extremely good to hear. But now, okay, now that we get started, and people are receptive to the idea, the fact is nobody, as far as I understand people wouldn’t have been used to working with this kind of flower arrangement and maybe even remote. I don’t know. So how did you? What were some of the concerns that these businesses might have had, or some of the challenges that you had actually delivering the service?

The difference between gig work and flexible work

Shreya Prakash: So the challenge basically for us was to make sure that the person that we are connecting to the business has the right skills to do that job, and has the right light stage fitment. Because we are talking about women professionals, women who are returning to work become very important to understand if they are ready for the job that they are being offered. But the trick is to really match them to the right, the right opportunity, which, of course, is you know, self-sustaining. It not only works for the business, but it also works for the woman because it’s easy to also, you know, come back to work thinking you’re going to give it your best, and then you face a few hurdles in the first few weeks and then you drop out, you know, and that’s it. It’s fatal because if you’ve tried to come back and then drop down because you think it’s not working, then it will take a lot more to come back and try a second time. So we wanted to make sure that the very first time itself we did you know, a good job of finding them the right fit for where their lives were at that point in time. And that’s been the biggest sort of, you know, a breakthrough for us to be able to deliver what it is that businesses need, and the women need. I think where we push the envelope was a while before us, there was this idea of the gig economy, which is short projects, gigs that you do, right, we try to push it into a flexible space flexible economy. And the difference is immense. While it may not seem that way, because you know, only a few particular jobs can be done in a gig range. But almost any job can be done flexibly, you can be doing a very core job, you can be doing sales, you know, bookkeeping, finance, accounting, HR, which is, you know, a day-to-day operational kind of work, you could be doing it flexibly, you could be doing it for fewer hours, you could be doing it remotely. And it would be an ongoing role. And that is really what we intended to do. Because, you know, the idea is to make flexibility the norm, we had to coach our clients a little bit. So for example, we, you know, we have the best practices that we developed at that time for our clients, which are currently also being used. So we have a proposal, in which we put down things like and how should you treat your, you know, flexible team member, treat them like an employee’s, you know, they are, they are just working, you know, for fewer hours, maybe in from another location, but there is no difference. The other thing that we do is, even to our consultants, the people that we place, we do an induction before they start working because it’s equally important for the women professionals to also understand some of the new ways of working around, you know, remote, for example, if around part-time, so for example, communication becomes so much more important when you are in a remote setting than what it is in a brick and mortar one. So they have to understand that it’s easy for a person to think that they are doing the work and it doesn’t require them to be constantly in touch. But in a remote setting, it’s important to be in touch, be proactive about those things. So we do that kind of induction. The other thing that we do is we have an operations process where we have a channel of communication open, we have a time-shooting process in place. So that again, you know, it’s a simple thing, but it goes a long way because, you know, sometimes clients, you know, businesses might just feel that I have no idea I’m going in blind, I don’t know if this person is working effectively or not. But a simple thing like a timesheet gives them some assurance that you know, there is something that has been captured, there is even though it is self-declared, so some of those things we facilitate.

Amit: Right. Okay, so this is fantastic. I mean, that’s a lot of insight that you shared. So thanks a lot for that. So we’ve talked about the client site and there you’re proactively outreaching your team training them etc all that is clear, how did you get the actual professionals to sign up as well because this is effectively you’re running a marketplace and if you do have enough breadth of skills, then people won’t really have anything to give you

Shreya Prakash: I think you know a few 1000s We got very easily then worked on building the client pipeline because like you said both aspects have to work it’s a chicken and egg like a marketplace then we start once we had a bit of business that good you know when the case does apply could cater to that and we reached a saturation point we then again have to focus on building the supply side of it a little bit more than again the business side so it goes in phases.

Amit: Okay, got it. But I can see the attraction here I mean, in any case, your own networks would have people that you know, people who know people so that would have been a good start. And it’s obvious I mean it’s a service that helps people make money which is a naturally attractive thing to sign up for. So so do Flexi V’s use Flexi workers as well? Like you are you consumers of your one service?

Shreya Prakash: Oh my god, yes, and how so we are a fully remote company from day one we hire from our own pool. So we have at this point in time around 5050 of us working all of us, apart from the three co-founders have been hired from our pool, our own database so they are all women. A majority of them are returning professionals, mothers who are coming back to work after a career break. Many of them work part-time, some of them work full-time, and all of us work remotely from day one. So yes, very much. You know, we are a very Flexi oriented company, and it gives us a lot, it gives us the same benefits that we promised to our clients. And additionally, it gives us a highly committed team. So we have very low attrition, actually, because of this fact that we are giving them, what they most need, they need the flexibility at this point in their lives, and we are able to give them in mindset in actual hours in location, all that.

How do you differentiate from the competition?

Amit: Yeah, actually, it’s, it’s an amazing thing, right, that everybody in your company is somebody who’s experienced the same problem. I mean, that never happens to companies where that could possibly happen. So I think that’s great. And the fact that you have lower attrition, etc, shows that you have, I mean, it’s about purpose, ultimately, I think people are working on things that are meaningful to absolutely anybody’s experienced that problem, then well, in full. So that’s cool. So tell me something. So it sounds like when you got started, there wasn’t I mean, it, it felt relatively easy, like you were walking into a vacuum almost, and you were going to fill that. But were there other options for companies? Are you really competing with anyone at all? And if so, how do you differentiate from them?

Shreya Prakash: Yeah, you know, there are big global players who are in the competitive space, like and up work. There is competition, I would say, I mean, these are all positive signs, why do we call them competition, we can figure out when the time has come for a certain industry and a certain way of working because it means that the space is heating up a bit. Yes, of course, we have to differentiate. And I think, we actually followed, you know, that process or other that way of thinking that Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator speaks about which is in the initial days build for success, don’t build for scale. And that’s what we did. It’s not just about connecting to people, which is what say a simple marketplace would do. It’s about making sure that the people that we are connecting with are the right fits well, this engagement sustains. And that’s really how we differentiate ourselves, which today is a technology lead process is how we differentiate. And that is how we want to scale it. So along the way, we figure out how to scale it, it was a process. First, we standardize that process to a large extent, then we made it into a technology solution. So yeah, we got the right mix, and then we focused on the scale. And that’s our differentiation.

Amit: Right? Okay, that makes sense. I’m actually a power user of Africa using it for 10 or 11 years now, since my first startup, and I can see how this is different because I would go to Upwork for task-based work, something that is very well-defined, like audio editing, for example, right, so we go, I mean, I found my editor through Upwork. But if I wanted, like you said, you know, strategy, or somebody to do budgeting, let’s assume, in a way, maybe I could go to Apple, but I’d have to frame the work in a very well-defined manner with some of this work isn’t, then there’s also the question of trust and all of that.

Hiring a sales professional on Upwork

Shreya Prakash: It enables different kinds of rules, like you said, from us, because verticals are sales, marketing, and digital, some of these which are unheard of in the geek space. And you would be really hard-pressed to find a sales professional b2b Sales Professional on Upwork, it is difficult to do that. And of course, the other thing that we are able to do is we are able to really cut down the hiring time because you want that quickness if you had the time to actually invest in, three months of screening, and all of the hiring process, and then six months of training and including the time, to kind of do it all over again, if you ended up hiring the wrong person, a flexible opportunity, a flexible roll doesn’t have that luxury, you need to get that fitment, right. And you need to have the person come in who’s the right fit, who can start being productive from day one. So those are some of the things that we are trying to get right for our clients.

Amit: I think filtering is a huge benefit. It’s like a blend of LinkedIn almost, but with the vetting as well. Like there’s a person with actual experience doing what you’re looking for who has also been vetted for a real desire to do this work experience. So that’s fantastic. So up till now, the story is great, you found a fit, people are coming to you on both sides, and everybody’s happy you’re solving something real problem in the world. But what were some of the challenges that you faced, or maybe some difficult decisions that you might have had to make along the way?

Shreya Prakash: So first of all, we are also asked this question of now flexibility is for everyone, why not men, right? So that’s something is asked and to be honest, it does open up our supply. So business-wise, it might seem like a good sort of decision, but that’s something we are, we don’t want to do at least For the foreseeable future, and the reason is that we are starting from a place where we feel there is an underserved who we want to serve. And the day we see that there are, more men who are taking breaks, because they have caregiving responsibilities, or they have some constraints on their time, and not simply because they want to, sort of moonlight and do multiple jobs, which is the one about choice, but you know, we are talking to a pool that has constraints, the way that the world is constructed, the way that roles are gendered today, there are women across the world, not just in India, who are having to take, steps back in their careers, because they are not able to participate in the workforce in the same manner. And we want to serve those, you know, to begin with, so, that’s a vision, you know, lead decision.

Punching above your weight

Amit: Okay. I think that’s interesting insight as well, which is actually more than insight. I think these kinds of examples are what help other people understand what it means when a business says we have a vision because vision can’t be okay, I actually want to do something. But if you come to me with money, I’ll do everything else. It’s about what you don’t do. Right, what you don’t do. Exactly. So I think that’s very well articulated, and quite an important point to make. So, you know, so let’s talk a little bit about growth because you’ve been around now for a few years. And it’s obviously doing well, to the extent where you’re having to actually cut off things that don’t align with what you stand for. So what are some of the tactics may be that you’ve used to grow through the years beyond the, you know, initially, of course, you went with networks?

Shreya Prakash: Yeah, so we’ve had a very interesting journey. So our business model is client-led, we charge clients. So, that was a very important part to grow and to keep growing. So we, of course, the first 50, as I said, came from our networks, which had a lot of outreach to it. So alumni, who is an alumni, even if I don’t know them, write to them saying, I’m an alumni, we are starting this business, would you want to come and hire from us? And then we started doing, more content at that time, because we wanted incoming, so we, we started building, sort of a content strategy. And in time, a content calendar came into place. And we were at a point, where we were getting around 50-60 leads per month. And then we got a small round of funding, which was more friends and family and a little bit of angels. So we started doing paid advertising on some b2b channels. And today, we were able to scale from 50 to 60 leads a month to 500 leads per month. So that is the kind of scale that is the kind of jump that we took there. And, yeah, it’s been going very well, we have very optimized CPL, because we are able to actually go out and be very industry agnostic. So we today cater to around 50 Plus industries, which includes, two-thirds of them being new age industries, more tech, aligned. 1/3 of them are in all industries, packaging, logistics, and manufacturing, we have a detective service, and a rice mill, so the pandemic really has opened that up for us also. So that was the external sort of tailwind, which was happening simultaneously, where not just the more tech-savvy startups in the startup hubs of the country, were coming to us, but also really, you know, traditional companies, SMEs, bigger companies who were wanting to now hired in a new way. So we tied up with, you know, ecosystem players like accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces, startup communities, basically to get that, amplification, so that it is one partner, but through that, we are able to get access to a whole number of startups. So we have partnerships today across the board with Indian and International players, quasi-government players, and also government players like the Tamil Nadu government, which is looking at really, which is very business focused.

Amit: Okay, so within all the organic channels that you have, which one do you think is like punching above its weight?

Shreya Prakash: The thing with marketing is that thing that punches above its weight is, the sum of all of it. It’s like a thing where, no, the sum of its parts is always bigger than each individual element. So I think the fact that we do all of it, we are keeping ourselves abreast, with what the latest formats are. So we it’s a very concerted effort, a very organized, systematized effort to put ourselves out there. And I think all of it together works.

Worried about scaling the business

Amit: Yeah, I think you’re probably right, especially when it comes to content. It’s unlikely somebody’s going to see one social post or one blog and say, Okay, fine. Now I’m just going to Go to this business. But, you see people repeatedly and especially on multiple channels like you said, then you suddenly realize, Oh, these people are everywhere. Maybe I shouldn’t go and talk to them, then you start looking bigger than you are also. And then that thing helps significantly. So what are some of the things you know, now that you’re growing? And presumably, trying to expand? Just, beyond perhaps what was your sweet spot earlier? So what are some of the things that you worry about? Or which, classically keeps you awake at night?

Shreya Prakash: I think scaling because we have figured out what the solution is, we figured out the model, now we have to scale it. And we’ve already taken the first few steps towards it. So with that longer funding that we got, we also were able to build technology. So we were able to automate a large part of our processes, we were able to build a candidate self-serve in the form of an app, etc. But that journey has to continue, there is more on the technology roadmap that we have to do. Equally, I think even on business, you know, what got us here, to an extent will also get us there, because it’s like an engine as I said, but there will be other thrusts, we have to kind of incorporate so internationalization, for example. So we want to be president, we want to be a multi-country play. And at some point for supply to, right now, we are focusing on Indian talent, but definitely, for demand, we already have that. So we’ve given talent to now 500, plus companies, of which around 20% of our business comes from international markets, but we want to grow that because again, that is a very good space for a company like us to grow, because that there is demand. And there is a lot of say, acceptance, and respect that international markets have for Indian talent. So it’s a great place to be, and we want to really push on that. And those are things that, you know, we want to do, it’s not keeping us up at night, because we know that there is a time and a place that will happen. But yeah, these are the next, you know, few peeks to scale.

Managing technology development and hiring engineers

Amit: That’s a lot of things, actually, which is it’s quite cool. So tell me something that none of the three founders is tech, I mean, not traditionally, tech people. So how do you actually, manage technology development? Because I know I struggle. I mean, I have some tech background, but not enough and I couldn’t manage engineers. Well. So how do you actually handle that?

Shreya Prakash: So of the three of us Rashmi is, I would say the most tech and quite legitimately tech also because she’s been a developer, actually, before MBA, so she worked with AI technologies. And she was a product developer at that time. So when we did the tech development actually got a window, and we vetted the vendor really well. So that’s how we’ve built. Now in the second phase, we will start hiring so we will hire a CTO, we have a few people in mind, too, and we will hire you to start building our in-house team as well. But at least a big part of what we wanted to do in terms of the technology and the automation is out of the way and that we’ve done in an outsourced way.

Amit: Okay, so before we close, what might be some of the things that you would have done differently in hindsight, or what is some advice that you’d like to give to either aspiring entrepreneurs or maybe others who are earlier in the journey?

Shreya Prakash: Um, so on the second aspect, which is what advice I would give, I think one thing that we did well was that we read the book, The Lean Startup Approach, by Eric Ries, and we really liked it and it actually worked very well for us, because all three of us are from corporate background, we are not freshers have just jumped out of engineering, and we are now building we have had training of a few years in corporates and it might be then. So while it gives us a lot, it might also have been an impediment had we used tried to use the same ways of working because in a corporate environment, you have to put the process first you have to build a case and then when it gets all the necessary approvals, and it needs, then only you proceed whereas, you already read the book, it completely disrupted our thinking at that point in time when we decided to just plunge. So, we got our first client when I had put in my notice at Unilever but had not fully quit. But we started working and we learned on the job we built with real-time market feedback. And I think that’s very important because, in a startup scenario because you’re creating something new you know, there aren’t too many precedents you by design in a startup you’re trying to change something that exists. So it’s important to get real-time feedback late on pricing, be it on the model, be it on whatever the delivery, it’s important to actually go there and do it and learn from it and then change. And that’s something that we’ve been very good at. We’ve followed that through. So I think that would be some advice that I would give to entrepreneurs, new ones. And the other one is, of course, to get your co-founders, right, because you’re going to spend a lot of time in the next few years with them. So that’s the other one.

Amit: Yeah, I think the Lean Startup approach is a really good one. Okay, so thank you so much. This was a really interesting conversation. And I’m happy to hear about so much success so far. And your growth plans sound really cool as well. So I really had a great time chatting with you today. And I’m sure our listeners benefited a lot as well. So thanks a lot for being on our show. And yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, and for those listening to us today. Thank you for joining us, and please remember to follow ShopTok if you liked this episode, please do rate us five stars. We will Shreya and omit the chapter See you next time.

Our Guests: Shreya Prakash

Our Guest, Shrey Prakash, is a cofounder and CEO of Flexibees. FlexiBees is an organisation with a vision to normalise flexibility in work, via options such as flexi-time, part-time, remote-working, that brings new hiring models to businesses and a new way of living to people.

The post ST22 | Empowering Women Professionals With Flexible Work Solutions appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

Can the passion and flair for creatives be a potential career option for you? Rishi Piparaiya, one of the top executives in the corporate world, is one such creative soul who dived into his passion for the written word. But he did it with planning and deep knowledge. This helped him steer clear of unpleasant surprises of the writing world and stick to the core- the fun of the writing process. If you are desirous of stepping into any creative field, this episode of ShopTok is a must-listen for you!

An Economics graduate from the University of Rochester and a Master’s degree holder from the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management, Rishi Pipariya has seen it all in his corporate career of more than 20 years- from heading Sales at Aviva to taking care of strategy as Vice President at Citigroup. It was his love for writing that made him quit his well-paying job to venture into the field of literary escapades. He is now a well-known author of some of the best-selling books like Aisle Be Damned and Job Be Damned. He is also well known for his adventure-based books for children.

Discussion Topics: The Realities of Being a Part-Time Author

• Sharing your creatives with your friends
• The practicality of pursuing your passion
• Financial stability before entering creatives
• Publisher versus Self-publishing
• Self-promotion and marketing your books
• Passion and fun should be your primary motivators

Transcript: The Realities of Being a Part-Time Author

Amit Ray: Hey, so had a pretty interesting life or career, or maybe you have a wonderful idea for a story or deep knowledge on a topic that you really care about. And it’s something that you think people want to know more about that topic. And maybe the idea has crossed your mind that perhaps you’d like to write a book about this someday. And business leaders are clearly doing it all the time. And so are celebrities. And you probably think you can write better than many of them.

You may not be wrong when you come to think of that. But is it actually possible to make a living as a published author? So today, we talk to Rishi Piparaiya, author and CEO of Imaginara Legacies, who’s actually written quite a few books, both through publishers as well as on his own. And we’re going to ask him how one gets started as an author, and what it takes to get published. Is it really something that one can aspire to, and most important, is it something that one can make a living at.

So with that said, Rishi, thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome to ShopTok. It’s a pleasure to have you with us. And maybe before we begin, perhaps we could start with a short intro. And you could tell us about your journey so far. And also a little bit about Imaginara Legacies. It’s actually a really interesting name so I’m very curious.

Rishi Piparaiya: Thank you so much Amit. Thank you for having me over. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here. So well, I’ve had a pretty traditional career to start with. So after business school, I got into banking. I worked in a Spanish bank, for some time Santander, moved to Citigroup, in New York, then moved to Citi in India.

So I spent about seven to eight years with Citi. And then I moved into insurance, with Aviva life insurance, again, out here in India. So a very, very traditional career doing marketing, doing sales, doing strategy. But on the side, I always had an interest in writing, and you’ve worked in banking how much bureaucracy there is, what crazy stuff goes on. So I used to actually write humour and satire.

And this was, frankly, in the early days of email, and all that, so, I write some stuff, and emails out at work, making fun of the bureaucracy all around us. So those get forwarded around quite a bit literally there would be Citi bankers globally, who knew of me because of my writing. So that was my first stint in writing. At Aviva, I was heading sales. So I had a team and I literally had 2000 people around the country.

And I was taking two to three flights a week, and I am the most paranoid flyer you will ever encounter, I just absolutely hate it. And every time I’d fly, there would be some story or the other, I would be sitting next to the CEO of Unilever. And this is true, it happened and the plane would take off, they’d be turbulence, and I’d clutch him.

I would be sitting next to some Bollywood actress and annoy the hell out of her over the flight. And I’d come back and tell all these stories to my friends and colleagues. And they’d be like, in splits as, what’s wrong with you. So at some point, I said, anyways I’m sitting on flights, I’m not enjoying it. So let me write down these anecdotes.

So I pretty much wrote down a whole book on my Blackberry while half of it was while I was flying. And then at some point, I said, Okay, why don’t I give it a shot and get it published? So I put it together in the form of a book and started a search for the publisher, which was a challenge in itself. But eventually, I did get it published. And surprisingly it turned out to be an absolute bestseller. It was like a national bestseller out here in India, people loved it and it was all over the airports. It was a humour book on flights. So well that was a fun process.

And like you said, you work in business, you’re in the corporate world, there’s a lot of knowledge that you pick up which you want to share. And at some point, I thought look is writing something that I could do full-time? Because after a while you get tired of your career. I mean, things are going great, but after a while, and once you reach the senior levels, it’s all on autopilot, you’re not challenging yourself as much. And so that’s when I decided that look, maybe let me look if I can pursue writing full time. But before I jumped into it, it looked very, very glamorous from the outside, right?

You can be on a beach; you can be writing when you want. But I thought, let me test it out. So I took a sabbatical for a few months unpaid sabbaticals, I went to Cambridge, I did a writing course over there, I took some time to travel, to just figure out whether I can spend time on my own, without the corporate environment. And it was quite nice. I tested it out, and I got my finances in order, which was important so I took a year to just get that sorted.

And then I took the plunge. So I went over to my boss and said, Look, I would like to just do something else. And I was not going to the competition. So they were fine with it. And I was willing to give them enough time.

So I literally spent, I think, seven or eight months transitioning the team, and then moved into writing pretty much full-time. I set up this company, Imaginara Legacies. It was just, I mean, we had the structure. At some point, well, my first two books were published by a traditional publisher, Jaico, which is a large Indian publisher. And my next book was with HarperCollins, which was a satire on corporate life.

So I had the manuscript, but I published it after I left the job. I don’t think it would have been appreciated too much while I was working. But at some point, I’ve wanted to also test out self-publishing. And for that, I set up this company, and one of its main roles is to self-publish my books. I do spend some time mentoring startups and entrepreneurs. So we sometimes make some small angel investments in companies.

I’ve called it Imaginara Legacies, the whole objective is to leave a legacy of work, rather than just a balance sheet or income statement or shareholder growth. So the whole point is that whatever we do, are we creating a legacy, or whatever companies we support, are we creating a legacy, whatever, I’m writing so that’s all objective.

And we’ll talk about it, but in writing you spoke about, can you make a living. More than a living, I think you can leave a legacy, and that is the primary driver, at least for me. So that’s been my journey, in the last five, six years, and I have got about six or seven books out, I’m enjoying the whole creation process. It’s fun.

Amit Ray: That’s amazing. Actually, I have one question before anything else, when you decided to leave your job, and you went and told your boss or I guess your peers that you wanted to do this, what was their reaction?

Rishi Piparaiya: I would say, disbelief, surprise, and scepticism. I mean, the first thing they thought I’m making it up, and at those levels, when you want to leave, chances are you’re going to competitor, chances are you don’t share where you’re going, so they really thought I was making it up. So, there was disbelief. But then the fact that I was willing to serve out, six, eight months of notice was, I couldn’t be going to a competitor.

So that I think was some relief. But the other thing was that why would you do this at the top of your career, when things are going fine, everything’s great? Why would you want to do this and why would you just literally do something as much risk of just being a writer, and something that’s so unusual? But at some level, I think people would love to do it, and people would love to take this kind of plunge, and there are a lot of things that stopped them, and when you see others doing it, you kind of think that maybe you could do it yourself as well. So, it was a mix of both, stuff that I wish I would be doing this, but also why are you doing this?

Amit Ray: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. I’m sure everybody was 50% jealous of you and 50% sceptical that it is going to work out. So I think that makes sense. So, you have written your first book, I think while you were still at work, and the second one you said you had the manuscript, but you got it published afterward, for good reason. So for the first book, how did you actually manage to do this on the side? Like, did it take a lot of discipline to make this happen? Or was it just because you were writing it on flight so it just got done somehow?

Rishi Piparaiya: It’s a good question. As a writer, you get a lot of your ideas, a lot of your material, and a lot of your content from stuff that happens around you. If you’re writing nonfiction, then exactly it’s what you’re learning, what’s happening around you. If you are writing fiction, a lot of the characters, a lot of the situations are based on real-life stuff, and then you kind of adapt it towards writing.

So my first book was a book on flights on air travel, and all this stuff was happening around me. And it’s just a question of, kind of putting a switch on your brain that either you’re a passenger, or at least for me, you turn the switch, and suddenly, I’m a writer on a flight. And so you just switch that thing. And suddenly, you get all this content.

The other thing in writing is, once you have an idea, or once you have something you want to put on paper, you just put it on paper, that’s what you should be doing immediately. Because if you just park it, oh, I’ll do this later, I’ll write it six months down the line, or I’ll go on holiday, and then I’ll write all this if it doesn’t happen.

So the best way for a writer, I feel, is to be very occupied, be aware of what is happening around you, and put it down on paper. So like I said, half the book was literally written on Blackberry while I was on the flight because there was nothing else I could be doing. And either I could be stressing about the journey or I could devote myself to my Blackberry.

Ironically, I was probably more disciplined about writing when I was working than I am now. Because now you kind of tend to progress Oh! I will do it later, oh, I don’t have a deadline, when you’re actually working, when you’ve got 10 things going on you can find some time to do this. So, I think I found it easier to be disciplined while I was working because I could just carve out time.

And because there was just so much happening around me. If I’m writing children’s books, I mean, I write a lot more when my kids are around, or when I’m in a park, or when I’m just around kids. So I think you should just make the best of your environment and try to get some writing done in as disciplined a manner as you can.

Amit Ray: So I think essentially, what you’re saying is, number one, you should be always at least jotting down notes. Not like okay, mental note, I’ll write this in six months, because that will not happen and you are not able to write. And second, it’s an interesting point about being more productive when you’re actually working, or rather being more productive as a writer. And that’s, I think, because you have the constraint, like I only have this one hour now in the evening, so let me use this productively versus I have 24 hours in a day, I can do it whenever I want.

That is very different. So that was about how you did things on the side. But then you actually did plan this whole process of becoming a full-time writer. So why don’t we dive a little bit into that, which is, how did you plan to be a full-time writer?

Rishi Piparaiya: Well, one is getting pulled into writing or getting pulled into something you enjoy, and the other is getting pushed out of what you’re currently doing. For me, it was a mix of both. In the sense, as I said, I had reached the top of my career, and the next role was CEO of some organisation. And at that point, you kind of look at the incremental benefits versus what you’re giving up.

So I was, I think, reaching the stage where you’re taking the next step in my career, I don’t think the incremental benefits are going to be worth what I’m going to be giving up, what I was going to be giving up was a lot of my time, health, the ability to not pursue your passions in such a way. Right now, I could literally take a few weeks off or take a few months off, I’ve been in Goa for the last few months. And stuff like that is not possible when you’re in a corporate job, and equally is the pool of something that interests you.

And writing was something for me, I mean, there’s not much that you get out of writing, but you do get the opportunity of sharing what you know, and giving it back and like I said, leaving legacies. So there was a lot of stuff across genres that I wanted to write and share. And that was the pool of writing.

I was quite aware that there is really no money in writing books as such. So if any of your audience is thinking that we’ll be making a lot of money as a writer, that’s not going to happen. And we can go into the maths of it, but there is absolutely no money for I would say anyone other than maybe the retailers in writing so neither do the writers make money nor do the publishers make money.

The retailers probably make some money but they offer it all back as discounts. So that is no money for writing books. Now there are ways to make money as a writer. I mean, if you’re in nonfiction you could make money. I mean, if you establish credibility or expertise in an area, you might be called for guest speaking opportunities and stuff like that.

If you’re writing fiction, there could be money in it and now most fiction writers are writing from the objective of I’ll convert this into a web series, I will sell the TV rights, film rights, there could be money in all of that. But in pure books, there isn’t.

So I had to prepare for that look, I’m assuming there’s gonna be no money coming out of it. Have I saved enough and have I invested well enough so that I can generate enough passive income to sustain myself. So if you are looking at being a writer, you also need to, I mentioned early on, I took literally one or two years to just make sure I had my finances in order.

So I would suggest that you need to do that and just assume that nothing will come out of writing other than pure satisfaction and pleasure. But you need to have other sources of income and all to sustain yourself.

Amit Ray: So, generally speaking, if you do want to be a full-time writer, you first need to take care of your financial health, because chances are, the writing alone is not going to get you there. And so therefore, number one is you should be ready financially, to sustain yourself for potentially years if you want to write like that.

And the second thing, which was a very interesting point is that more likely, you will make money in things that are ancillary to the writing. So you write, but then you make money on other downstream stuff like speaking opportunities, or maybe screenplays, like you said, or anything that is peripheral to the writing itself; the writing is just a vehicle to get yourself out there. So I think that’s interesting. So, the most important thing is to prepare to make sure that financially, you’re okay.

So let’s move to the next point, which is, now that you have a manuscript and you’ve obviously set yourself up to be a full-time writer, how does one actually find a publisher? Because, as far as I’m given to understand, publishers get tons of manuscripts and mostly unsolicited, I’m sure, and they don’t have time to go through all of this. So how do you actually find your way into a publisher like that?

Rishi Piparaiya: I am telling you, Amit, I think writing is actually the easy part of the journey, it is probably the easiest part of the journey. But the tougher part is finding a publisher to publish a book. And the toughest part is actually marketing the book and making sure you get it out to readers. So finding a publisher, really, it’s, I mean, I don’t to dissuade again, the audience, but it is incredibly difficult for a couple of reasons I mean, the main thing, like you said publishers receive 1000s of manuscripts a year, most of them are unsolicited, they are Word documents or PDF files.

And you can just visualise, after email with a manuscript, with each writer believing that this is the best work out there. And a typical publisher, I don’t know, they probably publish 100, 150 books a year. So how do they pick who to choose? Publishers are in it for the money.

They are going to be picking manuscripts that they know will sell and authors that will sell. You said it earlier I mean, they’re looking for businessmen, they’re looking for celebrities, they’re looking for influencers, anyone who has a readymade audience who will buy the first 1000, 2000 books that is a much surer bet, then someone who they don’t know.

So what you need to do is one is you need to start building your audience more than the quality of the manuscript, they are really going to be looking at the quality of who you are as an author and who your audience is, and whether you can get the first 1000, 2000 copies started. So you need to be out there on social media, building your audience, you need to be out there on Twitter, you need to be writing blogs, you need to just have people who are interested in your work.

So when you go to the publishers, they say that look, he is marketable, he is sellable, he or she can get the first few books out, the first few 1000 copies out. Number two is what I did, and it was again, I’m a marketing person by background. So what I did was, I actually went out there and I wouldn’t say self-published but I actually created the book. So I didn’t submit the Word document because I don’t yet understand how people can choose a book basis just a Word document.

So I actually went out there and I created the entire book. So I got one of the self-publishing companies, I got the whole thing typeset, formatted and I made a very nice cover, I made a brochure of it. And I was marketing the book to publishers. So I went to the Delhi Book Fair, which is the largest Book Fair out here in India every year, and had a little docket with the first chapter of the book with the cover, with the brochure.

And I left it with all the leading publishers. And then of course I followed it up with emails and all and there were two or three publishers who said, Okay, please come in, and talk to us. And so I think that got them interested. So if you can do anything I would say which gets their interest, which makes your manuscript stand out from the 1000s of other manuscripts that they’re receiving that will certainly help.

Amit Ray: This is a new piece of advice, by the way, Rishi. I mean, as you know I’ve written a couple of books and I’ve read a little bit on this topic. Nowhere have I read this particular tidbit that you just gave which is just go to a book fair with a mockup of your book. This is excellent, because normally the general advice is, oh, look for their email, try to find somebody up the chain. don’t submit it to the standard email address, but it doesn’t really work. I think this at least has a better shot than emailing anyone frankly.

Rishi Piparaiya: It totally does and it just shows that you are passionate about it. Literally one publisher when he saw the whole thing was a bit downcast. Actually, that was Jaico, who I ended up doing with it. I mean, they were a bit disappointed because they thought I’d already self-published the book. And they said, Oh, man, we would have liked to, and they thought I was just looking for distribution. And I said, no, no, I just want to show you what it might look like. And I’m open to all sorts of changes.

But this is what I’m talking about. And because it was a very different book, anyways, it was air travel, no one had ever seen anything like it so it was all the more important. But equally, I think it’s very hard to convey your ideas and your passion in a Word document or PDF file. If you’ve made all the effort to spend months or years writing the book, take another few months, and get a graphic designer to do everything that you would have anyways liked to do.

And we can probably get into it. But chances are, it might be very difficult to find a publisher, not because your book is not good, but just because they are flooded with manuscripts. And secondly, they are looking for celebrities and the people who will sell. So chances are you might anyways want to self-publish, and all this effort will not go to waste, because you will still need to typeset it, you will still need to make the cover.

You will probably define the manuscript a lot more when you see what it looks like in person. So I would highly recommend that you write the manuscript but also don’t give it as a Word document, just take your baby to fulfillment and do everything around it.

Amit Ray: Yeah. So in fact, I think we may as well move on to that point. So essentially, you’re saying that whether you’re publishing or self-publishing, do this much of the work and at least make sure that you have a ready-to-read kind of version of the book. And then if let’s say, the publishers don’t take it, and this approach doesn’t work, for whatever reason. And it’s mostly a numbers game.

So, therefore, chances are, it won’t work, because just the sheer statistics of book publishing is so poor. And then you might want to self-publish it anyway. Because why waste all of that effort? So how does one go about self-publishing? Because I know you’ve taken that route for your more recent books.

Rishi Piparaiya: So for my more recent books, my children’s books series, I consciously took the self-publishing route. To be honest, I did not even approach publishers. Because for a couple of reasons I wanted the flexibility, I wanted the speed, I wanted the scale, it was a lot more risk-taking than a traditional publisher would have taken.

