Breaking The Borders: Recent Episodes
Rohit Gandrakota
Breaking the Borders is an exclusive podcast where we take a closer glimpse into the stories of successful immigrant entrepreneurs. Each session of Breaking the Borders features a remarkable immigrant entrepreneur with a story that is unique in its own way.
Li Lin is the founder of thesuccessfulimmigrant.com where she helps immigrants realise their dreams by getting a kick ass job in the US. Li came to US at the age of 10 with her parents. She moved from top 5% of the class in China to bottom 20% in US overnight which challenged her confidence....
Li Lin is the founder of thesuccessfulimmigrant.com where she helps immigrants realise their dreams by getting a kick ass job in the US. Listen to this episode to learn more about how she moved from getting fired as an SEO consultant to started her own company and making $100k in revenue.
Ravi Trivedi is the founder of couponrani.com, which receives 200,000 to 1,500,000 visits a month, and 10,000 to 40,000 transactions monthly. They reached this level after only about two years. He earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science then went to work in Hewlett Packard, where he learned about the new field of web services. He was writing articles and conducting training on the topic and then someone invited him to write on web services security, and Ravi was pleased to have the opportunity. Technology is not the silver bullet, says Ravi; it’s an enabler to solving a real pain point. In working as a consultant, he got to know more about customer needs and pain points and convinced his supervisors to let him move more in a direction where he could understand client needs, and so he moved into a pre-sales and marketing role. He decided it was important to secure an MBA as well, and began as a part-time student in Bangalore, but decided he needed to do it full-time. He mainly looked at schools in the US and ended up at Duke University. Eventually, he began working on Wall Street. Unlike many others, Ravi never sought or wanted a green card; it was always his intention to return to India upon completion of his Master’s degree. He ended up spending nine years in the US but never intended to stay permanently. He also realizes that if he needed or wanted to start a business in the US, he could do so from India. In the US he started working in a venture fund, and on returning to India he started one. He saw that working with entrepreneurs allowed him the potential for longer-term investment. His emphasis is really on angel funds, which is a lower level and usually combined with a group of 15 to 20 other investors. To help them learn what needed to be done as angel investors, Ravi and a partner each decided to found their own startups. They did it without investors, but they used the experience to prepare themselves. They realized they first wanted to learn how to fish before trying to teach others to fish. Couponrani is Ravi’s bootstrap startup for this idea. A first site was started in 2012, although it took a while to develop the full system he wanted. An intern who was only with Couponrani for six months helped teach Ravi a lot about community building and SEO, which did a great deal to help develop the company. One event was a Republic Day Twitter trivia contest. One focus that Ravi has kept with Couponrani is to only work with online coupons, rather than “brick and mortar” store coupons. This allowed them to keep a smaller salesforce - it was more scalable and suitable for their model. An important part of SEO that Ravi learned was to focus on the end user first, rather than the other way around. They’ve also found that doing the contrarian thing often works - he uses the example of optimizing Facebook ads for clicks, rather than likes, yet ending up getting likes at a lower cost (he also points out this no longer works!) The company does 6 figures in annual revenue.They expanded to Singapore and Malaysia, although they only continue in Malaysia at this point. Ravi is now also founding PushEngage.com. This company creates browser popup messages. It’s targeted at both enterprise and consumer clients. He sees it as a tool produced by a marketer, for a marketer. The current plans are to continue growth internationally. For Couponrani, Ravi hopes to become the top of the field for mid-tier merchants within a couple years.
Advice for Others Starting Out Never give up. It’s the only secret for success in startups.
Contact Ravi does ask that if you reach out to him, please be specific about what you’re looking for so that he can respond appropriately to your questions. Twitter @trivediravi Ravi [at] pushengage [dot] com Ravi [at] couponrani [dot] com
Today’s guest is Jason Finkelman. Jason is an immigration lawyer, and you may remember that he’s been a guest on Breaking the Borders once before. Then, he talked mainly about visas for exceptional and extraordinary talent. This time he explains the H1-B visa process. The H1-B is a temporary non-immigrant visa that allows a foreign national to work in the US in a job that generally, minimally requires a bachelor’s degree to perform. It allows presence in the United States for up to three years, with an extension of up to three more years, for a total of six years. This would be for work for a US employer, and all employers are considered equally. There are 85,000 visas available each year. Over the past few years, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has received that many just on the first day of applications, which this year is April 3. If the visa is approved, it becomes effective on October 1. Because of the surplus, a computer randomly selects the 85,000 that will be evaluated by hand. Twenty thousand visas are set aside for those who have a US bachelor’s degree. Jason talks about the special challenges facing founders. The US employer has to have “ownership and control” of the company, and control over the employee.This can be difficult for startups. The past several years USCIS has been more observant to make sure that the person seeking the visa isn’t a controlling partner. The US Department of Labor works to guarantee that immigrants do not become cheap labor. A labor condition application is filed and shows the prevailing wages for the selected job; the employer then has to pay the immigrant visa recipient the same wage. The Cap-Gap program can help students who currently have work authorization while studying to continue working between graduation and the October 1 H1-B start date. Jason emphasizes that it’s urgent to start immediately to be able to get all the paperwork processed before the deadline. It’s already late to be starting, he says, but holding out until mid-March will make it impossible. Both the new administration and Congress are talking about changes to all visa processes, but Jason doesn’t see legal changes before the H1-B deadline.But he does urge everyone to work closely with a qualified attorney to make sure their application is filled out to the highest standards. The change in tone around immigration issues will most likely encourage immigration officials to look more closely at all applications. Our talk also turns to last year’s entrepreneur paroles which allowed two years in the United States. This was done by executive action by President Obama, and it’s expected that President Trump will do away with it, but nothing has happened yet. We also discuss traveling to the US on a visa, because as we’ve seen, the environment has changed and remains in flux. Jason recommends carrying proof of evidence that you intend to return home. Now, he also recommends carrying a letter from your employer that you remain employed, pay stubs, a copy of your apartment lease, or similar materials that show your ties. Most likely, he says, nothing will happen, but in case an immigration officer asks, it’s helpful to have. Jason encourages anyone to reach out to him with their questions; it’s often quicker than researching on the internet, and you’ll be sure to get the correct answer.
Contact http://finkelmanlaw.com Twitter and Facebook: @finkelmanlaw jason [at] finkelmanlaw [dot] com 512 348 8855
From her own experience and that of her closest friends, Neha Gupta realized that women needed their own space to come together and relax. Creating such an environment is the goal behind the aptly named Women Relaxology. This India-based startup helps women connect, come together and enjoy activities to help overcome the stresses of everyday life. A recent report said that Indian women are among the most stressed demographic in the world. Neha felt that stress in her own life in the corporate world and saw it in others. She saw it particularly in the changing cultural landscape where women are expected to both live up to traditional roles as well as participate in the corporate world. From their childhood, Indian women are expected to take responsibility maturely and in a well-mannered way, and the stress of this is often neglected. Women Relaxology is a platform for women to have time to de-stress, and to find peace and happiness amidst these responsibilities and cultural changes. It offers workshops, sessions, space for talents like photography, travel, book, food, spirituality, health, entrepreneurship; and networking space to meet mentors and friends Neha had two key conversations over a couple years that led her to found Women Relaxology. The first was with a superior in her job as a marketer, who lamented that women had no place to sit back and relax, even for just an hour a week. It was a casual conversation, but one that stuck with her. The second came in 2014, in talking to her own mother, basically about the same issue. But her mother encouraged her to not just talk about it, but to take action - at least to provide herself with some way to escape the stress of life. It was then that Neha began to take this seriously, although it still didn’t take the form of an idea for a startup. In fact, she thought of doing it mainly for herself. She thought a change of job would help bring her more peace of mind, but that didn’t work. By October 2015 she was committed to creating a networking-bases system to help destress life. Her mother continued to push her and help her refine her ideas and to overcome the fear of leaving a high-paying job to take the entrepreneurial plunge. Neha came to the realization that free oneself of stress means you need to spend time with yourself, working on your own goals. There were two aspects to her plan:
A networking space for women to have their own time An area apart from academics, where they could put talents to work
To get started, she interviewed young women in different work and family situations and talked with friends. She also made sacrifices, even moving to a smaller house and getting rid of her car and credit cards to save money! Launch finally came on January 16, 2016, with three key features. Women could deepen knowledge of a talent or hobby like photography, cooking or travel; network; and learn about selling online. A lot of time was spent in building the brand both online and through flyers and posters before their first event, a June photography tour in New Delhi. They were able to attract not only friends of friends but also some strangers, including a foreigner who opened Neha’s mind to Neha began approaching investors, and in one meeting, felt really stung when one asked what was being done for the men? The concern was not a similar program for men, but that steps be taken to help the men in these women’s lives realize the value of Women Relaxology for their wives, daughters, and sisters. It’s a point Neha and her team continue to try to work through. On January 1, 2017, an investor officially signed contracts to support Women Relaxology. Over the coming months, they plan to open central offices, hire more employees, and have a couple centers for activities available.
Advice For Others Starting Out
Learn from your failures When you pick up the pain points of life, it really shines; she realized the international need that she thought were...
Defying the axiom that if you stay in a job more than five years you’ll become too comfortable to leave, Kumar spent ten years at Cisco before successfully transitioning to being a startup founder with CloudGenix. Ultimately, it was his deep-seated motivation to have a substantial impact that gave him the impetus to create his own company and disrupt the sector of wide area networks. Kumar’s own attitude as he talks reflects what he learned from his father growing up in Mumbai. Kumar’s grandparents were farmers in Tamil Nadu, but when severe drought struck in the 1950s, his father - only around 5th or 6th grade at the time - decided he had to set out for the city to make a life for himself and to support his family. That burning ambition meant he’d sacrifice, sleeping on porches, eating where he could, rarely in the same place from one day to the next. But he put himself through school and studied engineering, and was able to live well while also helping many other people from his large extended family. His father saw himself as being in debt to all who had helped him achieve his position in life. As Kumar says, “If we stay true to our motivation, good things happen.” Kumar returns to this theme at the end of the interview, when he recognizing how much he owes to others who have helped him along the way. He also sees in the “Silicon Valley culture” an attitude of “pay it forward” - anyone he’s offered to repay for a favor has always told him he should instead help others in turn. When he first left Cisco, Kumar was excited - he even took a picture in his rearview mirror of the building and posted it on social media. But at 3 AM the next day, he woke up in a panic that he wouldn’t be successful and that he’d never get another job. At the time, he thought it was a one-time thing, but found his emotions to oscillate between extreme euphoria at starting his business and extreme panic! Kumar has firm beliefs about what’s needed for a venture-funded startup, all of which he found in the area of wide area networks that CouldGenix addresses:
Very large market Strong, disruptive change Strong tailwind
He believes strongly in “lean startup” model of Steve Blank, and how to seek input from outside the company When he left Cisco, the cofounding team was already taking shape. He took over the business and sales reins, and had a developer and a business architect, again following Blank’s model of hacker/hustler/developer. “Hustle” would become the key word for him, as he tried to reach out and make connections with prospective clients. Along the way, he met a lot of rejection but knew he had to keep trying. Consulting with potential customers right away helped save time and costs because they knew what they had to build. They worked hard to get honest answers; sometimes those answers didn’t surface until they were ready to implement a prototype, and suddenly all kinds of objections were raised. Never be afraid to fire a customer, says Kumar. Although he admits it sounds odd, he says that carefully choosing early customers is important, because they will do so much to shape your product. The customer also needs to have confidence in you, as Columbia sportswear did with CloudGenix. Failure and success are just part of the process for Kumar. Constant testing and trials mean that you’re going to fail at times, but as a leader, you have to celebrate the failures as learning moments. To truly be disruptive you have to be 24 to 36 months ahead of the current leaders in your field - if not, Kumar believes you shouldn’t exist. But that also entails risk and accepting setbacks. When it comes to advice Kumar says, “Bet on yourself and do it!” You can always find a million reasons not to do a startup, but there’s only one reason to do it: believe in yourself, not out of arrogance but out of commitment to yourself. Currently, CloudGenix systems handle a billion transactions a day.
Marc Flesichmann is a serial entrepreneur with several companies under his built. Currently, he is a co-founder at Datera, but in today’s interview, we talk mostly about his experience at Transmeta, which gave Intel a run for its money. For Marc there are two key qualities that have kept him going in new startups: first, the willingness to do it, through dedication to the task at hand. Also, he cites a certain insecurity that keeps him on his toes and wanted to continue to grow and expand and try new things. A native of Germany, Marc began programming by the time he was 11 when PC’s were still a new thing. At 13, he read an article about Steve Jobs. He was the article was written in Palo Alto and knew that’s where he want to end up. Within about 10 years, he’d made it there. While Germany is prosperous and industrialized, it’s also conservative. Marc didn’t feel much support for his drive to develop new ideas, and that fueled his dream of coming to the United States. He did start his first business while still in Germany - making clone computers (basically, any PC that was not made by IBM). He ran this throughout university and was able to sell it shortly before graduation. At the time he began to see the potential of TCP/IP and the early days of internet, and wanted to move in that direction. Looking at the playing field, Marc though Hewlett Packard, with its new RISC processor, had the best system to get into internet, and he landed a job with HP Labs in the early 1990s. After about a year working in Germany, he was transferred to the US on an L1 visa. While he says HP was great and in the forefront in many areas, they actually lagged behind in internet, which is where he still wanted to be. So shortly after getting his green card, he decided to leave. His big opportunity came with Transmeta. He secured an interview while they were in stealth mode, and was actually worried and unsure when, during the interview, he found out their project was microprocessors, not internet. Transmeta originally wanted to develop high-end processors to outdo Intel. However, one of the big problems that Marc and his team recognized was the low battery life of portables. They were able to develop chips that had much lower power consumption but then had to persuade management. Intel had a strong hold on the US market, though, although Transmeta was able to make inroads with Japanese companies. They were so successful that from 2000 to 2001 the company more than doubled its revenue. Marc tells the story of how Intel was apparently stealing their trash to find out their secrets, although Transmeta was careful to make sure anything sensitive was shredded or otherwise protected. And in the end, a suit was brought against Intel for patent violations, which led to a $250 million out-of-court settlement. In 2006 Marc went back to Germany, as he saw Berlin becoming a startup center in Europe. He’d long admired Zynga, and worked to developed a game platform with a high level of consumer analytics. He saw important differences between the US and European markets for entrepreneurs:
In Germany, there is more focus on precision and execution. There is a smaller “out” for startups, with less potential to sell. So investors tend to focus more on risk In the US, focus tends to be on the endgame, when the company can be sold and the investor will make their money back
Marc sees that each can learn from the other - the exuberance of America balance with more focus and precision is still a tough balance for him to achieve, but one he thinks will be beneficial. Marc’s latest project, Datera, is born to satisfy the data infrastructure for the data era. The data storage solutions they offer can be compared to self-driving cars. Your destination, or intent, is what matters, and you’ll no longer have to focus on all the other factors around it. Datera came out of stealth mode last April. Marc’s personal satisfaction has always come from building...
Ajay Prasad is a serial entrepreneur, talking today about his company RepuGen, an online reputation management system for businesses. This service helps filter out unsatisfied customers so the business can address their issues before the customer posts their review online. Ajay transitioned from corporate America to being an entrepreneur after he was suddenly fired after launching a successful project. He felt shaken with so little control over his life. Within a week he did have another job offer to work as a CEO, but didn’t feel excited about it. He turned it down with the goal of starting his own business, and while in the process of thinking that through, he working as a marketing consultant. He was asked to consult for a friend’s small business. Going in, he realized there was no agenda; they just wanted to grow the business. It was refreshing for Ajay, who saw he could build a company to do website development to help small businesses - still in the era when hardly anyone thought they needed a site - this became GMR Web Team. About five years in, around 2011, he saw a new need - a way to have online reviews to help generate more business. This was still a growing area as well. Some companies were afraid to ask for evaluations; they didn’t want to deal with bad reviews. By 2014 he decided he needed to get rid of the human element and created the outline for a new system. In that system, the program would help sort ratings and then ask for reviews and testimonials for those who give high ratings. If a customer gave low ratings, the software would help the company get in touch to find out what was wrong. And so RepuGen was born. The system required a high level of secrecy until a patent could be attained. When it was finally ready, he offered it to his customers, and there was 100% acceptance. By May 2016 they knew it was a success, although it was only the backend. The next step, which would be ready by September, would be to create a front-end service that would allow customers to set it up for themselves. The software continues to evolve, as clients make suggestions and requests. Ajay’s experience during the dot-com bust has made him leery of seeking investors. With GMR Web Team, he did present to some venture capitalists but too often saw divergent goals. Especially since he became an entrepreneur expressly to control his own destiny, and he’d be giving that up if he accepted investment. RepuGen was launched entirely on with Ajay’s existing client base. He says it’s important to turn to your bread and butter to be able to move ahead.
Some Thoughts on Why to Become an Entrepreneur
Not to get rich
Not because you hate your boss
Because you see a need you can fill
Contact Information
ajay@gmrwebteam.com - include in the subject that you heard him on Breaking the Borders By phone at 714-731-9000 GMR Web Team RepuGen
Ajay hates automated phone systems - so he has a real receptionist!
Anish Godha and his cousin were able to turn an 8th-generation family business into something new, creating a starting with $2 million in revenue. Diamondere is their e-commerce business which allows customers to design their own jewelry, bringing an ancient art into the realm of modern technology. The family business had clients who were the elite of India. Up until his father they worked for kings and rajahs across India. As the family grew and times changed, his father’s generation saw a need to go in a new direction and began exporting jewelry as well, beginning around 1989. Anish and his cousin continued the process of adapting to the times when they founded Diamondere. They eliminated the middleman that had to be present in his father’s model by bringing custom jewelry directly to the consumer. Anish came to the US on a student visa for his undergraduate and graduate studies; Diamondere was started right after graduation. By the time his optional practical training was coming to an end, Diamondere was already able to sponsor him for a work visa. While some might expect that jewelers would be well off, Anish says the business is cyclical and that ultimately there isn’t huge profit in diamonds, since they are commoditized and both the diamond and the work and materials around them are expensive. One of the early struggles, in fact, was focusing too exclusively on diamonds. After about a year, though, they realized that colored gemstones offered an avenue to greater profit and that consumers were looking for advice on how to evaluate them. They were able to use contacts they already had to gain access at good prices to high-quality gemstones, which proved popular. Sunil says that as an entrepreneur, you really have to believe in what you do, and you really have to have passion for what you do. In Diamondere’s case, their website is never complete; there’s always updates and improvements to customer experience. They worked hard to make it seems like a luxurious space; after all, they weren’t selling t-shirts or anything else that was already common on e-commerce sites. They also saw the advantages that technology offered. Computers had already helped speed up the process of creating jewelry by rendering models; but now, they could help restore custom pieces by allowing the consumer to participate online in designing their own pieces. They have a high focus on SEO and focus on keywords that help customers through their research phase. The focused a lot on SEO, social media, Google Ads and content for customers. They tried to share customers’ questions online. Revenues have been doubling almost every year. For 2016 they expect to be around $2 million. Support came from family; they haven’t taken outside funding at this point. Using their own money, they believe they’re more careful with it than they might be with someone else’s. Within a year or two, they were at an economic positive. Having built this corporate culture, if they decide to take outside funding, they feel they’ll be more disciplined and wise in spending others’ money. Sunil notes that your view of failure is important. If you confront it and learn why you failed, you’ll be able to succeed. It’s not binary - fail or succeed. It’s a process of failing a bunch of times in order to succeed. Keep experimenting; it’s a process of trial and error. Understand why you failed, and keep going forward. "Success is an iceberg; you can see the top part, but the bottom part that’s hidden is 5 or 10 times larger," he says.
Advice for Others Getting Into E-commerce
Figure out your unique perspective or gap in a saturated market If you can present a product that’s not available, or implement a new technology to make it work, then you can consider e-commerce.
Contact Diamondere.com Twitter: @anishgodha
Almost anyone can write - but who can write well enough to get paid for it? Sunil Rajaraman helped create a platform for freelancers where the hard work of evaluating their ability isn’t left with the client; it’s done by Scripted.com’s own team so that contractors can hire with confidence. Sunil has always had a passion for writing, although it wasn’t until about two years ago that he got paid for any of his own material. But he writes regularly for a magazine and is an occasional contributor to the New York Observer. And he helped create a company that, by the time he moved on, had helped freelancers earn more than $1 million. Working in the corporate world wasn’t sitting well with Sunil; he didn’t see where he was going. He decided that returning to study, to pursue an MBA, would give him the opportunity to step back and see where he was going. It was on his way to start studying that he had his first idea: the creation of a collaborative online space for working on screenplays. While there were other spaces available for writers, this site would support the specific formatting needs of scripts and screenplays that are necessary for submission and would allow several writers to work together. The difficulty for writers is always being able to sell their work before they’ve established a name for themselves. The idea was that this platform would help facilitate the process, but even after a merger with Zhura, they still had trouble monetizing the business. The merger brought a small angel investor - but they soon realized that $200,000 doesn’t go all that far in the industry! An initial launch came in 2007 and “official” launch in January 2008. They got mentioned in some blogs, and quickly had between 3000 and 5000 users, and 20,000 within a year. By 2010 they were at 70-80,000. A change of style led to their eventual success. A contact asked if they had anyone who could write advertising copy for Levi’s. They reached out to their base and got a lot of replies. Levi’s was impressed with both the quality and the price, which led to a rethinking and relaunch under the new name of Scripted.com. The difference here, compared to other freelancing sites, is that the writers were vetted. There is a required English test and a rating given by three writers that focuses on multiple dimensions. Of course, plagiarism checks were also built in. This new model led to better success. By the end of 2013, they were generating over $150,000 a month and were glad to celebrate the landmark of paying $1 million to their writers. Sunil saw challenges, of course:
Should the focus be on small or large customers? If you get too many large customers too soon, it can take control of your business In raising their Series “A”, they were delayed in reaching their $4.5 million goal because investors were looking for confirmation of market size and the importance of content marketing
While they hoped to reach their Series “A” goal in 2013, it finally came early in 2014. Sunil led the company also through a Series “B” before deciding to move on. He now works as head of marketing for Replicon and is owner of the digital magazine Bold Italic. He plans to eventually start another company, but for now is grateful for the opportunity to learn more at a later-stage startup.
Advice for others starting out
Don’t overthink it, Find a cofounder you respect and can support each other over the long term Find something you’re passionate about
Contact Twitter @subes01
He was in 6th or 7th grade when he got his first Playstation, and Ravi Matena went to the extreme of playing 12 hours a day. Now, he dedicates himself to his startup game studio, 9 Tail Studios, turning his passion into his career. Ravi went to an engineering college, but it never sat right with him. In the end, he went to Singapore to study the gaming industry, because there were few opportunities for that kind of study in India. He worked 7 years as a game designed, including a year as a studio head. While he was earning a lot as a game designer - and now is making less than half of that - he felt constrained creatively. The studio he worked at developed games based on Bollywood films, and so there wasn’t a lot of flexibility in doing what he wanted. Ravi compares being a game designer to being a movie director - responsibilities include coming up with the stories, in-game monetization ideas, play strategies, and balancing of game play, among other things. It doesn’t involve the programming but provides the concept of the game and how it should be carried out. From that position, he moved on to become a studio head at a company that produced casino-related game. As studio head, he oversaw the team that would produce the game, including artists and developers. His intention there was to learn the industry more thoroughly, and a year to the day after starting, he submitted his resignation with the intent of starting his own company. He quit in late December 2014 and started his company in February 2015. Of course, leaving the security of another business meant, as it does with most entrepreneurs, a steep pay cut. Most of the revenue that 9 Tail Studios is making is invested back in the company; but at the same time Ravi and his cofounder have been able to expand to a team of twelve people. One of the biggest challenges that Ravi has faced is in creating revenue while also trying to create the games he wants to make. 9 Tail Studios has had to accept clients from outside - both for games and other development projects - to be able to have income. At the same time, this mean they haven’t been able to focus as much as Ravi would like on building their own game ideas. One of the projects he did was for a movie ticketing app. He saw the app and was convinced it could be greatly improved. With his team, they developed a new app - then presented it to the company, who fortunately were impressed and decided to hire him. It was a great risk - the investment of an entire month of time for Ravi and his staff - but at least it paid off in the end. Still, money was an issue. Ravi and his partner each went through 15 lakhs of savings, and they went through three months with no clients. Toward the end of 2015 they started looking for funding and were fortunate enough to meet someone at a national gaming conference. One of their big selling points was that they had made a connection with a gaming show in Korea, which has a huge audience. Through a simple tweet, Ravi was able to get a response and eventually an agreement that they’d help promote his upcoming game, “Guardians of the Dark”. This game will be a mobile app, using the ideas of League of Legends and DOTA, but designed for 5 minutes of play, rather than 45, as it would be on a PC. Expected release will be in March of 2017. Ravi has maintained his passion as a gamer even while working in the industry, although he limits himself to 1-2 hours a day of playing, and tries to play all new titles and learn from them. Among his favorites at the moment are World of Warcraft: Legion and Overwatch. In the meantime, he’s also worked with his sister to set up a US business called Froto. It’s a photo-developing site, where users can upload photos and they’ll be printed and mailed for free. The income is generated through ads and coupons printed on the back of the photos. It has about 8000 users so far through social media promotion and word of mouth. Ravi says that at this point,
His own family’s immigration experiences - and a desire to bridge the gap between technology and service - led Romish to become a founder of Bridge.us, an online service designed to assist employers in filing immigration applications for prospective foreign national employees. In just their second year with this focus, their revenue will be over $1 million, three to four times what it was in 2015. Romish was born in the US, but both his parents were immigrants. Growing up he was constantly aware of both the peaks and valleys of the immigration process. Mostly, he says, things went well - but sometimes there were issues, such as when some cousins had to leave the country the day before they walked for graduation from college because of a clerical error in their immigration applications. Bridge US is a service provider for companies. It simplifies the completion of forms and suggests supporting documentation. The material is then reviewed by attorneys, but since the attorneys didn’t have to do all the work of preparing the documents, it’s much cheaper for the client. Bridge US also allows the employing company to easily track visa status and file for extensions or other adjustments throughout the employee’s lifespan with the company. While studying for his MBA at Harvard, Romish began working for ZocDoc, an online service to help connect with and understand the healthcare system. From there, he along with a co-founder developed the idea for Lex Spot, which would be similar, but in the legal field. Their third co-founder - the developer - agreed to come on board if they could find 20 lawyers willing to buy into the service, which they were able to do. Lex Spot had some success in attracting clients, but the costs of advertising outweighed the income. Lawyers did see inquiries, but it wasn’t enough to justify the expense. And most importantly, the team felt like all they were doing was helping the lawyers advertise; they weren’t really solving the problem they set out to address, which was using technology to make the whole process simpler. By 2012, Romish was finishing his Master’s and had to look seriously at whether to continue with the business. His first co-founder left. But at the same time, President Obama enacted DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). It was an opportunity to narrow the focus of the company to immigration law. But they realized people were not comfortable with a purely automated process of preparing their paperwork, and so they contracted with immigration lawyers to provide the option to have everything reviewed. Between 2000 and 2500 people completed the process for DACA through the platform. It was a challenging time, with the change in focus, economic issues, and the birth of Romish’s first child all that year. The year 2013 was a time for Romish to focus on raising a seed around, as well as refine all they’d built on the platform to that point. They also rebranded to Bridge US and were able to hire more experts in immigration law. At the same time, they began shifting to a focus on being a B2B service provider, with services for processes visas for foreign national employees. The intention was always to have as much automated as possible, but initially, they kind of faked that, using employees to complete parts of the process until it was fully functional. The focus at first was just H1-B visas, and since these are filed April 1, they had to work hard to get clients for March. They ended up with about 50 business customers and helped them process more than 200 applications. It went smoothly from the client side but was cumbersome behind the scenes. Customer requests began coming in after that filing season for help with H1-B extensions and other types of visa. They also had to review that first filing season to see what had worked and what needed improvement. But they managed to earn around $300,000, mainly in the H1-B season. Going about it the second time, in 2016,