So I went to the self-publishing route. And it is actually fairly straightforward. I mean, self-publishing is very, very simple now in the sense, you can find experts in every field, you can find graphic designers, you can find cover creators, you can find illustrators, you can find typesetters, editors, there’s a host of great editors available. And you can do it at your own pace with your own vision.

So I would say if you’re fairly clear on what you want to put out there if you’re very clear on what you’re writing, self-publishing is a very, very viable option. Amazon, of course, is one of the leading sites where it has all the tools that you need. But also, I mean, there are a lot of independent services, which for a reasonable fee can take the charge of a lot of this.

So my advice would be, I mean, early on, if you can find a traditional publisher, there are benefits for sure. For your first one or two books, it’s great if you get a traditional publisher, because you understand the process through them, it gives you some more credibility if you have a big name behind you.

It’s like I mean, if I come out of business school, people advise me. go join a big organisation, because the name will stay with you throughout. But that doesn’t mean you retire from a large corporation, you just get that kind of stamp. So if you can get it great, but if it’s coming at the cost of just a lot of heartache, it’s coming at the cost of a lot of time, if it’s taking a lot of effort, I would just say don’t be disappointed, because it is very easy to self-publish.

And at the end of the day, I’m telling you the success of a book is not who has published it, it is how well you have marketed it. And no matter if you get the top publisher to publish it or you self-publish it, the marketing has to be done by you. You have to make all the effort over there. So, the decision whether to self-published or traditionally published, I don’t think will impact the sale of your books as much.

Amit Ray: Because I think even the publishers ultimately anyway, still go through the Amazons and so on. Of course, they have a retail-like physical book distribution network that you may not have if you self-publish, I guess. But again, I think many books are bought online now and as a starting author, like you said, chances are anyway that you won’t sell a million copies of your books.

So in smaller numbers online, is just fine, the same as trying to sell offline. What about in terms of the numbers like in terms of how much money you make versus the publisher makes, etc. in traditional publishing versus self-publishing, like, are you better off somehow, in self-publishing?

Rishi Piparaiya: You’re slightly better off, but like I said the margins on books are not great for anyone you know, as an author, you get 10% of the royalties, the retailer takes 50%, roughly 20%, I’ve calculated is the cost of producing the book. So that leaves 20% for the publisher, and then you have overheads, you have marketing, and all that.

So the publisher probably gets another, that 20%, maybe becomes 10. So as a self-publisher, your 10% royalty goes to maybe 20, or 25. And that is not much. You retail a book, even if I had let’s say in Singapore even if it’s $10. As an author, you will get $1, for a book, as a publisher, you might get $2, for a book, a best-seller in India is 10,000 copies, and that’s a best seller. So that’s $20,000 if you write a bestseller, which is incredibly hard.

And the money is the retailer, if anything, you need to open a portal and compete with Amazon and that’s how you make 50%. But otherwise, you’ve got to look for other sources of income. And you’ll end up spending a lot more in marketing a book than you actually will make in royalties, at least in the first few 1000 copies.

Amit Ray: Yeah, and I’m glad you shared these numbers with us because I think it underlines the fact it’s not going to be your next career most likely, essentially, like it probably takes a person a year to write a book, that also one that’s going to be a best-seller unless they’re super lucky. And so that’s $20,000, at most.

And that also if you’re a publisher, if you are the author of $10,000 for a year’s worth of work, which even by Indian standards is not an incredible amount of money, it’s okay. Maybe you can feed your family, but that’s about it. So that’s not a crazy amount of money. And I think it underlines essentially the point you made earlier.

The other thing you mentioned is or rather frankly, all of this is boiling down to how you can get more books sold. Because it’s a numbers game at the end of the day. And you have mentioned that marketing is one of the biggest things that you can do as an author. So there’s the writing part, which is what all of us think, is the hard part. But then you said, Well, it’s also getting the publisher, which is true. And then it ultimately is, with or without a publisher, it’s the marketing. So how should one or how does one go about marketing their own book?

Rishi Piparaiya: So, marketing I think someone you really need to build a social media presence early on, whether social media and whether as a blogger, as a columnist, you need to be out there known as a writer, and people need to be looking forward to your writing. So a book is actually just a culmination of what you have been doing for a long period of time. So maybe you just have a very, very popular blog going on, maybe you have great podcasts going on, but you have an audience, which is looking to hear what you have to say.

And a book is just one more form of content. So I think that’s the number one thing you need to do, you need to be out there creating your presence, and you have to establish yourself as a kind of authority figure. And second, you have to self-promote yourself. And it’s not easy. And writers are actually I mean, it’s a genetic my experience, I mean, you’re generally a bit more introverted, you would rather be creating content, than marketing and promoting yourself. And there are only that many Facebook posts, and Tweets, you send about your work at some point, and you get kind of tired and embarrassed about it.

But the reality is you cannot you know, you’ve got to be a bit shameless and just be out there touting your work. Because if people don’t know about it, and they don’t see it, they’re not going to buy it or read it. So I think it’s a mindset shift as well that look, I just have to be out there and put myself up front.

And the third thing is and again, I’m still kind of working through it, but Amazon ads, Facebook ads, end of the day they work. Again, financially, like I said, financially we are X bankers. I mean, financially none of this makes sense. You will never get the ROI on an ad, or the ROI that you’d expect, but I think it just needs to be done.

You need to get that initial momentum. And once your books pick up and once there’s word of mouth happening, and in children’s books, for example, if you have kids, talking to their friends, hey, you need to read this book, at some point, it’ll cross that resistance and take off. And that’s what you got to hope that you’re making all this effort in marketing, and then it crosses that resistance, and then books will have a life of their own. But you need to invest in advertising on Amazon, and Facebook or wherever your audience is, and reaching out to them.

I would say stuff like, people do all these book launches, and they go out to bookstores and do these readings and all, I personally, I don’t know how much that works, I think it’s a tick box item, you need to do it. But at the end of the day, at least all my book launches, there are 20 friends and family and 20 people who were roaming around in the bookstore around that, who happened to be at the bookstore at that time.

But no one really comes to just listen to an audience, expound wisdom about his book my view. But that said, books get sold by copies, you will never get an order for 1000 bucks or something, it’s 5 books, 10 books, and then that picks up. So whatever you need to do you need to spend a lot of time though being out there is my overall view.

Amit Ray: Yeah, I think everything that you said, seems about right. Essentially, you need to build your audience, and it’s your responsibility to market to that audience. And that’s effectively it. And you have to kind of discard that shame and lack of self-promotion because nobody else is really going to do it for you. So you have to basically push forward.

Rishi Piparaiya: Yeah. If you take a traditional publisher, the writers or authors believe that I’m going to give this to a traditional publisher, and they will do everything. So, as I said, a traditional publisher, if they’re publishing 150 books a year, let’s take 100 books a year that still means there’s a new book coming out every three days. And there are 100 writers, authors who are counting on the publisher to put all their muscle behind it.

So one is they don’t have the time, they have literally three days before the next book comes out. So in reality, literally, there is a window of a month, or two months at best, where they will really support your book. And after that, they are hoping that the momentum kicks in.

And secondly, I told you about the budgets, I mean, they themselves do not have much budget, I mean, to market. So how much can they put in? They’re getting 20% of the sales, maybe they put 5% I don’t know, but that’s hardly anything on $10,000 that’s $500.

That’s literally Amazon ads for a few weeks. So you’re not going to get that much support in marketing from publishers, they will get your book out there, and they will give you a lot of support in other ways, but they’re not going to be throwing big dollars, or their major resources behind you unless you are celebrity, author or someone who’s for sure going to be a bestseller.

Amit Ray: So, honestly, all of this sounds like a, let’s say, a difficult journey, not for the faint-hearted, let me put it that way. It is something that you need to be aware of, push through and be quite clear that this is what you want to do for at least a long period of time. Are there any other challenges of the writing process itself maybe or anything else?

Rishi Piparaiya: The biggest challenge is there is immense competition. But the interesting part is your competition is not writers. I mean, it’s great to have writers, because they’re encouraging people to read. And 10 years back, I just used to consider my competition was television. That people could either read a book or they could watch TV.

Right now competition is, I mean, it’s everything. It’s video games, it is TV, it is Netflix, it is Instagram reels. I mean, people could spend an hour just scrolling through, I mean, I do it sometimes I just mindlessly scrolling through reels, and that’s 30 minutes gone. And that 30 minutes could have been spent reading a couple of chapters of a book. But you say competition, you’re competing for people’s time and attention, which is incredibly difficult.

And you’ve got a lot more competition out there right now. So I think that is the biggest challenge. How do you get people to read your book, and whether writing is the right medium who knows? I mean, 10, 15 years down the line writing would not be the best medium at all. It could be a podcast, it could be video, it could be the metaverse, it could be some form of content we don’t know which doesn’t even exist now.  So I think that is one big challenge.

And the other challenge is just trying to keep yourself motivated. Okay, just being out there, getting to the desk doing some writing, and whether or not like I said, sales happen where you get positive, negative reviews, keeping yourself motivated. If you’re there in the corporate world, you have colleagues, you have bosses, you have team members, you have a whole support network out there, and motivating you, as a writer, you really don’t have a lot of that network, a lot of people around you will not understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it.

Other writers are busy in their own worlds. And there’s actually not that much interaction, right, you might go to a literary fair, I mean, or something like that. But there’s not that much interaction. People come there, do their thing and go back. So that is another challenge. But that said, there are huge benefits, and it’s a great lifestyle, and it’s very, very satisfying. So you kind of have to balance out these things.

Amit Ray: Yeah, I think, ultimately, you have to write for more than the money and the fame. Because if you’re writing for money and fame, then I think all of these challenges are going to probably bog you down. And you probably gave up after a point.

But if you’re writing for personal satisfaction, or to get some message out to the world, or entertain people, like you’re doing right now with your children’s books, then I think that has its own purpose and reason for being so maybe you don’t focus so much on these kinds of things. And you focus really on writing and getting the message out there.

Maybe I think the takeaway from all of this, is, despite all of these challenges, one should be absolutely aware of these before one starts. You don’t write, or hopefully, you don’t write for making money, because you could have made that money much better and easier in a regular job. You write it for the purpose and the passion.

Rishi Piparaiya: Definitely with all these challenges and all but I would not exchange this life for anything else. You don’t really get these opportunities where you wake up every morning, and you’re dying to run to the computer and dying to write the next few chapters or edit. So I was working on these children’s books, children’s are based in different cities around the world, and the entire pandemic, I’ve literally been locked in at home.

But I have not felt that because you wake up and you can transport yourself to Copenhagen, Sydney, Melbourne, or wherever, whatever book you’re writing. So you have just so much freedom. And it’s actually very, very liberating, to be able to do what you want to be able to express yourself the way you want. So if you just set your expectations as to why you are doing this and if you’re very clear why you’re doing this, then it is like you said, it’s not about the money, it’s not about the fame it is just about what you want to convey. There could be really no better career than this.

Amit Ray: Yeah. So thanks a lot, Rishi. I think this has been very insightful for me, as well as like a one-time writer anyway, and I’m sure it’s very insightful for the people listening to this call, and I’m sure more than half of them, I’m sure at some point want to write a book.

So it’s good for everyone to know. So thank you so much for peeling back the curtains and helping us understand what it means to be a writer. And before we close, maybe let me just summarise a few points that I took away from this.

The first point was to be financially prepared because it’s going to be very hard to make a living out of writing unless you really get a lot of traction, which is rare at an early stage at least.

The second one, which I thought was a great tip was to mock up your book, once you’re done with it as a marketing tool, and if it doesn’t work as a marketing tool, and you can’t get it into publishers anyway, then use it as the self-publishing, go down the self-publishing path. And you can use the same mock-up design, etc. for that. And self-publishing can be faster and potentially earn you a little bit more on a per-copy basis than traditional publishing would.

The other point that I took away, which was a big one is to build an audience. So it seems like actually along with financial prep, maybe you should also be audience building, maybe even before you decide to become a writer, if you have an audience, you have a far better chance of actually getting your books sold, assuming the audience obviously is relevant for your kind of writing.

And I think the final point was around promotion and self-promotion. So you need to invest time and effort into promoting either through ads, or through book fairs and readings and stuff like you said, and you shouldn’t be afraid of self-promotion. I mean, that’s part and parcel. And I agree it feels a little cheap sometimes to keep talking about your one thing all the time. But look I mean, people are doing it about their work just in different ways. So you may as well do it about your work, which is to write.

Thanks a lot, Rishi. I think these were good points. And once again, I really, really appreciate you being here with us. And for everyone listening, thank you so much for tuning in. So thanks once again for tuning in. Rishi, thank you so much for joining us today. We were Rishi & Amit with ShopTok. See you next time.

The post ST21 | The Realities Of Being A Part-Time Author appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

Solopreneurs often feel that they are limited by their business model with respect to their resources- being the sole employee with a fixed geographical presence. But with the advent of technology, transitioning from offline to online has made it seamless for these solopreneurs to make the most of their skills and resources. We have one such businesswoman with us who transitioned her teaching skills to the online model, making her offer her services to a wider audience. If you’re a solopreneur thinking of making the move from offline to online, then this ShopTok Episode is for you!

Siti Nurmaisyah is a certified Indonesian teacher, with more than 20 years of teaching experience. She uses innovative methods to teach her students, online and offline. Her clients include people belonging to various demographics like expatriates, workers, school students (teenagers and children), etc. Siti is a great example of a solopreneur who successfully transitioned from an offline to an online model of teaching. With her skills and support from her family, she was able to beat the difficult times of COVID, where she lost a lot of her students and has moved to teach students across the globe from the comfort of her home.

Discussion Topics: The transition from an offline to an online model of business

• Teaching- going offline to online
• How Covid affected the business
• Benefits of offline – like selling resources along with the classes
• Difficulty of transitioning
• Choosing the online platform that suits your skills
• Getting your first few students
• Online profile- videos, documentation
• Challenges of having sessions online- internet, connection failures, platform bugs/issues, background noise
• Scheduling your sessions
• Service support- prompt response, being adjusting
• Family support
• Motivation from students to keep going

Transcript: The transition from an offline to an online model of business

Amit Ray: Are you a solopreneur like a freelancer, a tutor, workout instructor maybe? And perhaps you’re struggling to grow your offline business. And yet, it might feel really hard to try and offer your service online. And maybe you might feel like you’re very outdated, and you won’t be able to make that kind of a change.

Or perhaps you feel like you’re too old maybe this is not for you, it’s for the younger generation to do all of this online stuff. Well, today we are chatting with Siti Nurmaisyah, who’s an Indonesian language tutor with, I think, over maybe 20 years of teaching experience. And she saw her entire livelihood disappear when COVID struck.

So we’re going to chat about how she made the transition to online education. And she did struggle at first, but then she’s been able to grow it to a point over the last two years, where she is now struggling to keep up with demand. And before we begin I mean, we will get into a lot more about this. So Ibu Siti, thank you so much for joining us today. Maybe before we start would you like to introduce yourself and perhaps what kind of classes you do, what your business is all about?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yes, thank you so much for giving me a chance to join your podcast, it is really good for your podcast. Your podcast is like ShopTok and then MoneyTok and JobTok. All your guests are amazing guests. I am just a Teacher. I’m just a normal person.

Amit Ray: Not so normal Ibu Siti, the reason why I wanted to have this conversation with you is because you’ve done something quite impressive, which is you have transitioned your business from offline to online. And I know a lot of people struggle to do that. In my earlier company, I used to work with restaurants that were trying to do online delivery. And it’s actually quite difficult for people who follow a traditional path to make this change.

So the fact that you made this change, and you’ve done it so successfully, makes you actually not that normal. And I think that’s what people will learn from this conversation: that when you think you’re a regular person, you can actually do a lot just by being proactive with your business.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Really, okay, let me just be myself. My name is Siti Nurmaisyah, but mostly my students just call me Ibu Siti. And I’m Indonesian, of course, and I live in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. And I’m married. I have two children, a son and a daughter. My son is in college. And he is in grade two in University.

And now he’s running geography like studying about the earth or something like oceans, rivers and maybe some earthquakes or maybe flooding or something. And he learns about natural environments, ecology, and so on, and I hope he will make a contribution to save the world in the future. And about my daughter she is the cute one.

She is now in first grade in high school. She joins science class, even though she doesn’t want to join the class. Because she wants to follow me as an Indonesian teacher because I told her to just follow her mother. I influenced her. And then actually, she wanted to join social and literacy classes, but her teacher insisted her on joining science class. But until now, almost one year.

Amit Ray: You’re already showing that you’re not normal. Nobody’s children ever want to do what their parents do. And she actually wants to so that’s impressive.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, maybe, almost every day she watches me or sees me have a lesson. And maybe she thinks oh Mom, you really enjoy your lesson. And so maybe someday I want to be like you. Good, and I will train you. And then talking about me, I do it from Japanese and English literature. Because I like languages. And I also studied for a diploma, one in Business and Management.

And I thought, when I entered that diploma, oh, this is not my passion. But now I can feel that the experience of studying business management has really helped me to manage my lesson or maybe to make some documents, manage my time, and how face my new client as a student. Yeah, it’s really helpful.

Amit Ray: Yeah, because ultimately, I think, especially in today’s world, where even things like teaching are more than a profession now. Like, you have to think about it in a broader sort of sense. So maybe the management training perhaps helped you also in what you’re doing today.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yes, of course, I agree with you. And then I like to know many things. So my hobbies are reading books. Yes, it was my hobby. And now because I don’t have any time to read books I just read textbooks, all textbooks, but sometimes it makes me bored. Sorry, just kidding. And then I like watching movies and listening to music. I really enjoy doing my job while listening to some songs. And actually, my dream was to become a reporter. But I couldn’t and now eventually became a Teacher. But I’m very grateful for my destiny.

And talking about my business, I think I don’t have any business. I just work as a private teacher. But almost every day I’m busy with my lessons. Sometimes I have another job like translating Japanese to Indonesian for some documents. Once I had a special program for my students who live in Jakarta. I call this program like learning in real life or learning on the job like that. And this program’s purpose was to practise the Indonesian language in daily activities.

For example, shopping in the market, going to a salon for some ladies to have some treatments, or maybe lunch together at a local restaurant or maybe some talk. And I think it’s quite busy for me, but I really enjoy it. And I’m really happy to have these kinds of activities. But sometimes I don’t have enough time for my family or even myself.

Amit Ray: So almost like a good problem to have maybe.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, this is my problem, but I don’t realise it.

Amit Ray: So Ibu Siti, you said that your dream earlier was to be a journalist, but then you somehow moved into teaching. So how did you get started as a language teacher?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Oh, it’s a long, long story. When I joined Japanese classes, after one year I learned Japanese. My teacher asked me to help her to teach a small class. And I said, No, I cannot. Because I just started learning Japanese. My teacher said no, you can I know, you can do it just try. And then after some training, about three months of training, and finally, started to teach the I forget, I don’t know, who was my first student I forget.

But I still remember if he or she was Indonesian, not Japanese.  So after some teaching I finally enjoyed it. Because I don’t know, maybe it’s genetic from my mother. Genetic I don’t know how to say this because my mother was a teacher also as well. And my elder sister also, she is a kindergarten teacher. I think I have some genetics from my family, I like teaching. And until now, I really enjoy teaching Indonesian to Japanese or other foreigners and teaching Japanese to Indonesian people.

Amit Ray: Wow, that is a very niche expertise in language.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah. I remember I have both Japanese in high school in Jakarta. But not for long, just three months. Because since then, I lost my voice and have taken a rest for one week. So I thought I couldn’t teach in the class. And many students because high school student in one class it is about 40 students. And we have quite a big room and I have to speak loudly. It’s hard for me. And then finally, I decided to have private lessons until now.

Amit Ray: So that’s how you decided to go solo. Essentially, you didn’t want to be a teacher in a classroom kind of setup.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah. Not so big a classroom but when I work at the language school, I have also called Indonesian classes for Japanese women. But not too many, just five students, so I think it is not too hard for me. And this is a little different from teaching adults and teaching teenagers. Oh, my God, teenagers, they have so much energy, so I couldn’t control them, but I enjoyed it.

Amit Ray: So when you first started by yourself, how did you get your first few students, and how did you grow from there?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Since I delivered my second child, it’s about 16 years ago, maybe. I quit teaching at the school because I needed more time to raise my children by myself even though I had a maid and a babysitter. And I decided to have my own student just to inform when I say to my students I want to quit this school and my students are shocked why Ibu Siti you quit? Please don’t quit. Because now I am pregnant, it is about eight months, I was still teaching when I was 8 months pregnant.

So that’s why I need a break or I need to quit teaching in the school. And my students said to me, okay, I want to follow you Ibu Siti. What do you mean I want to follow? Yeah, I want to have your lesson at your house, if you don’t mind. They asked me to have a lesson at my household. Okay, I set up my son’s room, and it was my son still, maybe five years old so he didn’t use his room yet. Just sleeping with me. And then I said that class in that room as a class. And I still remember the eight students who have lessons at my house. All Japanese.

Amit Ray: Yeah, your neighbours must have been surprised.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, because there are many cars in front of my yard.

Amit Ray: So when you first started your students from your school transferred over to you, and then that’s how you started your solo tutoring sort of career. So this was all in person like people sitting in your house and doing these lessons. But obviously two and a half years back COVID started and then nobody anywhere could meet people. So how did you keep your lessons going given that people weren’t allowed to meet in person anymore? Or did you manage to keep it going?

Siti Nurmaisyah: It’s really hard for us. Maybe all over the world, we have some experience and since COVID almost 90% of I lost my students. So sad and frustrating. For almost two months I didn’t have any students. But I still try to contact my previous students. How do we have an online lesson? I asked them. And some students said sorry Ibu Siti, I cannot have your online lesson because I enjoy offline lessons.

Okay, no problem I tried to contact another student, but he was so busy. So he told me sorry Ibu Siti, I cannot have your lesson online I said okay. And many times I tried to contact my earliest students but I thought that once I contacted them they didn’t want to have the online lesson. I don’t want to push them to have my lessons and then suddenly one of my previous students sent me WhatsApp. She asked Ibu Siti how are you? How have you been? How about your family?

And I said yeah, I’m good. Thank you. And how about you and she had my lesson at her apartment for almost one and a half years, but stopped because she was really busy because she is a scientist about environment in Indonesia and she told me why don’t you try an online lesson and she introduce me about Preply, Preply is a platform online lesson all over the world so everybody can join as a student or even a tutor in Preply.

Amit Ray: For live lessons, right?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yes. And then finally, I could join Preply as an Indonesian teacher in June 2020 about two years ago. It was a little hard for me to apply and do many things for applying as a tutor on Preply. And, of course, all documents are in English. So I have to change my document in English. For example, I needed to profile it and submit some documents and make an introduction about me as a tutor. And also explain my teaching style.

Amit Ray: So what kinds of documents did you need to submit?

Siti Nurmaisyah: I need to upload my degree certificate and some training and workshop certificates. And I need to make my introduction as a tutor in three languages in Bahasa Indonesia, Indonesian English, and Japanese. So it took time for me. And I need to make a different way to explain my introduction and my teaching style.

Amit Ray: So, you said that it was a little hard to make those videos, but people are making videos all the time. So what was hard about it?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Actually I submit or register to Preply as a tutor in May. And then all documents already uploaded. Just one thing upload video. It makes me Oh, why video, why not just write or introduction, but probably need some videos. And then, I tried to make videos with my daughter really helpful. And she helped me with how to set it. I use my phone.

But the problem is when I was recording my video, because my house was near the main road there was a lot of noise, sometimes the noise of the bike and that voice get recorded in my video, and I have to cut and re-record many times. It’s hard. I almost quit. Give up. Okay, give up. And then I didn’t finish my video for about one month or almost two months.

Amit Ray: Yeah, actually, that’s true. I mean, all these people on YouTube, etc. they make it look so easy because the video looks natural, all of that. But they have a lot of practice. And I’m sure the first time they tried to record something must have been difficult for them also. And like you’re saying there are so many issues that you don’t realise, like background noise, the fact that it’s hard to read out an entire script in one take.

So things like that. I think those are challenges in doing all this. And it’s interesting to hear from you the real-life experience of signing up for the platform, where funnily enough the documents were not the difficult part, the introduction was harder.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, but one of my motivations was that other people can do it why I cannot. This is maybe my character. I always say other people can do it and I think I can do it as well. And that’s why I will try to make the video again. And just one thing while I was reading I was reading the text and my daughter set the headphone to record my videos. Yes, finally, just for two or three minutes’ video Oh my God, it took two months. So it’s hard. But it’s a good experience.

Amit Ray: Yeah, and very patient daughter I have to say.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, she is cute, she is helpful. I love her.

Amit Ray: So, now you’ve got your documents uploaded, your video has been done, and stuff. So you’re ready to go. So how do you get your first few students so this is on Preply right? How did that work?

Siti Nurmaisyah: I had to live a full two months to get the new student for the first time. Because there are so many tutors not in Indonesia, maybe outside Indonesia who are living abroad. And I still remember I got a notification from Preply that a new student was interested to have a lesson from me. And now, he was your friend. And thank you so much I always remember you as my first student on Preply of course.

Amit Ray: Yeah, that’s interesting, actually, that you sign up to these platforms with so much hope. And then for two months if you don’t get anything, I mean, you must have been quite depressed at that time. No offline students, no online students. So how did you feel when you got that message saying that you got this student?

Siti Nurmaisyah: First I got that message I was really nervous Oh my god, what should I do? What should I do?

Amit Ray: How do I log in?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yes, how do I log in? But before I had the first class Preply suggested to new tutors to join their webinars for training. And I joined more than 10 times. I thought I had good knowledge about how to conduct the lesson on Preply. But of course, this is the first time I had an online lesson. So it makes me nervous. But it’s so nice. It helped me learn how to conduct the lesson on Preply. I don’t know who is the Teacher, who is the student.

Amit Ray: So this is interesting. I mean, of course, you were patient. But then after that you also had the, I guess the interest to learn from the platform’s resources. So they’re telling you how you can teach best. And you took advantage of those resources, which I think is good learning.

The fact is you can’t join a platform and just become immediately successful. And platforms do give you resources. And it’s good to use them if you can. So now you’ve started and you’ve got one student who’s helping you use Preply. So what are some of the other challenges that you faced with online learning versus your previous offline experience?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Honestly I prefer having lessons face to face, I mean, offline lessons, not online lessons. But since COVID, I lost my offline lesson. So, I have to conduct my online lesson. When I have offline lessons face to face I get more benefits than online because not just the lesson fee I get, but I can sell my own textbook to them. But online lessons, I cannot sell the textbook because online lessons, I just give them as a service my textbook. And online lessons are a bit cheaper than offline lessons. Sorry, I said that.

Amit Ray: No, that’s true, maybe. And also, I think it’s, again, for people who are trying to make this transition, it’s good for them to know these things, which is you’re doing one on one lessons, they are probably going to be cheaper than trying to do a small group lesson. And also you can’t sell in these other things that you would have otherwise done.

So it’s actually interesting to me also, that when you’re doing face-to-face, you’re actually able to sell things in person. And usually, if somebody’s in front of you can say, hey, here’s my textbook, it’s part of the thing, please buy it, and they’ll buy it and they’re going to pay you in cash. So it’s easier to do this whole transaction, whereas online, you’ll have to now do an entire e-commerce transaction to sell a textbook to one student so obviously, that is a challenge. So are there other issues that you face as well?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Actually, I don’t have much problem with my students. I tried to give my attitude and speech so that the student will respect me so we have to respect each other. But I think the problem is usually internet connection problems, especially and recently sorry, probably I need to say this when I started to enter the Preply classroom, suddenly the internet network was not good. I just lost my internet and my student as well lost their internet. And when we face this situation, I ask or suggest to my students to use Zoom. And almost all my students agree using Zoom is better than Preply classes.

Amit Ray: I think everyone’s used to it now. And Zoom obviously does video better.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah. I don’t know why when I enter classrooms, suddenly, it breaks the Internet, not green. I don’t know, maybe because, at the same time, all tutors and all students use the same platform.

Amit Ray: No idea. But obviously video conferencing is a thing in itself and Zoom only does that. So obviously they will be better at it.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Oh! I see. I remember sometimes I have problems managing my schedule. Because I have students not just from Preply, I also joined another platform like Italki. You know Italki?

Amit Ray: Actually, I don’t but yeah, I’m sure there are multiple like this.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Italki same platform, as Preply online lesson platform. And of course, I have my own students as Preply. And sometimes it makes me confused about the schedule. And I need to check, recheck every day, sometimes three times a day. I have to check, not double booking, but sometimes double booking, oh, I need to contact my family student, I mean more kind. So they can understand my situation. But I don’t contact my new student. It’s kind of rude to always change schedules.

Amit Ray: Yeah, I think that makes sense. Essentially, you’re saying that if you have a relationship with a student, it’s easier for you to agree on a different time with them versus a new person because you want to keep the new person and kind of keep them happy. Okay, this is an interesting point, also, which is that when you’re on multiple platforms, it’s hard to synchronise all of these schedules. And what you’re saying is you’re trying to manage all of this on your own, like through your phone, maybe through diaries or something like that.

So, you said early, when you first started, you didn’t get any students for two months, because there are so many tutors on the platform. And at that time, you must have been bottom of the list at that point. But now you’re pretty much near the top of the list over the last two years I think you’ve done obviously a very good job, and you’re one of the top tutors on Preply. So how did you differentiate from the others and make this whole thing happen that you went from the bottom to the top?

Siti Nurmaisyah: It’s hard to explain, but I think I have one advantage, which is that I can speak Japanese well, and can speak English. And usually, Japanese people will feel comfortable learning from a teacher who can speak their mother tongue even though they can understand English. But they are more comfortable having a lesson in Japanese for the first time, especially for beginners.

So, therefore, more than maybe 70% of my students are Japanese. And then based on the Preply rule you can ask your student to leave a review about tutors or even the tutor’s teaching style. So this review can make you number one on the top because a good review is helping you as a tutor.

Amit Ray: Yeah, that’s right. Reviews definitely help. And that’s the case for all platforms. I mean, food delivery reviews, Freelancer platform reviews, Preply, and so on. So now that you’re near the top, let’s say. I’m sure you’re getting new students frequently, maybe every month or every week or something like that. How do you handle your new students so that they stay with you and become longtime students?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Because I like teaching. When I am teaching, I get super, super energy from my students so they feel I am full of energy tutor. And they can enjoy their lesson, even for the first time. And they don’t feel this is not the lesson. But just like having a nice conversation and nice discussion and sometimes we have disagreements. But we do enjoy it. So, this is just fun.

Amit Ray: It’s like a conversation you’re saying versus a lesson. And that’s actually interesting as well because maybe that is one of the secrets to your success, which is that you’re not saying okay, here is today’s lesson like on a board. And I’m going to now do one, two, three, and then let’s just follow along and do exercises and homework and all of that stuff. Instead, you’re trying to make it more conversational. So people feel like time is passing by and having fun.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, sometimes I forget about time. I forget about the time I’ve got. And luckily after the next three lessons, it is my responsibility. He was thinking you had the lesson. But this is the first time I was so late, about 20 minutes. Oh my gosh. It’s like I’m careless. I didn’t check my time to have the next lesson. And if I missed the schedule myself, and as soon as possible I contact my student saying, “I’m really sorry about my mistake. And you have to wait for a few minutes.

I always say sorry. And say thank you to my students. And then oh, I need to tell you. I think not everybody feels sad. But I think people like quick responses. If a new student comes or contacts me, I immediately respond to them politely. And usually people like a fast response. And I also treat or serve all my students well, based on the Preply rule, please reply or respond to your students so please, contact them as soon as possible. It’s my principle.

Amit Ray: Actually I think that’s a very good principle because I remember when I first started looking for tutors on Preply, I think I wrote to maybe four people who all had maybe good ratings or rather maybe I think three had good ratings one was new something like that. So I wrote to them, and two of them responded after so many days that I had already selected someone and it is part of a competition as well.

If you take too long to respond, the person would have already made a decision and you might be a better teacher as well, but the student will never know because they never got a chance to talk to you. So I think the prompt response sounds very simple, but it is very important in a service business, I think. So now that you have a fair number of students, how do you handle all of them? And are you planning to expand your business in some way?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Actually, I have been thinking about this to expand my business, but I think right now, I don’t know how to do it. Because until now I enjoy working alone. Because if other people work for me, and I can’t be satisfied with their work, it must be stressful.

Amit Ray: Welcome to the business world.

Siti Nurmaisyah: So I just like working alone. And then, actually, it’s my dream. I think I have some plans, in some projects maybe which are creating my own dictionary. And last time you suggested a dictionary, Ibu Siti make your own dictionary and you can sell it to online shops or something. Yeah, it’s a good project, but I don’t know how to start it. And I want to record my voice, especially for my students. And can I sell my recording to my student, my recording, I don’t know.

Amit Ray: Overall, I like the idea of selling supporting material. Because look, as a tutor, you have limited hours, I mean, only 24 hours in a day. And you can only teach for maybe 8 hours or 10 hours. So, therefore, the income potential is limited, because you only have so many hours, so you can only earn so much. But if you make products, you can sell them to the whole world. And you can earn a lot more. And you suggested making recordings to improve listening skills, I would actually totally buy that.

Because right now, if I want to learn Bahasa, and I want to practice my listening, one option is to try and talk to someone, and it’s a little bit annoying for them if I can’t understand what they’re saying. Another way is to try and watch Indonesian shows or something like that. And those tend to be a little complicated because obviously, it’s not for a learner, it’s for Indonesian speakers. But getting something simple that I can listen to and improve I think I would buy that. So I think it’s a really good idea.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, it’s good motivation for me.