It took Munir a while to really develop the confidence to start a company and take the big steps for it to grow properly, but he’s moved in that direction after scaling then selling his first company, Pi Labs, then moved to the US and is growing his second startup, Remote Interview. Munir grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, the son of a businessman. In that environment, he learned early in life many lessons about business, including the need to always have cash reserves on hand - now he always tries to have at least 6 month in savings that he can use to support himself and his family. He studied telecommunications and electrical engineering, but realized it wasn’t his thing, so he did the bare minimum to get by while spending as much time as possible around programmers. This was around the time of the “dot com” bubble bursting in 2002-03, and many among his family and friends had a lot of apprehension about programming. His experience working for a bank showed him that he wasn’t meant for the strict corporate environment, and despite being paid well and having the opportunity to travel, he decided to move on and return to Pakistan to join a startup. The new startup didn’t do well. A promised investment never materialized because of the 2008-09 recession. Revenues were almost non-existent. Eventually Munir resigned and advised his team members to do the same. Munir set out to work again as a freelancer, and would hire interns as he needed them. This would eventually take the form of Pi Labs. He learned two important lessons here:
Don’t hire people until you have stability Don’t depend on investors
Sony was an important client. After success on a freelance project, they offered him a full-time position, but he declined, instead convincing them to outsource to him. At the time, he only hired interns; they produce the same quality work and there was still concern about revenue. But it would be one of those interns who eventually became his first full-time employee. Munir got a visitor’s visa to America to attend the Microsoft Summit in 2010. He loved his month in the US, and even felt depressed when he had to return to Pakistan. He felt that his eyes were opened in a new way, despite his past travels, and hoped to be able to return to the US to work. One struggle Munir had was learning management. He had set a goal to double the size of his company every year - both in revenue and number of employees. He was able to do so; as he says, “Your level of success will not exceed your expectations. What you plan is what you get; there’s no such thing as luck.” But he also quickly realized, as he got to around 20 employees, that he had never developed the skills for managing them; he’d always felt that hiring smart people was enough. The year 2012 brought a major low, as they lost about 50% of their monthly revenue because a client was going through hard times. But this led Munir to double down on his efforts to expand into new areas and find new clients in the US. Through Draper University he’d learned how time-consuming hiring processes could be, and knew he’d always done well in hiring programmer. So he set out in a new direction by creating screening software that would help companies save time and effort by doing a lot of the paperwork and determining suitable candidates. He also, meantime, got a great buyout offer from a client in Pakistan, and despite the feelings that coming with giving up your first major project. His first startup project yielded great success, and he was moving on to a new venture. At the time he only had a visitor visa to the USA, but set out to negotiate the difficult process of getting a new visa type that would allow him to work in the US and eventually get a green card. At the time of this interview, he had just received notification that his permanent residency was, indeed, granted. His visa class was an EB-1A. (For more information on visa possibilities for entrepreneurs,
Overseeing human resources payroll and benefits is can be a huge burden for a startup or small business. Zenefits offers an integrated software solution to make the whole process simpler and less painful. Cofounder and CTO Laks Srini talks today about the company and how it grew to be valued at $4 billion in just 3 years. Laks says his mom would probably say he was a dumb child until about grade 7, but he always liked, and did well with, computers. He always wanted to do something on his own, and was also very ideological. His primary interest was never in just making more money with money. His thought was to use his skill set for something good. He interned and then was hired at D.E. Shaw, until the opportunity arose for him to move to a startup, and it was especially interesting to him since it was in the financial sector. He started working for SigFig, which provided integration software for brokerages. Since he was still in India, they had to get him an H1 visa. He was hired in early 2011 and worked in the Singapore office until late that year, when his US visa came through and he was able to move to the US. It was late 2012 when his friend Parker Conrad called him to ask him to be a cofounder of his new company. It was Conrad’s own experience and frustration in dealing with benefits and payroll that led to the idea for Zenefits. In January 2013, they joined Y-Combinator. There they met someone doing a similar project who was close to launch as well, so Conrad and Laks quickly got their website up. While not every aspect was ready, they were able to get seven products launched by the end of that year. Their ideas for how to construct the software was based on building not only what people wanted, but what they needed; it was also designed to meet their own needs. Effectively, they were building a system for themselves. Zenefits has also always been a free product; their revenue comes from margins on types of insurance they are also able to sell through the software. As it was growing, there was an everyday feeling that Zenefits could die - there were many existential crises that seemed overwhelming at the time. But solutions were found to reduce backlogs and overcome other problems. In December 2013, they raised a series “A” of $15 million as they realized their business was becoming successful and they wanted to hire more sales, marketing and engineering personnel. In May 2014, they raised $66 million in a series “B” based on their fast growth. This allowed them to scale much faster, going from 14 to 35 in 2014, and from 35 to 200 in 2015 when they went to Series “C”.. With the rapid growth, they started onboarding people in batches. They developed a three-week bootcamp for new engineers, and Day 1 was the prime opportunity to talk about company culture. Zenefits has always been about looking at functions essential to companies, and especially to employees, who need their paychecks and their insurance in place. Laks also had to make the move from developer to manager as the company grew. One idea he learned was that there’s no such thing as overcommunication. When growing so rapidly, it became apparent that it's important to stress the message of your company to be sure that everyone hears and understands it. Advice to those starting out:
It only gets harder If you don’t truly believe in it, don’t do it; you need that to make it through the ups and downs Don’t let visa issues stop you if you really want to be an entrepreneur
Contact LinkedIn Twitter @laks_srini Zenefits website
Lakshmi Kodali, a founder of LAD Solutions and of Privme.com, has always looked to learn the “next step” in his plan to be an entrepreneur, and to always be moving forward. Before beginning his own entrepreneurial journey, he set out to learn everything necessary. He advises that other aspiring entrepreneurs also try to learn all they can about business in their field - even work for your future competitor, pick their brains and prepare yourself for your future business. It was always among Lakshmi’s goals to start a company; he wanted to be in the tech service industry. Like many entrepreneurs, his goal was not to simply make money, but as he says, to become something in life so that people will remember him when he’s dead. Halfway through his Master’s program, Lakshmi met David, who was his mentor in an internship at David’s company. After his months of internship, Lakshmi was ready to move on, feeling that he’d learn what he could and was ready for the next step. At the conclusion of the internship, David and Lakshmi decided to found LAD Services, along with a third partner. The company would focus on digital marketing, expanding from mainly SEO at the beginning, to a wide array of services, including app and web development, e-commerce and remarketing. In 2009, when they were getting starting, it was a new industry. They couldn’t hire “experts” because there weren’t any, so they looked for the smartest people, who at least had an idea of what a website was and how it worked. Lakshmi recommends a structured training program, and includes the following important points:
Develop a structured workflow Train one person, or just a couple, who in turn train and supervise others Train in person when possible; also use Skype, videos, notes
In LAD’s first year, there were about 15 employees and revenues exceeded $1 million, so that they were able to scale up. Their first clients came through word of mouth, and they were able to build and grow through the trust and reputation they built. But they also had lessons to learn about marketing. They started by reaching out to whatever business they could find, but realized they needed to focus. Now, they only focus on prospects that need their services, that have the money to pay for them, and would be willing to start within the same quarter. Each salesperson is expected to contact 400 quality contacts per month, with the hopes of getting 10 new clients.Main responsibilities for e-commerce is to have product selection and have good marketing. The year 2012 was brutal for SEO. Google algorithm changes led to about 80% of LAD’s clients dropping in search engine rank. Clients were upset; they were losing money. A lot of them dropped LAD completely. In order not to lose more, Lakshmi and the team offered deep discounts or sometimes even worked for free while trying to figure out the new set of rules. In the end, this year saw a deep drop in revenue, back under a million; it also led for the need to cut the staff by about half. LAD has developed and expanded its services, and is always looking for more clients. At times, they can’t take everyone on, because too much is required in terms of resources to make it happen as swiftly as needed. But by 2015, they’d recovered completely and revenues were between $3.5 and $4 million. Lakshmi’s latest project is Privme. It offers discounts similar to Groupon, but is much more focused, so that those who receive offers have shown the spending patterns and interest in the type of product being offered. Lakshmi’s Advice for Entrepreneurs:
develop a business that provides your bread and butter income, then move to a passion Have a mentor Make money for somebody else, so you can learn; but do it for 6 months then move on
Books The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and The Gospel of Wealth Andrew Carnegie (biography) by David Nasaw
Resources LAD Solutions Privme.com
Contact LinkedIn Lakshmi [at] privme [dot] com
Jason is an immigration lawyer who concentrates his practice on entrepreneurs who are seeking either temporary or permanent visas in the US.
Originally based in Miami, Jason now works out of Austin, Texas, but has clients throughout the US and world. His goal is to help the best and brightest come to the United States and build their businesses. Jason was born in the US, but his father immigrated from Cuba to Canada and eventually to the US. Jason holds dual Canadian and US citizenships. Anyone can apply for any immigration benefit by themselves; an attorney isn’t required. But Jason highly recommends using an immigration attorney to make sure you do the job right. If you are ever denied a visa, you’ll have a harder time securing one in the future. So it’s important to have a qualified attorney, or at least consult with one, to make sure you go about steps in the right way. In September a new rule was proposed by the White House in September to help entrepreneurs to temporarily work in the US. While waiting for Congress to create a new type of visa for entrepreneurs, a status of parole was established which would allow immigrant entrepreneurs a two-year status. At the end of this, a three year is extension is possible. Jason talks about the requirements for this and the hope that and actual visa category will be created. Jason talks about several visa categories that may be useful for entrepreneurs seeking to set up shop in the US:
L1-A visa - for those who have worked in executive or managerial capacity in a foreign country, and the foreign entity is transferring the person to the US for a similar position in a US entity that is related to the company. It can be extended up to 7 years. It’s also a dual intent visa - meaning you don’t have to show an intent to return to your home country E-2 visa is for those who are going to make a substantial investment in a US entity that they are going to run; it only applies to citizens of certain countries with treaties with the US. It’s not dual intent, so you’d have to apply for a green card in your own country EB-5 is for investors who want to invest a million dollars into a business they want to run, and which will create jobs for at least 10 US workers, or $500,000 in a targeted employment area. It can lead to a conditional, then a regular permanent residency. O visas are for those with extraordinary abilities, and requires an employer. It’s broader than the original examples given of Nobel winners and gold medalists, and be used for those with special abilities which can be proven, such as publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It’s a temporary visa, requires a US employer, but is dual intent. EB-1 is also for individuals with extraordinary abilities in their field; it has a goal of permanent residency so it’s more rigorous than an O visa. The EB-2 is similar, for those with exceptional ability; it requires a labor market test by the employer and normally requires a Master’s or PhD
Again, Jason reminds everyone that it’s important to reach out to an immigration lawyer, rather than depend on the internet for information which may not always be accurate.
Contact Finkleman Immigration Law Firm Facebook Twitter LinkedIn
Resources From Jason’s blog: New Immigration Options Coming for Entrepreneurs & Startups US CIS List of Countries with Treates for E-1 and E-2 Visas US CIS: Understanding the EB-1 Requirements for Extraordinary Ability USCIS Proposes Rule to Welcome International Entrepreneurs
Sol Orwell talks about limiting ego, refusing venture capital and trusting employees to do their jobs. The founder of Examine.com seeks to be true to his purpose and mission and to live comfortably - and that means not growing his companies at all costs. Sol is the founder of Examine.com, where you can get unbiased information about nutritional supplements. They do not brand or sell their own supplements, even though it would make them more profitable. Instead, they depend on the trust they create by being an unbiased voice. While it’s not the most economically successful business he’s started, it is the one he’d be most happy to tell his friends about and that he wants to be associated with. At this point they have about 170,000 e-mail subscribers, although they’ve probably culled over 150,000 from the list as well. Sol’s philosophy is to build something that’s so compelling that people can’t resist it, and want to share it with their friends. It’s guided him since he started building an online gaming directory, through a local directory for Toronto made by manually walking part of the city, to online gaming currency sales and now to Examine.com Unlike many entrepreneurs, Sol hasn’t accepted venture capital. While he’s not opposed to it, he doesn’t find it a useful tool for his particular goals. For him, taking investments would mean he’d give up the ability to live comfortably, as he’d have to worry about the investors. While he knows it does make sense for some, he doesn’t see it working well for him. Instead, by bootstrapping he’s able to figure things out and scale the company at the pace he finds best. Sol has a fascination with the philosophy of George Orwell, particular with the famous quote from Animal House: “All animals are created equally, but some animals are more equal than others”. He recognizes that the unique circumstances of his life - including living in Saudi Arabia and Japan in his childhood, then the US as a teen, and finally moving to Toronto for university, allowed him the opportunity to develop and attain his level of success. Like many children, his parents expected him to become a doctor - and in his case it was actually something he considering. But he’d starting his first online business at 16, and by his first semester in university, he was devoting himself more to his business than to study. He lost his scholarship and would never have made it into medical school, but he’d found his path. When he graduated in 2005, he had made enough to take almost five years off, leave his assistant in charge of his company, and live off the proceeds while traveling the US. He could have continued to live that way but felt aimless and the desire to learn and grow in life. Having been overweight for a lot of his life, Sol began investigating how to get healthy, and that’s what fueled the idea for Examine.com. He relies on experts to do the writing; his area is to help create and develop the site, but always developing it to see who can replace him each step of the way. Two keys to growth have been
Asking email subscribers what else the site can offer for them Building trust with influencers, who became willing to promote his site
Sol makes a point of hiring good people, and trusting them to do their jobs. He doesn’t like to micromanage, and is always looking to see who can do the job better than him and what is necessary for him to do and what he can hand off to others. He knows his employees will make mistakes - he’s made plenty, and some of the worst, himself. He currently writes on SJO.com, sharing thoughts about entrepreneurship. But he tries not to let ego take over; he doesn’t want to talk from a bully pulpit, but instead sharing what’s on his mind. To sum up his philosophy for success, Sol relies on comedian Steve Martin - “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” With Examine.com, they built it so well, it didn’t matter that it was just Sol and a friend with a degree in dietetics.
Travel bloggers Savi and Vid decided to stop counting the number of countries they’d visited - they guess it’s in the 70s, but they realized they enjoy spending time in each country more, rather than simply crossing them off their bucket list. This now-married couple met when they were about 16, became friends and eventually got married. They then moved to the United Kingdom where they both worked. From their home in London, they’d make short trips, but realized they loved getting away, sampling cuisine, taking photos, and meeting new people. By their second year there, in 2009, they had 14 trips over the course of the year. Savi says Vid is probably the bigger vagabond - Savi isn’t so sure she’d do this if they weren’t together. But it wasn’t longer after starting to living together, that they realized they both loved to travel, and to do it with each other. Their blog, Bruised Passports, was started in 2013 as a way to help them financially - it was always intended to be a professional blog - as well as in response to their friends’ requests to find out about the trips and see their photos. They’d talked about it since early 2012, but Vid blames his own procrastination for it taking so long to get off the ground. When they did get started, they set out to make it a professional blog and one they could derive income from. So while they were both working in “regular” jobs, they also dedicated substantial time daily to the work of setting up the blog, often logging a total of 18-19 hours of work a day. Their passports were so beat up from visa and stamps, they settled on “Bruised Passports” for the blog's name, because of how beat-up the booklets ended. Even though they don’t have “day jobs” now, and spend their time traveling, they still put in a lot of hours to make the blog work. From day 1, they’ve answered every comment on their pages; they make it a point to engage with readers, and see the blog as their baby and the readers as family. They also do a lot of networking with other bloggers. They were covered in some Indian newspapers, which led to a lot of readers. They also were able to connect with and blog on other sites. But the most important factor is always having good quality content that people want to read and come back for. They set aside a third of their savings as a travel fund, and when they reached a modest goal, they had decided they’d leave their jobs. Vid gave notice in April 2015 and was excited, but Savi was the one feeling more nervous at the time. At the time they had about 1000 pounds monthly income from the blog, and their goal is to support their travels from the blog, while having the backup of the savings. While they still do work while on the road, they try to be reasonable in the amount of work they do, both for their site and for other projects to generate income. They each make sure the other doesn’t work too much, and makes sure they take a step back and relax. They normally limit themselves to 6-8 hours a day working, but sometimes work more so they can then take 2 days just to enjoy the place they’re visiting. Savi and Vid each only carry one suitcase and one handbag, amazingly! Making use of accessories that can be used in various ways, they’re able to remain stylish in a Bohemian way. They also take health serious - signing up for short-term gym memberships and even carrying a Nutribullet! They love to eat the local food wherever they go, so they make sure they also take care of their bodies. Friendships are another special challenge. They keep in touch with their strong circle of friends and family back home, and sometimes even are able to connect with other friends who are traveling. Also, now that they’ve slowed down and spend more time in places, they also have begun to develop friendships around the world. Their favorite trip this year was to Leh Ladakh, in India. They give recommendations for sites like Skyscanner and Holiday Pirates,
Dev Basu has never wasted time in his professional life. He incorporated his business, Powered by Search, just a day after graduating college, giving up a six-figure job he’d already gotten while still a student. He continues to grow and expand his business, with $6 million expected revenue for 2016, and a goal of $28 million for 2019. Dev’s childhood was spent in India and in Canada. Born in Calcutta, he was just one year old when his family moved to Canada. At the age of 4 he was back in India where his family moved to various cities (as his father’s job took him all over). When he was 16, the family went back to Canada where Dev finished his last year of high school. He accredits these moves to teaching him to be adaptable and learning how to get along with various types of people. While in college, he did a co-op at Microsoft. When he ran into a productivity problem with a search engine, he knew he had to resolve it. He went to the VP of his division and they tried to solve it, but with no luck. However, this problem kept haunting Dev, and he couldn’t stand not being able to solve the problem. After the co-op, Dev started a blog about making money online. But the search engine problem was still on his radar. As local search began, he attempted to understand what factors would make a company rank as a local business. He began working as a consultant while also studying and working full-time. By the time he graduated he was ready to incorporate his company “Powered by Search” – which he did the day after graduation. In the process, he walked out of a six figure job! As he got started, he was contacted by a representative of RE/MAX Real Estate asking him to give a talk about social media for realtors, which led to them becoming a client. In just his first month in business, he made between $10 and $15 thousand. Within a year his small company had 15-17 clients, bringing in about $450,000. Clients were happy to work with him and help Powered by Search grow, because they could see the growth in their business. Unexpectedly, appendicitis landed him in the hospital, and while still on morphine he received resignation from one of his 2 employees. Stuck in the hospital, he couldn’t plan the transition until only 2 days were left with the outgoing employee. From this, he learned to be sure to hire people who share the same core values, such as putting others first – which has since become one of the business values at Powered by Search. He says that it’s important to hire people with the same “operating system” as yourself, who will “make the same types of decisions as you.” Powered by Search provides SEO services, helping businesses – especially businesses with local stores – rank well in Google. However, he targeted a niche that was untapped: large businesses with many (sometimes thousands of) local branches. In the podcast, Dev also talks about how he combined Powered by Search with two other companies, doubling the revenue and tripling the staff. There were difficulties of course, but Dev and his new cofounders were able to overcome the challenges and continue to move forward. At the same time, they also sought to make changes to attract more world-class employees, recognizing that pay, a sense of belonging, personal development, and balance in life are all major factors in employee happiness. As a business, his mantra was to connect the right person with the right place at the right time through search. This has led Powered by Search to expect $6 million in revenue for 2016, with a goal of $28 million for 2019. They plan to work with companies looking to make a significant shift in their digital strategy. Dev’s advice for anyone starting a digital marketing agency:
There’s always opportunity Be in top 5% of experts for a very niche area (e.g. “Facebook ads expert for surgeons,” or an “Instagram ads expert for the fashion industry”) Don’t try to read everything; curate and read what the top 20% in your fi...
Mohit Aron is a founder of Cohesity, which is revolutionizing the secondary data storage market. He talks in this interview about the entrepreneurial mindset and recognizing when you’re getting too comfortable; his methodology for vetting new ideas, why passion is far more important than money, and how and why to surround yourself with a strong team. Mohit had a comfortable job with Google, but felt that to continue to learn, he had to look for new challenges. In 2007 he took the step of joining a startup, in order to learn all he could before setting out on his own. His new salary was about half of what he was making at Google - but his passion, not the money, was what mattered. All that, in spite of that fact that his family and many friends thought he went mad. Two years there, and he did set out to start Nutanix. By the time they were ready to start, they had their initial idea refined almost as it would be in their final model, thanks to these steps Mohit offers for starting a startup:
Form a vision
Make observations about what is needed, and what’s lacking to meet the need Form a thesis Judge whether the startup can make it or not
Determine the paypoint - how and where the product/service can be sold
After two years at Nutanix, he moved on and spent about 6 months before starting Cohesity. In that time he looked at these points:
Knew he would stay in the same general field, because that’s where he had expertise Looked at what VC funders have funded; and find the gaps
Has it been done before? How many companies died trying it? Narrows it down to a few possibilities, and determine which is best
Having both the visions and the paypoints clearly defined is essential, says Mohit. It’s also necessary to understand the selling motion - have you listened to potential customers, and understand what “checkboxes” they need to check off as far as features and usability? Mohit also offers advice on how to lead. He says, “I’ll sit in my office when all my people sit in their offices”; it’s important to avoid establishes classes. Picking a team is also important. Getting the engineers isn’t too hard, because you can give them a problem to solve. But other “fluffy” positions are hard. Some of his guidelines are:
Look for references, including from people they supervised, because these people tend to be more honest Look to see how they treat the people they don’t really know. It’s not important that they can mention famous names; do they know the names of people they’ve had contact with down the chain? If the candidate is fundamentally good, they’re likely to be good in the company
Mohit also shares some other advice from items he shared with employees:
If 5 objective and smart people are telling you you’re wrong - you’re almost certainly wrong Leaders should never get too up, and especially not too down. Limit the range of emotion
He cites Albert Einstein as one of his great inspirations. Not because of E=mc², but because he had a passion for light. We see it light every day - but Einstein spent years trying to figure it out. That’s the passion that Mohit admires.
Advice for others starting out Run behind your passion, not beyond money. People who run behind money might make some of it, but not a lot Don’t do a company for the sake of doing a company. Do it because of passion. Would you do it in a garage, or a ghetto, or if no one funds you? That’s why you should do it.
Links Cohesity
Contact LinkedIn Mohit [dot] aron [at] gmail [dot] com Mohot [dot] aron [at] cohesity [dot] com Twitter - @mohitaron
Sachit Gupta has been able to assist some of the biggest podcasters in the world - all without being an influencer himself. By helping secure sponsorships and in other ways, he increases their income - which in turn becomes the source of his income. In this interview you’ll hear about his early desire to come to the US to study, and the early experiences that formed him into the entrepreneur he is today, like:
How he helped started one of Carnegie Mellon University’s biggest fundraisers, full of running, eating donuts, and more running Why he knew from the moment he stepped into his first job and saw cubicles, that it wasn’t the life he wanted to lead How he almost ran out of money in Thailand How easy it was to get his first client, and how hard it was to get more Why a dislocated shoulder led him temporarily back to end
Sachit’s first client was blogger Sebastian Marshall. But from there he spent a long while trying to get more clients - including offering to work for free, in order to learn. He struggled for a long time, both looking for a job and for clients. Eventually he found out about Andrew Warner and decided he wanted to work with him. Andrew is the hosts of the podcast at Mixergy.com, and Sachit decided he wanted to work with him. While they hit it off well, Andrew had no consistent work for him - until he needed some bead bracelets made. And Sachit willingly did it, just to get a chance. From there, the work kept coming. Through a cousin, he also came across Restless Energy Drinks in India, who did ads on YouTube, but didn’t have any established marketing beyond that. Sachit again offered his services, to show off what he could do for them. There he applied some basic marketing principles:
Build your own platform through an email list. Ask people to share on social media, when you thank them for joining the list
When Andrew was about to ditch sponsorship because it was complex, Sachit stepped in and agreed to work on a commission basis. Within two months they had a new sponsor, at twice the rate of older sponsors. Suddenly in July of 2015, things began coming together - Andrew, with Sachit’s help, was able to close more in sponsorship deals in a day, than they had in the entire previous year. At this point, Sachit was still divided doing many different things, but decided he needed to be more focused on just helping content creators grow their audience. Narrowing his focus and understanding helped him to improve what he offered and grow. His focus is to help YouTubers and podcasters, as well as other content creators, to generate revenue and to scale up from where they are currently. Sachit is always focused on uncovering what the client needs, and figuring out how he can help them. Sachit has also put together an 8-week program called “Marketing Machines” which guides users through the same process that he goes through with private clients. His advice for starting out as an entrepreneur:
Don’t expect everything to come quickly Have the grit to stick with it and not give up, even in the tough times
Contact Sachit Email: Sg [at] sgmedialabs [dot] com LinkedIn
Book Recommendation Recession-Proof Graduate
Site Mentioned SG Media Labs mixergy.com
Aditya Kothadiya founded Shopalize, which was eventually bought by 24[7], where he now works. Shopalize created the social shopping market, by enabling e-commerce businesses to add social sharing buttons to their products. It helped facilitate a new form of advertising, by allowing the buyer to spread the word about their purchase. His training and degrees were in hardware, but Aditya saw more profitable opportunities in software. Since the same logic is necessary for both, he found the transition easy, and taught himself various programming languages. In the early days of Facebook, he saw a need to bring social to e-commerce platforms, rather than bring e-commerce platforms to social. Right around the growth of Facebook and Twitter, around 2009-10, he saw other companies trying to sell on Facebook, and thought the reverse would work better. The idea that would eventually become Shopalize took various directions before reaching its final form. The initial efforts were to allow end users to share what they had purchased on social platforms, but they were never successful. He held out hope, though, clinging to Winston Churchill’s saying that, “Success consists in going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” As time went on, he saw that his best clients would be sellers, not buyers. He could create a profitable platform that would allow ecommerce sites to invite their customers to share. After approaching some small retailers, he decided that this definitely had a greater chance of success. Just as he’d learned on his own how to program, Aditya learned the whole process by doing – especially in finding the right problem and how it had to be solved, and how to talk to potential clients. These weren’t things he picked up from books or classes. When he joined his first incubator, he was almost talked out of his approach. But fortunately he went back and talked to potential clients, who convinced him that he was indeed on the right track. When he finally approached a larger potential customer, he was greatly encouraged when they told him that they’d be willing to pay a good amount of money for such a product. At the same time, he still had visa issues to contend with. He was on an H1 visa, in process for his green card. In 2011, while he was still waiting, he took an extended leave from his full-time job without pay, but he could keep his visa status intact. A supportive employer – and a very supportive wife – as well as fortuitous timing in receiving his green card – allowed him to make a go of it. He returned to work after the leave, just to inform them that he would leave the company to work full-time on his startup. His first cofounder received a great job offer just before they were about to go to the next step, and his investors backed off at that point. Fortunately he was able to get two new cofounders – one with sales experience and the other, a developer. However, while the business was growing, it was still slow, and they were considering shutting down. The developer was about to take on a full-time job although he would continue to help part-time. Fortuitously, at the same time, Aditya was switching legal teams and it happened that their new lawyer had a client who was looking to buy a similar product. The lawyer made introductions and [24]7 showed interest in Shopalize. In the process, they got a good return for themselves and their investors. From there, Aditya also took employment with [24]7, but he still continues to have the entrepreneurial spirit, and expects to move into creating another business from scratch. Still, Aditya doesn’t celebrate his success so much because he still hasn’t completely fulfilled his dream of building a multi-million dollar company, employing hundreds, and making a difference in the world.
Advice for Entrepreneurs To those who constantly hear how hard entrepreneurship is:
It’s not that hard, and you can always go back to what you did before
Today’s guest is Lavesh, the producer of the Learn Bhangra app. Bhangra is a traditional Indian dance which is rapidly growing in popularity as both part of Indian culture and as a fitness craze. If you’ve already seen - or tried - Bhangra, you know it’s a physically demanding dance form, which has led to its growing popularity as a fun way to stay in shape.
Lavesh’s skill in Bhangra and his popularity as an instructor recently led to him and other members of his dance troupe being invited to perform at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
From his childhood in North Carolina, Lavesh was surrounded with a large extended family, and as he moved to high school, became more interested in his heritage, which led to his interest in dance. He was self-taught until meeting a coach in his later high school years, who trained him in the traditional manner.