Amit Ray: Yeah, actually, speaking of motivation, what keeps you motivated? Because talking into Preply or Zoom all day long I mean, I know I do meetings, and I get tired after some time. So how do you keep your energy up and so on?

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yeah, as a human you know, I’m not a robot. I feel tired. And sometimes, you do something all the time. I think you can get bored. But when I feel tired and get bored, I always think about my students. They are my inspiration, my motivation. And then when I’m so busy with my lessons, I think I need to manage my schedule because my family sometimes warns me not to be too busy.

Because I like teaching when I’m teaching. I forget about my problems and my time with the family, really, when I have a lesson and talk to my students I forget all. After death I get tired. But as long as my students enjoy their lesson that’s enough for me. And for badasses, they can understand my lessons so I’m so grateful.

Amit Ray: So, look, we’ve talked a lot about how you got started, all the stuff that you’ve been doing, and it’s been two and a half years of online and 20 years before that of teaching. So what is some advice that you’d like to give to other people who might want to do online teaching either they want to convert from offline to online, or maybe they just want to start online? Any thoughts or tips for them?

Siti Nurmaisyah: First, you have to learn how to use a platform or how to use a laptop, of course, to conduct the lesson by Zoom, or maybe Google Maps, or maybe another platform, you have to learn first. Because if you don’t learn and you don’t research, it is like a bad reputation as a tutor, you look like a not well-prepared person. And of course, as a tutor, be well prepared for the lessons, be smart and of course, you have to be kind to all your students, even if some students are annoying you.

But be patient and be kind, keep smiling. Keep smiling even if you have a tough problem in your head in your life, and teach happily and enjoy it. And give your students good motivation, but spirit, good experience maybe. And don’t forget, please answer and respond to your students as soon as possible, respond quickly. And then as entrepreneurs give them good services, make them satisfied with your services. And don’t forget, just do your best and do your duty by heart.

Amit Ray: Yeah, I guess ultimately it boils down to that. I mean, just listening to you makes me feel like you really enjoy what you’re doing. And that’s the most important thing. If you don’t enjoy it, then how would it actually work? I mean, I don’t think I’ve had anybody on the show so far who has laughed so much.

So you clearly enjoy your work. So thank you so much Ibu Sidi. This was a fantastic conversation, I learned quite a lot about how to succeed as an online tutor. And honestly, I actually think it applies to other solopreneurs as well. So if you’re a fitness instructor trying to do online lessons, or you’re a freelancer who’s trying to set up on any of these freelance platforms, service businesses of all kinds, I think for everyone, there are lessons here that work, not just for online tutors.

So let me just take a few minutes to summarise some of the lessons I was writing them down while you were speaking. So first thing is, anyone can learn to do business online. So it’s not about you being a youngster, or tech-savvy or something like that anyone can learn to do it, you just have to try. And just get started. Start with the basics, like how to use a laptop, like you said, or maybe ask for help like with your daughter, and you will find that it’s possible and you can get started.

The second thing is, when you join a platform, make a good profile on that platform. So if the platform is asking you for a video, however long it takes, make a nice video, because that will help you stand out and help you also may bring forward your unique qualities. And so therefore you can attract an audience because they like the uniqueness that you’re bringing to that whole thing.

The third one was that many of these platforms offer resources and training. So use it, don’t just assume that you know how it’s going to work. They’re giving you all of this material for free. To learn how to do things the right way using the platform.

The fourth one is to think of how you might be unique and target an audience that appreciates that uniqueness. So in your case, it was this Japanese Indonesian thing which is obviously quite unique. But what it tells me is that you know, everyone is probably running after the English to the Indonesian market. So someone like me who speaks English wants to learn in Bahasa Indonesia. And so everybody is trying to attract me.

But nobody is trying to attract the Japanese person trying to learn Bahasa or the Bengali person who doesn’t speak English, but wants to learn Bahasa or Malaya because they need it for work or something like that. And that uniqueness is going to make you stand out because you don’t need 1 million people to be potentially your students, you can’t handle them, you just need 20 or 30 students. So why not reach a small market, which appreciates your unique quality?

The fifth point is offering good service. So be quick to respond, be friendly, and be respectful. And your customers will therefore love you. And they will leave you good ratings, which is obviously important for online platforms.

And the added point to this is number six, which is don’t be shy to ask for ratings, they do make a big difference to your ranking on every platform, and to your profile. And other students want to see highly rated tutors, they don’t really want to go to somebody with no ratings at all.

I think the other one, which I liked very much was once your business is stable, think about how you can sell subsidiary products, and try to increase your income beyond the hours that you’ve put in. So I know you’re not quite doing this yet. But the fact that you are thinking about it is really nice. And it means that it can expand beyond your actual working hours.

And the last one, always be thinking about your customers. I think this applies to every business. But you really take a lot of care and attention over individual students. And I think it’s something that every solopreneur would do well to kind of appreciate and adopt as well.

So these are my takeaways from this conversation. And thanks a lot. I think this was really good learning for me. And I hope for all our listeners as well. So, so thanks a lot Ibu, we really appreciate you being here with us. And for everyone listening, thank you so much for tuning in. So in case you feel like learning Bahasa from a top-rated tutor, you could definitely get in touch with and do remember to follow and subscribe to the show. And if you liked this episode, this was definitely one of the more fun ones with a lot of laughter and enjoyment. So if you liked it, please show your appreciation with a five-star rating. We were Siti and Amit with ShopTok. See you next time.

Siti Nurmaisyah: Yes, and thank you so much, Amit, for this amazing experience to have a talk and to discuss my experience as a tutor. Thank you so much.

Amit Ray: Yeah, this was great.

The post ST20 | The Transition From An Offline To An Online Model Of Business appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

Ever wondered what you’ll do once you achieve all that you want in your career? Is it then time to fade into the sunset and ease into a life of leisure? Or do you feel like you’re up for new challenges? Well, if you’re one of those for whom a single innings isn’t enough, you’ll love this episode. Arvind Sankaran, an engineering graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and a master’s degree holder from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, had finished his 1st innings successfully, serving in the banking industry in various positions across the globe. With immense knowledge at his disposal, he did something extraordinary-when most people would look at retiring, he began his 2nd innings. With the zeal to offer value to businesses and in the process of rediscovering and living his passion, Arvind is now a successful advisor who provides strategic direction to businesses across different fields of operation and industries.

Discussion Topics: Making the Transition from Corporate Leader to Consultant

• Utilising your experience to serve in a different role
• How you’re perceived in the industry
• Communicating your service offering
• Pricing your offering
• Growing your service business
• Picking your area of expertise
• Sustainability in difficult times
• Importance of a support system

Transcript: Making the Transition from Corporate Leader to Consultant

Amit Ray: It might be a dream to build a level of expertise that allows you to quit your job, and work as an Independent Consultant. More often than not, these kinds of opportunities tend to be on the freelance side, where you’re paid for your time, working on specific outsource tasks or projects. But if you’re a seasoned leader or someone with substantial experience, such hands-on work might not really be a fit for you.

What might work instead would be an advisory role, where you get to offer the benefit of your vast experience to growing companies at a strategic rather than an execution level. But is this a service anyone wants? And what are the trade-offs and challenges that you need to be prepared for and most important, are you really cut out for the kind of life such a change would entail?

Today, we are pleased to have with us Arvind Sankaran, Fintech investor, operator, and advisor, who will share with us his journey from corporate leader to growth company advisor. But more importantly, he’s going to share with us his learnings over the past seven years of charting his own non-corporate path. So Arvind, thank you so much for joining us today. Maybe before we get going, would you like to give us a brief overview of your past career, and your journey as an investor and an advisor so far?

Arvind Sankaran: Thanks Amit, for having me on the show. Real pleasure and very happy to see you build out your own portfolio of work seems like a super exciting set of activities. And good luck with that. Looking back at my own career, like you said, seven years ago, I stepped away from my career as a banker, and I had spent the previous 26 years in banks, global banks around the Asia Pacific, as well as Europe.

And since then, I’ve been active across a set of engagements, which actually have brought me pretty closely involved in the Fintech space in Southeast Asia and India, both as a board advisor where I bring my operating experience to help founders grow their ventures and scale. And also, as an investor, helping VC firms identify the landscape and pipeline of deals. And they are picking the bets that look pretty interesting.

Beyond that, I have also had the opportunity to advise global corporations as well as consulting firms, where they are looking at strategic advice around either building, or modernising their banking technology, or providing strategic and operational advice to their clients who are undergoing digital transformation in financial services. So as you can see, it’s a portfolio of work that covers operational advice, investment advice, as well as, being someone who can actually get involved at a fairly deep level, in the execution of some of these new ventures that we are seeing today.

Amit Ray: So Arvind, first of all, it’s a remarkable set of things that you’re doing. The way you describe it, it’s super exciting. And I’m sure a lot of people would love to be doing the kind of stuff that you’re working on, especially those with similar kinds of experience who’ve worked for a long time and have built up a lot of domain knowledge. So maybe to get started, you could help them understand how you get started down this path as an advisor as an investor. And maybe they could get some lessons from that as well.

Arvind Sankaran: At the time that I kind of chose to step away from my career as a banker the world was the proverbial oyster and one could look in many different directions to get started. I knew a few things that I wanted to keep as guiding principles as I built out my own portfolio of work. One was, if I was going to provide advice, that beyond, of course, it being meaningful and actionable, it was important that I was seen as a source of neutral, independent, trusted, objective advice, and that my advice is not tied to any specific outcomes on behalf of a firm that had engaged me, so that is pretty important to me. And I think that resonated with some of the folks that I initially engaged with.

One of the VC firms were well established in Southeast Asia, India, early in growth investor. In the initial period, actually, we decided that, rather than have me appointed as board advisors to set up portfolio companies, we’d rather arrange for a speed dating between myself, and five founders, who were in their Fintech stable of investor companies. And actually, that made a lot of sense because water found its own level, it was an organic process of discovery, you know, my advice would come from an objective place.

And what we found was, over the course of those weeks that the speed dating happened, three of the founders said Arvind, Yes, we like what you have to offer, and we would like to onboard you, I didn’t hear back from the other two. And I think it was a good, honest, organic process and that actually helps the sustainability of these types of advisory engagements.

Amit Ray: Yeah, and that is a really interesting point, Arvind, because the normal way of doing these things is that you quit your job, and then you go back to try and work with ex-colleagues, ex-clients, or maybe you just start pitching your services. But in your case, because the service wasn’t well defined, you weren’t really trying to pitch a very specific thing like a freelancer might have done, it wouldn’t really have worked easily in that manner.

So the fact that you were able to create this kind of a setup where you just go to founders, have a natural conversation with them, and then they decide whether this whole engagement makes sense, is a really good way to get started. And it’s also a bit different from what I’ve heard in the past, from other people who’ve gone solo.

Arvind Sankaran: One of the things I came to learn very quickly is that the founder’s time is absolutely precious, and they don’t want pure advice, or as we say, in Hindi Gyan Bazi, I think what they need is real execution level kind of engagement, getting into the among the weeds. And I think it is from that standpoint, that you will be able to establish your need in a very real way. And that’s when the connection happens meaningfully.

Amit Ray: Right. Actually, just to drill down a little bit on the executional element over here. So it’s not pure advisory, the way you’re describing it, which I would have assumed to be like an hour a week, or maybe a couple of hours a month kind of thing. You’re talking about something which is more involved, you really have to understand their business and operations. And I guess that probably takes a substantial amount of time.

Arvind Sankaran: It does. And notionally, at the start of such engagements you do try and mutually identify how much time is really needed. But in reality, that notion doesn’t exist, because you have to operate in the time-space continuum that the founder and his or her team operate in. So I found myself plugged in at all days of the week and different times based on the need and I have also attended pitches with clients that they were taking their product to, and that revolves around the client’s availability.

So you have to be agile. And I think that kind of really works well. And it’s therefore to that extent, you have to unlearn some of the routinization that one may have been used to in a corporate previous life.

Amit Ray: Right. And in fact, the whole movement nowadays around work-life balance talks about compartmentalising and doing all of that. Whereas what you’re saying is that you actually have to be kind of led by the needs of the business and so therefore, it may not be as time-boxed as one would assume. So this is an interesting insight. Another one is, you’ve spoken to these founders and you started working with them, how did you choose to price your service or your time?

Arvind Sankaran: This is a super interesting question that you asked and I have developed a certain insight and approach to it. Some parts of it, the approach, I think, is about my own level of comfort, about discussing price. I have in the initial period found it a bit awkward to actually lay down a price and drive a hard bargain, what I found a lot more meaningful is that, just like water finds its own level that the value that the founder of the firm attaches to your work finds its own level, and therefore the price will follow from there.

I have typically, not kind of laid down terms in a very definitive manner, there is a flexible, mutually kind of aware, and approach where, depending upon the stage that the venture is at, what kind of funding they have, what values are attached to my help, I found things just kind of naturally find the appropriate shape and size. But one of the things I think it’s important when one gets into these kinds of engagements is to set a definite value.

Because that ensures that you are serious about it that both teams are serious about getting together, making that time available, and building a cadence to that conversation. But I’ve not operated with any minimums or any such thing, in fact, to be honest, one of the ventures that I advised very early on probably six years ago, was a very early-stage venture, they didn’t have funding, they were going to go for a round of funding, six months from there.

And so the problem they were solving was super interesting, and it directly spoke to my operational experience. So we actually agreed on $1,500 per month. And honestly, as a number that really is insignificant. But for me, it was an opportunity to actually professionally expand my horizons, and go deep with the founder and his team into solving problems I thought were super pain points for banks.

Amit Ray: So this is good to know Arvind, because I’m 100% sure that everybody who ventures out on their own struggles to price their service. See, it’s one thing if you’re selling a product, it feels like a bit of an arm’s length discussion, you’re talking about the value of the product. But in this case, you’re talking about the value of yourself almost.

And so it’s a very uncomfortable discussion to have, and you found an elegant way around it, which is to figure out what value you can add, ensure that there is a need for what you’re doing. And then eventually, the founders themselves, work out something that makes sense based on the value that they’re getting. And I also liked that you didn’t shy away from, you know, like a small number at some point, knowing that if you’re continuing to give value, it will eventually work itself out.

Arvind Sankaran: Yeah, what I found is these things kind of start connecting to each other, and build a kind of pattern of work in value that you establish. And in the case of the VC firm that I was engaged with, in the early days, was a fantastic opportunity for me to plug into Fintech, because back then, in 2015, we were just getting going in Singapore, where M&A established the chief Fintech officers role as well as $250 million innovation fund where there were, I think, barely a 100 startups back then.

But that creates a pattern of work. And so even with this firm, after spending initially some time working directly with the set of portfolio companies, there came a time when it all added up. And I was actually kind of asked if I could join formally in the role of a venture partner at the firm level. So none of this was planned. But I think you gotta start somewhere and you need to really show that you can add value and things happen.

Amit Ray: Yeah, actually, that’s a good segue into the other question I was going to ask, which is, how do you grow your advisory or your consulting service and kind of sell what you have to offer?

Arvind Sankaran: That’s another great question because when one steps into a different stage of your career, where you’re essentially reinventing yourself, and you’re having to bootstrap and build your own book of work, how much time do you spend in sales and business development versus actual rolling up your sleeves and doing the advisory work is a tricky one. And what I have come to learn is that doors open other doors, and it is about time in the market. And I’m borrowing a phrase that we used to advise our wealth management clients in my previous life when it comes to investments.

So what I did find is positive word of mouth, on good work spreads. And this so-called gestation period, if you’re looking for it to turn into a sustainable portfolio of work that stays with you over multiple years, and which helps you devote most of your time, actually providing that value add or getting into the deeper end of the advisory work, rather than spending time chasing deals, that gestation period in my mind takes around two or two plus years minimum, where you find your own flywheel of work actually begins to get that momentum.

And at the heart of it, what I’ve come to realise is that rather than sell myself, I’d rather have people advocate for me, and therefore if I just stay focused on providing real value, the advocacy will follow. And that’s the best way of sustaining your portfolio work.

And in some cases, it has meant, you know, just kind of staying super focused on the problem that the client or the founders are trying to solve. And it could even mean that you don’t talk about a contractual relationship for even as long as six months. In one case, where the founder guy rolled up our sleeves, they were at an early stage, they were building something super interesting. And a lot of it was around building the risk management side of things in terms of collection, infrastructure, and loss provisioning, and all of that, and I had done rolls like that back in my days.

So we just spent time working through all of that and six months are gone. And the founder said Arvind, this is now getting a bit awkward because we haven’t talked. So here’s the deal. And he just wrote up the deal on one page, and we just signed and it was not insignificant. So that’s how it’s worked for me.

Amit Ray: Again, I think this approach is a good one. In a nutshell, what you’re doing is you start off with a small group of clients somehow, which in your case was via a venture firm, and then add value to them to a point where they start wanting to pay you something commensurate with that value. And then if you do that, for an extended period of time, when you’re saying roughly two years, two and a half years or so, you’re in the market for long enough for word to spread about what it is that you do.

And then people because you’re doing a good job, they advocate for you, and then you get more and more inbound requests. And so therefore, you may never have to spend time trying to sell yourself if that’s not something that you’re excited about. So this is a good approach to this whole problem that I’m sure a lot of people have, which is how do I sell my services? Most people don’t like doing it.

Arvind Sankaran: Yeah, and I think you’ve kind of really brought out the essence of what we just talked about. In the end, one of the things that folks who are looking to kind of reinvent themselves and build their next thing is to want to aim for longevity, the longevity of the work of your portfolio of clients and how long you stay actively involved in this and longevity also helps redefine yourself clearly.

Because you actually in a way borrowing again, from the startup world, you actually find your product market fit. The marketplace begins to understand what you are truly offering in terms of value. And then actually, you start seeing inbound requests coming in, because that’s when you know that actually, the market probably has now a good idea about what it is that I bring to the table.

Amit Ray: Yep, that’s what in the startup world would be called product lead growth. So, that’s effectively what you’re doing. So this is great Arvind, then you’ve been doing this now for, well, seven years. So I’m sure you’ve learned a lot of stuff. And more importantly, I’m sure there are people who come to you from time to time, with similar amounts of experience, wondering whether they can make a similar transition to what you’ve done. So what are some of the things you tell such people?

Arvind Sankaran: It is not an easy kind of transition. And that’s the reason why I think, folks like myself back then, as a kind of middle-level executive with a good career and making a choice to actually do something else, can relate to how difficult it must be. And, honestly, one can make whatever choice, and I do believe that you must make a choice that fits your personality and your circumstance and what you see for yourself, I think that’s the most important thing that nobody else can make that choice.

But over the last six, or seven years that I’ve been kind of, in this new stage of my professional career, I have played agony aunt to many colleagues who are kind of thinking about the same thing and appear to be at the same crossroads. And I have initially been guarded about offering advice because this is a very personal thing. And there is no one kind who can claim to have the wisdom that can be easily applicable to everybody.

So with that disclaimer, I have provided advice. And as recently as two days ago, I spoke to someone who was looking to kind of evaluate that change. So, I’ve kind of been able to synthesise what I’ve learned into a few different thoughts, and maybe I’ll share that. And this is, in some sense, a playbook or things that you got to think about, as you kind of embark on this journey. The first one, of course, is asking yourself the question about, you know, so do you want to remain in a safe harbour or sail the stormy seas?

So I think that is a very important question to ask about what you want to do, and again there is no judging, many of us value the security of where we are, and even if there are challenges, and kinds of disenchantment, a safe harbour in many other ways, maybe a viable choice. But if you truly are at that stage where you want to set sail, then you have to be prepared that it will kind of be different. It doesn’t necessarily have to be storming, but it will be different and that difference or that unpredictability, to some extent, is something that you’ll have to be comfortable with.

So that was the first thing I always kind of talk to folks about. The second thing, and I found this to kind of really stop people in their tracks and think about it hard is I advise them to burn their CV. Burning your CV is okay.

Amit Ray: You’ve only spent 25 years building up that CV, so why not burn it now?

Arvind Sankaran: Exactly. So I do have that quizzical look from folks, when I say burn your CV, because in the new world that one steps into, and when I say new world, I mean, where you’re going to professionally reinvent yourself and you’re going to work on new ideas, new technologies, new business models, etc.

The world is not a linear, chronological place. And whereas our CVs have been a historical chronological kind of description of what we have achieved over the previous, whatever, 10, 20 years, but that often is not your calling card. And what you really need to do is to distill one or two things that you are really good at, and remove all corporate language, but really get it down to what’s that one or two things that you’re good at.

And you should be able to talk about yourself in literally minutes of an elevator pitch. And I think that is super important to burn your CV and actually redefine yourself in very sharp terms.

Amit Ray: And that must be quite a struggle, right? Because most people who worked for a length of time, are used to describing themselves in terms of where they work. So I am Vice President at XYZ bank, or I’m Head of whatever, whatever, when somebody asks you that that is your natural reaction, versus saying something like I am able to XYZ, or I’m good at something, something. And this is why you should talk to me.

Arvind Sankaran: Absolutely, you’ve hit the nail on the head, because it is very tough if you’ve been used to a kind of defined role in an organisation setup. And that’s how you always introduce yourself, then if you’re going to burn your CV, and you’re going to have to describe yourself in one or two words, what’s that going to be it’s hard to find that new hashtag so to speak.

But that leads me to the next thing that I speak to folks who are looking for some counsel is I ask them to look in the mirror metaphorically, of course. And what that I guess means is, you gotta ask yourself the question, are you really up for this, if you want to make the transition, because I do find, and I’ve been guilty of that as well, which is to talk about doing something but sitting in the armchair for some period of time.

So you need to really ask yourself, if I do make the transition, am I’m going to lose that business card, that logo, that brand, the title, I’m going to be myself and I have to present that to the world. And does it sit well with you, are you comfortable in your own skin, and that you can deal with any questions that come along all well-intentioned questions from friends, family, and the extended circle about how you’re coming along in your new avatar and have things worked for you or not. And those questions will be there in the coming months, and maybe even a bit longer. So you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself that.

Amit Ray: Yeah, I remember Arvind, like, when I did, my first startup was 12, 13 years ago. And I quit my job to do that. And then people would say, what are you doing? And I would very excitedly talk about how great, I’m so free and I’m feeling wonderful doing my own thing. But after about three months or six months, as you said, the question began to get repetitive. And when you set it for the 100th time, you yourself also and especially if your business, is not something that you’ve quite figured out yet, or it’s not growing like gangbusters, like what maybe your friends are hoping or thinking, then it starts becoming harder and harder question to answer, and then you want to avoid that question altogether. So, it’s great that you bring up this one, it can be quite an awkward conversation to have for the time.

Arvind Sankaran: Absolutely, and there is a, even a social angle to it. Let me be totally frank, you know, many of the folks who might be listening in to this show, are maybe folks who are career nomads, who have taken their career to different countries, or living in a different culture, often the ex-pat lifestyle, are working in those small communities in the diaspora and often socialise with them. And, therefore, having to make this change, bold change that as it may be seen, and having to still stay among your friends, in your social circle, and be able to look them in the eye and say that, I’m moving forward every day, even if it may not be visible in a conventional way is not easy.

So, hence, therefore, I think it’s important to look in the mirror and really try and understand who you are, and whether you’re up for it. The next thing that again, for me, became evident, when I chose to make the change was to do the maths, and I think it’s an obvious thing, you know, we need to look at what the cash burn is going to be during this period of time that you’re pivoting your professional career. Because beyond yourself, and again possibly the demographic that we’re talking to, in your show, you know, there is family involved, and therefore, your decision does impact the family.

In my case, my wife is a lawyer. And so we knew we would be down from two salary cheques to one salary cheque. But we do comfort in that. And for me, that was a huge enabler. But nevertheless, I think one needs to do the maths and look at the core goals that you’re saving towards, and whether you are kind of providing enough for that, and whether you still have risk capital that you can invest in pivoting yourself.

Amit Ray: Yeah, and there’s an opportunity cost here also, because of the loss of income on one side. So it might seem like an obvious point. But it’s a very important point, which is you need to be able to sustain yourself while you figure out what you want to do.

Arvind Sankaran: It is, and operating costs are not exactly cheap, in overseas locations, and we’re talking about Singapore, and Hong Kong, and all of that I’ve lived in those countries, and it’s not cheap. So I think it’s very important to do the maths. The next thing that I found pretty evocative, when I talk about it with folks who are looking for advice, is to be your own founder.

Because if you think about it, at least for myself, I can say that, back in the day when I had a corporate career, I was ever grateful for all the opportunities and it made me who I am professionally. And I enjoyed working in all the organisations that I’ve been in. But I think over time as work becomes crazy and you’re on the treadmill, you do lose yourself. And you lose yourself in multiple ways.

You lose the connection with friends and family in a qualitative sense, you lose the connection with new ideas, new technologies, and really refreshing your knowledge base. And in many other ways, you do lose touch with your inner mojo or your creative self, in the sense that you can’t really find the time and the bandwidth to do all of that.

But when you’re in this mode, you need to be reconnecting with all of that, if you’re going to be your own founder, because arguably, if you lost yourself earlier on, you have found yourself now, in this new transition, and therefore you’ve got to do the hard work, you are starting with the new baseline, in essence, you’re a nobody, and I’m using a harsh word there, but you have a risk capital and an opportunity cost, you can call it either, and you got to make the best out of it.

So if it means pitching hard, eating humble pie, going to former colleagues, and actually working with folks in organisations, many levels, junior to what you may have been in the past facing rejection. And also, one of the things that people tell me, they have also experienced this is your pipeline of business will come from unexpected places, and therefore, strangers become friends. And in some cases, vice versa.

So, I think that being your founder is a very important thing to be prepared for. And the flip side of this is, is that there is that J Curve, that all of this lines up against, and so you need to be prepared to write your own, J Curve, as start-ups do, there will be a so-called value of death, there will be a moment where you might think about the idea of getting back, and there is no judging again, you know, many folks have gotten back and have reconnected very well and are happy for it.

But there is that moment, and therefore all support that you can get is important. And there will be some assumptions that may not actually work out, you might have started out with the wrong set of assumptions when you do the maths, and then things present themselves, but there is a J Curve, and so be your founder and ride your own J Curve be prepared for that is something that I do advise folks.

Amit Ray: So, that being the case, right, I mean, you have definitely emphasised the point around financial stability and being able to actually make all this happen. So does it mean that, in that case, the moment you quit, you should be like sprinting as hard as you can, trying to make it work in a very short time, so you can then be comfortable with what’s going to happen in the future?

Arvind Sankaran: That’s a great question you asked, because I have myself felt that way, in the early days, when I made the change that if I sprinted really hard, if I work three shifts on weekends, and met hundreds of people, then I’d accelerate things, actually, there isn’t really, at least in my case, back to a point that we spoke about earlier about time in the market, there is a certain cycle that it takes, and therefore, it is better to be kind to yourself.

And the catchy phrase that I’ve used with some of my folks who have spoken to me is to be kind and unwind, unlikely you’re going to kind of nail it in three months. And if you do, I’d be the happiest, and there are folks who have done it, but chances are if you pace yourself out, and kind of manage your expectations upfront, and plan it out, and you know that you’re making progress every day, even if it may not be visible.

And often there’ll be four seasons in one day, you know, philosophically speaking, but you have to find the time, since you have now found yourself, and arguably lost yourself in your previous corporate life. So you have to make time to smell the roses. And spend time with the family, reconnect with yourself, you will be able to do that. And those are sources of tremendous reserves of mental strength that you will find accumulating as you go through this initial stage.

Amit Ray: That’s such an important point Arvind, essentially, you’re saying that you quit your job only so that you can kind of reset the person that you are discovering yourself, do all those things that you sacrificed, because you were trying to make a career happen. And it would be quite a shame if after that in your new avatar, you end up becoming your old avatar just in a different way. And plus what you’re saying also is crucial here, which in any case, it’s unlikely that you’re going to start seeing extraordinary results in three months.

Even if you push hard you still need some amount of time in the market for people to find you, for people to talk about you, and for you to have an opportunity to deliver something to someone so you can prove what you’re capable of. And so if you just rush all of this stuff, you’re going to be similarly unhappy, just in a different environment.

Arvind Sankaran: Absolutely, I think that would be not a good thing to do, to have really made the bold and courageous step to kind of pivot yourself and go in the direction that you want to, but then end up creating a new hamster wheel for yourself, you know, kind of defeats the purpose.

So I think one of the things that, when you kind of provide that space for yourself, is you will find your mojo, and I do ask that folks who are in a similar place that I was back then, you know, really reconnect with some of their passions that they may have dropped along the way, and I know that I did, you know, back when I was in a corporate, you know, kind of existence, somehow, you always, kind of settle for the notion that there was no time.

And maybe it was true to a large extent, but I think it just became, over time, just a wall behind, which you really didn’t want to reconnect with things. Now’s the time to find something, whether it’s music, whether it is sports, whether it’s an art that you used to do, you know, make the time for it, because it does fuel you in ways that are amazing, and it builds your confidence and it builds your mental strength, you’re able to take rejection or disappointments better. And you also realise that you are not defined just by your work.

There was a point in time, perhaps early on, in your life, when you were not defined by your work, you were actually defined by your talent. And it’s time to bring that back out there. And you will find it taking you to places. I mean, one of the things I can share with tennis used to be a passion for me, it’s still a passion and my whole family, we’re all tennis-crazy folks, try to be at Wimbledon, or Ozzy or wherever we can be, we can. So the first gig that I actually jumped on when I left, the banking career was actually in sports marketing because I had a random meeting with the wonderful Vijay Amritraj and socially, we are connected.

And Vijay was looking to kind of create a sports marketing venture here in Asia. And he said, you’re an ex-banker, I’m like a sports guy, shall we just join hands and launch something? So actually, truth be told, that was my first startup, we actually registered a company here in Singapore, and we actually went out and pitched the hell out of all the private banks, to write a cheque so that it could fund very interesting, tennis and golf legends kind of program that we could bring out to this part of the world.

Six months later, of course, we figured the timing was probably not that great, because back then the sponsors were hurting. And we couldn’t find that sustainable kind of a business commercial model to back our idea. The idea was great, but the timing was probably not that great, but I got Vijay Amritraj as a friend for life, and I just did something that was actually connected to my passion. So you just don’t know, you just have to open yourself up and you’ll find things happening, which are amazing.

Amit Ray: That’s actually a valuable side lesson in itself, which is, even if you have a great idea, sometimes the timing is off. So everything else might be there. It’s just, it’s not it’s time.

Arvind Sankaran: Absolutely. So often when I think about it, one of the things I say jokingly, half-jokingly, but probably half-seriously is, over time, it’s been a series of fortunate accidents, or fortunate coincidences, or events that have kind of come together and it is kind of helped me with my own personal journey and to have arrived where I am, and there’s still work in progress.

But by no means is it anything else but still, I think it’s something that I think, do it you know, that things happen, when you’re not looking for it to happen, and if you look very hard, and hope for something to happen, it may just not happen. So it’s a funny life. Life is funny. So the couple of other things that I’ve spoken about is one is, of course, we spoke about finding your mojo, but the flip side of it is to see if you can unlock one of them and really achieve its fullest potential.

Often folks have good talents, everybody has a bunch of talents, it’s just that, time, circumstance, lack of confidence, whatever it is, has not helped us maximise it, here’s a chance actually, you might be able to take something to a level that you didn’t dream of, and for me, personally, one of the things that I’ve probably derived the most satisfaction from across all aspects of my own journey is music.

And I had left music back on the campus, after having started up a college rock band, and you would know that the Joka bandstand, and we’ve played together. Joka bandstand alumni, you know, after that, I had not really kind of gotten back to playing until 15 years ago, a bunch of us here in Singapore met, and actually started playing again. And when I moved away from my banking career, I found more time to actually be able to plug into how our band was kind of progressing and be able to support how we could do our next concert.

And so here we are a bunch of middle-aged lawyers, bankers, and techies, who kind of launched a rock band called bandwidth in Singapore, and we have played over the last 10 or 15 years. And it’s just an amazing feeling to be onstage, playing your heart out, having a bunch of folks listen to you and cheer you on. Everybody has talent, we are no different from each other. And here’s the opportunity actually to do as you transition to make the time and unlock the best side of you.

Amit Ray: Right, so thanks a lot, Arvind, these are all extremely good lessons. And more importantly, I think, for anyone who is looking at moving away from their corporate job, and intending to do something on their own, I think these are all excellent things to be aware of and plan for, before kind of jumping into this whole thing.

Because I think what you’ve outlined here, in summary, is like two sides of the coin, there are a lot of good things happening, which are you get to live your own life, you get to rediscover yourself, reconnect with your passions, take some time to get things done versus operating on somebody else’s timeline. But on the other hand, you have to know that you’re gonna face rejection, you have to know that you’re not gonna be able to ride on the brand that you were part of earlier, you have to be doubly cautious around earning cash burn, things like that.

So, I think there’s the positive and the, well, the downsides of the things to plan for. And these are all things I’m so happy you outline because these are things people should definitely think about before they take the plunge.

Arvind Sankaran: This is really reality-based, I guess, sharing where there are a lot of good things, and there are also things that you got to be prepared for. And once you’ve made the decision, that’s, I would say, more than half of the inner battle won, what comes ahead is really up to how you kind of move forward and believe in yourself and take help from folks around, you know, one thing that I’d say goes to the heart of the success of these kinds of transitions is the person in your life who will be your rock.

And in my case, it’s my wife, who’s been an absolute rock through this transition. And because, like I said, when one has to make such a significant personal decision to transition out of what is seemingly very stable existence it is super important that you have a person in your life who believes and has complete faith and is willing to back you up, and I think so ever grateful to my wife, who’s been a rock in this journey. And I would say that’s important for anyone, and whether it’s career, or whether it’s anything else, I think it’s important that you recognize and value that support in your life.

Amit Ray: Yeah, exactly. And as you said, I mean, if this is all about your journey, as a within quotes, founder, this person is going to be your co-founder, essentially.

Arvind Sankaran: Exactly, I think that’s a great way of putting it Amit, really co-founder, I’d say even copilot, because it is you are going to achieve altitude, and there are going to be clouds along the way. So you need a copilot with a good pair of hands sitting by your side. And that’s like an assurance and confidence booster like nothing else.

Amit Ray: Right. So Arvind, thank you so much for sharing all of this. If I might just summarise in about a minute or so. So first, we talked about how you get started, and your approach was to find a way to provide value. So it’s not so much about, okay, here’s my service now, who wants to pay me X amount for it, your approach was to, you know, I mean, you of course, worked with a firm and then found a bunch of founders to work with, but essentially, the essence of this was, look for people who will value your advice, and then work with them in a manner where you justify the time that they’re committing to you and in doing the work in the best possible manner.

And by doing that, you unlock a lot of other good things, which is, you become known in the market, your customers or people you’re working with, become your advocates, you don’t have to spend so much time trying to sell yourself, you don’t even have to spend much time pricing yourself. Because if you’re adding value, anybody can see that, and they will give you something that’s commensurate with all of that. And all of this stuff seems to take something in the range of maybe two to three years, for this whole wheel to kind of start turning.

And then subsequent to that, you also shared your lessons for people who are trying to make this transition. And they were really good ones. So I’m just going to go through them quickly, once again. So one is to understand for yourself, whether you’re the type who prefers safety, or you prefer adventure, safe harbour, or stormy seas, and you need to be comfortable with the concept of stormy seas.

The second is burning your CV, because what you did in the past in a linear fashion won’t count in the future, you’re trying to be of value to someone. So you need to be able to communicate your value, not your history.

The third point was looking in the mirror. So are you really going to be able to handle all of this uncertainty, handle explaining yourself to people who you know, handle, not having the name brand behind you, and just be your own person?

Fourth was doing the maths. So make sure that you actually have the wherewithal to sustain this till such time as that wheel starts turning and making things happen. Be your own founder. So act like how startup founders would have to act, which is you have to go and actually make things happen. You have to be humble, maybe there were people who were three, or four levels junior to you in your past life, but now they are going to be the people who are going to give you work, so you have to be able to work with them.

The next point was around writing your own J Curve. So this whole process can be quite kind of a bit of a downer, I guess initially. And so it is possible that in three or six months, you will be questioning your life choices. And thinking about whether you should get back. But if you’ve done the thinking in advance, then you will be able to ride out that valley of death.

The next point you made was about unwinding and being kind to yourself. If you’ve taken all the trouble to leave a certain environment to rediscover yourself, don’t recreate that hamster wheel once again, related to that was finding your mojo. So if you had a certain passion area in the past, rediscover that, and do it again, in fact, apart from the enjoyment you get from it, it will also actually fuel your work itself because it helps you de-stress in one area so that you can take the heavy lifting in the actual work area.

The next point you made was about bandwidth. And I think you said that we make excuses around not having enough time. But in reality, there is plenty of time, we just use it inefficiently. And especially at work when you have meetings and presentations and calls and stuff like that, and probably office politics also, it’s a lot of time is just consumed in that busy work kind of stuff. And maybe now you’ll actually be able to deliver things much more efficiently.

And the last point you made at the end was about finding your rock, which is to have someone in your life who believes in you, who supports this whole mission, and is going to be there for your good times, and at least your initial bad times, and they’re kind of give you the push that you need.

So, thank you so much, Arvind, this was a lot of good knowledge and experiential learning, compressed into 30 minutes.

Arvind Sankaran: Thanks for having me once again on the show. And it’s a pleasure to share my own little playbook of life that I’ve kind of come to develop, and hopefully, it’s of some use to your listeners out there. And when I think about it, and what’s going on today, the phenomenon of the great resignation, as we read, if I reflect back in a very humble way, it wasn’t a giant leap for mankind.

But it was a giant leap for one man seven years ago when I triggered my own great resignation. That’s what I came to realise in an epiphany, you know, recently that maybe that’s what happened to me. And here I am. And here we are talking about this topic. So thanks once again, for giving me the chance to share my own journey.

Amit Ray: Yeah, thanks, Arvind. And you’re right I mean, the same triggers that are leading millions of people to rethink their lives were your trigger as well, most likely seven years ago. So maybe you were like the original create resignation, patient zero. So, thank you once again, Arvind, for joining us today. And for those listening, please do remember to rate this episode five stars. It was definitely a five-star episode. So go ahead and click that. And do follow our show so that you don’t miss any of the excellent episodes we have coming up. So once again, thank you for joining us today. We were Arvind and Amit with ShopTok. See you next time.

The post ST19 | Making The Transition From Corporate Leader To Consultant appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

Revolutionary products often have a history of being labeled as “needless” – till people suddenly discover they really need them! That’s how it was with Graphene. Back in 2014, when Santosh Katti first started trying to sell AI as a service to clients, nobody seemed to understand its potential. It took years to build and educate the market, but it paid off in spades as it became one of the earliest players in a major new industry. On this episode of ShopTok we’ll learn from Santosh how he found ways to keep going while trying to sell the value proposition of his nascent product.

Discussion  Topics: Santosh Katti on Learning from Objections When Launching a New Product

• Taking the entrepreneurial plunge after working with established brands
• Identifying what to sell and how
• Starting off: Finding the first few customers
• Building a team within resource constraints
• Positioning yourself differently in the market
• Celebrating small joys

Transcript: Santosh Katti on Learning from Objections When Launching a New Product

Amit Ray: Many business owners start off selling products or services that their prospective buyers are familiar with but with maybe a twist that helps them differentiate from their competition. But what do you do when your business is built on a concept that’s entirely new to the world? Or at least it’s new to the clients that you need to help establish your business. Today, we’re talking to Santosh Katti, founder, and CEO of Graphene, an Analytics and AI-based company founded almost eight years ago, when AI was more the kind of thing you read about in sci-fi books, than something that’s in everyday use.

He’s gonna help us understand how he got started in this space, and also how he overcame some of the early challenges to actually build out a business in this area. But first, please follow ShopTok to get the best small business insights from across Asia. So with that said, Santosh, thank you so much for joining us today. Maybe for a start could you tell us a little bit about yourself and about Graphene?

Santosh Katti: Thank you so much for having me, Amit. It’s an honour. And it’s funny, you said about eight years because April first is when we actually completed eight years of Graphene. So it’s very, very timely.

Amit Ray: Wow. What a date for starting a business.

Santosh Katti: Yes, you know, you’ll say you’re hungry or foolish to be a startup entrepreneur, April Fool’s Day is the right day to start. And I keep joking because a lot of people don’t know that Apple also started on April one. So I keep saying, well, there are other fools who started on the same day. So yes, so that’s kind of the journey. I’m an Engineer by training. I did my Engineering in electronics and worked for a couple of years at IBM, in sales and marketing. And my first boss at IBM actually advised me to go get an MBA and said look, it’s going to really help you if you’re interested in sales and marketing.

And that’s how I went and did my MBA from one of the B schools in India Cordance Institute of Management. And since I was working at IBM, I always thought I’d probably come back and join the IT industry again, but I just accidentally stumbled upon an internship at Unilever. And I loved the FMCG experience, and then, therefore, I worked for a long time at P&G. I joined P&G in India, they moved me to Singapore, in 2001, and I’ve been in Singapore since then, and I spent till 2011 with them. And then I got interested in health care. So I went and worked at Johnson and Johnson for three and a half years and then co-founded Graphene in 2014.

Now, a couple of interesting tidbits on that. The reason that I got into data is because P&G is a fascinating company, it teaches you many things. But of all of that, what it teaches you is that by using data, you can turn marketing into a science and it’s not seen as an art form at all. So that was fascinating for me to understand how to really use the power of data to run a business. The other interesting factor and what I told you is that when I co-founded Graphene, my first boss, who told me to go get my MBA, he was in Microsoft, Singapore, and I somehow conned them into coming and joining me, he now my co-founder of Graphene. So that’s kind of my journey here. So that’s how Graphene started. And here we are stumbling one way and the other, somehow managing to hustle for eight years, and we continue to survive.

Amit Ray: Yeah, that’s amazing. And, I mean, there are so many fun things there. I mean, the fact that you’ve co-founded a company with your boss, most people are trying to run away from their ex-boss, especially nowadays. So, that’s really nice that you were able to build that relationship and actually do that. So, tell me, how did you actually get started on this journey? What are your first steps? How were you feeling at that time?

Santosh Katti: Sure. Actually, the first seeds of this were sown in my first assignment at P&G, because when I was doing my MBA, I opted for a special course and a special project on multimedia communication. So when I joined P&G, I wrote to them to say look, I would like something in the dot com area that was the first dot com boom for those of us who are old enough to remember. And so P&G actually had started a teen portal. So they put me in charge of the teen portal. And it was a different office.

I mean, I was in P&G, but I was not at P&G running a startup within P&G. And that’s when you know, sometimes you experience certain things, and then your primal instinct tells you, that’s what you’re made for. And ever since then, you know, I’ve always wanted to go do something on my own, because the thrill of working in an unstructured environment, the thrill of trying to build something was something that no large company experience could give.

So the underpinnings were always there. And I think, as the digital revolution descended, and for example, back in 2000, at P&G, we used to spend 95% of our money on TV, by the time 2010 came, only around 40% was being spent on TV, that’s how the digital explosion had happened in 10 years. And I was seeing that. And that’s when I saw that, the power of data in the digital space and the way that you could really make an impact with that was fascinating.

And then, one of the things I realised is that, in that new digital space, you needed to have worked in the client world to have understood how leaders use it before you could step out and help them. And because I had a unique advantage, I thought that was the right time to go out and do something with data analytics. That’s how Graphene started.

Amit Ray: Right. So what you’re saying is that, because you had this insight and knowledge, because you’re on the client side, and now you could actually go out and build something which clients like yourself would have wanted to use. And did you focus, like was this only for consumer goods what you were doing?

Santosh Katti: Well, honestly, no. As you know, we are a self-funded start-up. So we went through a journey where initially, I think our biggest issue was the focus. We were just struggling so we took up anything that came our way. And honestly, it’s a funny story now. But we actually survived the first year by actually building software for others, even though we claim that we were an analytics company, we didn’t have the chops, and nobody gave us the business that we wanted. And we sold, and we built software sites, we made specific applications, software, and then survived till we got small projects and established credibility and started building our way.

And I think, the thing that we did do, though, is we focused on the areas we knew well, and to that extent, we always focused on FMCG. And because I’d worked in J&J Pharma. So those were the spaces that we understood well, and as I said, since we were trying to understand it from a client standpoint, we wanted to really enable decisions for those leaders. For example, we didn’t understand the telecommunication business very well, we didn’t understand the hotel industry very well, because none of us had worked there. But because we understood the FMCG and pharma space, and we also then had contacts, we were able to go in and pull others in that industry to come and work for us, we kind of started specialising in those two areas.

Amit Ray: Interesting, maybe let’s spend a little bit of time on the first year because it’s interesting that you say that you ended up doing something altogether different from what your desire was. And obviously, it’s understandable if you’ve started a business you want to do A but they want to pay you for B. So you do B till you can get them to agree to do A as well. But did you feel kind of like you were being diverted from what you wanted to do? Or did you feel demoralised at that time, because you were forced to do something that wasn’t really what you intended?

Santosh Katti: Well, demoralised, this isn’t definitely the word but there was definitely a lot of stress. Because this was self-funded. We were actually using up money from our bank accounts, literally. And we could see our bank balance going down and burning the money to do this. And there were a couple of very, very interesting insights, but that really shaped who we are. I think the first was having spent so long in the corporate world, you tend to believe that hey, you have all these connections and it should be easy to get business from them.

But that was far from the truth. And you know, they were good friends, people who really trusted me or candid to say that look, we don’t know if you’re going to shut down tomorrow. And we can’t trust our business with you, however much I like you as a person, and we can put our careers on the line. And some of them said it overtly, some of them, not so overtly. And it was something you had respect for. Of course, eventually, when the credibility got built the same people who had a certain amount of trust in the capabilities we had established, did give us the business. Still, initially, they didn’t want to.

And that was not something that we had assumed, you know, till you step out there, you don’t realise that, that was one big insight for us to say that, look, you need to stay in the business and build the credibility and be around for some time before people start seeing you as a fly by night operator. And we had to really trust that.

The second is, I would almost say the first year, we did not become self-funded by Design. In the first year, it was almost by accident. We didn’t want to raise funds. But when we went to raise funds, the interesting thing we were told is that because both of us came from the corporate world, both of us were about 40 when we started, we were told that we were too old, and we were not as risk-averse as investors would expect us to be.

And that was one of the reasons why we initially couldn’t be funded. And those two were really important reality checks for us because what we realise is, look, you should initially focus on generating cash, if you don’t have a cash base, then it’s not going to get anywhere. But the way we saw this is we knew that fundamentally, anything you did in analytics had to have a very strong technology underpinning. So as long as we were doing things like say, going and generating posters, trying to do creative stuff, we’re really focused on something which is still the core of what it’s going to help us build.

We thought it was okay. And it was because by actually going and building some of this tech, what we understood was that some of this tech was important. For example, today, when we look at the kinds of dashboards, we build out, we build out custom-made dashboards, we don’t rely on the, you know, as you know, some of the standard dashboard software, and things like Tableau and Power BI, but what we have realised is that if you want to give customers a truly intuitive experience, you need to build your own custom charts.

So to some extent, some of what we did back then in the power of the user experience, helped us look at ourselves to be the Apple of the analytics industry to say that, look, a lot of people may be generating data, how can you be the one that makes it truly intuitive and simple for the senior leaders to get their insights. So there was that benefit, but we didn’t think that we were going too far away from the underpinnings of what was needed to succeed. So we kind of focused on it and generated the cash.

Amit Ray: This is really interesting. So essentially, you were doing something different, but it was still in the same wheelhouse. So it wasn’t time wasted, or as bad as it could have been if you did something altogether different. So this is interesting. And, in fact, the other point I noted was the fact that you had networks and you thought you could tap on them. It didn’t turn out to be, you know, all as easy as one would think, you know, I know this person and they know me, so they want to give me business.

That’s really good to know. Because actually, many of the interviews I’ve done so far and frankly, most service businesses, or product businesses that started out offering services could usually go start with people that they know, but I think everyone should understand that it’s not that straightforward. It’s not just your relationship. It’s also that person’s organisational situation that plays a role in all of this. So this is interesting. So, let’s talk about how you actually got the first few customers we’ve talked about some of the challenges in getting them. But what helped some people actually onboard onto your service especially the analytics one which was not tested?

Santosh Katti: Sure. The way it all started was purely cold calling. As a matter of fact, that is funny because I knew I had to start this for a long time I had been building my networks, and in the network, I met this gentleman who had a catchphrase that said if you have the know-how I have to know who and his role was you paid him flat fee every month. And he would just help organise networking meetings with people who were in senior positions. And we paid that money, we used to land up in those networking sessions.

And finally, we would go and get leads from those meetings, go meet these people. And that’s how we initially started because we started working for some SMEs in Singapore. And they were building out certain semi-analytic, semi-software kinds of platforms, and we helped partner with them and build those out. And that’s how we started some of our journeys through just cold calling on these people. And some of them just liked the fact that they also didn’t want to work with the large boys, they wanted to work with an SME. And we had a few of these SMEs, who told us that they want to work with somebody who’s hungry. And they don’t know what work with the big boys where they’re just a small priority, and they don’t get the priority they want. So that’s how we started.

But eventually, I think the realisation done that, if you’re going to focus on things like analytics, you have to go after the big players, and we were focused on FMCG and pharma. And we continue to then take the money we generated from these SMEs and focus all our business development efforts on pharma and FMCG. And we started getting small projects, really small projects, you know, they would be around $10,000 sometimes, and that’s all it would be.

But what it helped us do is it helped us establish credibility, because some of the work we did there was well recognized. And then, interestingly, one of the large pharma companies came along, and in that large pharma company, they said, look, we’re actually looking for a couple of analysts. And what we did is, we had some of our best talent, who are very, very good analysts, and we said, sure we will support you, we will do the work, we can’t kind of body shop, but we will support you, and then that’s how that relationship started.

And then, interestingly, one of these analysts who was working there, then told us about look, here is the head of insights for this company, and that was sitting in a different country, and then she made the introduction, and we started talking to him about our proposition. And then, this way, what happened is that there are two or three such pharma companies where they have given our RFPs. And, candidly, we want some of those RFPs, because of two reasons.

One is we had similar to this company, done enough work where we met the technical threshold of having been known. And we obviously went in with the lowest price, the others were all the big boys. And they were small projects for the big boys, but they were big projects for us. Because they were, for example, five-month projects with six people. And that was very big for us. And that’s how we started.

We actually started in pharma. And in pharma, we did core analytics, which is used to take their data, do specific models, give them dashboards, and in pharma one of the things that’s the very biggest part, is planning where they actually do scenario planning. So that’s how we started and then started slowly establishing a base in analytics. And that’s kind of how our initial years went before we stumbled upon AI.

Amit Ray: So, if I understood it right, these cold calls, and getting into the room with the management that you wanted to talk to, this would have been your responsibility, right, you and maybe your co-founder, as well. So, did you have a sales team as well doing similar kinds of work? Or was it just you both doing the selling initially or maybe now?

Santosh Katti: Well, that’s a great question. It was founder-led, selling for the first four years of our existence. And even in the founder-led selling, my co-founder was more adept at managing the organisation rather than selling. So I used to front a lot of the selling, and so for the first four years, everything we did was through founder-led selling, when it became interesting came to a point where we had a reasonable amount of revenue, and we had a certain amount of momentum. And one of our mentors then advised us that the time had come for us to switch the model. And he said that look, you cannot continue with the founder-led selling, because otherwise, you’re not going to get to the next level.

So that was when we actually consciously stepped back and started hiring a salesforce to then drive the sales. But as is with startups, we’re still relatively small. Some of the core relationships with senior management continue to be with the founders. Some of the strategic sales still actively involved the founders. But I think it’s important, think, for us to recognize that look, if you want to scale, you have to step away, you need to empower a salesforce. And that’s kind of this journey we’ve been on for the last four years.

Amit Ray: Well, first of all, both the founders were doing sales, but you were taking more of the share of that and your co-founder was managing well, the rest of the actual delivery and managing the work.

Santosh Katti: Absolutely. I think it was important not to step in each other’s shoes and really make sure that we’re not duplicating our efforts.

Amit Ray: Right. And you intentionally kept that going till you were in a position where you thought it was worth building a sales team at that point. That’s a good insight as well, which is, I mean, again, in a service business, I think maybe there is a temptation that Oh, I can grow my business manyfold if I just bring a lot more people and they will be the arms and legs. But you stayed away from that because you needed to build these relationships and these are larger companies. So it’s a bit more high risk, I guess, to have just anyone going and talking to the senior management that you were talking to earlier.

Santosh Katti: That’s one, definitely. The other interesting thing is, I think that’s what helped us evolve. Because as the founders, we were at the forefront of what the client’s needs were. And it helped us shape the proposition, it helped us understand why we were not able to sell in, or when we sold in, what was the real opportunity. So as you know, we are an AI company now. But when we started, we weren’t, we were a core analytics company. And it was really being there at the forefront of trying to sell to the client that helped us understand that there is a big opportunity in AI and therefore go there. And I don’t think that would have happened unless we were so actively involved in the selling. So that was the other advantage.

Amit Ray: Right. So speaking about hiring, since we kind of got to that topic How did you get your first few hires? Because you were a new business starting out even clients themselves don’t believe you will be around for very long. You know, it’s much harder for a prospective employee to believe that. So how did you make that happen?

Santosh Katti: Well, interestingly, all of my first few hires, employees, five were friends and family. And the friends were all people that I knew well, and I think they had a certain trust that, look, this guy is somebody that we’ve known well, and if he’s doing something, it’s worth taking a chance. And they’ve all been with me even now, you know, since the beginning, they’ve been with me.

Where the family was concerned, it was a convenient arrangement, because, for example, there was one family member who had come to Singapore, and she was really desperate to get something to supplement her income and so we just said, fine, come and help us. And it was a very small amount of money we paid, but it was still enough for her versus nothing. And it kept her occupied. So it was a win-win. So that’s how we started, and some of them just came and said, look, it’s a convenient arrangement.

Some of them, especially the friends came, because I think there was a certain amount of trust. And even when we started our India operations, we actually went with somebody we knew who had a development team. We actually outsourced a bit of our work to them, simply because they knew us, and there’s a certain amount of trust. But then, as we started growing, we’ve been conscious to do two things. One is, as you know, we are in Singapore, and we don’t want to be seen in Singapore and made up of only friends and family because automatically that would become an Indian operation.

So we consciously invested in making sure we actually got some locals on board, local Singaporeans. And then that’s how we started building an organisation very consciously making sure that there is sufficient gender diversity, there is sufficient racial diversity. And that’s how we’ve built it. But yes, the first few were our friends and family. But I would say that even if it’s friends and family, we had to pick well, because if these people you pick people who really didn’t represent your company, well, I don’t think the other employees would have come and joined.

So I think there was a bit of discretion applied there. And that has worked out, for example, one of my friends who came on board back then, is still with us, because the way that he trains and helps youngsters really understand technology is so good, that he’s built a name for himself in the industry. And many people now come and join us in India, especially just for him because they say, Hey, we get to work with him, we get to learn from him. And he’s our CTO. So it’s been a bit of that we’re being deliberate about the kind of people that you bring in. And it seems to have worked.

Amit Ray: Actually, that’s a very interesting point, which is the fact that people are joining you on the strength of a person’s reputation. Because nowadays, there’s so much discussion around the difficulty of getting talent. And in Singapore, there’s maybe just a pure shortage of people. In India, it’s hard to get people, because so many companies are trying to hire them. So how are you adapting to this or how have you figured out ways around this today’s challenge?

Santosh Katti: That’s a great question. And I would say that in the eight years that we have existed, nothing has been as challenging to us and from an existential standpoint, as the talent issues that we’ve seen in the last year. We’ve seen 35% attrition, and that is the average in India. We’ve seen salaries go up 50% in India, even in a place like Singapore, especially after the pandemic started, and for various set of reasons, talent mobility significantly declined.

It’s not been easy to find talent even in Singapore. And what we’ve seen is that really, there is a set of companies like us and the larger the state tech players who say, in the services industry do have a profitability target, and therefore have to be prudent about the kind of pay that we can afford. And then, of course, there are the startups both in India and Singapore, which are flush with funds, who really don’t have to bother right now about profitability, and they can really burn what they want.

And what this is created is a dichotomy where there is a market where there is talent who is saying, Hey, I’m getting to 50% outside, people who are paying 50%, are more or less the big tech companies, like the Googles, and the Facebook’s, or the startups, where as long as you got talent, they are pretty much okay to pay what you want.

And we’ve now spent six, eight months where certain positions have not been filled. And it’s kind of a vicious cycle because what happens is those who are left suddenly are carrying more load. And then they get more frustrated. And they start saying, why should I do this when I’m getting a better job outside? So it’s become a bit of a vicious circle. And it has definitely slowed down some of our product plans, and growth plans because it forced us to get into firefighting mode because you need to really serve your existing clients first.

So it slowed down my business development because this is the only capacity we have. What it has done, therefore, is, at least for us, and I know that there are a few other companies in the start-up space who are also thinking like us, it’s forcing us to step away from some of the more sophisticated analytics capabilities that we’re providing, to really bring it down to simple tools that we think can just be launched as software.

So we’ve actually spent the last seven, eight months moving away from some of the more sophisticated capabilities that we were building. And it’s a complete change in our model because we don’t see this issue in talent shortage and the talent gap fixing itself for the next two to three years. And we are not going to be able to sustain in the next two to three years if this goes on.

So we’ve actively started investing in building out simple products that are actually tools, and we don’t have a choice but we evolved that way. And that’s kind of gonna be, I think, the challenge for any self-funded tech start-up who wants to also maintain a certain profitability, and a certain cost cadence as they build their teams.

Amit Ray: Right. Really interesting, Santosh, and thanks for sharing this, it’s so candidly as well, I’ve heard this from a lot of people. So you’re obviously not the only one saying this. And you’re right, I think companies are beginning to have to get more creative. And your solution seems to be to productize to the extent that you can so that there’s less dependence on people. So speaking of product, this is the bit that I kind of alluded to at the start.

So, you didn’t start out as an AI company, but you got into that at some point early in the journey. And AI today, you know, if you tell somebody it’s ubiquitous like all of us know AI, we know what it can do. It’s like, so many things are happening across all industries. But when you were trying to introduce this concept, it wouldn’t have been that well known. And surely not something that a P&G or a Unilever would have been thinking about, you know, how to use in their day-to-day life. So how did you actually get them to even understand what you’re talking about and then get them to adopt it?

Santosh Katti: Great question again. So let me give you a bit of a background on where we started, you know, focusing on AI and then how that journey involved. In P&G, we used to have this theory, which is very sound that you finally have the consumer and the way that the consumer behaves is driven a lot by the marketing inputs you provide. But you have to measure that marketing input. And a big way of measuring that marketing input was to measure the heart and mind of the consumer and how that changes.

And therefore there was a lot of investment in market research. And there was almost as much investment in measuring the heart and mind as measuring the behaviour. You know, there are different data companies that do both like the AC Nielsen, of the world measuring shopping behaviour. But again, there are many other companies that only do market research. And it was easy to do.

When we stepped into pharma, what we realised is it’s not that easy to do market research among doctors, because they’re hardly available. And it’s costly to find them and do that kind of market research. And that’s where we saw an opportunity to say, hey, what if we take what’s happening in the FMCG industry, which is a quantitative measure of the doctors’ perceptions and thoughts? And the reason we thought that there is an opportunity is back, then we realised that there were more than 4 million doctors who were active online.

But they were using anonymous handles, because there were legal and ethical reasons they didn’t want to be known that they were doctors but they were using these handles, and then we found a way. And then we built a collaborative network. We didn’t do all of this ourselves, we built a collaborative network of other tech experts and companies through which we said, look, how do we get this, how do we then take that unstructured data and convert it into market research kind of data? And therefore we went to pharma companies and said, look, we can give you this kind of data, which today you get, but you get it with a lot of effort, and you get it on a small base here is where we can give you that and that’s how we started.

And the fact that we started with pharma was itself interesting, because in pharma given the compliance challenges, given that, you know, they’re far more demanding on understanding how this works, because of their own compliance challenges. It set the bar very high for us. And so, we understood some of the things we need to do to really explain to them how this works.

But we went a step further, because obviously, by that time we had figured out that even in this space, the most demanding client is the Japanese client. Because the Japanese want to get into so much detail, they need to understand things so systematically, that we actually spent a whole year and a half pitching to Japanese companies and Japanese pharma companies. We got kicked out most times, they would not even call us back. But by the six months we had understood enough to say that, look, here are the objections that they’re going to raise. And what used to happen is because AI was so new, they would raise these objections. And all of the meetings were taken up in trying to explain those objections.

So by the end of six months, we knew that here are the most frequent objections that come up. And the way we addressed it is, we said, look, let’s build out demos, which actually show them how this works so that the objection directly gets handled. So by the sixth month, we developed demos where we would go in and we had a flow to say that we almost knew how their minds work. So we would start with some basic concepts. And then we would show them we’d say, look, this is what it’s doing.

And they would see for themselves that okay, what he’s saying it’s doing, and we would then take some sample text, and because this is language-based clustering, so the essential concept we were telling them looks, it can look at opinions expressed by doctors, and then classify it according to say, safety and efficacy. We would take 10 fake reviews from doctors and say, look, we’re pushing it through this, and then it will classify it according to safety and efficacy. And then they could read it for themselves in Japanese, and say, Alright, this makes sense. It’s doing it the way that I would do it. And therefore now, I believe you.

So we built such simple demos, where it was no longer a black box, it was no longer How can I believe you? And then, as we built these demos, and we started getting some business what started happening is we realised that all these companies had additional data and we needed to calibrate it to that data. And we understood that very, very early. So into the day AI is all about pattern recognition.

So the other thing that we very quickly did is we started going to these companies and said, look, if you have existing data, please give it to us, because we want to calibrate our patterns to the data you have because that was the other level. Because otherwise, the big objection we found was, oh, I have data here, your data doesn’t match this. And so because we understood that that’s going to come up, we started asking for the data. And so then that built the additional credibility because then they knew that the data was lining up to some of what they knew.

And, for example, if you went into a market, say you’re doing work on diabetes, and there was a market player who said 70% of the market, which usually happens because, in diabetes, there are usually three big players and one of the players dominates a certain kind of the diabetes treatment option. And then, if we went and showed that, look, there are more doctors who seem to be preferring the competition, then they would turn around and say, how is that possible when we are the market leaders? And so that’s why we had to use the data to calibrate it so that there was a certain correlation between what the doctors were saying versus what the market shares indicated, just as an example.

So that really helped. And then P&G was my old company. And then I think by that time, we had a certain level of credibility, I think the way we want those is because we went in, and there were some unique challenges. And I think P&G being such an innovative, forward-thinking company, they always take bets on startups. And so I think, because we had the credibility, and they knew me, and I was able to kind of explain in their language and how this would work I think they took a punt on us. P&G being P&G will always take a punt on, PNG, and Unilever, are all very forward-thinking Companies. So that was kind of once we had that credibility in pharma, it was easier to win a P&G. So that’s how it worked.

Amit Ray: You know what, Santosh I took away something very interesting from this, which is that you ended up in the hardest market, which is Japan, and then you kept at it for six months, essentially getting thrown out of the room until you knew what they’re going to ask. And so you could pre-address it. But what kept you interested in the hardest market? Why start there and not start somewhere else where it might have been easier to get a foothold, and then you build up to the difficult markets?

Santosh Katti: No, that’s a great point Amit because our number one market is today, the US. And as a matter of fact, pretty quickly, we pivoted to the US. The reason we went to the hardest market was because back then we were trying to establish AI. And it was a very unknown thing back then this was 2015, 2016, when people really didn’t know the concept. The reason we went to the hardest market to learn this was because fundamentally, it has become a global decision-making entity.

So we knew that suppose we went to the US, somebody in the US would then involve somebody globally, and that person is likely going to be Japanese. And we knew that if we’d done that because we’d gone to the large companies, we’d gone to the toughest market across the world some of those objections would get handled. And then we pivoted our focus was Singapore, it shifted to the US. And yes, it’s always happened because we run into Japanese sitting in Brazil, who sometimes join the call and ask us these questions. We have actually run into a Turkish gentleman sitting in Boston who was equally aggressive and saying, I don’t believe you. But because we kind of worked through this rigour, it helped us address all global citizens who are decision-makers in a company.

Amit Ray: Very good learning Santosh. This is not something one would normally use as an approach. But you’re essentially saying, if you go to the hardest country, the hardest decision maker, the hardest company, whoever’s gonna set the benchmark, and you’re able to satisfy them, then you’re almost certainly going to make it easier for yourself down the line. So you can either choose to be easy upfront and then really have a tough time later or just take the hits at the start. But then you open up pretty much the entire world after that. And this is a really excellent point. So thanks for sharing that. So what were some of the other challenges or maybe some difficult decisions or choices that you had to make in the course of Graphene?

Santosh Katti: So, I think some of the difficult decisions we’ve had to make have always been around what aligns with our values. And I have a couple of stories to share that kind of indicate what they are. One of them is a pharma company where we got referred by another, and said, look, in this space, these are the best people to work with. But when we started working with the CTO and his team, what we realised is this was around two months into the engagement and we were still the senior leadership who was engaging them.

And we very quickly realised that the way they were dealing with us was the kind of upfront aggression that they were bringing, and one of my senior leadership members turned around and said, I just feel insulted by the way that they question my capabilities and openly say that I don’t know things. And what we realised is for the kind of company we have built, where we really treat our people with a lot of respect, we foster a growing culture, we foster a curious culture. And we have a rule to say, don’t hire a jerk.

For example, we say it. And it was a very large order. It would have grown our overall revenue by 25% that year if we had taken that order. But I think we took the collective decision to say that we will not take it because we don’t want to expose our people to this kind of organisation.

So I had to call the CTO in the evening and say, look, please don’t take this the wrong way. I understand that your company has a certain culture, which is a lot more confrontational, but I don’t think we’re going to succeed in that culture. Because that’s not how we’ve built our culture. And we don’t want to take on something where we already know we’re gonna fail. So it’s A, we need to be honest with you, we want you to succeed. And we know what we don’t want as a partner. And the second is, this is just who we are. And so we actually took a call to step away.

So that’s one instance, but it really won us respect within the company. And I think our employees really, really said, look, these guys look out for us. So that really helped us gain a certain amount of respect. But it was a painful decision because obviously, it was one of our clients who recommended us so we had to manage that relationship. But I think it was the right thing to do. So that’s been one difficult decision. So it always comes down to sometimes what’s the right thing to do when there’s a lot of money on the table. So a lot of those decisions come down to that.