Lavesh saw people become interested in Bhangra for two basic reasons: either fitness, or to look good on the dance floor. His focus, though, was also to teach an appreciation for the cultural aspect, and to be able to teach kids and work with them as they grew.
It was when grabbing dinner with a friend that the idea for an app came to life. Lavesh was looking for a new project and new ways to share his love of Bhangra, and his friend, an app developer, was looking for a fresh idea for a new app.
The development of the app took about 6 months It was released in October 2015 and by the end of 2015, had about 1000 downloads Family played a huge role in producing the app, as well as promoting it. His cousin, actor and product Shaan Dasani, played a huge role in being able to film the training videos. Currently there have been around 20,000 app downloads
There have been hurdles - for instance, there was a copyright issue with one song they thought they’d gotten rights to use. Later on, an app update didn’t go as planned, and led to some negative reviews and slowed growth
Trying to add new and fresh content to the app led to doing choreography of popular songs, which included his team’s accidentally viral video of Bhangra to Fetty Wat’s 679.
The app is designed to teach appreciation for this dance form, as well as including a fitness component, and Lavesh hopes both aspects continue to grow.
Among the important factors that have helped Lavesh attain this success have been
His extended family His coach His own passion for Bhangra His gift for time management
Resources
Shaan Dasani's Homepage Bhangra dance to "679" by fetty wap Learn Bhangra App Kishen Tanna video
Ashish Baldua is the Executive Director, Project Management at JPMorgan Chase. He co-founded many startups, among them Wowzio and most recently Bloomspot which was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2013.
Ashish grew up in Mumbai, India. After getting his Bachelor’s degree, he moved to the U.S. and earned a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Stony Brook University in New York. He went on to work in the technology department at Yahoo for 11 years, rising quickly to manage more than one hundred people and their projects.
He describes his life growing up, his years at Yahoo and lessons he’s learned in co-founding many startups:
Hear about Ashish’s early years in India and his life in a loving family. Why Ashish left Yahoo, where he enjoyed working to co-found startups? The joy creating something new. Wowzio’s creation and success: Learning to asses monetization potential. 600 million of their widgets installed by bloggers but little revenue for the co-founders. The guide they created in India which relied on opinions of friends rather than strangers. Learning from the past: Considering monetization in the validation of their concept. What was a crucial experiment that was helpful in the early days of their startup? Ashish discusses “day-one” of testing in the validation phase. How they used Facebook for customer acquisition testing. Why understanding unit economics is essential in creating a business? What are two important changes Bloomspot implemented in response to data? Ashish shares the moment of confirmation: people would buy directly from their website. What are the difficult lessons experienced from growing too fast? What can you learn from how they handled their acquisition by Chase? What are Ashish’s parting words of advice?
Links: Email: ashish.baldua.01 [at] gmail. com
LinkedIn: Ashish Baldua
Do you have what it takes to be a lifelong entrepreneur? David Fox does. He has been an entrepreneur since he was ten years old, selling vegetables to neighbors from his backyard garden. Since then, he has continued to dream about and invest in the next thing.
David works with Strategic Value Advisors and helps established business owners plan transitions out of their companies. He builds the road map for how to accomplish that transition - which may take place over several years. “I work with company owners to grow value, prepare for funding, management succession, and ownership transition.” He compares his role to that of a quarterback or a symphony conductor; he has the experience to know what he’s talking about.
David offers us 4 keys pieces of advice: 1. Money is a magnifier only 2. Don't be public with your earnings 3. Be cautious about how you spend it 4. Be a lifelong learner Join us as we follow David’s childhood influences, then learn about several of the many companies David has started as time and time again he was on the forefront of trends in technology and business.
Why David’s family moved across Australia, to Sydney to start their retail business. Why a meager childhood did not feel like a deprived childhood. Seeing his dad start again with $1,000, and succeed in retail - again. Selling veggies from his garden to his neighbors at the age of 10, his first solo venture. How purchasing his first Mac influenced his path of entrepreneurship. Being on the forefront of software and hardware distribution. Experiencing, essentially, a divorce, a death and a disagreement within his business. Starting again and seeking funding for a new business venture with Instant Access. The World Wide Web: Seeing the possibilities. Taking a risk: Developing an affiliate based online business in the United States. How an Angel Investor helped sustain their development when they were broke. Selling Astrology.com to ivillage and what they learned. Where David is now, as well as several words of wisdom.
Links: www.DavidFox.com
Strategic Value Advisors By email: david [at] davidfox [dot] com
Can there be benefits to solitude, strenuous activity, and meditation? Karan Bajaj, author of The Yoga of Max’s Discontent, thinks so!
Karan is a New York Times bestselling, multi-faceted author, whose latest novel came out this past May 2016. He is also Chief Marketing Officer of Aden & Anais. His past work experience includes positions within Procter & Gamble and Kraft Foods, as well as branding and retail strategy expertise with Boston Consulting Group.
He has worked all over the world and hiked many of its mountains as he seeks to push himself and experience spiritual clarity.
As he was growing up, Karan was always aware of the spirituality surrounding the culture in which he grew up, but didn’t take it very seriously. However, from 2008 through 2010, Karan experienced seeing his mother struggle with cancer and pass away. This experience caused Karan to begin to consider spiritual matters beyond the cerebral level, as he wrestled with the problem of suffering, pain and death.
Learn more as you listen to Karan’s account of his life’s journey:
The early impression Karan had living in foothills of the Himalayas, in Shimla. Why did people leave all their possessions to seek spirituality? What was the cultural framework from which he viewed the spiritual seekers? What are the benefits of parental decision making for adults through their 20’s? Why his first novel in 2008, Keep off the Grass, was an overnight success. How his first job working in the Philippines transformed him. What Karan learned through hiking, pushing himself physically and solitude. What is a hard vacation and what can it do for your life? Why Karan took a hiking sabbatical and what came out of it. How to Karan approached the question of life and the nature of God. Why an author should not rest on past accomplishments. Listen as Karan discusses, The Yoga of Max’s Discontent: its genre and its purpose. Learn some of Karan’s favorite fiction and nonfiction book choices. What is the best kind of novel?
Resources: Book recommendations Perennial Books: The Buddha's Journey
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Fiction: The White Tiger, by Arivind Adiga Nonfiction: The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz
The Millionaire Fastlane, by MJ DeMarco Read Karan’s Books: The Yoga of Max's Discontent
Amazon: Karan Bajaj Getting in touch with Karan Bajaj: Karan on LinkedIn
kanranbajaj.com
Karan’s Youtube Channel
On Twitter
“The real impact is making (the product) work for the customer,” Pradeep Padala realized during his research internships with Hewlett Packard and Microsoft. This spurred his transformation from a desire to stay in research to work more directly where he could have “real customer impact”, through entrepreneurship. In late 2014 Pradeep founded ContainerX, which develops a management platform for virtual containers. Like virtual machines, these containers simplify storage and implementation of applications by developers. While not a new technology, it is still in need of a user-friendly management platform. Pradeep and his “A-Plus Team” are working to make these containers more useful for clients. It’s not a product looking for a million users; rather, it’s geared to medium- to large-sized businesses that may already be using VM software. Between 50,000 and 100,000 users is their long-term target. When Pradeep decided to become an entrepreneur, he was already a US permanent resident, which simplifies issues. However, his cofounder had previously helped found two other businesses, and began when he was an H1B visa holder. It’s possible although rather tricky to be an entrepreneur in those circumstances! Originally from a “small” town in Andhra Pradesh - home to “only” about 10,000 people - Pradeep came to the United States as part of his job at Hughes Software Systems (now Aricent). From there he proceeded to graduate school, eventually earning his Master’s Degree from the University of Florida and doctorate from the University of Michigan. Pradeep’s family was small, and poor “even by Indian standards”, he says. His father worked as a clerk in a government office, earning about 300 rupees a month (currently about US$4.50). His father also taught mathematics to some students in the morning. Pradeep looks at his father as his primary early mentor, as he sat in classes with these older students. With an easy laugh and a gift for analogies, Pradeep explains how these containers are similar to shipping containers and how finding a cofounder is like getting married. Here are some of the points he touches on:
The value put on education by his family enabled him to move beyond their village and economic situation “What a privilege it is to have an education . . . what an advantage it is to have an education. At the time I didn’t see that; I was just doing what I could do,” says Pradeep Picking a cofounder is like a marriage - it’s about more than just sharing an idea Software is like a snowflake - each software is controlled and handled in a different way. With containers the goal is that this will disappear. One can’t really be both in the research and customer-facing sides of a project to do it right Technology is important, but for a startup the business side is more important It’s all about execution - 1% is idea, 99% is execution You have to pick the right venture capitalist (VC), for any idea; for ContainerX, that meant turning to VCs on the enterprise side of the business The first few months have been for meeting and brainstorming about what features were needed, what makes the company unique, how to compete with other companies, how to get customers and what is the right market segment Immediate goals: release in June, and a few customers. For the following year, 1-10 customers and developing a marketing funnel Assembling an “A Plus” core team was a priority as soon as funding was in place Customer goals are based on the type of client they are looking for; not every business is really looking for a million customers Being on the bleeding edge in developing management for Windows containers is one of the great achievements
Connect with Pradeep online: Pradeep on LinkedIn Pradeep’s Blog on Medium Pradeep on Twitter @ppadala ContainerX Website ContainerX on Twitter @ContainerXinc ContainerX on LinkedIn
Purva Gupta is the founder of Lily, which, “helps women discover & buy clothes according to their emotions and perceptions about their own body.” She is a graduate and mentor at The Founder Institute and the Recipient of the Harley Lippman Entrepreneurial Fellowship. She graduated with an MBA and worked in a startup in India before immigrating with her husband to the U.S. to work with Unicef. Listen as Purva shares her insights and her passion for the startup process with us:
How Purva was able to gain funding and a sponsor for her visa through Unshackled. Working hard and cramming three months work into one month. How being a part of Founder Institute benefitted Purva, creating networks for her. Why Purva came to the U.S.? Unicef and their venture capital investment project. Encountering the pain-point of finding clothing that makes you feel good. How working with a startup in India had given Purva a taste for it, with a difference. Brainstorming with her husband, for a startup to solve a problem she could relate to. What Purva did to research the retail tech space for her startup What she learned from her first project: She’d created a feature,not a product. What to do next: Be attached to the problem, but not the solution. Applying to The Founder Institute and what followed. How to pick yourself up and grow stronger. Why Purva was able to get to the crux of what women want from their clothes. Using science to create an algorithm which helps women shop with less frustration. How Purva validated Lily in Macy’s. The next step and the entire user experience using Chat. How to acquire more funding for the next step? What’s next for Lily, and what’s next for Purva Gupta? Purva’s parting advice
Links: Purva Gupta on LinkedIn Lily Unshackled Breaking the Borders guest: Nitin Pachisia The Founder Institute
Today’s guest is Sharib Khan. Sharib is the Co-founder and CEO of TrialX, the patient connection company and Applied Informatics an award winning Healthcare Information Technology solutions company. Built in 2008 as one of the first apps on the Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault platforms, to automatically match patients to clinical trials using personal health records, TrialX is today a leading clinical research solutions company. TrialX's mission is to connect patients to research and its products are now used in world-famous medical institutions such as The Cleveland Clinic, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, University of Pennsylvania, New York Presbyterian Hospital and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. TrialX has won several awards including the NCI's best Cancer Consumer Application Development challenge in 2011/2012. Sharib is also the Co-founder and CEO at Applied Informatics, specializing in designing and developing world-class healthcare information technology solutions. He previously co-founded one of the largest cooking recipes websites, iFood.tv, which is now a new media powerhouse on Roku and other Smart TVs with more than 300 channels under Future Today Inc. In between these endeavors he worked as a Biomedical Informatics Researcher at Columbia University working on several federally funded research projects, include the development of a patient-centric EHR, a health promotion portal built on web 2.0 technologies and conducting an IT readiness assessment for the Dept. of Health, New York City, which initiated the Primary Care Information Project to support the roll-out of EHRs in city clinics. He learned how to program when in boarding school in the Himalayas and then followed his passion, to do "awesome things" in technology after finishing medical school in Delhi. He can often be spotted as the "headstand guy", doing his favorite yoga poses somewhere. Listen to the episode as Sharib also shares:
How many patients TrialX has helped since launching in 2008 When he learned to code How coding has opened doors for him How he dealt with career pressure when he made his choices His early path with iFood, and other projects How he spent 2 years with this side hustle before he went full time How long it took to start to see some success with iFood, and why he was patient Why a Google Hack-a-thon brought an idea to fruition How the Google Health platform was instrumental in the early days How he got Microsoft to carry his app What allowed him to sign up hospital and healthcare partners for the app Why it is important to have an internal champion within a company Why you have to nurture your relationships within a company in order to partner How they determined their pricing for the service How he was able to go from F1 to H1 Visa and was able to work in a start-up Their revenue currently and how it supports a team of more than 30 Ways he pushes his team to continue to be innovative
Resources and Links: ◦America walks study http://trialx.com/americawalksstudy/ ◦http://trialx.dcom/ ◦http://curetalks.com
Aditya Singhal is the co-founder of Transtutors, a leading international online education portal. Imparting education, apart from being a business, is also a passion for Aditya. He is avidly indulged in helping students develop their skills and counsels them for their career aspirations. He is devoted to the social cause of making education available to the underprivileged by contributing a part of his revenue from Transtutors towards their education. From 2007-2010, he was providing b2b services for companies wanting to hire tutors from India. Most of the companies were American companies, so they subcontracted their tutoring work. Since then his company has evolved and grown. Aditya shares his journey and the lessons learned along the way. Listen to the episode as Aditya discusses:
How excellent SEO allowed his company to be found by other businesses In 2010, he transitioned into b2c, even though the company was making money and producing a lifestyle business for him 2010-2012 he transitioned into tutoring K-12 students and it was difficult because the client wasn’t actually the buyer - the parents of the clients were the buyer. In 2012, they focused on tutoring students through college Why he phased out his profitable b2b business segment How he did content marketing as an example of their work only Why having a “small, happy family” worked perfectly as a business model Why an education business will grow slower than other types of businesses How he hired employees that were really freelancers 2012 - He expanded to Homework Help, but now he is phasing it out in favor of a subscription model Why content creation has become a major part of his business model How he splits his time between the US and India Why get got started with StartUp.com The experience that was his first taste of a start up Why money doesn’t really motivate Aditya
Aditya’s best advice for Entrepreneurs: Sell before you make. Don’t make products before you know it is going to sell. Connect with Aditya: 1.http://www.transtutors.com/ 2.http://www.askiitians.com/ 3.Become tutor (http://www.transtutors.com/become_online_tutor.aspx) 4.https://in.linkedin.com/in/adityasinghal1 5.Email Aditya [dot] Singhal [at] transtutors [dot] com
Today’s guest is Dheeraj Pandey, who started from scratch and built a company that is now valued at more than $2 billion.