I think the second was, as we started with some of the legacy analytics business, and there was a client who was in some of the legacy business, and we kept advising that client to say, look, you need to move, this is an outdated technology, it was an analytics technology. And then we continued to support that client for three years, even though the technology was outdated, we actually had one person who was just working on this, and we were making no money on it, but we still supported that person.

But then this client actually went down in the market, looked in Singapore, looked in India, and they could not find one person who wanted to work on this technology anymore. And you know how red hot the analytics market is, unless it’s hot technology, and nobody wants to work on it. And that was one of the other things where it was a difficult decision for us to go and tell them that look, we don’t want to support this anymore.

And I think we had to do it in a way where we had to bring in the right amount of transparency. And the way we did it is we actually said, look, the one person we have who is working with this also wants to move on. And we facilitated and said that if you want to directly hire this person, please talk to him.

But that person did not want to join, because he also said the same thing saying, look, I’m getting something much more exciting to do, I don’t want to come and join you. And so sometimes this decision has also come down to helping clients understand that look if you’re working on technologies, that talent is not considered to be exciting enough, then over a period of time, if you don’t move out the market will force you to change your technology base.

So those were a couple of difficult decisions where you got to look at your talent, you got to look at your client. And sometimes there is always a disconnect between what the client wants, and what’s the right thing by the client and by the talent. And those are the places where we’ve had the most difficult decisions to make.

Amit Ray: Yeah, sounds quite challenging, actually. You’re right, because this is relatively early in your business, and you’re giving up large sums of money. In fact, if anything, in the second example, by supporting an outdated technology, you’d be the only one doing it. So it would be almost as if there was no choice but to keep working with you. It’s like what happens in banks now with mainframes, there’s hardly anybody left who can do it.

But you’re gonna pay them whatever it takes to keep it running. So interesting that you had to make these challenges and you chose people over money, which I think is fantastic. So let’s talk a little bit about the later stages. So your business has been growing, you’re actually in multiple countries as well. So how have you managed this growth or, as in what was your thought process behind growth, where did you choose to focus if at all you chose to focus, and things like that?

Santosh Katti: We initially, as I said, focused because it was healthcare only. And if you see how healthcare works, the US is the largest market, India has another large market for generics and Japan is very big. And then Switzerland is very big. So we kind of kept our focus on these four markets initially. Then what we learned over a period of time is, it’s better to look at it as the English-speaking markets versus to look at it the way we were looking at it as the pharma centres.

And there was a reason for that. One is, as we understood India, we realise that for small companies like ours, unless you’re a huge company, you will always find that for the same amount of shall we say, bandwidth, if you need to make a choice between the US and a developing market, the US will always be far more profit, bang for the buck. So we have realised that look, for a small company like ours, we should only focus on the developed markets. And the other thing we realised is, as much as we thought that you’re upwards is one block, it doesn’t.

When you go and look at Switzerland. And we still do a lot of work across some of these markets. But it is driven by a central decision-making body with the headquarters of one of the pharma companies, what we realised is that they all operate as small independent countries, there is really not enough scale.

And Japan, what we realised is that the sale cycles are really, really long. And all of these are difficult choices that only come up when you’re as smaller a startup as you are where you need to make much more careful choices on where, as you said, the bang for the buck is the best. And so the last two, two and a half years, we’ve made a conscious decision to say we’ll only focus on what we call the English-speaking countries. And English-speaking countries, what we have realised is the biggest is the US and there is almost like a spillover effect to the UK, Canada, Australia, a bit of South Africa, a bit of Singapore, a bit of India.

But we single-mindedly focused on designing for the US. And when we do that because we’re very close to India, there are times when they turn around and say why don’t you start work with our Asian countries first, and we say if so we want to work in either Australia or India, because those are your big English speaking markets. So sometimes the US companies want us to first work here and establish credibility, in which case we can. But that focus is really helping us because we are now single-mindedly focused on one market, other than whatever we build in India.

And so that’s really helping, we’ve now got the sales office in the US, as a matter of fact, on Monday, I’ll be traveling to the US. And between now and the year-end every month, there’ll be somebody from Graphene, probably in the US. That’s the kind of clarity. If you are not doing anything else otherwise before you would be in six different markets. But all that is now get what focused on because we see the scale in the US and then the spillover in the other markets.

Amit Ray: Yeah, this is interesting also, because you’re therefore able to be there for your customers versus like you said, if you’re in 10 different places, and you have only five people, you are going to only get there once every three or six months. And then you will definitely be out-competed by somebody who’s there locally. Versus you’re almost local to that person because you’re there so frequently. Yeah, this is interesting. And the ROI point is a really good one, either on investment or on effort or on time it makes sense because you can’t afford to have a 12-month cycle before you get paid for something, or to take too long, or to work in a complex environment, like a different language where you’d have to get somebody who can actually operate in that language and then they can only do that. So it’s interesting.

Santosh Katti: Yeah, and as you say that Amit, you know the things that are playing back in my mind, and I’m just leaving this for other people who are taking a similar journey is I think many founders, I speak to, many people who I speak to have a couple of barriers in their mind when they look at the US right one is Oh, it’s a different time zone. The second is everybody’s doing it. Why should I do it? Let me do it differently. Maybe there’s an opportunity here. And the third, of course, is the US does have more compliance demands and all these three things usually make people say why I start there.

But I think after having done everything else we’ve landed where most successful companies land. You know, if you look at most of the Indian companies that have scaled today, whether you take the Infosys of the world, the TCS of the world fundamentally, they have not been able to succeed without writing the US waves. It’s almost like that learning never goes away. I mean, if I were to do this all over again, I would probably start a few years earlier to single-mindedly focus on the US because we did try other things. But to your point, if you really want to focus on a scalable bang for the buck, it’s only the US.

Amit Ray: Yeah, and maybe it’s also a function of the fact that because everybody supports the US, the US clients also know how to work with you. So there’s that bit as well like they’re educating you, but you’re educating them as well. And so eventually, it becomes a much easier way to work. Even if you went to a small business in the US, they will probably understand outsourcing and what to do and the time zone problems, and all of that. But if you went to a small business, in a small European country, for example, they might really struggle to work that way.

Santosh Katti: Yeah, no, that’s a great point. And I think, especially the US clients are now so used to seeing Indian startups, Asian startups, that, you know, you’re never the first one. If anything, there’s almost like a fear of missing out saying, what if I don’t work with these startups? So I think it’s definitely a different space versus other countries.

Amit Ray: Right. And maybe a last question Santosh, since we’re on the topic of what people can learn from your experience. So what might you have done differently? You know, you mentioned you would have gone earlier into focusing on the US, what else maybe you might have done differently? Or what advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?

Santosh Katti: So I think my top three, and I keep thinking about the top three things that I’ve learned in this journey. The number one that I keep telling people is, don’t get too emotionally attached to your own ideas. Sometimes you passionately feel something is going to work. And if it is not working in the market, if it’s not generating revenue, just move on. Because many times, I think what has really helped us succeed is there are just times that we’ve invested a lot in certain ideas, and it’s worked with a few clients.

But then it has not worked beyond. And we’ve been disciplined enough to not get emotionally invested, and we have moved on. And I think that’s one thing I’ve learned, because in the startup world, in the tech world, things change so fast that even something that works, for example, some of the things that we used to do three years ago, were very, very disruptive. But in three years, what’s happened is a lot of the more forward-thinking clients have gone and built in-house capabilities in these.

And if we continue to invest there and get emotionally invested in saying, this is what we did, well, then we won’t see what’s coming next. And then very quickly, we will get shut down. So I think this ability to stay a little detached from what you have invested in emotionally and say that look, no, just move on to the next thing is crucial for survival I think. You know, Andy Grove calls it only the paranoid survive but I think this is another way of looking at it.

The second is how you really grow your talent. And I would say that, even now, after all of this, we don’t do a good enough job. And then we are learning about it, right? And why I say this is the younger talent is extremely aspirational. And they want to see a constant improvement in challenges. They want to see that, hey, what’s the next interesting thing? It’s not really the money alone, it’s really the thrill of the challenge. And if you don’t constantly challenge them with new interesting things, they just feel they’re stagnating.

And it takes a lot to build an extremely proactive talent management system, especially when you are a startup, what happens is you get a few people who are great, but they kind of hold the engine together. But that doesn’t work because the people who are holding the engine together don’t want to be holding the engine together, they want to move on to other things.

So that’s something that if we were to do it all over again, we would start by saying look, how do we build the proactive excitement management organisation from a talent standpoint, I call it so because I think that’s where some of this talent loss is happening. If you have to differentiate, I think that is something that you need to really, really do differently.

And I think the third thing is, if we were to do this all over again, I think the IP that we went and built is something that I think there were parts of it, which I feel we should have just gone and bought. Because I think we were focused on this, we were caught up in this. Look, if we don’t build everything in-house, then we are not going to have a valuation, if I may say so.

But what we’ve learned is the more you’re in this self-funded start-up space, the more I think the challenge is to say, look, what are some of the things where you can just buy it from outside or outsource it and to lesser yourself so that focus on here is the few things that really make a difference and how do you not build everything else in house buy it from somewhere, support from somewhere, we did it. But I still think there’s a big opportunity, and that’s the kind of world we live in today, right?

The number of APIs that are out there, if you just go and look outside, there are always APIs that are available. So in the tech world, I think that the ability to know what’s out there, because 9 out of 10 times there is somebody who’s doing a better job than you and there are a lot of things that are not your core capability. So that’s not an easy one. But I would say that if we could do that better, then we would probably be in a better place by now.

Amit Ray: Right, thanks a lot Santosh. There’s been a lot of good takeaways over here. So if I might just summarise, I was writing them down while you were speaking. So the first one, which is when you first got started, and you were looking for your first customers, networks don’t always work as well as you think you might, for various reasons, and mostly to do with the person’s organisational situation.

So obviously you should approach your networks, but you should be prepared for cold calling and just doing the regular sales route. And you came up with an interesting idea around using an agent or a person like the know-who kind of person who’s going to introduce you to people.

The second one is because you’re a bootstrap company, you need to make money. So it would help if you sold whatever it is that you can initially, ideally in the same space or in something that is still building up towards, you know, the business you want to run. Because this allows you to build credibility. I think my takeaway there also was it takes a year or two years for people to have heard your name enough to know that this person is still around, so we can actually work with them. And so for those one or two years, you need to have something to sustain yourself. So sell what you can.

The third point was around smallness, which can be a strength for a certain kind of client because they’re looking for somebody who’s agile, somebody who’s going to actually pay them attention, somebody, for whom this size of business is going to be meaningful, versus the large players who are just probably just going to treat them like they’re 100 priorities.

Fourth, one, important thing to me was the founders being the first salespeople and continuing to sell as long as possible. Because you learned so much about the customer, you can shape your product based on that. And then you hire later when you’re at a stage where you can afford such people.

You also had a lot of stuff to share on talent. So I’ve tried to put them all together into one bucket. So one is that your early hires come again, from your past networks, people who know you, people who respect you, people who trust you, and vice versa. The related point here was that actually, you might get good talent just based on reputation. And in today’s market that feels like a particularly important tip, which is if you’re well known, then people may want to come and join you just for that experience.

But overall, I think what you’re saying is, one should plan for fewer, more expensive people. And so, therefore, productize what you can focus on what these people actually want to do, keep on the bleeding edge so that they are learning something and so therefore, you know, that’s how you keep folks interested.

The next one was I think focusing on ROI as a small business. You can’t spread yourself all over the place. And that means anything that increases the margins, reduces the time to delivery, has a short decision-making cycle, and lower complexity. Basically, you’ll get more output for the time invested. And hence things like going to develop markets, not getting attached to ideas, if the ROI is dropping, buying, like what you said versus building, if it makes sense, and if it’s not core to your proposition.

The other point was actually going to the hardest market and learning from there and learning from the objections they have. So you can build your pitch. And if you need to demonstrate your product then demonstrate it versus just talking about it, because you’ll never really overcome anybody’s objections with words.

And I think the last point, which you mentioned, is somewhere in between, but I thought it’s a good point to end with aligning with values. So even if you’re giving up your business, your own people will respect the company that they work for. Because you aren’t just saying things for the sake of seeing them, you’re actually aligning with them.

So, Santosh, really insightful, actually. And many of these are things that I can apply to my own business. So thanks for the free advice here. So thanks a lot for joining us today. And for those listening at home, if you liked this episode, and I’m sure that you did, please rate it five stars. And also a link to Graphene. If you’d like to learn more, maybe you’d like to work there. I know Santosh is looking out for great talent in multiple markets. So thanks a lot. We were Santosh and Amit with ShopTalk. See you next time.

Santosh Katti: Thank you so much. This is a privilege. Bye.

Our Guest : Santosh Katti

Santosh Katti, an engineer from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, and a Master’s Degree Holder from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, worked in the consumer goods & healthcare segment with Fortune 500 companies like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. In 2014, he co-founded Graphene, an AI-based company, that provides unbiased insights from opinions expressed by stakeholders in the healthcare and consumer goods space.

The post ST18 | Santosh Katti On Learning From Objections When Launching A New Product appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

A few years ago, I barely knew anyone who put a lot of thought into their health and their well-being. Well, I mean, after almost three years of COVID, I think that has changed very much. Almost everyone I know now is like cycling or going to the gym, or using the time that they’ve got back from working from home, to try and take care of themselves. And this extends to not just working out, but also eating healthy, living healthy, maybe sleeping at the right time, things like that.

So, clearly, this has now created the space for a number of wellness-related businesses to flourish, who might have struggled maybe 10 years ago, when people weren’t really that into their own health and wellbeing. So today we are speaking with Aanan Khurma, of Wellversed. He’s a two-time entrepreneur in the wellness space. And he’s gonna tell us about how he’s made it in this space, because he’s had one successful exit before this, and how he’s seeing it evolve, as over the last three years, or maybe the last few years. The discussion today is also a little bit different because Wellversed is actually a company that has received some funding, which is very different from many of our other guests who are bootstrapped.

Discussion Topics: Aanan Khurma on Using eCommerce Platforms to Jumpstart Your Business

• The journey of Well-versed
• Acquiring brands and building partnership
• Secrets to do well on platforms like Amazon, SnapDeal, etc
• Getting support and people to join
• Learnings from the journey and the advice for listeners

Transcript: Aanan Khurma on Using eCommerce Platforms to Jumpstart Your Business

Amit Ray: But before we begin a couple of quick requests, please do follow ShopTok to ensure you don’t miss out on other such great conversations in the future. So with that said, Aanan, thank you so much for joining us today. Maybe before we start, you could tell us a little bit about yourself, your journey so far, and also about Wellversed.

Aanan Khurma: Thanks Amit. Thanks a lot for having me. Actually, you mentioned that I’m a two-time entrepreneur. The fact is that I’m a three-time entrepreneur, and I started my first company, back in 2011. And incidentally, that company was in the space of infection prevention and control. And with COVID coming in, that has become a huge, huge space. But I think at that point, we were too early to the market.

Although we did raise, I think 150 or 200k, from Microsoft, and the company was actually based in Israel. And we were working out of there. But we didn’t get a lot of commercial success and we had to wind that up. I think it’s about reading the market and reading the signals, and you can be passionate about what you want to be. But it’s about timing. And I think now we have a lot of people talking about success in terms of the timing of the venture, and why it is the most critical factor. So I think it’s about reading the timing of when you launch something.

So that being said, I started my first company in 2010 and 2011, and post that I have been in the space of healthcare and wellness. But what really got me into the wellness space to start with was a very, very personal quest. And it originated from a very philosophical thought where I got obsessed with the thought that eventually, any human being or any consciousness, has to come to an end.

And that thought, for me itself, was very disturbing, because I thought that it’s kind of an unfair arrangement where we weren’t asked that you are being brought into this world, but your exit is predetermined. And that’s how I became obsessed with what people are doing with longevity, what people are doing with wellness. Can there be a time when we can eventually exist perpetually, can we transfer our consciousness to artificial machines, or can we have biotech technology that can extend radically your lifespan and things like that?

So I started discovering a lot of people like Dimitri Schwab in Russia and even Google acquired a startup called Calico that is working on radical life extension, Ray is being headed by Ray Kurzweil, and things like that. So I saw that a lot of people are working towards it, but I think the first step is to eventually not succumb to lifestyle conditions and lose to things that are easily preventable, and that’s how I got into wellness in 2012 & 13. And I radically experimented with a lot of different regimes. I got into Japanese anti-aging techniques, Korean anti-aging skin science, and things like that, Ayurveda obviously, like a lot of that.

So I won’t say that I was formally trained at that point in time. Like, in the next subsequent 8 to 10 years, I have done certain certifications and all that. But at that point in time, it was devouring any and all information related to wellness and how to kind of live up to 120 years of age.

When I launched my first FMCG brand, it was called Fine Superfood. And I experimented for a couple of years. The growth was very slow in the initial years because we were just selling via WhatsApp or taking direct orders from websites. So it was a very primitive thing, but we managed to scale it a little. I think we got to around 20 lakhs rupee of sales per month. And this was a perishable product, it had a 15, 18 days shelf life.

Obviously, the product wasn’t suitable for general trade as it is. So we scaled it to a certain level, and then we collaborated with a brand called Sattviko, which has now become an FMCG brand.

Wellness is not about selling a single product or creating a single brand, it has to be a holistic approach. It has to impact each and every aspect of your life in a way that does not require you to change your behaviour. Even if something is as great as let’s say classical music, you cannot expect it to be adopted by the general population.

I learned a lot from Healthkart, 1mg and Prashant Tandon, Gaurav Agarwal in terms of how to read the market and things like that. The core thought was how we maximise human wellness in a way that does not require behavioural change.

Amit Ray: I’m curious about your previous business. So you were able to sell out to a different brand. So how was that experience briefly? Like, what attracted them to want to acquire your brand? And then, are there any learnings you got from there?

Aanan Khurma: So, the collaboration with Sattviko, started out as a very simple distribution exercise, where we were using one of their restaurant outlets to distribute our products. And I think, at that point, the uptake of the product became pretty high compared to other FMCG products that they were trying to push via their restaurant outlets.

And I think that is what piqued their interest along with our discussions around the fact that I didn’t have an understanding of distribution at that point in time. And there was a certain degree of frustration around that, how will we actually scale this to a larger level given incumbent players and given I think when it comes to taste in the mass audience? And I think that is how that whole discussion started.

And Prasoon basically saw some degree of value in acquiring the brand to add GMV to their own brand. And obviously, I think, a year or 18 months later, they pivoted from their restaurant business, which was unfortunate for our brand. But at that point in time, I think the future of the brand seemed pretty bright to me because I thought that if we are, let’s say, able to reach one crore per month kind of sales, why are these 25 outlets we can easily do crack B2B, B2C model via this product.

Amit Ray: Right. But otherwise, also, I think the brand was reasonably successful because you mentioned something like 20 lakh rupees per month, which would be two and a half crore rupees a year. Which in today’s world would be about 300,000 US. And actually, back then the rupee was a little bit stronger, so, maybe 400,000 US at that time, which is a fairly decent place to have achieved quite early, I think, in two years or so.

Aanan Khurma: Correct. So, the whole story of that brand was, I won’t say that it was the best of the branding because the product came out of a personal need. And we just really wanted people to use that product. That was the driving factor. And it was not that we were sitting in boardrooms and deciding what the branding would be, what the messaging would be, it was just about getting the product out there.

So I think from that perspective, we had reached a decent revenue level, but given what D2C brands are able to achieve in the early days right now, given all these channels like InstaMart and Zepto. I won’t say Zepto, but let’s say InstaMart, Amazon, and Amazon retail. I think 20 lakhs is not that much on the high side.

Amit Ray: Right. No, fair enough. But still, I mean, the fact is, you got it started, you took it to some level and I think that is commendable in itself. So tell me more about your current business Wellversed. So I think you mentioned something about accelerating brands and so on. So, I understand that you’re in the business of trying to make people live better, but how does the business actually work? How do you create brands or how do you acquire them things like that?

Aanan Khurma: So essentially, Wellversed is an accelerator operator of wellness brands. And our modus operandi is to identify genuine wellness brands in the early stages. When I say early stages, like when they are at a sale of about five lakhs rupees a month of sorts. And typically, we take over their sales channels, and we accelerate their sales across all the 25 major E-commerce channels in India.

And in some of these brands, we do invest as revenue-based financing, or as equity finance, and going forward, the way the model is evolving is not complete acquisition of these brands, but partial acquisition of these brands. So essentially, the model is very, very similar to what Thrasio, Heyday, SellerX Perge all these players are doing. But the only difference is that we don’t want to be an operator of E-commerce brands.

So, in order to back and create a house of genuine wellness brands, we need to have the entrepreneur’s skin in the game. And that is why we leave the entrepreneurs, majority of entrepreneurs take in the company because he is the one who will drive the messaging and the genuineness of the wellness products that he is trying to create.

So obviously, the model seems on the surface very similar to Thrasio where we identify brands, we invest in them, and we accelerate them across E-commerce channels. But the core is very, very different. We leave the kernel to the founder, and we want genuineness to flow into the wellness brand because that is what will maximise human wellness. And that is what Wellversed is all about.

Amit Ray: Okay, so I think there’s an interesting angle over here, which is you’re working with other entrepreneurs, but you’re leaving them to do their own thing. It’s not a full acquisition, kind of a model. And this is an alternate way of partnership almost, which is you provide a set of skills that you have, which is the ability to scale, I guess, sales across all of these channels. And they focus on the product, which is really there something that they may be more passionate about. Would that be a fair assessment?

Aanan Khurma: Correct. So just to go deeper into this, you know, in order to build any wellness brands, there are two parts to it. The first part is what we call the structural engineering of the brand. So structural engineering is everything that is standardised to running a brand, which is how will you warehouse the product, how will you optimise that, how will you deliver the product, where will you list the product, are the listings optimised or not, are the ad campaigns running or not.

So, this is the structural engineering of the product and typically new D2C entrepreneurs take around 2 to 2.5 years to reach a stage where they are able to optimise all the structural parts of the brand. So when we partner with brands in the earliest stage, they are able to optimise their structural part within 6 months, as opposed to 2.5 years. So, that is the first part.

The second part is the core ethos part of the brand, which is what the messaging is, what is the problem they are solving and what is the product they are creating to solve that problem. So this part is what we call the soul engineering of the brand. So this sole engineering, we leave it to the founder, and the structural engineering we take over because it is hyper accelerates their journey of 2.5 to 3 years, and it compresses into 6 months. So this is what we do.

Amit Ray: Very interesting, actually. And there’s clearly value to both sides. I mean, you’re aggregating so many brands, which otherwise you’d have to invent all of them. And they are getting speed to market and scale, which they won’t get so easily by themselves. Okay, got it. So now I understand this whole accelerator angle over here.

You mentioned earlier about behaviour change, and how that is difficult, and so on. That’s a really important point, because there are many businesses where the entrepreneur needs the person to do something different to get the full value of the product, but people don’t normally want to change. And that’s why many businesses end up failing. So how are you or what’s your thought process around not changing behaviour and still trying to get value for yourself?

Aanan Khurma: So, I will start this answer with an anecdote, where we were having lunch with someone, and I think it was one of my team members who went out for a smoke. And the person who was sitting across the table was saying that you run a wellness company and one of your team members smokes. So, this is against your ethos.

So I said, this is actually not against our ethos. The only thing that is against our ethos is that we haven’t till now invented a cigarette that does not harm you. So, I think, essentially, the kind of products we create and the kinds of brands we accelerate are products that do not ask people to change their behaviour, because what we feel is that long life in itself is not just a justified end right you have to have entertainment, you have to have an enjoyable life as well.

So we just don’t want to have a life where you are confined to a room you’re not being exposed to anything and you have a long life, there is no point in that. And there’s an interesting saying that when you don’t smoke, you don’t drink and you don’t party, you don’t have a long life, it just seems like your life is longer. So we don’t want to enable lifestyle, which just seems longer, they should actually be longer, they should be full of experiences.

So I think essentially, anything and everything that we create is viewed Wellversed from that lens whether we are trying to ask people to change their behaviour or not. And I’m not saying that we are the only ones that do that, typically brands that have been successful, have inadvertently created products, which do not ask people to change their behaviour, impossible beyond need and all these people are essentially doing, what our ethos is. So this is the crux of it, I would say.

Amit Ray: Actually, examples of the impossible and beyond are fantastic. Because they didn’t set out to say, let’s make tofu tastes better, so that more people will eat it. They set out to say, how can I make beef-tasting things, but which are actually good for you? And approached it from that point of view, which required a lot of obviously, work and engineering much more than making tofu taste a little bit better.

But look how that is worked out. And you’re exactly right. I think, for many of these kinds of things, the right approach is to take this more difficult approach to say, if you want to influence large numbers of people, you have to do it in a way that they are already doing. And that’s a really good insight and a very good example also.

So thanks for that. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about how you got started, you know, this time around. So you did mention that you help accelerate brands on 25 different E-commerce platforms. So, is that how you got started on these E-commerce platforms like Amazon?

Aanan Khurma: Actually with Wellversed also, we didn’t start up front with accelerating brands. In early 2018 we created a couple of our own brands, so we created a brand for snacking healthy, it was called Unsnack, and it’s still out there in the market. And then we created a brand called Ketofy, which is right now the largest keto brand in India.

And the way we came about it was, again, we looked into the behaviour of people and we try to understand what is the dire need within the fitness, wellness space, and obviously, like weight loss, and diabetes and all these things bubble up to the top when you do a need analysis in the fitness wellness space. And what we saw was that a lot of people are working towards this, and getting information, don’t eat that, don’t do this, don’t do that.

And we wanted to remove this word, don’t we want to say do this. And what we were saying nutritionists do was, you know, if you want to do weight loss, stop eating this, stop eating that, or if you want to reverse diabetes, you need to stop eating rice, you know, basic things like rice and roti and things like that.

So initially, when we were brainstorming on how to build Wellversed, we were also slightly heavier towards information. But eventually that ethos of not demanding people to change their behaviour flowed in, and we ended up creating our own brands. And Ketofy particularly was a brand that simplified, or enabled people to go on a low-carb paradigm without having to change their ingrained habits.

And you know, Indian food, by default, is very high in carbs, everything we eat from rice, roti, all our staples, even all our sabji’s are full of carbs. And if you’re asking an Indian person to leave flour, this is not going to work. So, eventually, we had to do a certain degree of food technology engineering to create these products, because no manufacturer was willing to manufacture the kind of products that we’re creating.

And I can say this with 1000% confidence that there was nothing known as ultra-low carb flour before we launched in early 2018. And everything that you see on Amazon, and even in the US, flour was not a dire need within the US market because doing a ketogenic or low-carb lifestyle is very easy for the population.

So there was nothing known as a keto bhujia, or keto flour, or things like that, so we were the first ones to do that. And it got sucked in so quickly that we scaled with Ketofy to 30 lakhs rupees of sales without even having our own website, we didn’t have our own website, we were just selling 5 to 6 SKUs on Amazon, not even on any other channels. And this is the process that we have been trying to replicate with other brands now.

So every company has two to three strategic visions. Obviously, the strategic vision of maximising human wellness is there. And that can only be achieved, through multiple brands, we cannot club, let’s say fitness equipment and fitness food under the same umbrella. So obviously, we have to have a conglomerate of multiple brands. And then on top of that, you have a superimposed tactical vision of not having people change their behavior.

So that’s how I think we arrived at the accelerator structure. And right now we are accelerating around 25 brands, which are spread across 6 to 7 domains of wellness, which includes, you know, obviously functional food and supplements, we are masters of that, then you have fitness equipment, skincare, hair care, stuff like that.

Amit Ray: Right. So, actually, a couple of questions over here, one is that you started with something, which was a unique product, and that was able to grow to like you said 30 lakh rupees a month, even without a website, which is quite cool.

Now, like you’ve managed to do this with one product, and because you had all of this science and stuff behind it, but is that actually possible with so many brands? Like, on what basis are you looking for these new brands, because they won’t have this kind of secret sauce, which is like a completely new product offering right?

Aanan Khurma: No, so typically we see that there are two kinds of brands, one is brands, which are trying to create an emotional niche within a certain set of people. And these are brands like let’s say Rage coffee, Sleepy Owl, and these are people who are creating the same products, but with a different emotional anchoring that let’s say certain segments of Gen Z or millennials, it will lead to and that’s how they’re creating the brand.

So creating those kinds of brands is a very different ballgame fair, I won’t suggest that you can typically start you have to create the brand story first. And these are very brand story-heavy brands. And obviously, no brand can be built without a story. But these brands start with this story because the product is a commodity product, and it’s not a product that is solving a new need.

And typically within the accelerator model, we try to gravitate towards brands that are unique or products that they’re creating that do not exist in the past. And typically what we try to tell this brand is that don’t create your website first, because your story and your website and your ethos will get sculpted as you get exposed to the market. And as you decide how you want to scale within the mass market, because this is not coffee, this is not just a normal wheat flour that you’re trying to create, this is a newer way of doing the same thing.

Amit Ray: Yeah, this is pretty interesting, because this is the whole MVP, Minimum Viable Product approach that whatever tech companies champion, but you’re doing that actually with FMCG, or the food kind of sector, which is to say, don’t worry about all the ancillary stuff, just get your product to market in the easiest possible way, which is these platforms.

And then as you do it, the sales itself will tell you, whether first of all the product is worth it or not. And whether your messaging is resonating, and you keep tweaking over there until you find your brand story. And then you make whatever you want after that.

Aanan Khurma: Correct. And you know typically, we try to gorge the repeat rates. And especially I won’t say this about the other E-commerce channels, but Amazon has a very evolved structure in terms of providing metrics of you know, they won’t give you phone numbers of users, but there are ways to track repeat rates offset of all SKUs that you’re selling.

And what we try to tell these early-stage entrepreneurs is that get your product out there and monitor the repeat rate, because that is where your brand is going to be built. And that is how your messaging needs to be molded.

Amit Ray: Okay, interesting. So I think two things you’re saying here, one is that you should use whatever data is available to you, don’t just throw it there, and then just track sales. But that and also, the second point is within that the repeat rate is the main metric that you’re concerned about. Because obviously, if people are buying it again, that means there’s something good that’s happening over there.

Aanan Khurma: Because there are two things if the person has bought your product once, then the need exists. If the person has bought your product multiple times, then your product is good. And those are the only two ways to crack a brand.

Amit Ray: Right. Extremely nice way of explaining this Aanan. I think this is the kind of simplicity that I think a lot of people may not be able to realise by themselves. So I think that’s very neat. And it’s a very good way of operating on these platforms as well because this is basically what you’re going to get from there anyway.

Speaking of platforms, you obviously started on these platforms in 2018, which was four years back, and I’m sure you’ve evolved over time. So what are some of the, let’s say the secrets, you’ve learned to do well, on all of these platforms, Amazon, SnapDeal, any of these?

Aanan Khurma: So, I won’t say they are secrets, because everything is out there, but I can just share some of the things that we have learned. So all these platforms operate in a similar fashion to the way AdWords would operate or search engines would operate. So you have to have very different mindsets, when you think of marketing on social channels, versus marketing on these channels.

So you have to club search engines and product search platforms in the same category. Because you will use the same tactical strategies for all of these, and then a very different tactical strategy for social media, because social media is about people stumbling upon products based on their interest, and then gorging what the engagement interaction has been, whereas on product or E-commerce channels, you have to capture a portion of the search intent, and you want that capturing to be 100%.

So I think from a tactical perspective, that mindset needs to be there that you have to operate totally from a search keyword perspective. And this is where a lot of people or early-stage entrepreneurs make mistakes because they try to create brand ethos on these search channels, whereas, on these search channels, you have to capture the search intent, which is very functional in nature. So, let’s say, going back to the example of Ketofy.

So Ketofy, the brand ethos is fitness food, but I cannot build the entire search strategy on Amazon around fitness food, because that is not what the user will be searching for. The user will be searching for keto Atta, let’s say. So you have to think from that perspective and a very exceptional perspective, when you think about these channels and when you’re thinking of social channels, then you do a lot of things around you know, fitness, food, why sugar is bad, and very broader things, things like that.

So, I think for the CEO or the founder wearing this hat is very, very important don’t try to push your brand ideology on the search channels immediately.

Amit Ray: Right. Okay, I think that’s great. Now with search, let’s say the traditional search, which is Google and stuff, it takes months to build up a search profile, good enough so that you start seeing a lot of visitors and stuff on the platforms, is it similar, or do you immediately see results if you optimise for the search?

Aanan Khurma: No, so there are two parts to it. Again, all search efforts are bifurcated into organic and inorganic, so organic takes time to build where the fundamental principles are the same, whether you are incorporating keywords or not, whether your content is of high quality or not, your images are of high quality or not adhering to the platform-specific, you know, SEO principles, whether you’re doing that or not, and they are available out there, most entrepreneurs think of creating their listing on Amazon and other E-commerce channels as a very tedious, trivial task, that someone else to do it, you know, they don’t do it themselves.

But that is the fundamental thing that you should look at, rather than building a website, because every listing of your product on an E-commerce channel is the website of that particular product. And you have to be the one to create that listing to start with, and this is the mistake, which I also made, I thought that these are standard tasks, and someone else should do it. And it took me a couple of months to realise that no, this is the most important task and instead of creating social pages or websites and stuff like that, you should work on creating a great listing for your SKU. So, that is one.

So, that is the organic part of things, and coming to the inorganic part you have to be well versed with the tools and especially you should start with the channel. So, I would say you should first start with the product channel fit, where people if they have just heard that Amazon is a great sales channel, it might not be a great sales channel for a fashion D2C product.