A 2013 Forbes magazine article about Dheeraj says this, “He brings over 14 years of experience working at high-growth enterprise software companies like Aster Data (now Teradata), where he helped build the product and its engineering team from the ground up and at Oracle, where he managed the storage engine group for Oracle Database/Exadata, and co-authored numerous patents in the area of distributed databases. He may be a Ph.D. dropout from University of Texas (Austin), where he was a Graduate Fellow of computer science (he earned his B.S. in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology), but he’s earned a wealth of knowledge through his hands on experience in thinking through the challenges of creating a datacenter infrastructure using software rather than hardware.”
Dheeraj Pandey is currently the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nutanix.
Listen to this interview as Dheeraj also discusses:
What changes about your pitch when you don’t have a brand What motivates him about his business Lessons he learned about how not to blow money Brainstorm about the why, not the what in starting a company How the “green card” strategy played into the founders roles Why it took 2 years to go from idea to actually bringing the product to market What activities took place in the “building the product” phase How they found the right people to form their start up team Why the start up phase amounts to tons of hustle Crossing the 800/800 phase of growth How to deal with conflicting goals and balancing culture The importance of being resilience in a start up The one thing that causes bad things to happen in a start up Why it’s important to instill his value systems in his children
Website:
www.nutanix.com
Zaky Prabowo was born in Indonesia. His Father was in the Air Force and his Mother was a housewife who was also an entrepreneur. His Mother managed the business of a dorm of students for their room rental business. Zaky is the youngest child in his family, and he always felt like he had something to prove in order to get their attention. With his Father’s strict discipline of life in the Military, Zaky was always motivated to over-achieve. Zaky attended school in Indonesia and managed to get a job at McKinsey. He considers himself fortunate that he was able to get on at McKinsey locally. He also worked with the Indonesian government for a time and his job allowed him to see the potential for technology in our lives. He is the Co-Founder and CMO of wetravel.to, which is a website that aids in the coordination of group travel. Zaky is here today to share how he leveraged his network to build his company while he was getting his MBA. Listen to this episode as Zaky shares the following about his journey:
How McKinsey pushed him to be good at everything, but that wasn’t the best for Zaky How being the 7th Indonesian graduate hired in 10 years at McKinsey was quite an honor Ways he had to work around government to accomplish his entrepreneurial goals. How holding funds in trust allowed him to raise money and hire his first employees How he chose to narrow his target market for the business. Why he chose to come to Silicon Valley to pursue his advanced degree Why he felt like an MBA was the best path to move towards a start up How they navigated the difficult task of vetting travel hosts overseas How his business changed from being immigrant-focused, to being tourism focused How they worked out the logistics of taking payments, holding payments and exchanging currency How he goes about getting Trip Advisor reviews The total headcount on the biggest trip yet on WeTravel Why they plan to keep a portion of their services free to travelers How he’s monetizing without charging travelers and end users
Zaky’s advice for someone starting a business today:
Try to join as many meet ups and networking groups as possible. Be able to articulate what you are doing so you can have something to offer when you network.
Connect with Zaky: LinkedIn ◦www.indorelawan.org Website: ◦wetravel.to
Nidhi Gupta is the CEO and Co-Founder of SoLo Mob. She started from scratch and grew to over 2 million downloads in a few years. She bootstrapped the company entirely on her own. Today I have her on to talk about how to grow an app completely organically without any outside funding. Nidhi was originally working in the oil industry. She was the only woman on an oil platform at one point! She worked for the oil company for 13 years and worked internationally as well. She grew in her business skills as she progressed through the company. Due to her travels, she lost track with the news for awhile, and she realized there was a need for a way to catch up with the news in her downtime. She ended up building the app as a hobby, to meet her own needs. In 2012, she launched the app, while she and her co-Founders we all still working their full-time jobs. It took 3-4 months to build the first version.
“The best thing you can do is listen to your users!” - Nidhi Gupta Nidhi also shares in this episode:
What her first focus in the process was Why a website wasn’t in the first iteration of her company The basic functionality for the first version of the app When they built in additional functionality How Nidhi knew how to build an app for the first time How people found her app What distribution channels they put the app on in the first place Why she is embracing slow and steady growth Why she left her job before the company was profitable How she focuses on user experience above all How she came on FT for $0 salary Why her Visa wasn’t an issue when she went FT How different business models have worked for the company How a Google award impacted their sales Why they ruled out banner ads for their monetization strategy The idea of being a LEAN startup and the implications on the app Why it’s important for their start-up to focus on influencing consumer behavior Why funding is a “necessary evil”
Nidhi’s Advice for immigrant entrepreneurs: 1. Execute 2. Get good co-founders 3. Make a financially viable product 4. Take the leap Connect with Nidhi: Email: nidhi [at] solomob.net Website:www.solomob.net App: www.newshog.co
Shilpi Sharma is the co-Founder and CEO of Kvantam Inc., a marketing attribution and performance company. She helps brands understand how their marketing dollars are working and makes sure they are spending on the right things. They start by tying marketing dollars to sales and figuring out where they are getting the most return on their investment. Before Kvantam, Shilpi was a consultant for software companies. She got her MBA and joined larger companies to get experience on a bigger scale. It was a lot of travel, a lot of learning and a lot of hard work. She’s been in consulting her entire career. So why did she leave the security of consulting to enter the wild ride of entrepreneurship? She’s here today to share the story.
In this interview Shilpi shares:
The types of marketing that companies actually do Why some companies want to see ROI from marketing and some don’t How Shipli has identified her ideal customer Why she left consulting to start over as an entrepreneur How she felt limitations as a consultant The iteration of her first start up and why she pivoted Her nearly $170K investment in her company Why you shouldn’t think about making money on your first venture Your first company is where you learn and make mistakes, but probably won’t make money How she found a pilot company for her start up The importance of having a way to get data, since you can’t “make” data Why she invested in the backend, but didn’t spend a dime on UI Where she got seed funding of $1 million dollars How she transitioned from a FT job to her own start up How long into her entrepreneurial journey before she committed to it full time Ways that she had to deal with self-doubt in a start up situation How to deal with the emotional side of running a start up The steps they took to learn optimization and the mathematics behind it Why they decided to let their first client go, even when they had no money coming in How she landed her first big client and then grew that relationship Why she isn’t seeking another round of investment after the seed round How she views her business in a much different way than VC’s Why it’s hard to find talented people to work in a start up, even in India Why she felt it was important to have a co-Founder
Connect with Shilpi: Website: www.kvantuminc.com Connect with her on Twitter: @shilpi_SV
Sanjiv Gupta is the founder of OpsVeda, a cloud operations software company. He is originally from India and moved all over India because his Father was in the Indian Air Force. He studied engineering in India, and came to the US as an SAP engineer. Sanjiv has been in Silicon Valley for about 20 years now and he also started another company about 12 years ago. It wasn’t successful, so he cut his losses. He says his job at SAP was the easiest job he ever had. "When things are going well, that’s the time to change things!" He always wanted to start something the whole time he was working at SAP. So he decided to leave SAP and be an entrepreneur. Sanjiv earned his executive MBA in 2003, and realized he was too smart to work for anyone else. He was lucky enough to have family support this move.
How long it took to incubate his idea for his start up What caused him to make the decision to take the leap away from his job What the hardest part of getting his startup off the ground Why he chose to bootstrap the company after taking an initial round of Angel funding How he convinced the first customer, SanDisk to use their company. The length of time it took to get his first customer How his users helped him expand the company Ways you benefit from showing your users all the ways you can use your product How the SAP incubator program worked Why sales people are critical, but hard to train early on What he would change if he had to go it all over again Why he isn’t focused on raising venture capital at this time
Advice for others on the immigrant entrepreneurial journey: 1. Don’t do it for the money 2. Do what you do because you believe it. 3. Believe that you are the best person to solve the problem. 4. Give yourself plenty of runway to make it a success. 5. It takes 2x longer and costs at least 2x more than you think. Links: www.opsveda.com https://www.linkedin.com/company/1158050 www.twitter.com/opsveda (@OpsVeda)
When you have the “Entrepreneurial Bug”, sometimes your career path can get a little bumpy and it can be the source of conflict with friends and family. Whether you are born with the entrepreneurial bug or whether you cultivated it by exposing yourself to the wonderful adventures of entrepreneurs you have known, the resulting wanderlust can sometimes make us difficult employees. Today’s guest managed to navigate successfully in the world of the employee and the start up founder. He’s here today to tell us his story and how to keep moving forward when you are bitten by the entrepreneurial bug! Ankit Jain got his entrepreneurial start early on in India, by starting an unofficial business when he was only 19. He eventually landed a job at Google and a little while later he quit and started something else. Ankit had a successful run at several large corporations that are very prestigious to work for, but he never let himself get comfortable, so he always kept moving on to bigger and better things.
Ankit also shares in this episode:
His first venture into freelancing How he got excited about technology The gaming app that was his first freelance job The websites he used to get freelancing work How he broke into freelancing, and what it took to get clients How he posted open code snippets out into the communities, which added value The logistics of converting foreign payments from freelance jobs His experience with MyNumo (now PlayScreen) and his work on their project How he used one project to build a relationship to get more projects Why he feels like companies outsource rather than building things in-house Egyptian Casino Company and how it led to one of the highest paychecks he received How he set his targets on Google and experienced an entirely different lifestyle How he got a job at Adobe through LinkedIn Why he left comfortable, lucrative corporate jobs to strike out on his own How he dealt with his doubts as he was transitioning Why he took a job at Homejoy How timing has played an important role in his career path How Unshackled can help certain listeners** RentEscape - his 2nd project, but the one he worked on the longest How he made the decision to shut down the project What his plans are for the www.sporple.com website that he co-founded
Ankit's advice for people thinking about jumping into the entrepreneurial world:
Make sure your idea is economically viable Know how many people would potentially use your product Find a co-founder whose strengths are your weaknesses
Links and Resources: Ankit's website: https://www.sporple.com/ Ankit's Email: ankit[at]sporple[dot]com Find him on Twitter:@outnaway **For more info on Unshackled, you can check out my interview with one of the Founding partners, NitinPachisia here.
Ian Balina was born in Uganda and moved to the US when he was 8 yrs old. He has been in the US since that time. Although his family was well off by Ugandan standards, but once they came to the US, his entire family was living off his Father’s student stipend as a PhD. He experienced culture shock when they came to the US. There were different standards for discipline in school and it was just hard to get used to. He got his degree in computer science. When he was 12, he taught himself how to build websites, so he became a website builder for video games. He knew he wanted to be able to buy things that his parents could not afford, so he wanted to earn his own money. His Uncle was his first client and he built websites for his preschools. He then moved into IT Support and had other clients that he would fix their computers and websites. Ian has started several companies as an adult and is currently the Founder of PeerHustle.com. Ian has an amazing hustle and he shares the full story in this episode. Ian talks about the following:
What his first payment from his website services was His annual revenue from his ventures Ways he bartered for things besides money to get what he wanted How he was frugal with his own money How he convinced his friend to do a start up in an hour (Leximo) How he educated himself on business What happened to Leximo in the end The largest amount of traffic and publicity that Leximo received The doors that Leximo opened for him How he got the most expensive camera that he wanted to get How he started a video production company The unique way he set his pricing structure for his videography company Why he increased his rate when he got busy How he implemented Grant Cardone’s advice and it worked for his business When the time was right to hire his first employee What his best advertising method was How Yelp advertising works What is TopTal.com and how Ian used it, loved it and got banned from it His content marketing strategy for his podcast His plan for PeerHustle.com Why you shouldn’t overthink things and you should just dive in
Connect with Ian: Website | LinkedIn | Twitter Email: ian [at]peerhustle[dot]com Get the app: Peer Hustle
Raj Daniels was born in London to parents from India. He grew up in London and moved to the US when he was a teenager in the late 80’s. His family settled into the Dallas area and he absolutely loves it. He studied at the University of Texas, worked in the family business, and also started his own company, called Open Time App. The goal of the app is to help people connect and build communities by providing technology tools to connect them.
In this episode you will learn:
How culture changes have affected him as he has lived in different countries Ways he was ostracized by being true to his culture How he was targeted for ridicule and harassment because of the way he looks How he was a victim of radical prejudice in both the UK and the US His first entrepreneurial venture in the UK Why he took the “scenic route” to college and highly recommends it Why his family business failed and what they learned from it. Why bankruptcy helped him learn lessons he would never have learned without it Ways he recommends diversifying your revenue source How he got into commercial real estate Why he decided to go to college after he had already been in the business world How his LinkedIn profile is an experiment Raj tells the “monkey story” that he has on his LinkedIn profile His accomplishment that he is most proud of Why community building is at the heart of his business venture Where he got the idea for his app The challenges he has faced with OpenTimeApp Raj’s secret practice that is key to his success How Raj has become a master of strategic networking The tools Raj uses to make his “fortune in the follow up” The practice that makes his weight loss permanent The advice his give his MBA student menses
Resources Raj recommends: Book: Hooked by Nir Eyal Favorite CRM: insightly.com Raj's blog website: http://rajdaniels.com/ Open Time App: http://www.opentimeapp.com/
Connect with Raj: raj_daniels [at] yahoo.com - email Twitter: @raj_daniels
Tim Hill is from Australia and comes from over 8 years in advertising and digital agencies including Hoodlum, Reading Room and BMF. He is passionate about data-led marketing and leads product direction and operations at Social Status. He always knew there was a better way to quantify the results you are getting from social media. That led him to start a side hustle to solve the problem and he ended up growing it to become his full time business. From bootstrapping his side hustle to taking his start up to an accelerator and getting angel investments - Tim is here today to share his story with us.