So you have to identify the SKU channel, which fits first, and then understand all the inorganic performance marketing nuances of it, which are all out there, it is nothing new. So it has to be bifurcated in that sense, and not create confusion between search intent, brand intent, inorganic and organic. So this is the way I do it.

Amit Ray: Very nice. I think Inorganic is paid, right, so, I suppose people can pay and there’ll be ads, and it will be easier to see that. But the organic one is the important one, because most entrepreneurs who listen to this show are bootstrapped, and obviously won’t have so much money to put into paying.

So I like the takeaway that essentially look at these as search engines, and look at your page or your SKU listing as a website or a web page. And as long as you take these things in that spirit, you will actually start seeing some results over here.

Aanan Khurma: So very simple things like on Amazon, Amazon allows you to add up to 20 questions and answers on your listing. If you want to SKU optimise your listing, you have to insert everything and anything that the user has asked on your, let’s say Q&A section and the Q&A section of your competitor. So you should look at all your competitor listings, see what the consumer questions are, and address those in your listing upfront and SKU optimization. So these are very simple tactics it is just that it just takes discipline, effort, and focus.

Amit Ray: And that’s a good tip also, because this is not even, like stuffing keywords kind of thing. Questions and Answers are genuine things. I mean, it’s value add to your listing as well. So, really good. So thanks a lot. I think that was almost like a masterclass and platforms in like five minutes, so that’s really cool. So let’s take a slightly different angle over here.

Now you have a very expansive vision, which is to well lengthen the human lifespan, or make it at least more enriching and worthwhile human lifespan. Now, when you were first starting out, how would you convince people to buy into this kind of vision because it’s not saying, hey, join us and we’ll make a new social network or something like that, which people understand?

But we are going to make a whole new we’re going to elongate lifespan, and we are going to make people live healthier. You know, people might interpret this as either something very trivial, which is, oh, live healthier means supplements, or something just to, you know, beyond any one person, like Elon Musk style, elongating lifespan. So how did you convince people of this kind of vision and also get them to join you in this?

Aanan Khurma: So I think a lot of the conviction stems from the personal choices that I’ve made in my life and most of the people who were a part of the early stage team knew me personally, and in early 2012, and 13 when I was going through this personal transformation, where I got obsessed with lifespan and healthspan, and things like that, you know, I made a lot of changes as far as personal discipline is concerned to what I eat, to adopting a minimalist lifestyle.

So, for the past, I think now, eight years, I have only worn black clothes as a sign of minimalism and as a sign of discipline, that till the time we are able to achieve maximize health span, this is what I’m going to do. And that shows a personal connection towards the cause, which might seem off-seen to certain people.

And I’m sure a lot of people who have this that, you know, will maximise health span, or will enable people to live up to 120 years of age, they think it’s not going to happen, but they think that if the person he has such a conviction, he’ll do at least something right, it’s not that he won’t be able to do anything.

So I think, a certain degree of confidence stems from those small acts of personal life where that conviction comes out and that discipline comes out. And I think that is how it started, where our initial discussions were not centred around let’s say, directly extending the human lifespan or health span.

But around making a lot of people take the first step in this direction with minimal behaviour change. So people knew that there’s a broad vision superimposed on top of the small steps that we are enabling people to take. And I think that is why several people, even in the early stage, we didn’t have a lot of money to give them, but they decided to stay and put in all that effort.

Amit Ray: Yeah, that’s great. So tell me about your first few hires. Like, when did they join? I know, you have some co-founders as well. So how did that come about?

Aanan Khurma: So I’ve also been a part of Stanford Biodesign, it’s a one-year 18-month-long fellowship, centred on identifying the right needs within the healthcare space. And as a part of that program, I used to do a lot of design thinking outreach workshops, and incidentally, the second co-founder, Aditya Seth, was an attendee of one of those design workshops. And when I was quoting certain examples of design thinking, he was pretty inspired by this stuff.

And due to his family situation, he had to drop out of college. So he was very intrigued by the entire thought process. And he came to me personally, after I think, several days of the workshop, where he said that I want to do something in this direction, and we connected a lot over, you know, how we should create products that require minimal behaviour change, and things like that. And we started experimenting in this space. So that’s how it came about to be.

But at that point, I hadn’t thought of him as a co-founder. And we had a very trivial arrangement of sorts, where I was paying him in a personal capacity, just as a stipend to explore things. And we were exploring ideas, even the name Wellversed, hadn’t been formulated at that point in time, and we were just experimenting with the brands. So that’s how it came about to be. And my second co-founder, Ripunjay, was my colleague at the Stanford Biodesign program.

But he came into the picture a lot later when things had stabilised a little, I would say 9 months to 12 months into the operation of Wellversed, that’s how we reconnected and he was trying to do his own D2C brand similar to Vahdam teas. And that’s how he came to me that I’m trying to build my own brand. And then we thought, why not do something together?

So early hires, I won’t say they were hires per se because we didn’t have that much capital, it was me paying them in personal capacity for the first six months. And then we had an Angel investor who put in 25 lakh rupees, because he had started consuming our product, and he was very fascinated by what we were doing. And that’s how we formally strategize the company.

Amit Ray: So, obviously with most businesses, the business starts and then you hire some people, and some of them obviously turn out to be extremely motivated evangelising, like they’re all about the company. But obviously, in most companies, such people don’t get elevated to co-founder status or anything like that.

So what did you think about this whole situation? Like, what was the rationale behind elevating a couple of people to becoming co-founders? And how should maybe other business owners also maybe consider how they’re looking at their people?

Aanan Khurma: So, there are two to three different aspects of this. One is, at any given point in time, you know, in life you cannot operate mechanically, you cannot have all the options presented to you upfront and then make the best possible decision. So every decision has to be made within a limited set of choices in that timeframe.

So, one was, that you have to decide which people would put all their skin in the game and help to take this company to the next level, and those are the people who will stick for long and who should be the co-founders. And it’s not that I can go about town and interview, let’s say, 1000s of people and then decide who the co-founder should be. So a lot of it is situationally governed as well.

But then I think, the second decision-making process is that whether you bond over things that matter or not, and you know, me and Aditya, and Ripunjay, what we really connected over and what we really synchronise with is the fact that we have to create a company where people would want to work. So obviously, the strategic vision is to maximise human wellness. And that stems a lot from my personal quest. I won’t say that the other two co-founders are as psyched about maximising human wellness as I am.

That is the strategic vision of the company. But on a day-to-day level, what matters more is creating a company where people would want to give in their 100%. And that is what we synchronise over. And that is the point where I decided that you know, you can have, let’s say, the best of the best people but not synchronised over with things that actually matter, and partnerships, which actually work are the ones who solve these core issues.

Amit Ray: Right. So I think that makes sense. I mean, essentially, you need to have as your co-founders, people who are going to actually move the business forward and more importantly, share the same vision and the same ethos, at least, in some way.

Aanan Khurma: Correct. So it’s just like being in a marriage, right? So, like, marriage is not a glamorous process. Everyone who has been married knows that. So eventually, it boils down to whether the basic tenets have been met or not. And the basic body parts synchronising on basic tenets or not. So I think that is where my conviction stemmed from.

Amit Ray: Right. So kind of, again, changing tack a little bit. So, talking a little bit about competition. So you mentioned earlier that you’re similar, actually, you are, you’re a D2C brand aggregator or accelerator, where you are bringing so many brands under the same roof. And yours is a little different approach where the entrepreneur continues to run their brand, and so on. But many of the people that are in the D2C space are extremely well funded.

I mean, they’re not Angel level funded, for sure. They’re like series C, series D-level funded companies. So, are there situations where you actually go, where you compete with them directly on any of your portfolio of brands? And if so, how do you actually win that particular situation, because they obviously have unlimited money to promote their brands?

Aanan Khurma: So, typically, the mindset and modus operandi of all of these E-commerce aggregator players is very, very different. So, one that they do not acquire or promote brands that are centred around the common ethos. So their deciding criteria is, what is the top line revenue of a brand, and it has to be more than 70 to 80 lakhs per month, one second, it’s only about the EBITA revenues at the moment at present.

And, on the surface, our model is similar to all these aggregators, but we come into the picture a lot early, where the brand is only doing, let’s say, five lakhs rupees a month of sales. And we resolve their basic operational issues, we do the structural engineering for them. So rather than looking at these people, as competitors, we also view them as an endpoint for certain acquisitions, which they can do from our portfolio.

So we don’t look at them, particularly as competitors, because they don’t come into the stage as early. But who would be a closer competitor, would-be players, like, let’s say, Evenflow, who are coming in earlier to the picture, or other accelerators like these, but then again our ethos is very, very different. So for example, we would never go and accelerate a brand, which is selling, let’s say, sugar, or a brand of sugar.

So, I think in those two senses, we are very, very different from them. And we are very glad that I think we need more players like Thrasio, Pers, and Sellerx because they will eventually become acquires for models like ours. So let’s say we have scaled a brand to 1 crore, per month kind of revenue. And we feel that in the longer lifespan extension game, this brand might not be the best, and we would want to sell off our stake. So we will sell it off to Thrasio and players like this.

Amit Ray: Yeah, this is a good point. I mean, you’re essentially playing a role, let’s say, in the mid-market. So, therefore, what might seem on the surface to be a competitor actually could end up being an acquirer or a partner in the future. So that’s an interesting insight.

So, in the last four years or so that you’ve been running this, what are some of the challenges or the trade-offs that you’ve had to make or you’ve had to think about while you were running this business? I think ethos is one of the things that sounds like it is a common factor over here. But is there anything else?

Aanan Khurma: So I think we are super obsessed about the culture that we are building at the company. And I’m sure that all entrepreneurs take it very seriously. But we take it a step ahead, in the sense that the three founders are 100% alignment is on the kind of company that we are creating and what happened on a day-to-day basis.

So, we align on very practical things where we don’t want to incentivize, or we don’t want to drive people with far-fetched distant dreams that one day this will happen, you know, we want to drive them with what happens with them on a day to day basis. And that eventually translates into creating a company that people want to work at, that they enjoy working at, on a day-to-day basis.

And that cultural connotation of the kind of people that we’re letting you know, our process of hiring is so stringent that all our employees right now, we have around 120 employees and obviously like 30 to 35 of these are blue-collar workers, but apart from them, all employees are trained in the interview process stage which we call as culture fit.

So we have a synchronised interviewing process for detecting which person is culture fit or not, and that is how we culturally drive the ethos of creating a company that people would want to show up at every day. And I have heard a lot of companies who have been struggling to get their employees back to the office after the COVID lockdown and things like that.

But since we fall into the essential space, we haven’t even had one day where we operated remotely or all our employees have been working from the office, we have had more than 80% attendance, and all this without mandating anything to anyone, we don’t tell our employees that you need to come to the office, you know, we don’t even have a culture where an employee has to ask their manager that I want to be on leave, or I want to be on work from home, it is totally their ethical choice, you know, how they want to work, and they just have to make their output metric and things like that.

So this is how we are driving, this is what we aligned with to create a company where you want to show up on a daily basis, because we feel that if you are spending 12 hours a day, or let’s say 10 hours a day, at work, you’re spending most of your life at your work, and that needs to be something that is enjoyable. And that again translates to an important component of wellness, which is mental wellness.

Amit Ray: Right. Yeah, I mean, that’s walking the talk, right? I mean, if you’re a wellness company, you have to make sure that your folks feel happy and supported, and genuinely excited about coming to work.

So I like this focus on, or rather, let’s call it extreme focus, maybe on making sure that people are culture fit, and that the way that the company operates is something that the person is going to appreciate when they join. So, maybe the last couple of questions here. One is speaking of this whole wellness and the desire to come to work, what keeps you motivated, and desirous of coming to work every day?

Aanan Khurma: So, I’ve written extensively on this, and I like to differentiate between motivation and satisfaction. And this is a similar kind of distinction you can make between pleasure and joy. So pleasure arises out of very short-term, immediate things. So you eat sugar, you will feel pleasure, or you will feel happiness, right, If you eat unhealthy stuff, you will feel pleasure in the moment.

But eventually, it will truncate into a decrease in the general joy that you feel in life, you know, at the back of your head, you’re doing something wrong, or you’re not operating in the way that you’re supposed to do. And this is the way I think about motivation, versus satisfaction. So satisfaction is kind of built day by day, by doing certain stuff on a daily basis.

So, discipline has a huge role to play. So, I’m not saying that everyone has days where they feel that if they got some motivation, it would be a better day. But I think it’s about building this muscle of discipline that eventually drives long-term satisfaction. And after certain years of practice, what starts happening is that, because if you have been in discipline for, let’s say, more than 30 days, you have that sense of satisfaction.

So even if you do it one day, you will know that you’re not building towards something, and you will just start filling that pleasure in that discipline as well. So it takes a certain time to get past that phase, where discipline seems boring, and things like that. But eventually, you come to a point where you know that you’re building towards long-term joy, kind of a state. So this is how I operate.

But obviously, on a day-to-day basis, you have to have anchors that will pull you up when you’re feeling down. And working with people you want to work with is obviously one of the best ways to overcome that lack of motivation that you’re feeling at the moment. And this is where that extreme focus on culture, again, comes in that you want to be surrounded by people that you really want to be. So it’s a two-part strategy.

Obviously, building the discipline muscle, and no great thing has been built without discipline, and without embracing boredom that is obviously there. But then taking practical steps where you’re stocking the kind of food which is not unhealthy, but you also enjoy eating at your office and you’re surrounded by people that you like working with, and things like that. So a lot of practical.

Amit Ray: Right. That’s actually Aanam, one of the more original answers that I’ve heard to this question, which is, essentially, one needs to differentiate between what is fleeting happiness or something like that versus longer-term satisfaction and joy. And longer-term satisfaction is made by building things brick by brick, and you need to have the discipline to do so.

And so, as long as you can embrace that discipline, and in fact, like what you said, embrace the boredom, almost of doing this day in and day out, you will build something that you are proud of and satisfied by. And the journey becomes obviously easier if you’re doing it with people that you like. And that’s where you set up an environment of culturally integrated people whom you’d love to work with. This is really nice. I think this is a nice way of looking at things also.

Because often we think about Oh, my God, if I’m not feeling absolutely ecstatic on a certain day, is my business worth it? Is my job worth it? Am I doing the right thing? But the fact is, you will probably be doing the right thing if you just keep at it, and you build something meaningful out of that. So this is really nice, I think it’s a good way of looking at things overall, not just in business.

So maybe let me end by asking you a question about your learnings or your lessons so far. So what might you have done differently? Or what advice would you have to emerging entrepreneurs who might want to follow in your footsteps?

Aanan Khurma: So, I think I would just like to say one thing, and obviously, like, there are a lot of learnings in an entrepreneur’s life. And I have been in the game for the last, I don’t know, 12, 15 years, so a lot of learning there. But I think fundamentally, if anyone wants to do great things, they shouldn’t focus on everything at once.

And I think people talk a lot about time management, but I think time management is nothing, it’s only focused management, that is the problem. And you know, typically, what happens is that people are either into phase, whether they are indisciplined, they are not focusing on anything, or they are totally disciplined, where they’re trying to do everything at once. And that stage of discipline lasts for only a few days, and then it fizzles out because you’re trying to do so many things at once.

So if you narrow down your focus to just one thing, then you can have a healthy balance between let’s say pleasures, which you are not able to quit, but then also being able to focus on something that you’re building in the long term, you know, just one thing. And the mistake I have made as an entrepreneur, and as a person is trying to focus on a lot of things at the same time in my earlier years.

So let’s say you have decided to become an avid reader at this stage, and you’re just, let’s say 17, 18 years old right now, so just focus on reading a lot of books. And don’t try to say that I will also listen to a lot of podcasts, I will also listen to a lot of YouTube videos because I have to become the most learned person, just select one thing and focus on that and become the master of that first, and you will realise that how much your life can change just within six months, within six months, your self-esteem will get boosted because you won’t think of yourself as a person who’s reading books, but you will think of yourself as a person who is a reader.

Your perception of yourself will change. And that will trickle down in all aspects of your life, that confidence will change everything that you are doing. So, this is what my one suggestion would be.

Amit Ray: Yeah, this is really nice, very philosophical Aanan, I didn’t expect a business conversation to end up with this much philosophy. But I think it’s an interesting thing, which is the focus, I think, basically, you’re saying that there’s a bunch of people who are not focusing on anything at all, they’re just doing whatever they feel like, whenever they feel like that’s one category already.

But people who feel like they’re focusing could be focusing on too many things. It’s like, I have this task list and I’m checking off, checking off, checking off, I feel very happy that I’ve checked off everything. But then the next day, again, I have a task list and you keep doing that. And as a result, you’ve just dissipated all of your efforts versus you saying just do one thing.

And when you do that one thing over and over again, until you become good at it, then your own perception of yourself changes. I think that example is very good, which is to go from I am reading books to I am a reader is very different. Because to say I’m a reader means that you’re naturally that and which means now you can build on that thing to become something else.

Versus I’m reading books will just go on forever. And you will just keep on reading books. And that way. That’s really cool, I think a very nice way to kind of close out this conversation. So since you’ve mentioned so many cool things, let me just summarise, actually, I wrote down quite a few. So let me summarise them in a few minutes.

So one is I think we started out by saying that, even if you have massive vision, something that maybe even is generally unbelievable kind of vision you can still do it if you start simple. You have to start somewhere where you can actually start but you can have a vision that is world-beating or you know flying to Mars and colonising there and like Elon Musk’s vision and so on. So you can have that but you need to start with something achievable.

The second thing, which I took away was, you don’t even have to have your own thing to build a business, you can actually build a business offering a platform to others. Now, of course, the way that we think of platforms is the Amazons, and whatever of the world. But it could be a platform of services, or a platform of expertise that you’re offering to someone else, which helps them become successful quicker.

And by doing that, you can actually build this almost like a decentralised conglomerate of some kind, which is an interesting way of building a business. And I know we’ve been talking about it in the D2C construct, but maybe this same logic can be applied to other things as well.

The third one, which is a very big point, at least for me, was not forcing behaviour change. So if you can play into the existing behaviour, then you’re likely to be very successful versus trying to force people to adopt the behaviour that you want them to. And again, your example, there was very good, which is not to say, don’t have bread, instead, say here is how you can have bread. And maybe it’s the keto flour bread, or maybe it is having less of the bread or whatever, but you can still have it. And that will at least keep you happy versus saying don’t have it at all.

The fourth point was the whole minimum viable product, this is a topic that’s far more prevalent in tech. But essentially, you’re demonstrating that it can apply to anything, you know, anything that you set out to do, just get your product to market and the market will tell you if the product works or not. And everything else is ancillary. And you can build all of that once you know the product is working.

Another takeaway for me was that just because something doesn’t exist in a developed market, like your keto flour, or ultra-low carb flour, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t exist at all. And so the fact that in India, because everything is carb-heavy, and it’s not just India, there are a few markets in Asia, which are more carb-heavy, this kind of product would work. It is just that in the US where all of this keto movement started, it’s not a thing. And so it never existed before.

The next point was around data. So, again, a bit of a tech industry sort of thought process, which is use all the data that you have, and if some platform gives you more data, consume as much of it as you can. And as a focus, look at purchases obviously, because purchases show you that there is some need for the product in the market.

But then, more importantly, the repeat rate, which shows that your product is the one that’s fitting the need best. And that was a really simple way of looking at it, which is purchase means there’s a need, and repeat means that your product is filling the need best, which is perfect.

Then on platforms, you should I mean, if you’re selling a product, you probably want to start off on platforms. And if you’re doing that, then treat a platform similar to how you would treat Google or a search engine. People are coming there with intent. So don’t go there with your grand vision and brand positioning, just go there with will this search lead to my product or not.

And once it leaves there, will it convert the person to a sale or not, which means just treat it as a website and search optimise. And you gave a lot of very good tips like, look at it as SEO, think of the SKU to channel fit, like maybe Amazon is good for this kind of product. SnapDeal is good for that kind of product. And so plan your product for the channel. And then the question and answers angle is a really good one, which gives you search optimization and it adds value to your page.

The other one was around people. So you can actually attract people to your vision, not just by declaring the vision, but by living it. So if you through your personal choices are demonstrating that you’re walking the walk, then people will gravitate towards you. And some of those people actually could become well, co-founders in your case, actually, you also did mention that some of them were consumers who then became investors, which is really perfect, you want your best customers to also be invested in your product. So you can attract people just through your vision and by living that vision every day.

Some other points we talked about were trade-offs. So in your case, you’re working heavily on the culture, and you’re willing to give up on maybe otherwise suitable candidates if they don’t feel like they’re going to fit in with your culture. And because you work only with people who are nicely integrated with each other and gel with each other it makes the work experience so much nicer, which also means that this entire pandemic period and stuff people were okay. They were happy to come to work and stuff which, you know, let’s face it, not every company was able to make it happen so easily.

And I think finally you end it with a couple of, I would say more philosophical points, which I really liked. One is the distinction between delight versus satisfaction or motivation versus satisfaction. Motivation and delight and pleasure are fleeting. And yes, you’ll get it by doing things and those things may not even be good for you, but you’ll get it.

But it’ll disappear very quickly versus satisfaction, which is a long-term thing and you build it through discipline. So you don’t need to feel continuously motivated or pumped, you just need to feel the need to come to the office or do whatever it is you’re doing day in and day out. And that will build something that you’re proud of, and which will last like that pride and that satisfaction will last for a lifetime versus for the few minutes that you know, you’re feeling excited. So embrace consistency and embrace boredom, I thought, that’s actually quite a cool way of looking at it.

And the last point was around focus management versus time management. So you can be the best time manager in the world and check off all your lists. But you’d still be very unfocused, because if you’ve just done too many different things instead, focus on doing just one thing, and do it well. And when you do that, it’ll become part of you, which means you’ve developed as a person, and then you can move on to doing the next thing very well.

And that’s how you become a better version of yourself, versus being completely scattered all over the place trying to do everything at the same time. So, thanks a lot Aanan. This was a really fun conversation for me, and I really appreciate you joining us today.

Aanan Khurma: Thanks for having me, Amit. It was great. Actually, this summary I also learned a lot after you summarised it in this manner. So that was really great. Thanks.

Amit Ray: Thanks a lot, Aanan. I mean, it was a fun conversation. And for those listening, I really hope you took away a lot of interesting insights, just like I did today. And that’s the best way I think, to get distilled insights from all of these cool people that we’re talking to, on ShopTok and frankly, all of our other shows as well. It’s information that you aren’t going to get anywhere else. So thank you for listening. We were Aanan & Amit with ShopTok. See you next time.

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Business is all about focus they’ll tell you. Focus on one product, one service, one customer profile, and maybe one geography. But what if you want to do it all? What if you don’t want to limit yourself and instead want to sell a range of products or services aiming for the widest market possible? Can you even be successful that way? Well, today we are talking to Sahil Mehta of Emmbros Overseas, who has not one or two, but actually multiple brands, in multiple areas, spanning skincare, nutrition, fitness, women care, baby care, I mean, men, women, babies, well, that’s about the widest market that I can think of. And he’s gonna tell us how he got started down this path, and how he manages his portfolio of brands profitably.

Discussion Topics: Sahil Mehta on Building a Profitable D2C Brand Portfolio

• Going after D2C E-commerce
• Learnings from working with manufacturers
• Challenges come with market penetration and building diverse portfolio
• Smallness is an advantage
• Growing multi-brands and multi-platforms successfully

Transcript: Sahil Mehta on Building a Profitable D2C Brand Portfolio

Amit: Welcome to another episode of the ShopTok podcast. So with that said, Sahil, thank you so much for joining us today. Maybe before we begin, you could tell us a little bit about yourself and your business and how you got started.

Sahil: Hi, Amit. Thank you for inviting me to ShopTok. And as you said, this is a real goldmine for several entrepreneurs as a learning journey, to begin with, I should say. So, I’m the Founder and Director of Emmbros Overseas, as you said, I have founded several brands ranging from personal care to Lifestyle and Health and Nutrition. And I begin my journey by entering into the E-commerce segment. While I was in the E-commerce segment, I learned designing, development, WordPress, HTML, and everything drop shipping.

And that’s how I entered into this E-commerce segment, way back. And I also learned SEO, whatever scripts, and also, I learned entire coding and everything so that I could do it independently because when I was starting up my business, I didn’t have any kind of employees who can help, who could do all my work. In fact, I learned Ayurveda, I have learned health from my dad, and studied several remedies from books even in fact, on one of my first websites, I wrote the entire content, several blogs, and several pages and after that, I wrote multiple websites.

So that’s how I entered into this segment, and ever since that, I have been to the E-commerce and the personal care space of Health and Lifestyle, educating people and learning about several things. I learned that there is so much of a lack of ingredients being used by other companies, good companies, they are not using one of the main actives, which are required.

And they’re also not disclosing what all ingredients they are adding, the percentage of the main actives, and how effective that product would be. So, all these factors led me and the pricing was rocket high without knowing what is added in that product and at what percentage. So, everything was just a marketing gimmick. And that made me enter into all these kinds of products and segments where I could deeply dive into all these ingredients and then launch products to offer something better.

Amit: Okay, this is really interesting. I mean, you’ve not only self-taught yourself the whole, basically the industry and then the products themselves you also taught yourself, or rather learned through your work, how to run an E-commerce Company and everything that E-commerce requires. So, are you trying to emulate like, these days, it’s called D2C brands, the Direct to Consumer kind of brand? So, is that what you’re kind of trying to go after?

Sahil: Yeah, D2C is a new term, which was there earlier, it used to be B2B and B2C. So I’m from the era where we started from B2C and then entered into the D2C segment.

Amit: Yeah, that’s true. So it’s always good to have new acronyms. So, it’s impressive that you did everything yourself. And you said that when you first started, you used to do all the work by yourself, is it? like from website to product development and everything?

Sahil: Yeah, in the initial stages, but when I entered the launch of brands, and when I launched the company Emmbros Overseas, that time I had a good staff with me, I was able to hire more resources, I was able to train them and get things more practically done in a better way.

Amit: So let’s talk about your early days. So, when you first got started, what were the first few things that you did? And how were you feeling when you first got going?

Sahil: See, it’s always been very challenging to start a new company and being specially from a very small town, Chandigarh. So people those days, were not very much aware about how things work on E-commerce, how to sell on E-commerce platforms, as you know that time people were also very reluctant to buy products online, and delivery challenges were there, warehouse charges were there, and in fact, listing challenges and even marketplace were learning that time how Indian would, they were establishing in the country like they were resolving their bugs and issues.

So there were so many kinds of challenges here and there, even challenges are right now as well. Because every day, we face some or other challenge, and then we overcome it and then the next step. So this is always a learning procedure and a learning stage. And every day, every month, we come across new and new things. And we have to overcome these challenges, whether it’s a beginning or whether it’s in the middle stage, or we are proven.

Amit: So what are some of the let’s say, guiding principles or something that you’ve employed to keep you going through all of this?

Sahil: See, guiding principles like, I trained myself, as I said, was a designer, developer and had an E-commerce background. So I became one of their teachers to teach them, to guide them, and to do most of the work myself and then train my staff to take over the work rosters and all. So our first focus was to launch the products, launch the brands, and then we started with the cosmetics section.

We began our journey with personal care cosmetics and the challenge was to tie up with several manufacturers in the country. And I always believed that we have to deal or I have to deal with top-end manufacturers only because if I am getting a product manufactured by some other person, I have to be totally assured of the quality of the product, I have to deal with only the best one.

I cannot just compromise by dealing with any small manufacturer compromising with the quality or just because they can do a small MOQ I should deal with them. No, our first aim was to tie up with the top-end manufacturers of the country, to convince them, to make them believe in us. And that’s how we begin a journey with personal care, we set up the team over here and we trained the staff to do all kinds of activities. So this is how we began that time. I will answer you more in detail, with your questions.

Amit: Yeah, sure. And in fact, one of the questions I have is about what you just said about top-end manufacturers. I think it’s an interesting piece of advice because when people are starting out and they don’t have too much money, to begin with, it would be a natural temptation to go to whoever’s giving you the cheapest service versus the best service.

So, number one, how did you convince these manufacturers to work with you? Because I’m sure they work with a lot of big brands. And number two is how were you able to afford them? Or what are some of the tradeoffs you made when you went to these better manufacturers?

Sahil: So, it was very challenging and difficult, we used to pay them money for doing the sampling, and it was very difficult even to reach the corporate offices, some high-tech corporate offices, Bombay, Bangalore, and the production facility was in Himachal, or something like that.

So it was very challenging to get hold of the Directors to make them believe I had to do several kinds of visits with them. And ultimately, yes, with smaller MOQs and a wider range promise and with the repeat orders promise, we had to convince them. And they believed in us after doing several kinds of follow-ups, they got to believe in us that yes, we should give it a try, maybe they used to charge a bit, maybe a higher amount for what it is we were trying to buy.

But our concept was we wanted to launch several new things. And they were very keen on doing new things with us. Because of these kinds of requirements, they were not getting the time that new ingredients to explore, new products to explore, and things in new packaging. So these were the kinds of things they were liking and it made them keen to work with us.

Amit: Wow, this is a really good insight, Sahil. I have not heard this from others so far which is, even if you’re going to larger manufacturers you might think, no, they do everything and so why would they care about you and charge you and they will charge you money?

Sahil: If you just go to them and say you need the same product in the market, of course, they will say, why would they show interest in that kind of brand? If you just go to them, oh this is a new ingredient, which they might have heard about, they might be knowing that it’s doing very well in international countries, but there’s so much demand upcoming in their country and if they’re getting this kind of requirement for the first time, and they get to hold off doing things differently, obviously, they will say yes, we will be able to work with you. So, that’s the kind of difference.

Amit: That’s a really good insight, Sahil. I’m sure most people won’t have thought of things that way. You’re right ultimately, even big company wants to do new things because otherwise they will also become backward and people will stop working with them. So, tell me more about the whole product planning process. How did you decide on your first product? Like what were the steps you had to go through to bring it to market and maybe what were some of the issues you faced back then?

Sahil: See the first product is always the main ingredient, which you believe has to be the hero ingredient of your brand. So the first product, the second, and the range are always dependent on the hero ingredients of your brand, on the basis on which you have made your brand, new model, and the concepts in your mind.

So those are always the first products and they are very difficult to work upon. Because we always believe that we have to do something innovative, and we have to do something different from the market. We don’t have to follow the market, the market has to follow us, that’s always the aim we work at.

So, we faced different kinds of challenges and sourcing that ingredient manufacturers face challenges in sourcing that ingredient, this is a time-consuming process in working with that ingredients, whether it’s a health product, whether it is personal care, health care, we work upon percentages to be used, we work upon different flavours to be used, we worked upon different fragrances to be used or different ingredients which can be added along with that.

Amit: Okay, and is it difficult? I mean, was it more difficult the first time you did it and now obviously you have a running operation so it’s easier to launch new products. What were some of the starting troubles that you had?

Sahil: See launching a new product at that time was also the same stage and today also it is at the same stage because right now, the market has evolved so much, so many entrants have already come up now. And the market is full of so many products now, the opportunity is untapped or getting minimised day by day.

But the only opportunities now left are the things that are only coming from China to develop over here in a better way, in a more innovative way. And to do it from India. So even now we face these kinds of challenges and how we have to do things differently and how to source new manufacturers to get things done in India, rather than importing anything.

So, even right now, I have been working on several different categories, which has taken me more than six months to find the right manufacturer, the best manufacturer, so it takes a lot of time to enter into a new category, where we have to deal with the right kind of manufacturer who can understand your product, to your new concepts, and who has that capacity and capability of doing that kind of category.

Amit: Oh, okay, because I was actually going to ask you, why would you need to look for new manufacturers if you already have trusted existing ones? But I think it’s because they don’t work in that category. Is it?

Sahil: Yeah, when you’re launching a totally different category, it’s always better to look for a new manufacturer, why put all your categories into your existing manufacturer itself, because they’re already burdened with your existing category, and variants of those categories are coming up, and then repeat orders of those categories are coming up.

Amit: So actually, this leads me to another question I was hoping to ask, which is, you have a very wide portfolio, right? It’s not focused only on men, or only on women or children. It’s not only skincare, it’s also nutrition.

So, how do you manage such a diverse portfolio of things, doesn’t it lead to a lot of complexity or is there some way maybe at the backend or something that you are able to consolidate things and make it more streamlined?

Sahil: See, I consider them as only two things that are two categories: Health and Beauty. So, there are health manufacturers, who might I deal with, and then there are beauty manufacturers, whom I deal with, but there are several different categories so it gets divided. But when I started, I wanted you to start both of them Health and Beauty because beauty was also one of my interests and health also I had studied all those things.

So whatever products I daily come across, daily use myself, that was my main interest in using those kinds of products or taking those kinds of medicines and supplements in a better way. Because that time I was not able to find any kind of good stuff which I can trust, which I can say yes, this is the best product or a better product.

So, that made me lead to all these kinds of products and categories till today, I’m using all my products, all my beauty and cosmetics and health products, my entire family uses all those products and from there, I get several kinds of ideas, concepts, which are then explored whether they will be able to work in the country or not, but your family, yourself need, your requirement is the first step which made me think about those kinds of products, whether they are available or not.

Amit: Yeah, this is actually an important point, if you can be a user of your own product that I think helps a lot because you get ideas from there.

Sahil: Yeah, because sometimes you are using an international brand. And so when you question why you’re using this international brand, why is it not available in the country? You will get an answer; you don’t get this quality in the country. That’s the main answer you get. So that makes you lead that you can then make a better product than the international product in India. So that makes me lead to that kind of product because their product has a demand, this family is using, your friends are using, but the same equivalent quality is not available in the market.

Amit: Okay, so your inspiration for new products comes from using something that is international, some international brand, and then wondering why an equivalent thing is not there in India. And if you’re able to spot that gap, then you try to get into it, assuming it is Health or Beauty related. Okay, this is interesting.

So, when you first got started, obviously, to run a business, especially a profitable one, you have to get customers, but you’re sitting in a fairly, I would say the way location in India, you’re not exactly in Mumbai, or something like that. So, how did you plan your customer acquisition? How did you get your first few customers?

Sahil: So marketplaces were one of the first methods we deployed to enter into this E-commerce sector. And Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, all these kinds of platforms helped us to approach new customers, to showcase our product, and at much affordable expense rates.

Amit: Okay, because you didn’t have the whole cost of trying to build out, like a real physical presence. And so even if you pay commission to these platforms, it still works out better.

Sahil: Yeah, because at that time, we believe that if we launch our own website, and then promote those websites, we won’t be able to scale that much which is where we can do it in a better way on a marketplace that time because the marketplace was spending so much amount those days in the marketing, to get new customers. And if you are one of the new players over there, if you are one of the only players over there, then you are taking the benefit out of their marketing expense.

Amit: This is good. You’re right. I mean, if you’re starting from scratch, you might as well ride on somebody else’s kind of visibility. So then you got to some kind of scale and then that scale gave you enough I guess, cash flow to then build up your own presence. And then how did you go about building up your own presence? Like is it that you’re still predominantly marketplace oriented? Or is it now moving more to your own websites or retail presence?

Sahil: Marketplace now is a broader term. It is much broader than not just Amazon, and Flipkart, it is more than 20 marketplaces now. So, the marketplace is now kind of and you say you have 20 distributors, who are distributing your product so it is now a very broad term, and along with that, then we have built up our own presence through our own website, social media, influencer networks and all.

Amit: Right, actually, let me ask you a kind of a bit of a tactical question here. So earlier of course you were dependent on the marketplace or distributor model. But today you’re not, you do have your own D2C things or you have retail so do you actively try to do something where you acquire a customer through a marketplace but then somehow bring them for the next order you’re able to bring them to your own channels?

Sahil: No, we never do that because it is against their policy as well. Neither do we intend to do that customers should buy it from here or there. We are selling a product and even if a marketplace is charging us 20, 30% even our own expense to bring the customer to our website is 20, 30%. So the customer should be able to buy from the nearest place, within their comfort zone and that is what we believe in.

Amit: Okay, that makes sense. So you are saying effectively the cost is going to work out the same so it’s not even worth trying. So again, talking about the marketplaces. So, when you first got started I’m sure it was, okay, let me just list something, you know, write some stuff, but maybe a photograph, and then that’s it. How did you evolve from there? Or what are some of the things you’ve learned about marketplace listings that other people could benefit from?

Sahil: Again, as I said, we have to do things differently. So different from what your competitors are doing. And you have to see what the other brands are doing, how they’re doing, and what better things you can do from them, whether it’s a site test, whether it’s the images, whether it’s a price point, whether it is the display page because the customer only wants to see that image, main features what you have given and how beautiful you have highlighted your key factors why one should buy that product in a precise way that you have only five seconds to display everything. And in those five to ten seconds, you should be able to convince the customer to stay further to read everything and to start trusting, start making trust in your product and your page.

Amit: So you’re trying to create trust in the page through essentially every element of it, the photo, the copy, all of that has to build up to the fact that this is a real and quality product, and therefore, you should trust.

Sahil: This is also never a one-time work, it has to keep changing with new and new things and new ideas, which you come across because you just can’t make it once and then forget it for years. You have to keep changing.

Amit: Okay, got it. So not only do you have to set it up and be, I think pretty intentional about it. You also have to keep updating all this content. How often do you think one should update listings on these platforms?

Sahil: We always try to do it once a year or one and a half years, we always try to entirely change the look and feel.

Amit: So like a full refresh, you must have I’m guessing hundreds of cues on these platforms. So let’s talk a little bit about the team side, we’ve talked so much about the product. So, on the team front, you said that you started out solo, and then by the time you launched your products you had a few team members and so on. So how did you make your first few hires, were they all local like from Chandigarh, or from where you are? Or were they from elsewhere? And why did they join you?

Sahil: I had all the local stuff only and our strategy was to hire the freshers because the freshers and people who have intellectual level, who are educated and have good qualifications, those were a preference because we were able to mold them according to our requirements, we can train them to task which is required and they were happy to learn all these kinds of things then they became a long term resource who could sustain with us, who could be there with us in the long extrude.

So at that time, people were less knowledgeable about E-commerce so it was difficult to find those staff, so it was much easier to train them because I had always kind of done all those kinds of learning and all. Once we train them then they are able to grasp more things, they are able to do things practically, and even we learn several new things along with them. So the journey is all about learning, we learn things each day, they learn new things each day then together we make a better way.

So today it’s much easier, today you have so much work from home facility has started. You can hire anyone across the country or maybe have a word and just ask them to work from home from their destination place, there’s no need to come over, to relocate yourself, people are not opting for relocation they are preferring work from home these days.

Amit: Right actually, how do you adapt to that kind of world your world should be heavily manufacturing-oriented, right? So, are you comfortable with this work-from-home and remote work setup?

Sahil: Yeah, we are comfortable with working from home because we are able to get more valuable resources that way, more people who have more experience and more talent and they generally lead the team.

Amit: Okay, that’s really good to know. I mean, you’ve actually made a benefit out of this whole situation. And you mentioned something about you bringing in freshers and then they learn and then they eventually start learning things by themselves. So, how have you created this magic like, what are you looking for in these freshers? Because not all freshers are created equal.

Sahil: These freshers used to be in the earliest stages when we were starting the company. But now you get resources, who are having like one-year experience, three years, five years, ten years. So depending on them, depending on the requirements, we are able to hire a mid-level or maybe a junior or maybe a senior on the basis of the requirement.

Because every company has its own way of working. You cannot just ask any senior or mid-level to join your company and start doing things he was doing over there. You have to tell them, this is the way of our doing, this is our method because you have to again train them, you have to tell them each and everything again, that this is how we do, this is how we report, this is how we take the production, take the productivity, this is how we are measuring the things.

So, you have to train them, guide them whether it’s a senior or whether it’s a mid-level, it’s one and the same thing.

Amit: And like when a new person joins, do you have some sort of an onboarding program or a training program? Or is it on the job kind of learning?

Sahil: Yeah, we have seniors in-house now and then there are Team Leaders who also are able to take over all these duties. So, this training is almost like six months to one year, or maybe more sometimes it’s more than that, and then that resource becomes a very strong pillar, that can compete with any person across the country, any senior leader.

Amit: Actually, also speaking about talent nowadays I know a lot of business owners are finding it difficult nowadays to hire and also to retain talent, because people, especially from work from home, can move around more easily. So, are you facing similar challenges? And do you have any ways that you’re trying to retain your best people?

Sahil: See, if it’s the resource find there is nothing more to learn over here, if the salaries are not good, or maybe the facilities are not good, or the main thing, I believe that people don’t look at the facility, or the salary they see the learning stages, the kind of work they are doing, whether it is maintenance work, what kind of work they’re doing, what kind of learning they are getting into, what kind of responsibilities, or maybe how the management is and how the team leaders are there, how good their scaling in the company. I believe personal growth matters in all these things.

So that makes one retain the employee, rather than if you have a large scale company, and the manager is handling 50 employees. So over there, I believe there will be issues coming up because people would be just reporting to the managers and just doing the same kind of activities, and maybe their ideas are not appreciated over there, and their work is not looked into with great depth.

Amit: You know, Sahil, this is a good way of looking at things. Often, I guess small business owners feel like, well, we are small. And so, therefore, the best talent will want to go to other places, larger companies, they are paid more and stuff. But you’re actually saying smallness is an advantage, which is you’re able to give better attention to people, it’s a smaller group of people.

Sahil: Yes, they are able to connect with us more effectively.

Amit: Yeah, connect more, have a bigger scope, learn more things. This is good. I think this is a very interesting viewpoint and one that maybe at least I hadn’t considered earlier. It’s a good way of looking at things. So, I think Sahil, well before this conversation, you’d mentioned that you are not only a profitable company you have been profitable, right from the start.

So that’s obviously an amazing achievement to be profitable from day one. And especially when you’re selling physical goods, because I’m sure you have to manufacture, there’s inventory, there are storage costs, sales teams, whatnot. So, initially, what were some of the challenges that you faced in meeting profitability targets and how did you actually overcome all of them?

Sahil: Always our aim was to be in a profitable situation, whether we have to compromise on the MOQ or whether we have to compromise on the marketing aspects. We always believe we have to make such a product, which is different from the market, people give more attention to that kind of product. And there we have to do less marketing.

So that factor and the pricing have to be set accordingly so that all these factors are taken into consideration, including placement, product costings, and all kinds of expenses. I never see the competition pricing, because I know what the product I’m making is.

If the competition is selling for 500, I won’t be reluctant to even make it for 1500 because I know the product I’m making and at what price, I would be profitable, I don’t have to see, if they might be selling at a loss, they might be getting funding to sell it at that kind of price, I have to see myself, I have to see my business and how I can sell at that price and how I can differentiate from that price because every product has a placement like the bags have a placement, cars have a placement, everything is differentiated from the features and the packaging.

So it is not that if one product comes for 500 then all products will come for 500 only, it is level, level of differentiation, and the product differentiation should be 500,1000, 1500, 2000, and 5000 also.

Amit: So, essentially, you’re saying two things here. One is, you should price it in a manner that will be profitable, not worrying about the other price points in the market. And that pricing should be defensible, based on how different your product is or the features of that product.

And the second thing is, there are some things that you make the tradeoffs, which is, like you said, initially, maybe you wouldn’t have spent so much on marketing, and you needed to put the product in a manner where it markets itself effectively. And so, therefore, those are the ways that you kind of managed your profitability.

So thanks for that. I think this is also a good insight. So, that was initially and you started out being profitable and stuff, how did you then grow from that point onwards to become multi-brand and multi-platform, successful? I’m sure you need to grow beyond the original minimum order quantities that you placed, and so on. So what were some of the tactics that got you through the years?

Sahil: So, profit was one of the main tactics where we were profitable, and we never had to look for funding from any venture funds, we never had that requirement. So our profits were good enough to launch new products, launch new brands, enter into new verticals, and scale them up gradually.

We never believed that now it is one year so now we need to reach 100 crores, and now it is the second year we have to reach 200 crores, we were not into those kinds of races to show numbers. We wanted to do things in a better way, in an organic way, in a natural way where we can self-do things.

Amit: This is interesting. So essentially, you’re saying because you had profit, you could fund your own business. And because you didn’t have any external investors, there was no pressure that you have to do this doubling, tripling kind of game. And that makes the whole thing sustainable. For how long have you been running the business, Sahil?

Sahil: Well, it’s been a very long journey into this business field, I’ve been working since 2007. So it’s been 14, 15 years of my work era. So, I would say it’s a 15 years long journey. It’s just not a short journey.

Because even if you have launched the brand, two years back, or three years back, so those brands have been three years, four years, five years, all these brands, but my journey, my experience, my past experience, my previous experience, is all that taught me, educated me and what the insights to do all these things.

Amit: So, 15 years is quite a long time. So I have two related questions on this. One is, how many years did it take you to reach a point where you knew that the business is going to be successful? Or how long did it take to be confident that this is definitely working, and it is going to grow into something bigger?

Sahil: See if I had to start something, I’m always confident from the beginning that I’m doing this, and this will scale up, whether you get the success or not in the first few months, but I always have this kind of confidence.

Amit: Because you said, whether it takes a few months or not. So was it like, maybe six months or eight months or a year before the business really started churning and producing large enough numbers to kind of make it feel worthwhile?

Sahil: See I always had confidence in myself, but to my employees, my family, it takes a while to develop this kind of confidence.

Amit: That’s probably true. Okay, and how did you keep motivated over 15 years of this journey? And I’m sure there are many more years to go.

Sahil: My early retirement is the motivation.

Amit: Fair enough. So would you say that you’re reaching that kind of stage sometime soon, where the business is at the stage where you feel like it can actually give you enough to not have to work for money?

Sahil: Yeah, maybe just a couple of years.

Amit: Wow, that’s great. So, I have another 14 years to go before I get there as well. Nice, good to know. So one last question for you, which is, looking back on your 15-year journey, what are the things that you might have done differently? Or what kind of advice that you’d like to give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Sahil: I always believe to always do things differently and never do things that are against your interest or where you are just showing off to other’s numbers, never run after things, always do things that you believe can sustain and give you benefit in the longer run.

Do short-term things and don’t look at others what they are doing, whether they’re spending too much on marketing, doing influencers, or doing celebrity. See what’s your pocket size, what benefit you can achieve out of that, always see your instant profit if you’re not dependent on investors or funding always see the instant profit you’re making from each activity.

Amit: Okay, so the ROI of basically every activity.

Sahil: Yeah. It matters because you can’t see the figures after six months or one year, then you’re under negative and you won’t be able to recover.

Amit: Okay, so thanks a lot, Sahil. These were excellent insights. Where can people find out more about your business? Or what’s the website they could go to?

Sahil: My website emmbrosoverseas.com. And also my brand websites manarden.com, musclexp.com, and mom&world.com

Amit: Okay, great. We’ll put links on our website as well like when we put up the notes. So thanks a lot Sahil, these were great insights. I was noting some of them down while you were speaking. So let me just take a moment to summarise for our audience at least some of my takeaways.

I think the biggest takeaway from me or rather let the headline takeaway is that it is possible to run a successful profitable business with a wide portfolio of products. So you don’t have to believe in the conventional wisdom that you need to focus on one narrow kind of thing to succeed.

The second takeaway for me was, if you’re starting out from scratch, it may be a good idea to start with marketplaces or like Sahil, calls them now they like distributors, which is true. So, start with those and grow to a point, and then build your own presence.

And to be successful in these marketplaces you need to look at your listing quality, like what you look like, and how trustworthy are you. And also, it helps if you’re a new player in a category. So there’s something unique about you, that people will look for. And then the marketplace is also like that because you have something new to offer.

The third takeaway for me was, if you’re building a product, deal with the best manufacturers because that’s where you will get really the best quality and quality is ultimately one of the things that’s going to help you, make it in the market. And it’s not even as if the biggest manufacturers are not going to work with you.

Because if you bring to them some innovative thing that you’re trying to do, then even the big people want to work with you because even they want to experiment and be on the cutting edge. And you’re helping them get there. So don’t worry that you’re an unknown player, worry more about whether you have an innovative product.

On the people side, I think my takeaway was, even if you’re a small company, as long as you have a learning culture, and in fact, because you’re a small company, maybe there is much more learning culture, you will actually find it’s possible to retain good people and to attract them because you have a much better connect with them. They have the ability to grow and build a bigger scope than they would have in a larger company.

In terms of customers, I think what Sahil was saying is that you need to understand your customers. And it helps a lot if you yourself are a customer because that helps you, first of all, figure out whether your product is doing a good job. But more importantly, it lets you look at things that you use, which are from, not made in your country, or it’s something that could have been done differently. And that gives you the opportunity to innovate a new product there.

In terms of profitability, and given that Sahil has been profitable from day one in a physical goods business, there’s a lot to learn here. So, his points were that you need to make tradeoffs, of course, particularly around marketing, or things like that, where you reduce your cost by putting your product somewhere where it can sell itself.

And maybe you have to make tradeoffs on the size of the order that you want to give to your manufacturer and so on. But you can be profitable as long as you price your product at a level at which you will actually make money. And don’t worry too much about competition, and how they are pricing, differentiate what you’re doing and therefore defend your own pricing.

The other thing around profits was that the profits will fund your expansion, and then you aren’t beholden to any kind of investor. And if you’re not obligated to be an investor, then you have a lot of flexibility, you can grow at the rate that you want to, you’re not in a race to show any kind of vanity metrics or numbers, you can just focus on running a good business.

The other point also, I think, is a very important one that Sahil said is don’t worry too much about the competition, they will do all kinds of things, you do what works for you, and they will do what works for them. And you can be successful that way.

And I think the last couple of things were don’t focus on doing short-term things, whatever it is you’re doing needs to build your business in the longer run. So anything short-termism will kind of probably just distract you from making a solid business. And also do things that are instantly ROI positive.

So it gives you some sort of profit or value immediately versus something they’ll give you value one year later because you would have run out of money by then. And then your business won’t succeed.

So Sahil, thank you so much. These were great insights. I really appreciate you being here with us. And for those listening to this show, please do rate us five stars for this episode because at least for me, it was definitely a five-star episode. You can get links to all the different brands that Sahil has set up on our website as well.

Sahil: Thanks, Amit. Very nicely summarised all the points. The perfect one to just read all those points.

Amit: Yeah, thank you very much. So we were Amit and Sahil with ShopTok. See you next time.

The post ST16 | Sahil Mehta On Building A Profitable D2C Brand Portfolio appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

What do you think about when you hear the words, serial entrepreneur? Do you imagine a startup founder raising money growing fast, and then making an exit, and then doing it all over again? But what if I told you that people do this with bootstrap ventures as well, perhaps even more often than with startups?

Discussion  Topics: Darpan Seth on How to Exit from Your Startup

• Getting started in the logistic space
• Getting first few clients and the power of referrals
• Why Exit or Grow the bootstrap business
• Challenges and Issues on the way to success
• Learnings from challenges and exit

Transcript: Darpan Seth on How to Exit from Your Startup

Amit: Welcome to another episode of the ShopTok podcast. Today, we are talking to Darpan Seth, founder of Nextuple, which is his second business after a successful exit with his first one. We are going to understand from him his learnings from the first exit, and how he’s approaching business this time around. So Darpan, thank you so much for joining us today. Before we start, would you like to introduce yourself, and maybe share a little bit about what your business is all about?

Darpan Seth: Thank you, Amit, for having me. A little bit about me, I’m a second-time entrepreneur in the Omni channel fulfillment space. My first company was a professional services firm in the same space, that company was Bootstrap and then acquired by the Publicis Sapient Group, in 2015. Late 2017, is when we started Nextuple. And we are on a mission to unleash the power of fulfillment networks, in particular stores in order to help our customers get faster fulfillment and lower costs. And also send fewer packages out to customers.

Now you might say that, given the pandemic, we couldn’t have picked a better time, we are four years in the making and growing 100% year on year, we’ve got some fantastic customers and a team that I’m super proud about are really looking forward to what the next phase of our journey has in store for us.

Amit: Yeah. And by the way Darpan, first of all, congratulations on your prior exit. And also on 100% growth year on year. And that is also for mostly bootstrapped businesses. So maybe help us understand how one gets started or how you get started in the logistics space?

Darpan Seth: Yeah, sure. So I started off in the supply chain execution space, way back in late 2000. I joined a company called Yantra. And that company pioneered a set of applications called order management, and it has since become the de facto standard in the industry. It’s called distributed order management and really helps initial dot com businesses, in helping fulfill their orders.

And then subsequently retailers started adopting order management systems in order to really service their customers with the inventory that they had placed across the country. And so, with my team members, I became well-versed in the technologies and the business processes around order fulfillment.

And so, we’ve sort of stayed in the same space. And when I first started out, I almost fell into entrepreneurship by default. I wasn’t a startup that didn’t do as well. And found myself without a job. And that’s when I decided to start out on my own.

Amit: Okay, almost being pushed into entrepreneurship or forced into it. So how did you get your first few clients? Like, when you decided to start out on your own I’m sure, it must have been an uncertain feeling at that time, at least the first time around, for sure.

Darpan Seth: It was definitely nerve-racking Amit. It’s very challenging to find yourself without a job, you start to question your own abilities. But then I sort of drew back into who I was, and I always wanted to do something of my own. And when this opportunity sort of presented itself to say, hey, you can go out there and look for another job or maybe start off on your own, I said why not.

I actually had spent some time in a startup. So I saw that it wasn’t that hard to do what needed to be done, and all I really needed was one customer. So I called my previous client and told him, Hey, I happen to be on the market, do you have a contracting gig for me? I’d love to take something on and he said, for sure and that’s how I got started.

Amit: I love how you describe a forced departure as an opportunity. But indeed it is. And I’ve heard this before from others as well, where how they got started into entrepreneurship was through a service or a consulting opportunity, and usually with some network that they have built in the past. So this seems like a pretty good formula. So from that one client onwards, how did you grow that business, or even now with Nextuple, how do you get your first few clients going from just one?

Darpan Seth: I think the number one thing is, when you get a customer, and you make a promise to them, you got to deliver on it, right? And so I firmly believe in setting low expectations and then exceeding them. And when you do that consistently, over time, it’s not very difficult to find, follow-on work. And that’s sort of the formula that I’ve applied in my career, which is doing the best you can for the customer, make them look good, and add value to their business. And if you do that at a price point that they don’t mind paying, you know, there’s always more work to be done.

Amit: So, since you mentioned price, especially I guess, for consulting, but even for a business, which is trying to price its offering, how does one, or how should one, think about pricing in the early stages, when you don’t have credibility, you don’t have case studies or testimonials or anything?

Darpan Seth: I think that’s where knowing the space that you’re getting into is important. So if you’re starting something brand new, with no idea of what the pricing should be, then you’re right, you know, it’s going to be rather challenging to figure out how you price it or if is there even value in what you’re doing. And so, there are times when you go to a customer with a new product or a new service, and you got to be willing to give it away for free if you have to, in order to get the trial.

And once you have the trial, then you try to say, okay, how much value did I deliver from it, and therefore figure out the price point that the next customer might be willing to pay. So it’s really a little bit of experimentation that can help you figure out what’s fair value. And then obviously, there’s competitive intelligence, right, as it says, is there somebody else out there that’s offering in similar and how much are they offering? If you can collect that information, then you can use that to inform how you would like to price your offering.

Amit: Okay. And then you said that you grew the business, you know, you offered the best possible service that you could to one customer, and then you grew the business from there. So what’s that through referrals?

Darpan Seth: All through referrals. In fact, in my previous business, we had no sales team, in fact, even in Nextuple, in our current business, we do not have anybody in a sales and marketing role today.

Amit: Wow. Okay. I did not expect to hear that about any business. But that’s impressive. I mean, if you can create virality, which is effectively what you’re doing around a B2B business, that is insane. So how does one get this kind of referral? Or create this level of virality?

Darpan Seth: I think the underlying premise is building trust. When you work with customers, when you work with partners, when you work with employees, how do you create a genuine interaction, where you are interested in providing that value to each stakeholder that you sort of run into, you know, in the service industry, they call it the moment of truth, and so, you’re forever on stage, you know, with each interaction that you have, if you try and do the right thing, by the customer, by your people, by your partners, then I think that virtuous cycle, sort of helps you build on one thing after the other and allows you to build some scale and momentum as you go.

Amit: Right. Do you also sort of help that process along because people will not naturally, I guess, refer you to other people, especially, because I’m assuming you work in the retail industry? So I guess retailers compete with each other in that sense. So how do you encourage them or how do you facilitate this whole virality?

Darpan Seth: Yeah, so some of this is a matter of time as well Amit. What I have found in my career is that, when you spent 20 years in one industry, you worked with a few customers to begin with. In those 20 years, those 20 customers or 20 people that you’ve worked with have grown within their organisations, and they have moved around.

So, if you’ve spent time building that trust and relationships when they move around, they take you with them. So it’s not necessarily just hey, you know, I call someone and say, please give me a referral. And that’s how I get my business, it is just by virtue of time spent in the space, in the industry, cultivating your expertise, cultivating your network, and then naturally, those people have risen in the ranks over the years, and gotten into more decision making roles.

And so what I find now, you know, I’m benefiting from a lot of the hard work that I put in with my previous venture because the folks that I’ve worked with back then are now Senior Executives, and many of the clients that we work with now, and are willing to take that chance with us a lot easier than with someone that they just didn’t know anything about.

Amit: I guess this is why maybe people say second-time entrepreneurs or second-time entrepreneurship is easier. And has that been your experience as well?

Darpan Seth: I think it’s a trade-off, right, first time around, you are hungrier, you probably are younger, and therefore you have a lot of drive and energy and desperation, if you may. So I think those things work really well if you want to be an entrepreneur.

The second time round, many of those things may not be at that same level, and therefore, that’s the disadvantage of getting into, you know, do you want to start back at base camp. And do you have the motivation? Or you’re not doing it, why because a lot of people consider it sexy to do a second venture, and many people actually fail at second and third ventures, because they might get complacent, they might not come up with the relevant offering for the time’s, they might not be hungry enough, right, for all of those reasons.

So, I think in many ways, it’s easier, because you don’t make the same mistakes, hopefully not. And in other ways, it is harder, because the expectations of people around you are also high.

Amit: I think you mentioned earlier that your first business actually ended up in a successful exit. And it’s not often that you learn from people who have exited a bootstrap business. So tell me a little bit about how that experience was, why did you choose to exit versus growing the business? And then what happened subsequently post that?

Darpan Seth: Sure. So with the previous business, as I said, we had very little in terms of resources to start with, and so things that we had scavenged along the way. It was really built it up in bits and pieces, you know, one client at a time, one new team member at a time, there’s a lot of perspiration that went into creating the asset, if you may.

So we didn’t have proper resources, and therefore, we had to complement that with a lot of hard work. And second, I think, we worked very hard to create a culture of inclusiveness and bonding in the team, because we couldn’t offer big paycheques to people, and therefore, we had to do something different in order to keep them around with us and make them feel happier and engaged.

And so, what we couldn’t solve with money, we substituted with love for team members. So it was rather challenging to build up a company like that. And, over time, what happened was, as we grew in scale, we started encountering more competition from the bigger guys, and they had a wider range of offerings, they had more significant relationships with executives, in the clients that we were working with, you know, they came in saying they could do it all.

Whereas we specialise in a certain niche. So it was becoming harder to compete with the bigger guys and therefore, we started to question ourselves in terms of what do we need to do to get to the next level? And the answer for that was we needed more investment in newer areas, newer service areas, which meant we had to substantially grow our teams in order to be able to take on things that we hadn’t been doing so far.

It was also, you know, in an area where we did not have as much expertise. And so, there came a point where we simply had to make a choice, like, do we continue to be a small business and turn it into a lifestyle business? Or do we want to continue growing and maybe augment and become a part of a bigger crew where those things naturally exist?

So the complementary services offering skill sets are already part of the new setup. And you basically have a path to continue to thrive in a different environment. And so the latter is what we took, as one way to bank the value of what we had created for ourselves and for our team members. And second, really to find a good home for the business to continue to grow in.

Amit: Right. So essentially, the reason you exited is because the business had hit some sort of a step. And then you had to take a very big step to continue to compete with the next tranche of competitors. And it didn’t seem like that was something that you all could afford or manage, or it was just too much at the time.

So instead, you just took the value that had been created. And maybe this is a lesson also, for those who are listening to this, which is, if you are bootstrapping, you can grow up to a point. But then after that, there will be a step change moment of decision. And potentially, there’ll be another step change, again, maybe a few years down the road. And that’s how you just keep going.

Darpan Seth: Correct. And I think being able to make those transitions across those inflection points, if you may, is what determines success or failure. And it really depends. To me, it boiled down to one thing, really, which was access to capital.

Because if you have the capital, then you can make that inflection point happen. You have the ability to invest in those newer capabilities, newer practices, or newer products, if you may, that allow you to get to that next stage. But if you don’t have that access to capital, then it becomes rather challenging to navigate that traverse.

Amit: Right. So this was about prior business, and then you naturally flowed into Nextuple, which is what you’re running right now. So with Nextuple, because it’s an operation, heavy product, heavy kind of business. Is this something that you were also able to start small, or did you have to actually build out a lot of infrastructure before you got going?

Darpan Seth: We actually started very small. So it was just me and one of my co-founders, Lakshman, we came out of the previous entity, and we just got started pretty much the same way I had started my previous business, which was consulting with a client. And that’s how we got started.

Amit: So this business also began with consulting.

Darpan Seth: It did and it still continues to be a big part of what we do today.

Amit: Okay. So I think this makes sense for a lot of starting entrepreneurs, which is to see whether you can begin with the service and then even if you have a product vision, like sort of Morphett on the way because that, I suppose reduces the risk of what you’re trying to achieve.

Darpan Seth: So different people will tell you that that’s not a good strategy. So the purists will tell you to decide upfront whether you’re building a services business or a product business and do one because it’s very rare for a services business to actually be able to transform and build products successfully. And the reason being that services businesses are really, you know, the KPIs on success, are all about utilisation, bill rates, all of that stuff.

So investment as a KPI fund upon, right, because that is bench time, but you can’t build the product that way, because you can’t build the product in your free time. Then you’re not being true to your product strategy. And that’s why a lot of service companies actually fail miserably at building products.

So, in our case, we had to make a conscious choice to have that investment be a part of our philosophy, and really earmark the resources needed to be able to build a product, because we knew coming in that building a product is not something that you can do in a day or two.

Amit: Right. So you already knew that you were going to be a product business service was just a way to ease yourself into it. But you didn’t have to do a transformation in thinking because you are always going to be a product business.

Darpan Seth: That’s right. If I can sum it up, I would say, the way we operate is different from a pure product company, and a pure service company, in the sense that our philosophy is “use services to learn, and use products to earn”.

Amit: That’s a really good insight, also a very good quotable quote by the way Darpan, you should use that in various places.

Darpan Seth: I tell you this is not my own, it’s from another successful entrepreneur that I’ve had the good fortune of having as an advisor over the years, he’s built many, many companies and exited them. And when I met him one of the times, you know, this is what he shared with me in terms of wisdom, and it’s sort of stuck with me.

Amit: Yeah, it’s a really good way of thinking actually, and makes a lot of sense. So Darpan, you run two businesses, one you’ve successfully exited, so anybody would consider that like a massive win. And the second one, also, you’ve been running for four years growing so fast.

So all this sounds like a fairy tale, at least for someone like me, who had one failed business and is now trying to do something useful with the second one. So did you have challenges on the way? Or what were some of the issues that you had to overcome to make all of this success actually happen?

Darpan Seth: That’s a great question, Amit. You know, no business is without challenges. Every startup sort of runs into its own unique set of challenges. I think one of the most common problems that people run into is issues between the founders. Because it’s a hard thing you’re trying to accomplish in the first place.

You’re trying to create a business where none existed before. And therefore, it’s a little bit like marriage, it’s a lot of work, it takes trust, it takes both partners sort of pulling their weight, and doing it consistently over many, many, many years for a marriage to work.

So, a startup, where there is more than one person involved as the founding team, that becomes crucial because you could have disagreements over vision, strategy, execution, money, direction, pricing, you’re going to have disagreements about pretty much anything to do with the business, it’s how you navigate those differences, how you can agree to disagree in many instances.

And I think, above all, how you can continue to keep that trust and build upon it. Because sometimes you might be separated by time, distance, or geography, right, if you have co-founders in different geographies, for example, it becomes even more difficult to stay on the same page, and that was one of the issues I ran into in my previous business where there was a falling apart between founders, and it came to a point where the business almost shut down, and it would have really impacted pretty much the entire team. And so it was incredibly challenging to sort of overcome that.

Amit: Right. To take your marriage analogy further, you are trying to run a long-distance relationship, which is definitely harder. So one thing that people should watch out for is finding the right founder and then investing the time to make that relationship work so that you’re both essentially moving towards the same direction, and so on. And I think what you mentioned to me earlier was, because you’re working with many of the same people, you have that relationship already built out.

Darpan Seth: Exactly right. And I think that’s what we took away from the previous business was not just the lessons learned in terms of how do you identify and run a business, how do you serve customers, how do you build a team, but really, about being comfortable around a group of people that you know you can just rely on.

Amit: So, what are some of the other things, other challenges that you’ve learned from?

Darpan Seth: I think, in a high-growth business Amit, every three to six months, you end up becoming a different company altogether, recognizing that change, and understanding what you need to do differently at each of those points. So, one is that after a few years, you hit an inflection point, which is the major change in strategy, direction, and execution.

But along the way, there are so many little turns and pitfalls and things that can go wrong, that you have to work very hard at making sure that you keep your eye on the prize or the vision, but at the same time, take care of, you know, the day to day, and make sure that you don’t fall into a pit, you know, fracture a limb, keep notching up your wins, so get at least one win a week.

I call that the winner of the week, or the wow factor. And if you have a lot of wow factors, and you keep doing that week after week after week, then at the end of 52 weeks, that’s 52 wins that you did not have the previous year. And it just adds on. And if there is, you know, 52 of you notching up those 52 wins week on week, then that’s when you build the scale and the momentum with the team.

So the more of you that are notching up those wins, it basically compounds very, very rapidly. So growing 100% year on year is not hard at all, if you have the right team, and each of them is getting you those wins.

Amit: Darpan, this is a really tangible way of looking at it because the quote that one often hears is got 1% better every week, and that will compound over 52 weeks, and you will be whatever, so many x better than you were at the start. But 1% better is very difficult to tell what that is. But one win a week Yes, certainly everybody can recognize what a win is.

Darpan Seth: Easily, right. So in the context of business, it could be a new prospect that you identified. It could be a partner conversation you had that turned into a meaningful relationship. It could be a new team member that you hired. It could be a certain expense that you were able to reduce. My philosophy is if you watch the pennies, the dollars take care of themselves.

Amit: Okay. Oh, you are full of quotes Darpan.