Tim also shares the following in this episode:
How he decided to set better data driven KPI’s for social media Why his background as a digital media strategist helped him create social status Why it’s important to quantify what’s happening on your social media channels How long it took Tim to act on the issue he wanted to tackle Why he didn’t leave his full time job to get started How he found others with the same problem he was trying to solve Ways his network allowed him to conduct great market research How he stumbled with paid testing for his product Why traditional wisdom about his pricing model proved flawed How he knew he was ready to go full time in his start up How $1000/month in revenue was enough to make a change How long he bootstrapped the company When he closed an angel funding round What his secondary goals for Social Status were His description of his product and what it can do for you How you can use his product to understand what your competitors are doing How he grew his customer base when he started What an accelerator program did for his business How he actually got into the accelerator program Why dropping his prices took the business to a new level How he raised an angel round of funding worth $300,000 Why the US has better hamburgers than Australia, and who is his favorite
Resources: Tim thinks the success of his company is due to his involvement in an accelerator program. He highly recommends these 2 accelerators:
iAccelerate - based in Australia Hackers and Founders
Connect with Tim: Twitter: timhill22 Tim's Website: https://socialstatus.io/
Murali is the founder of Agile Entrepreneurs where he runs a program called 4 Week Startup (4WS). 4WS teaches entrepreneurs how to validate a product idea in just 4 weeks. Murali was also an active board member of Immigrants' Support Network (ISN) where he played a pivotal role in lobbying for H1B dual intent law which benefits many immigrants on their greencard process.
In this episode Murali also talked about:
How he ended up in the US Why he chose the university and how he ended up in silicon valley How he started his company on H1B visa How dot-com crash killed his ambition for few years Influencers he was able to connect to Why 90% of the startups fail How external factors impact your chances of success What do seek from mentors How was TiE helpful or not How he launched his startup creatively during a conference Why does he run a least exclusive club for entrepreneurs How he applies scrum methodology to teach entrepreneurs Does making more money make you smarter? What to do to execute and get your product out quick How to define your success metric for your startup What is the most important step for your podcast Why not to focus on features for your product (what to focus on instead)
Connect with Murali Webiste: Agile Entrepreneurs
Email: murali [at] agileentrepreneurs.com
Tomasz Kolodziejak was born in Warsaw, studied in California. For two years he taught Microeconomics as an adjunct professor at San Jose State University, and was the Founder of Polish Government’s initiative in Silicon Valley – Silicon Valley Acceleration Center. Tomasz Co-Founded Inteliclinic, where one of their main products is an intelligent sleep mask called Neuroon. He was able to do a Kickstarter campaign (where he met the goal in 24 hours) and also raise some VC for a total of $2 million in funding for his startup.
Listen to the episode as Tomasz shares:
What kind of a student he was Why he came to the US initially What life in Poland was like How he found his Co-Founders How he turned a small grant into an idea for his start up How he got on BBC, TechCrunch and Wired before his KickStarter campaign started How he got his product into major airlines How he hit his Kickstarter goal in 24 hours What he believes the key to his Kickstarter success was The controlling mechanism for his intelligent sleep mask How they track the different phases of sleep How he incorporates light therapy into the sleep mask Ways the sleep mask can trick you and help you avoid jet lag How he incorporated medical research into his product What he was able to prove with research What market ended up being a big customer early on What made his product appealing to Japanese Why airlines are interested in his product, Neuroon What make him decide to go full time in his start up When they began shipping physical products How they are dealing with a backlog for shipping products The new ideas and prototypes they are working on
Connect with Tomasz: Email: tomasz [at] inteliclinic.com Website: inteliclinic.com Twitter.com/tomaszkol
He was born in Argentina, and came to the US to play soccer on a scholarship with U of Maine. When he got his business degree, he moved to Geneva, Switzerland and worked for HP.
He and his brother started etips.com while he was still in Switzerland in 2009. His mobile app tips earned $1 million in the past year. His company headquarters is in Argentina, and he also had a presence in Silicon Valley.
In this episode he also shares:
Who came up with the idea for e-tips How long it took to develop the app What his first product was What platform he started on How much revenue he made initially How he misjudged the iPhone’s popularity Ways they determined which cities to start with How he created a revenue model before in-app purchases His expansion plan The big gamble of a price drop and the surprising outcome What it took for him to leave his job and work his startup full time How he grew to $1 million in revenue with no debt and no investors How he creates new revenue in his business Ways they continue to innovate How he scaled his app business to 500 apps The difficulties of building businesses in Argentina Why you can’t buy a Mac in Argentina When he got into apps for the Apple watch The future plans for e-tips
You can get in touch with Gonzalo: www.etips.com - his website gonzalo [dot] juarez [at] etips.com Twitter - @gonzaloju
Yuri Moreno is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He got a start early in life in the digital marketing world. He entered digital marketing at 19 and by the time he was 21, he was the head of one of the largest digital marketing firms in Brazil called UnderDOGS. Solving his customer challenges led him to start a back end digital marketing agency called Extraball. He and his co-founder at Extraball eventually sold both companies! So Yuri is here today to explain how he started a company to sell it.
Interesting things you can learn from today's conversation:
How Yuri got into digital marketing Why Yuri became fascinated with traffic and conversions The strategic decision Yuri made to limit his client base and why How he realized the marketing agency was leaving money on the table How he met his clients' demand by offering a front end solution How they handled a cash flow problems Why being close the numbers as a founder would have helped him The length of time it took to be profitable How he bootstrapped the company The profit differences between his 2 companies Ways they dipped their toe into social media How Yuri knew it was time to sell How he planned an exit strategy The length of time and negotiations for the sale How he bundled his companies together to His advice for landing a sweet deal with an early stage start up
Connect with Yuri: yuri [at] yurimoreno.com
Twitter @yurimoreno
Ashu Garg was born in India and has lived in India, Nigeria, and the Sudan, and today makes his home in California with his wife, Pooja (an entrepreneur as well), and their two sons. Ashu has a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, where he received the President's Gold Medal.
Visionary Leaders will put you in charge before you are ready for the task! Ashu works with startups in sectors as varied as marketing technology (MarTech), big data, analytics, online financial services, and education. Before joining Foundation Capital in 2008, Ashu was the General Manager for Microsoft's online advertising business. Previously, Ashu worked at McKinsey & Company with early and growth-stage companies in digital media, software, and consumer services. Earlier in his career, Ashu started TringTring.com, one of the first search engines in Asia, set up Unilever’s Nepal operations, and led the marketing and pre-sales teams at Cadence Design Systems. Listen to this episode to learn:
Why is takes 5-10 years of network building for an immigrant to catch up with someone from the US. Why he wants to help people who have only been in the US for 5-10 years. How he scored a job at UniLever even though he was the only one without an MBA What the Unilever model for leadership success is and why it works How he was able to help his company build out a local presence in India The random way that Ashu ended up moving to the US Why he left a great job at Microsoft so he could look for a “great ride” on his next job Why leaving a job without having a new job doesn’t scare Ashu How he got involved in VC from scratch What he learned in his first few years as a VC Some of the big failures that he had as a VC Why he chooses not to invest in certain companies What made him want to invest in What’s App Ashu reveals one of his biggest lessons learned as a VC The problems he helps companies solve…HINT: he likes disruption How Ashu contributes to a company as a VC The 2 parts of his job he loves the most!
Ashu would love to hear from you! Start a dialog with Ashu on Twitter! @ashugarg
You can also check out the Foundation Capital website.
Gaurav Mantri was born in India and moved to the US in 1999. He worked in a corporate job and dabbled in start ups during the dotcom era, but he eventually decided to move back to India to build a software company, Cerebrata. Cerebrate was eventually acquired by Red Gate Software. Gaurav shares his story of success, and some failures along the way. Listen to the episode to hear how he walked away from a deal with Celebrata at one point; how he didn’t negotiate for more money when they came back to the table, and how he lost more than $100,000 in failed products.
You can learn the following in this episode:
How SDS Client came about Why he chose to build Microsoft applications What he learned from his failed start up Why he never ended up getting a green card How he ended up choosing where to move to in India Exactly what on the professional front, made him move to India How active.com became part of his work The story of generating revenue when he moved to India Why everyone in his organization was afraid of getting called to the spare room How the first product was created What Azur does and who uses it How a blog post impacted his product How free products can lead to paid products Ways Gaurav was bad at marketing How to find the right market for your products How a product failed and lost more than $100,000 How he entered a contest to better his company His strategic reach to Red Gate, in hopes that he could learn a lot How he avoided financial negotiations when he was acquired How a celebration ate up the profits of his company Resources to help you professionally Be sincere when you seek help
Resources and Links Mentioned: Red Gate Books
Connect with Gaurav: gauravmantri.com - his blog
Using his company to fund his education is an ace of a strategy! Tayo Rockson is the CEO and President of UYD Media, a media company that encourages people all over the world to use their difference to make a difference while celebrating diversity and educating others. He is an avid writer whose work can be seen on the Huffington Post, Among Worlds Magazine as well as Global Living Magazine. He is an authority on Third Culture Kids and assimilation into new cultures. He is the author of The Ultimate Guide To TCK Living and through his podcast and blog, he is heard and read by thousands of people in over 100 countries.
Tayo is originally from Nigeria, but had lived on 4 different continents before he turned 20. His Father was a diplomat for the Nigerian government, so his family was traveling all through his childhood. He eventually came to the US for collegeHe grew up in four different continents so he considers himself a citizen of the world. He has lived in Sweden, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Vietnam and the United States and his goal is to ultimately leave the world a better place than it was before he came into it.
Once he discovered that he was a Third Culture Kid (TCK) or someone who spent the formative part of his childhood years (0-18) outside of his parents' culture, he vowed to use his global identity to make an impact in the world. Feel free to connect with him on Twitter @TayoRockson where he is actively making new friends every day. Tayo also reveals:
What is TCK How TCK influenced and affect him growing up Tips for overcoming reverse culture shock How he learned to play basketball from a book How he uses basketball as a great networking opportunity Why he started a media company How his company was a childhood dream come true Why he only sleeps a few hours each week How his podcast got picked up by Entrepreneur Magazine How he used OPT to his advantage Where he got his start speaking at conferences Why his launch for his product didn’t go so well How he got out of debt from his start up project How he became a contributor for the Huffington Post Ways he is working to get his visa
Connect with Tayo: Twitter @tayorockson tayorockson@uydmag.com
As Told by Nomads Podcast
When your passion overtakes your work, it's time to make your passion your work. Subash Jayaraman loved Cricket as long as he can remember. He’s never not had Cricket in his life. Growing up in India, Cricket was always a part of his family life. He came to the US in 1998, and he found that he could not follow Cricket as much as he could when he was in India.
Subash started his writing endeavors with a personal blog. A traumatic situation in his youth provided some writing inspiration. Once he wrote about his personal story of abuse, he found that he could almost write about anything. You can learn more about Subash by listening to the episode:
Started writing as a personal blog How his blog helped shape him as a person What he did to allow the space to write about personal tragedy 3 or 4 years into his blog, he found out everything he was writing was about Cricket Social media became critical for the success of his blog How reading blogs helped him craft his writing style Why Subash never paid attention to his numbers for his blog His motivation for writing about Cricket How he earns a living by traveling to watch Cricket matches The role his wife played in this crazy adventure Why it took 2 years to get to the point of carrying out his plan How much he had to save to make his dream happen How Subash transitioned from a job to full time Cricket immersion How he travels the world full time to enjoy Cricket Why getting to close to your passion can ruin it How he ended his trip around the world with $400 left of his savings
Connect with Subash on Twitter: twitter.com/thecricketcouch
An entrepreneur learns from experience and improves Sachin was born and raised in India. Sachin Dev Duggal is an innovator, serial entrepreneur, and an advocate of enterprise that touches lives and benefits the world at large. He is the co-founder of Shoto – a new startup that lets find unseen photos from your friends when you were together using location, your phone book, and an algorithm that understands the nature of the moment and who was there.
Sachin started his public foray very early in life, at the age of 12 he went on stage in front of 1200 people and the world media to demand something be done about the state of the environment. He began his professional career at the age of 15, when he formed SMX Corporation (now sd2labs) along with his best friend. In August 2004, Sachin co-founded Nivio with a view to disrupt the old compute model; and got seed funding from two of his bosses! Fast forward to 4 years later, Nivio was selected as a technology pioneer at the World Economic Forum in January, 2009. Sachin made history in being the youngest attendees at the WEF in Davos. He left Nivio in 2012 to start on a new idea having put together a world-class team to grow the business. Listen to the episode to learn more entrepreneurial lessons:
How Sachin got his entrepreneurial start How breaking his Mom’s computer set him on his course Ways he capitalized on the spread between the cost of components and the retail price of computers What he did to make money while he was still in school How he utilized his warm market to build his business Ways he pivoted with his company and utilized his existing team The incredible advice he received from the experienced previous generation True wisdom only comes from experience and not intellect His plea for a “gap year” and the compromise that he took instead How he landed a job at a Deutsche Bank as a teenager How he earned $15K/month as a 21 year old How he helped develop the first electronic trading system What caused him to get funding from his former bosses for his new venture What he did to get Angel funding and how he now funds other companies too Why he was able to work here without a VISA How he came up with the concept of his app and then had to pivot How having heart keeps his projects on track and successful
Entrepreneurial Resources Mentioned: Check out Sachin's app:
Shoto - Get the Photos your Friends take | Share Pictures with Friends | Private Photo Albums - shoto inc
You can contact Sachin Duggal on Twitter.
Timo Kiander lives in Finland. Timo got his start in IT, where he worked for 15 years and faced the struggles of the cubicle life. Timo’s life changed after he began running and worked up to running a marathon. This lit the fire under his desire to take his physical performance to a new level. About the same time, he read “Getting Things Done” by David Allen and the focus on productivity was interesting to him. So, he began a blog to focus on productivity and he has grown it into his own brand. He eventually was the beneficiary of a layoff from his regular job, which allowed him to fully focus on his passion.