Darpan Seth: I think every entrepreneur that you talk to Amit, I’m sure yourself too, it’s like finding a method to the madness. And we have our own way of finding that method. You talk to many entrepreneurs, right? I’m sure they’ll give you similar-sounding things, but vastly different based on their personal experience.

Amit: Yeah. And this is why I really like having these conversations because the tactics in themselves could fill a book. Like, if you just add it all up it’s a really nice set of things that people have figured out without money. I mean, hardly anybody has ever mentioned to me that, Oh, you know, I just spent a lot of money on this. And it worked out.

Darpan Seth: That’s true and I think also understand what each of us is good at. So, it’s like being an athlete, but recognizing what sport you want to play. It’s vastly different. Someone might be great at running marathons, somebody else might be great at decathlon, and the two athletes can’t really compete in the same sport.

So understanding which sports you’re meant for and then adapting to that, I think makes all the difference. So as an entrepreneur, being able to recognize the external signs, and say, this opportunity is right for me, and the other one is not.

Amit: Yeah, that’s right. Essentially, you play the game, which you’re strongest at, and I guess you will naturally gravitate towards that kind of business. And then your style of doing that business will be in accordance with what you’re good at. If you do something, because it’s the flavour of the season essentially, what you’re saying is, it will eventually not work out.

Now, given that you’ve had an exit, and frankly, before that, also, you had a successful career, you’re presumably financially comfortable. So what keeps you going? Because is it actually possible for a person to be comfortable and yet kind of hungry in business and really have the drive to keep going?

Darpan Seth: That’s a fantastic question. And there are days when I asked myself that, you know, in the sense that, what is the true meaning of life? What is my purpose? Is this what I really want to do? You know, I’ve been through the grind once, why am I doing it again? And then I look around me and see who I’m doing this with?

And I think therein lies the answer, that if you spend time with people that you like being around, and who got your back. And this also means you got to have their back it boils down to the same theme that we were talking of earlier, which is trust, which is, hey, do you enjoy what you do every day, say, 90 days out of 100 you enjoy doing what you do and 100 out of 100 days, you enjoy doing it with people that you enjoy being around. So those 10 days don’t matter as much in the longer run.

The 10 days where you’re feeling low, there’ll be somebody that you can talk to and they’ll pull you out of your misery. So there is some phase where you feel like you just don’t want to do it anymore, it happens. But I find that just being around good people and being able to contribute to their lives meaningfully to me, drives me a tremendous lot. So while we have the energy, we still want to keep trying to contribute.

Amit: Right. So essentially, what you’re saying is for you, it’s about doing it with people that you like doing this with, and that is what is keeping you going. And the fact that you’re obviously doing something and adding some value to the world is the cherry on the cake. Speaking of that, so what’s the future that you’re seeing for your business? You’ve been doing this for, I think, maybe what, three or four years now, and already seeing a lot of success. So where do you go from here?

Darpan Seth: I think we’re just getting started, Amit. Four years have gone by in a flash. And really, you know, what we have spent time on is building a solid foundation. We’ve got a great set of customers that we have built strong ongoing relationships with, and therefore we are very committed to that.

We’ve also built a fantastic core team of people that have joined us from all the good companies in our space. So we have assembled an A-class team, and we have identified for ourselves a complex set of problems that are just waiting to be solved. And we have also figured out, you know, the recipe to solve many of them, and therefore from this point on, it’s all about execution, and really getting our customers to see the value in what we have built.

So, I feel like we have that foundation in place, and we just have to make sure that we capitalise on it and bring the exponential value that we know exists.

Amit: Right, and I think this is quite a noble aim, right? Essentially, you’re trying to get the little guy or the mid-sized guys to be able to compete with the Amazons and Walmart’s and targets, I guess, on the same, at least to level the playing field to some extent, because otherwise, what is eventually going to be left is just these people and none of your mom and pop stores or none of the high street retailers that people will see around them.

Darpan Seth: Yeah, I think nobody has taken a concerted effort to really make them competitive or find ways to make them competitive. And what I find is that the answer has been staring us in the face. You know, a lot of these retailers have a lot of stores, in all the major metro markets.

So if you can crack the nut on how to solve store fulfillment, when it comes to filling online orders, and do it in a way where it’s efficient, it’s scalable, it is faster than just serving customers out of warehouses, then I think that would be something phenomenal for these guys.

Amit: Right. Okay, so, before we close, my last question for you is, what might you have done differently or what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs based on now several years’ journey in this space?

Darpan Seth: Entrepreneurship is like jumping off a cliff with a handkerchief. And it’s a risk. But it’s a risk that an optimist will take. And so, rather than constantly deliberating about starting on that path, or waiting for the right opportunity, when you can get started, you know, it’s not something you can do part-time.

So if you want to do entrepreneurship, you have to jump on both feet and try it out for a certain period of time, really give it everything you’ve got, and not have any regrets if it doesn’t work. So, try it because if you don’t try it, you’ll never know whether you could have done something with it or not. So, that would be my advice. And then the second part is, to pick the right business for you.

There might be great ideas out there about businesses, but are you going to be the right person to set up a business like that and actually run it? So if you can do those two things, I think anybody can be an entrepreneur.

Amit: Right. That goes back to your earlier point about knowing what kind of an athlete you are and playing that game, versus some game that seems lucrative, but you’re just not suited for.

Darpan Seth: That’s right.

Amit: So Darpan, thank you so much. This was a really enjoyable conversation, and I really appreciate having you here with us on ShopTok. And by the way, if you’re a retailer in the US or maybe you want to check them out, because I’m pretty sure it’s going to enhance your business in this current logistics-hungry world.

So definitely give it a look. And for everyone else listening do follow us, subscribe to us. And if you liked this episode, and I see no reason why you shouldn’t have, this has been a really enjoyable one please give us a five-star rating. And that’s it for today. So Darpan, thank you so much for joining us. We were Darpan and Amit with ShopTok. See you next time.

The post ST15 | Darpan Seth On How To Exit From Your Startup appeared first on CrazyTok Media.

Most people don’t even get started on one business idea. And it’s rare to find someone who’s worked on two or three. But six, come on, that’s crazy talk, right? Well, not really. Today we are speaking with Sharad Lal, Founder and currently chairman of 24 Inc, a Singaporean advertising agency that helps large clients execute digital and retail campaigns. He also runs a successful podcast called “How to Live”, which was recently number 3 in Singapore. And I’m really frankly quite jealous because that’s a higher rank than my podcasts have ever achieved.

And that’s not all. He’s founded six different businesses in actually quite a variety of spaces. Some succeeded, like 24 Inc, and others did not like his first startup. So we’re going to understand from him how he thinks one can be successful with Bootstrap businesses.

Discussion Topics: Sharad Lal On Growing A Business With Just A Few Big Clients

• Getting a very large, first customer
• The challenges with the business
• Differentiating the business with large agencies and copycats
• To what extent should a new entrepreneur try everything?
• Reducing and managing risks
• Tips for service entrepreneurs

Transcript: Sharad Lal On Growing A Business With Just A Few Big Clients

Amit: Sharad, thank you so much for joining us today on ShopTok. For a start, maybe you could tell us a little bit about yourself, your business.

Sharad: Thanks, Amit. Great to be on the show. I grew up in India, and after going to the same business school that you did, in Calcutta, I moved to Singapore with my first job in Procter and Gamble. I worked in marketing for three and a half years. Then I went to consulting with BCG for a year and a half. Back in 2006, I started 24 Incorporate, the business that you talked about an advertising agency looking after big consumers, and good clients. That’s been my core business throughout.

Along with that, I’ve been involved with a few other businesses. I’ve been involved with a tech platform. I recently started a coaching business. I’ve also been involved with the training business early on. So in summary, that’s what I’ve done. I still live in Singapore, I’m married. I have two kids. And that’s what it is.

Amit: Yeah. That’s an impressive array of businesses Sharad. I know some of them, actually, many of them because you started 24 a long time back, many of them are things that you started in parallel. And I think there are probably a couple that are running in parallel right now.

So that’s quite a portfolio. So maybe, let’s try to understand how you actually get started on this journey. And like, was it like some burst of inspiration or something that you took away from work that got you started? And maybe how did you feel when you took your first steps?

Sharad: It wasn’t inspiration; it was more of a practical decision. So at that time, after having worked with PNG and BCG, I wanted to do something on my own, because I wanted to be in control of what I was doing. At the age of 29, I started 24. At this stage, I had created a dot com before that and that was a tech business in 2000.

When the dot com boom was alive. I learned a lot during the dot com boom, it was exciting time, but the business packed up in six months. And I’d seen many other businesses pack up quickly. So that was my background conversation when I was thinking about entrepreneurship at this stage, and for me, the learning was, I’d like to create a business that has sustainable cash flow. So I can move from the corporate world to the entrepreneurial world, and get my financial state to a level where I can have a reasonably good life.

Amit: Wow, that’s pretty cool. It’s impressive that you actually took the plunge and this was a long time back, India was definitely not a startup kind of friendly place at the time. So amazing that you actually went and did it. Okay, and then that experience is what then you later took on to running your own to starting 24. Now you’re saying that you focused on cash flow. Was that something that you kind of started out wanting to do? Or is it something that by constraint or necessity you ended up doing?

Sharad: I want to establish something which is a little more stable, steady cash flow kind of a business, given the experience earlier, because I wasn’t looking at a binary that you do something right, in two years, you can just kick it out of the park and you need not work. So I was thinking of building it ground up because of my experience.

And then with that mindset, I looked at what are the opportunities out there. And one of the opportunities there at that stage in Singapore, this is 2006, many consumer goods companies were creating their headquarters in Singapore. PNG had already done that, but many other companies were coming. And there were no other agencies who were servicing these companies beyond the global agencies.

So these people were looking at agile agencies, cost-effective agencies. And I thought, that’s a big scope of the market there, and having been in PNG, I know what the end deliverable should be. So it’s a calculated risk, which can help me establish a sustainable business reasonably soon. And with that mindset, I went about creating this.

Amit: Right. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And it’s really interesting that, essentially, you spotted this opportunity for large brands to be serviced by someone local, versus, those, like you said, large global ones with multi-country presence and all. So is it that PNG was your first customer or among your first customer?

Sharad: Yes, that’s right. So PNG was my first customer. And at that stage, before leaving, I knew I would be able to get some projects there. I knew I would be able to get some opportunities, because there were so many opportunities, and people were looking at quality agencies in Singapore to do it.

So I was able to get them. And then my strategy, to begin with, was to go deeper in PNG, even though it was one company that had multiple brands, and they were looking to do good work and being able to do good work, learn with them, build that in the portfolio, it would be easier to expand in the future.

Amit: So I’m also curious. So I know you worked in PNG, but you also worked at BCG. And usually, I’ve talked to a few service business founders, and they start with whatever they last because that’s where they’ve built their expertise and stuff. And you were a consultant. So why an ad agency versus anything else?

Sharad: Yeah, fair point. So I think the ad agency was purely from an opportunity standpoint, and I thought it was the best opportunity in line with the holistic lifestyle. In terms of doing something related to consulting, I had only spent a year and a half in BCG, and I was still fairly Junior. So I think folks who have gone in and spent five, six years, or even 10 years in consulting, working in a certain sector, they can call themselves experts, and then they can offer consulting, it becomes easier.

I did leverage a little bit of what I knew from the PNG standpoint because there was some understanding of marketing. And the people I was targeting were people like me in my previous life, it was the starting level brand people and the help that they needed.

So I had a good understanding, and there was some continuity to understanding what they needed, what was going on in the organisation inside, and what would make them look good. So I think that was the transfer of knowledge from my previous job moving forward.

Amit: Got it. Okay, I have a bit of a side question over here, if you don’t mind. So, you know, a lot of people, or frankly, everything that you read talks about how you should set up something that you’re passionate about, because if you aren’t passionate about it, how are you gonna keep going for the long run. Is this something that you’re actually passionate about? Like you really, really wanted to do it? Or was this opportunistic?

Sharad: Very interesting. And I think you hit the nail right on the head. It was an opportunistic move. And it wasn’t something I was completely passionate about. But yes, I enjoyed advertising and marketing and I enjoyed working back with PNG, which was fun. It’s of course better if you have both an opportunity and passion sitting in the same box, and you can create something in line with that.

But those opportunities are a little rare. And I think one of my latest businesses, which I’m doing in the coaching space, sits in that space, where it’s an area that’s come from a deep passion as well as there’s an opportunity. I think if people can find that, of course, the best way to go.

But if you can’t, and you really want to experience entrepreneurship, for me personally, I would bias myself towards a business through which I know I can get started, and get entrepreneurial experience, because it’s not that you get into a business, that’s all you do, you build a lot of skills, and then you can use those skills later in creating a passionate business. Or maybe just stay in your business and take it to different levels and develop a passion and create something big. So that’s my viewpoint, I think.

Amit: Yeah, and thanks for sharing that. I think it’s important for people to understand that because I think a lot is made out of, the fact that you need to be all in on something and you’re gonna die for that idea. But maybe opportunity trumps passion because ultimately you have to make money. I think that was a really good insight over there.

So coming back to the agency and the early days, you’re an untested agency. And you’re working with, I mean, really the largest brands in the world. So it’s probably the hardest way to move forward. So what were some of the challenges in working with such clients as a new, untested agency, they don’t really know what to expect.

Sharad: Sure. So I think the biggest challenge was because these were global companies, the decision on what agency to use was a global decision. And lots of the agencies that we competed with, when we started out, were signed agreements all the way in since added that they were going to work across the brand, everywhere in the world. So that was a huge challenge.

So people who wanted to work with us, with my agency had to go around the system and find budgets that were outside, which we’ll call experimental budgets, or things that the big agency did not want to take on, for them to transfer it to me. So I think that was a huge challenge. Because even though they might think at least the people on the ground that they prefer working with us, they are happy with our work globally, they need to go towards that mandate. So I think that’s one.

The second thing is even if you’ve established yourself with this particular brand, chances are you may not get the next project because they need to go back to that big agency that they work with. They just used you for this. So I think that was from a challenging standpoint, but the good news was the business was growing, brands that called out this region as a region where they wanted to establish more and more business, Singapore, as a hub was growing, more and more brands were run out of here.

More countries came into the scope from here, because of which the opportunities increased. And the marketing landscape changed as well, purely from the stage when I started out it was mainly television commercials, retail became an important thing, decisions were made in store and a lot of these agencies did not have the nimbleness to be able to do in-store work, packaging became important. Digital became important later on. So as the marketing landscape changed, and as the scope of Singapore as a hub changed, opportunities, the pie became a lot bigger for people like us to operate and work from.

Amit: Right. So okay, this is interesting. So definitely a kind of challenging start, I would say, it’s not something that you just walked in, because you had relationships, I was half expecting you to actually say that, Oh, you know, I had these relationships, and they just wanted to work with me. But on a related question here. So were you the sole person in the business at the time?

Sharad: Yes. So, for the starting point to keep costs low to bootstrap, like you mentioned, to keep it bootstrap it was just me and my laptop. And that’s how we started out. And because I wasn’t the creative person I would outsource work to an agency in India. So it was an outsourcing model. And of course, I interviewed multiple agencies and through that, I signed a contract with one of the agencies so that we would build expertise over time.

So I would get work, do it with them that time you Skype every two to three weeks, go back to Bombay, come back here and get work till a certain stream of business was established and that’s when I had the first hire so it was a real bootstrap starting point.

Amit: Yeah, very interesting. And I really like this thought process of you doing it alone, outsourcing whatever it is you need for expertise. And then when you get sufficient work that will feel like one more person, then you bring that person on board. So on the bringing on board part, how did you get your first few hires? And frankly, why did they want to join you?

Sharad: Absolutely. So, luckily, the undergrad schools here, NUS, NTU had a lot of smart people. And back in 2006, the opportunities weren’t that many. I was able to get people from there. And to them, the value proposition of working with my company was you get to work directly with an entrepreneur who’s worked in PNG, who’s worked in BCG, who gets this training through to you and you’re the sole person working here.

So you’re gonna get all that expertise. So it was a reasonably good proposition for them. Because of this I got one and he had a good experience. And then I was able to get other people in, from the similar in the US, actually, they were from NUS the first few hires, National University of Singapore for people not familiar with Singapore.

Essentially, you were able to sell them on the learning, not the brand name, and you know, that kind of stuff.

Sharad: And sorry, if I may, the brand name was they would then get to work with PNG brands, which was also a little bit of a draw, and get insights into how PNG works, marketing works, which was I think, the little brand draw to them as well.

Amit: Oh, very interesting. So, you’re writing on your client’s brand. That’s actually quite clever. And how did you fund the business initially? Or did you need to fund it at all?

Sharad: I didn’t really need to. It was just getting a laptop. And I think the payment terms were such that PNG had good payment terms at that point in time, the deal that I struck with the agency back in India was a certain revenue share, which would be paid once the money came in. So I needed very, very little to just get going. Back in 2006, things were cheap. So it was easy to get going and slowly build a certain base and build some sort of a balance sheet through which one could expand.

Amit: Right. But the payment terms point here is important, essentially, you were able to do it such that there is a back-to-back process of money flowing versus you having to pay for everything upfront.

Sharad: Absolutely.

Amit: You mentioned earlier in the discussion that you found this opportunity where there was a gap between global agencies and work that needed to be done on the ground. So I guess, overall, that was a differentiator for you versus anyone else. But how did you differentiate from these large agencies on one side? And I’m sure there would have been copycats things happening on the local side as well.

Sharad: So I think differentiating with the large agencies was very clear because it was more on the price point, it was agility, nimbleness, willingness to do work and there’s a big gap of offerings, but it’s not very easy for these agencies to change their model, because they have big creatives who have signed up to work on those agencies, because they want to make award-winning television commercials.

The leadership will not turn the agency’s direction towards this. And I think this was, like 15 years back and it still holds true today as well. But like you said copycats or other entrepreneurs coming up and looking at this opportunity was of course challenging. I think everyone had their own areas, some people had very strong creativity.

For us, it was Client Servicing and understanding client needs better because I was part of the client so I could see the big picture and understand what they needed, what made them look good, where do you need to go out and really hit it out of the park in terms of creativity, where do you need to give it early, so that they can show something and creativity is not important, but just giving them something.

So just understanding the client’s needs and being able to service them based on those needs versus anything else, I think was a big differentiator so that we could always create things in line with what the client needed.

Amit: You made a very interesting point here which is what makes them look good. So, it is important because if you’re an agency, you want to do stuff that then they can take to their respective managers and teams and stuff and not look like oh wow look at this fancy thing, which is never gonna work in the market. Or look at this horrible-looking thing, which I got for cheap. The motivations are quite different.

Sharad: Absolutely, and maybe that’s a little bit of learning from BCG because even what consulting as a services business does is whoever hires them, the CXOs and others, the job is of course to solve problems but to make them look good in front of their leadership as well.

Amit: Right. Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And I think it’s something that every service entrepreneur should actually bear in mind, which is you weren’t just developing that service in isolation or giving that product in isolation. There is a lot of org-related stuff around it, which you need to wrap in that.

So tell me more about this, what were some of the, maybe the other challenges that you faced once, maybe you kind of got going a little bit, and you knew you had a running business. So some other challenges or decisions that you had to make.

Sharad: Sure. So maybe the challenge is something that could be interesting for people to listen to. It is one of the big things that entrepreneurs need to do and I think Service Entrepreneurs more so is putting your ego down. And it sounds good before actually going out to do it.

But if you’re running an agency for four or five years, and then you need to go back to people, and we’ll all compare, these could be people who could be two levels below reporting to you, and then you go there and they piss on your work if I can use that word and tell you what marketing is, and you need to take it and then go back and sort it out.

Because you’re still an agency on the fringe. The big agencies can give back attitude, you do not. So, you have an unequal relationship. So you need to be able to take it, manage the situation, and then go back to get more. So I think that’s self-management, that putting the ego completely away, to be able to hustle and fight it out and take whatever comes your way as you see the bigger picture of growing your business was a huge challenge as well. Yeah, so I think that was a huge challenge.

Amit: That’s a big one, I think the ego element is important. Most people who’ve worked in the corporate and then start their own business, very quickly realise that you can’t think about their earlier VP title or whatever they had. Now you’re just a regular person offering a service. You mentioned or rather your goal, right from the start was to work on large clients. So, is that something that you kind of need to remind yourself about every so often, or you were just clear, you’re just doing this, you don’t need to seek more clients?

Sharad: That’s a good point. And absolutely, reminders are needed. And quite often they come in terms of difficult mistakes that you might make. So there’s always as an entrepreneur, there’s this skill of, or this trait of being hungry for business going out and trying to get business. And after a period of time, you realise that these businesses, which were, let’s say, for me outside the large clients, a new startup that’s come up and you need to do work for them, do not help me take the business forward, because there’s a lot of work.

In terms of profitability, it’s low. I’m squeezed out. If I put the same amount of time into some of the other clients, I can get a bigger bang for the buck and a bigger return on investments. There were different stages where experiences with some other business development taught me these lessons. And then after a period of time, it became clear to us and we still make mistakes.

But it became clear to us that our business model is big clients, profitable business, and we’re going after profit versus growth if there was a tradeoff there. Profitable business, big clients, and let’s stay focused on that. So yes, reminders were needed, but it’s good to be clear on the business model so you can keep coming back to that after making a few mistakes here and there.

Amit: So, again, a bit of a question here. So when you’re first starting out your business, right, you may have a thought process in mind, like, I’ll work with large clients or something like that. But to what extent do you think new entrepreneurs should try everything that comes their way and at what time, should they kind of decide to cut out things that they shouldn’t be doing?

Sharad: I think they should try everything. And for me, to be honest, it wasn’t that large client will always be the case. It was a starting point. And then it was learning through the process to realise that actually, the model can stay good, with large and deep.

And so with that context, what I would say is people should try everything, especially in the first one or two years, where the stakes are low, where you’re trying to get your business model, right where you can pivot a lot. So my thing would be to try as much as you can, and then slowly settle into a model.

Because everyone has a timeframe, you want the business to start working, you want the confidence loop to hit in that, yes, I’ve kind of created something, I can have a life based on this. And then you create a steady business. But as you even create a steady business, there could be areas along the side that you experiment with and keep seeing whether it works or not. And whether you should change track or not. But it’s good to create that core very early maybe in the first one or two years and then be able to do experiments away from that which does not distract from the core.

Amit: Got it. So, essentially you are saying for a year or two, you can actually just go for whatever will pay you money. And then you can settle down too.

Sharad: In my opinion, and eventually you would settle down, you would still try different things. But if I can put my point clearly, you can still try different things, but at least have a very clear sense after one or two years that this is your core. So you have to have 80 to 90% of your energy towards this. And for the rest, you can keep trying. And if something else becomes big, you add that to the core later on.

Amit: Right. So a few more questions on the thought process of going deep within a few clients, because that’s actually, I mean, it’s not something that one would normally think about, I guess if you’re starting an agency, but on the face of it, the way you’re explaining it, it sounds actually quite good. So my question is, number one, how do you reduce the risk of this approach, because the few clients obviously mean large parts of your business are dependent on them?

Sharad: Yeah. And you’re right like my BCG brain would tell me that diversification is the right way to do it. But I think when the rubber hits the ground, the reality could be different. But in terms of managing the risk, a few risks are managed in terms of like for PNG, there are multiple brands, and the buying process is decentralised.

So it’s not like one source that suddenly gets cut off. So there is an event risk, which is global, they reduce agencies, or some ethical stuff goes wrong, and they don’t want to deal with you across brands. So I think that’s one macro risk that exists. But from a micro standpoint, these are mini companies that you’re working with.

So there could be 20 or 30 mini-companies within PNG that you’re working with. And obviously, it’s a lot more efficient to work with them because they have a similar way of working and what works in one can also work in the others this synergies and productivity there. So I think that’s one way. The second is the services that are offered. We started out doing retail design work, stuff you see in supermarket aisles, designing them because that was the area.

But as we went forward, it went into packaging design, it went into videos, digital work, and creating many events. So at any point in time, there are multiple services that we were doing. So from a services and brand standpoint, there was some amount of diversification. And then after a period of time, there were a few more clients outside PNG which were again, big clients with multiple brands. So there was some level of diversification, not ideal, but there was some level of diversification that took place.

Amit: This makes sense. Essentially, you’re saying that the big client is not one big client, it’s a portfolio of clients. I’m sure this is new to many people who might be listening to this. So that’s one side of the story, which is the few clients. And then there’s the whole question about going deeper and deeper within clients. And you did mention that you expanded your portfolio of services, which means you can do more with them.

But again, I mean, any agency working with a large client is probably trying to do something similar. Even if the agency is diversified, the Account Manager in charge of that client would only have to do that, right? So what’s your superpower that keeps you kind of expanding or deepening within these clients versus others?

Sharad: So in terms of our differentiation, which was understanding client needs, I think one of the things that happened quickly to us versus the other agencies was, we were able to see trends as they were shifting. So we were able to see that now, these are the buzzwords, this is what they want, this is what has been called out in their annual meets.

So we’ll see a lot of this over the next two years, let’s build expertise in it, or let’s find the right partners to do this work. So I think that client focus, being clear on where the market is moving, what people are looking at, and creating services back to that was a huge skill that helped in this.

And second, it is this entrepreneurial hustle thing that we had, as an agency, we were small, we were able to hustle and figure things out and work with experts, try things, learn things, and there was excitement in doing so. So I think for these two reasons, we were kind of able to differentiate from some of the other competitors that we were put up against.

Amit: Right. So you know, this is interesting, essentially, you are saying because of your subject knowledge in the space, like as a person from the industry you were able to pick up on cues. So if somebody says, Oh, you know, I heard this thing, or rather somebody said this at our event, you were able to pick up on the meaning of that versus just saying, Okay, fine, you know, somebody said something.

Sharad: Yes, and getting that intelligence because we were connected to the clients a lot deeper. Since I was one of them they would talk to me a lot more based on other things. And it was easier for me and the others who then work with me to get a lot of these buzzwords because often you’re just doing transactions then you just get lost in the transaction, but you’re not able to go deeper with people you’re working with and understand what really is changing in the landscape.

Amit: Does that play into your hiring decisions as well, then or not now like do you try to hire more people from the industry versus more creative people or something like that?

Sharad: So, to give the honest answer, we’d ideally like to hire better people in the servicing space who can do this, but over the last 5 to 10 years, like, the hiring has become very difficult in Singapore, and people coming out of NUS and even people who’ve worked in agencies have so many options the startups and stuff. So it’s difficult to get that.

So it’s better, we better place to train others to do it and take a lot of it between one or two senior people me and one or two others in the company take the bulk of this business development and relationship work while making sure that the others who bring in other skills in terms of execution doing it well, they stick to their skills.

Amit: Got it. Okay, that makes sense. Because if you cannot hire a lot of people with a certain skill set, you have to leverage best the people that you have and try to distribute the work where you can actually hire or scale. Sharad, tell me, this is all based on 24 Incorporated. Now you’ve had other businesses, five other businesses. So are there any learnings running those businesses or even from the failures there?

Sharad: So maybe I can talk about what I might have done differently, and then talk about learning. So when I started at 24, because I was from BCG, I wanted to create a business with strong buzzwords. So I needed to leave BCG for something really cool. And that cool thing was creative process outsourcing. So my search was to create a business with these buzzwords.

So I went to India, got an agency, and wanted to outsource to them. I’m creating this outsourcing New Age outsourcing system. And that’s the way I was looking at it. To me, that was a big mistake, because I was getting into a business for the first time. The agency was a different business, I’d never done it. And just understanding that business would take time and establishing it.

And here I’d gone and complicated even further by actually getting the people who are working on the project based in India, communicating with them, and making the business work. So if I were to do it again, I would still outsource but I would keep the team in Singapore working with me dedicated so we all learned together, I had control over the entire thing, I learned better, and it moved forward and started hiring people once the model was established. It took me four or five years to do that. And then the business grew to a different extent, I would have done that earlier. So I think that was one big mistake.

The other thing, which I think I could have done better, was it’s good to bootstrap in the beginning, but you need to then start gearing. If you want to leapfrog in terms of growth, you need to get some superstars to help you do that, especially for my kind of business, which is an agency business services business people can bring in more.

So I could have hired either a superstar creative person who’s at my level or even senior or a superstar account person, again, senior to me on my level, who can bring in a huge chunk. Most of the people I hired were starting level and they grew ground up based on so the whole agency was based on what I knew and what everyone learned from that. But getting that external person can help leapfrog the growth.

So yes, I think these are the two learnings. How have I incorporated that? I think in __ (34:40 inaudible), Now, I’ve got a CEO who runs the business, she’s a smart lady. And I can already see her making a huge difference. She used to work in the agency business and actually seeing it now, it would have been better if I did that earlier and worked alongside her to do it.

So that was one learning. In my other business, which is my coaching business, I worked out with my wife who is also at my level, like she’s also worked done startups, and corporate level, and we’re together creating something. So the synergy of creating something with someone who is at equal to you is more different with someone versus hiring people and you’re learning together. So yeah, I think that would be a big lesson for me.

Amit: Yeah, thanks a lot. I think this is also good advice. Essentially, if your business is limited by you, what you know, and what you don’t know, and everybody else has to learn from there, then there’s a limit to all of that. I’m curious to know about your podcast. How did you get that started? Have you incorporated any of your business learnings in running the podcast itself?

Sharad: The podcast was like you initially talked about a project which has to do with your passion. So this has something to do with my passion. It is related to the coaching business that me and my wife created which is “my life house”. And in this coaching business, we’ve got a sense of many people who are stuck in life in different stages, smart people stuck in life who are looking at something more than just achievement, they’re looking at a meaningful life, they’re looking at managing stress, some of them are looking for ways to deepen their relationship.

So something beyond work, some of them of course, looking at how to do better in their career, but something beyond work. And given the exposure, we had many people who we met in coaching through this, we felt a podcast like this could be very useful to people and could also give us satisfaction in creating materials, talking to people, and learning more through this. So with this objective, we started the podcast. Luckily, and then we’ve kind of done 15-20 minute episodes, which are more consumable to people, give them a certain topic.

Luckily, a lot of the topics have been interesting to people, because lots of folks who hit the age of 40 had similar problems. Am I in the right thing? Should I become an entrepreneur? Should I do something more fulfilling? What would I be remembered for in life? And we tackle all these topics through various episodes where people have got something out of it, and we got experts to talk about it, because of which it has been fulfilling. So that’s where I’m spending more of my time right now, along with, of course, like you said, overseeing the 24 business.

Amit: And I’ve heard a bit of your podcast, and it’s actually really nice. And I really think your 15-minute format works very well, because you can tackle one question, and it’s just enough time to talk about that one thing. And the podcast is available everywhere, right?

Sharad: Yes, So people can search how to live Sharad Lal because I think how to live many people tackling this topic. So how do live Sharad Lal on Apple podcasts or Spotify or any other place where you listen to podcasts?

Amit: So Sharad, thank you so much for joining us today. I mean, I have to say, being attempting to be a bootstrapped entrepreneur myself, these are all really good points to learn from, and I take away something from every conversation that I have. So just to summarise a few of the lessons.

One takeaway for me is that even in the market where there seems to be a lot of choices, there is a way to differentiate, like you’ve done, and you’ve managed to do it against big agencies, small agencies, and so on. And more importantly, I think, another big one related to that was to spot the opportunity. And to capitalise on that, even if it isn’t exactly your passion project. But as long as you’re interested in it, and you’re willing to give it a shot, and it’s not something you’re actively against, you could probably do it as an opportunity may Trump’s passion in that respect.

The second one, which was really good to know is that you can grow by working with a few clients and just trying to grow within them. And there’s no real need to go out and try to acquire the whole world as your client, you can actually go narrow and deep within the few clients.

Third, one around attracting talent. And I think in today’s context, this has become just a really difficult task. And I think it’s interesting that you can perhaps attract talent for reasons other than money, other than the title, other than the brand of your own company. And that could be for mentorship, learning, or, you know, the very interesting trick that you mentioned, which is to use the client brand, as you know, something that you learned from.

So I thought that was really interesting. One other point you mentioned was around outsourcing, and how you tried doing it initially, and I guess it was successful to the extent it got you started. But it’s not the way to grow because you need people to work with you and to learn together, which is pretty hard to do at a distance.

The other one you mentioned is around deciding between growth and profit. And potentially due to cash flow, or probably due to cash flow maybe you choose profit over growth. And in your case, you are making that choice, which is rather to go for profitable work, given you know, the way that you want to run your business, but it is a choice, and it’s gonna be hard to do both. So which makes sense.

And finally, I think one of your learnings was to keep things simple. And don’t try to overdo the thing that you’re trying to start. So I think you’ll try to do three different things together, which is an agency that was new to you, a concept called Creative Outsourcing, which is new to everyone, and trying to outsource it somewhere else.

Instead of doing all of that just do the basic thing that people get, maybe with one tweak to the model to make it a bit different. And that’s how you get started. So thanks a lot, Sharad. These are all extremely valuable. I’m definitely taking notes and I am going to look at what we do based on this.

Sharad: Thank you very much, Amit. Thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation. Congratulations on all your work. I love your podcast, I listened to some episodes on JobTok. I also listened to some of the episodes on ShopTok, where it’s so good that you’re bringing out entrepreneurs who are not necessarily considered cool tech entrepreneurs but are creating real businesses and giving them a platform to talk about themselves. So thank you very much for doing this. I wish you all the best as you continue with this.

Amit: Thanks a lot, Sharad. Thanks for the wishes. And we were Sharad and Amit with ShopTok. See you next time.

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