Timo also talks about the following:
How the domino effect changed him Why Timo was fortunate enough to be laid off Why a week of intentional poverty each year can help you How Timo bridged the gap financially when he went full time at his passion The importance of learning and growing Even an expert has a day that doesn’t go according to plan The most beneficial thing you can do to live the life you want Why goal setting should be done top to bottom The benefits of focusing on one thing at a time The impact on productivity of focusing on just one thing The role of your morning routine in productivity What a personal development hour is How to make sure there is time for everything How hyper-productivity can backfire and lead to burn out Ways that writing can be an advantage to a non-English speaker
You can connect with Timo online in the following places: smartproductivework.com
www.booksonproductivity.com
Dinesh Agarwal is the founder of Pro Start Me. In 2011, he was helping a friend with his startup and realized the larger problem that entrepreneurs with great ideas faced. The technical talent needed to execute an idea was either not good or too expensive. Long term interests were always missing in contract based work and hence trust was an issue. Dinesh decided to solve this problem.
The day he graduated with his Ph.D. in Computer Science, he moved back to India right away to start Pro Start Me. His goal was to help bootstrapped entrepreneurs with great ideas realize those ideas into successful products. He gathered a team of brilliantly talented designers and developers to build great products. So far, Pro Start Me has created over 15 products. In this episode, you will also learn:
Why Dinesh came to the US in the first place What caused him to return to India to start his business The issues he had with this first company for trading get books The events that caused him to move back to India the day he graduated What he learned from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro The first steps he took to get his start up off the ground What factored into his decision about where to physically locate his company How his start up made its first revenue The challenges he faces with an India based company Some of the challenges he faced with Flippiness How he has become great at killing ideas How his failures have helped him Where his revenue comes from
Dinesh also shares a funny story about a mistake with his reservation on his honeymoon! Don’t miss it! Resources Mentioned: textfreeapp.org
flippiness.com
Tweetfull.com - Use coupon code "borders" for a special discount only for our listeners!
votestudio.com Connect with Dinesh: Twitter @dinwal
dinesh@prostart.me
Allen Vaysberg was born in the USSR and came to US at the age of 14, with his parents and $300 in their pockets in 1989 to make a better life. They settled in Chicago and that’s where Allen was raised.
Allen did make a better life and by mid-2012, seemingly had it all with a multi-million dollar per year IT consulting business, loving wife, great kids, big house, new cars and all debts paid off. But all of that didn’t bring him true happiness. So he quit his multi-million dollar per year business at the end of 2012 because he wasn’t fulfilled and knew he wasn’t living my essence. Since that time his life has dramatically.
In this episode you will also hear:
Why he would introduce himself as who he wanted to be rather than who he was How he made the decision to completely pivot from his established businesses Why quitting his job was a mistake Why making less money was more meaningful than making millions How his creative outlet of acting and writing became more than that Why taking a breath can be transformational Achieving balance can help you avert a career change in some circumstances Why TOM is critical in making every decision you make How you can discover your purest essence How Allen explored B to C business and online marketing Why being in the IT world was not true to his passion Why knowing how to make money in business didn’t help in his transition Why generating revenue from activities that aligned with his passion was the holy grail Why being a Huffington Post writer didn’t help him
Recommended Resources for building your online business:
LeadPages
Deposit photos
picmonkey.com
Constant Contact
AWeber
Recommended Resources to Find Your Essence:
The Essence Spectrum
www.allenvaysberg.com
Emily Filloramo was born in Taiwan and came to the US at the age of 9. Her Father’s government jobs transferred to the US and they family moved to LA. Eventually they moved to NY. Her Father was the only one in the family that knew English, so it took about of year of being immersed in the public schools to learn enough English to connect and build friendships.
She went to college at Cornell University and then spend 27 years working as a Pharmaceutical Sales Rep. Just before she was ready to retire, she was laid off with no warning. This event change Emily’s life forever, and she is here today to share her story of finding her passion.
Other things Emily talks about in the interview:
How she handled discrimination as a child Ways that her education shaped her psyche What happened when she got laid off just as she was ready to retire What it felt like to search for a job after getting laid off How being over qualified kept her from getting another job The role her financial advisor played in her entrepreneurial journey How we can change the lives of other amazing people by recognizing it How she started her business The education that she acquired in order to pursue her dreams Ways networking has helped her business How psychology can change your business Ways to use natural curiosity to build relationships How normal barriers we face can be a result of negative programming Ways programming from childhood can hold us back as adults How writing a book contributed to her business How she got a book deal after 20 minutes talking to a stranger in NYC How to love yourself and become your absolute best The inner work that most need to deal with to live fully Ways to fall madly in love with yourself
Read Emily’s Book:
How to Permanently Erase Negative Self-Talk
Connect with Emily online:
nonegativetalk.com
Steve Young was born in Burma (Myanmar) and moved to CA when he was 6 years old. Steve has always related to the immigrant mindset. He grew up in a house that had 4 different families living in the same household. Each family had one bedroom. It was a fun way to grow up, and he really never even realized that they didn’t have enough money to afford their own home. This has created the fire in his belly that motivates him today. Steve learned to code and built an app. He then started a podcast about marketing your apps. More and more people came to him for help, and he continued to offer his service. Today he runs an app PR firm called Runway. He has an exciting story, and well as some great tips.
You will learn the following in this interview:
How Steve got into the app space The first assignment Steve had in marketing One thing that Steve feels like they do really well right now What happened that caused him to have 100K downloads in one weekend Success strategies for PR for our app When you should start creating a buzz How to test and track your emails The optimal day and time to launch an app The best day of the week to send someone an email How to get press for your app The email template that Steve uses to get press
Resources: Steve’s email template
Steve’e book recommendation
Connect with Steve on Twitter or his website.
Ajay was born in India and came to the US for his MBA. He then worked in large corporations for almost 20 years, and he is now the Founder and President of Global Marketing Resources, LLC, a California website design, maintenance and marketing agency. He is a successful entrepreneur and business strategist with a plethora of experience in helping small and medium size businesses maximize their return on investment from the Internet. His contribution is aimed at aligning website strategy of a business with its overall business strategy.
Ajay has authored several books and eBooks to help small businesses navigate web strategy. He co-authored "Plant Your Online Biz Money Tree" to help entrepreneurs start web based businesses. He has also authored "Local Search Marketing Secrets Unveiled" that is available on this website at no additional cost.
He also founded GMR Transcription which is a successful web based transcription and translation business built from scratch.
Other things you will learn from Ajay:
How he started a business as a guinea pig for his main business What caused his guinea pig business to outgrow his main business Why he build a remote workforce in India How getting fired from his job led to his entrepreneurial adventures How he started consulting after he lost his job The strategy he used to start his business How to identify your USP How he knew there was a market for his business Why his lack of technical skills didn’t hamper his technology business What he borrowed from the medical transcription field for his venture What his initial investment went into for his business How he pivoted when his experimental business took off Mistakes that he made when hiring his remote workforce His year over year growth goals for his company Winning strategies for his business How much of his business comes from referrals Why straying from his core competency was a mistake What he did to get in trouble with the FTC Why he will have to report to the FTC for the next 20 years His $50,000 mistake with an attorney What his USP is today and how it makes him competitive Ajay best advice for starting an online business The difference between a hobby and a business
Resources:
Book: Online Biz Money Tree - get it for free here.
GMRwebteam.com
GMRtranscription.com
ajay@gmrwebteam.com
Jackie Lai was born in Singapore and moved to the US in 1995 for college. Jackie is an expert in product design and manufacturing. A structural engineer by training, Jackie has broad experience spanning the entire product design process from concept to manufacturing.
After graduating from Harvey Mudd College with an engineering degree, her passion for cars led her to General Motors in Pontiac, Michigan. She realized the cold climate was not well-suited to her equatorial self, and trekked out to California’s Bay Area to pursue a master’s degree in Structural Engineering at Stanford. She spent a large part of her career at the Volkswagen Electronics Research Lab in Palo Alto, creating things like the Chinese Handwriting Recognition system now in the Audi A6 and A8. Then she went to a product design firm called D2M where she played a significant role in the manufacturing of the Zuvo Water Filtration system now available in stores.
Her new company makes the Tendher Pillow, which is a product for breast feeding Mothers.
In this episode you will also learn the following from Jackie:
The back story behind her physical product How the prototyping process began within the first hour of conversation about it The mock up process and how she hacked it Why “Family First” was the main requirement for her new company Why Visa status wasn’t a struggle and how she got her green card How she selected her co-founders Where she found the first testers of her products Ways she tested her product on her target customer and used that to make her final product How she competes with bigger companies How she sold her first product How she got her products in the hands of strangers The challenges of outsourcing a physical products Why she determined to not to manufacture it herself early on and why that could change Jackie’s keys to obtaining balance in her life
Resources: Facebook.com/pariday
twitter.com/paridaytendhers
www.pariday.com
SPECIAL OFFER:
Go to pariday.com and use coupon code BORDERS for $5 off any order over $25.
Joel Boggess was born in the US and is the host of the Relaunch Show podcast, which has now surpassed 1 million downloads. Joel’s parents divorced when he was 3 years old. He lived with his mother most of the time, but when he was 5, a terrible accident changed him forever. During an outdoor excursion, he had ran out onto a railroad bridge and laid down in the middle of the bridge to wave at the adults below. Suddenly, a train was upon him, and Joel fell 30 feet to the ground below. Joel spent the next 3 weeks in intensive care fighting for his life. Joel had to learn to do many things again, and his life changed after the accident. Another interesting note about Joel is that his wife Pei, was actually the first guest on Breaking the Borders. You will want to listen to her episode too, and you can find it here.
In this episode, you will also learn:
All the things that Joel had to re-learn after the accident The social impacts of the accident throughout his childhood Why Joel manifested his anger through fighting How what Joel is doing now is so different from where his accident left him Joel is married to a Chinese immigrant and understands the challenge of being an immigrant Why Joel doesn’t live a normal life How Relaunch is the 9th show between all of Joel and Pei’s attempts How they used these failures to learn and as building blocks Why mindset has been a game changer for Joel How Joel’s extra challenges since his accident are similar to the challenges an immigrant faces Why not comparing yourself to others can help you succeed Why being positive has helped Joel’s show How eliminating the act of watching the news and TV can make you happier!
Recommended Resources:
Books:
Finding Your Voice - Joel Boggess
How to Become a Category of One - Joe Calloway
You can reach Joel at:
twitter.com/joelboggess
relaunchshow.com/itc
Arturo Nava was born in Mexico. He is a forward thinking and passionate Latin inspired marketer, brand builder, podcaster,innovator and former entrepreneur with 13+ year experience leading teams to grow top consumer brands in the food & beverage, consumer products and mobile industries. Prior to starting Marketealo he held various brand marketing and innovation leadership roles at top Fortune 500 companies. He is a thought leader and contributor to MediaPost’s Engage Hispanics blog, Hispanic Retail 360, The Shelby Report Hispanic Force and Retail Customer Experience blogs/publications.
Arturo is also the Founder of Logra tu Dream a top podcast in a mission to help Latinos/as achieve their American Dream. Arturo also wrote a book Logra tu Dream, that became an Amazon best seller.
Today in this episode we can also learn:
Why getting into Harvard on scholarship was important Why he turned down a phone interview with Harvard admissions How he did everything in his power to “crush it” What happened to his first business failure Lessons he learned from failing How getting married helped his business status His corporate marketing experience and what he learned The difference between marketing and branding How he chose the Latino niche for marketing Sí, se puede and what it means to Arturo The process of losing his fear of failure The catalyst for jumping back into the entrepreneurial arena The one thread and how it means everything How to achieve mastery in your domain Keep the fire in your belly burning How to achieve big things Ways a mentor can help you Mistakes a mentor helped him avoid Ways to shortcut the process of “finding yourself” What helped Arturo’s podcast to become successful 12 proven methods of success in the US What types of activities we waste time on How to find efficiencies to get the most bang for your buck How his affirmations came true
Resources:
Logratudream.com
logratodream.com/amazonbook
Logra to Dream Podcast
Shamir is a software engineer turned finance and banking expert. He is the advisor, Co-Founder and former CFO of Simple. Prior to Simple, Shamir was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. specializing in strategy consulting for financial institutions in Europe, the Middle East, and the US. Prior to McKinsey, Shamir was a software engineer. He has a bachelor’s in computer science, a master’s in information technology, and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Some of the topics covered on this episode of Breaking The Borders with Shamir Karkal include:
How startups in a heavily regulated industry can be complicated. But this barrier to entry also means that there can be less competition How the 'startup' tech business model is just starting to hit some of the bigger industries, ie Uber, etc... The ways that the banking industry's model of making money on fees hurts their overall relationships with their customers The reason that it is a good idea to take advantage of times in your life without additional responsibilities (children, etc) to pursue startups The ways that the banking industry and other entrenched industries make innovation extremely difficult, with so many levels of bureaucracy to go through to get anything done The important of reading books, and always continuing to learn Finding the best partners and advisors that you can Making sure that you are working on something that you are genuinely passionate about "If there's any trick to success, it's find the best partners / advisors you can, and be certain that you will never give up." - Shamir Karkal (click to tweet)
Resources: Simple.com Twitter: @shamir_k LinkedIn
Anand Karasi is from a small town called Koraput in Orissa, India. He came to the US for college and had hopes of pursuing a career in the aerospace industry. A small delay in his plans due to an issue with his green card, turned 18 months into 10 years. Over this time, while Anand worked at several large corporations to learn as much as he could, he developed a “bug” in his brain that completely consumed him. He could not sleep at nights because of this “bug” and eventually he knew he had to pursue his startup dreams.
In this episode, Anand gives us a peek into his mind as he built his start up. Beyond that, Anand has some great advice for others that may be afflicted with a brain “bug”, and he shares some tips on how to deal with it. In this episode, you will also learn:
How some of the old engineering techniques influenced Huna Makia Why Anand made the change from Aero-space engineering How turning down a job with Microsoft may have been the best thing that ever happened Why it made sense to take the risk of building a start up How his hospital SaaS company fared in the beginning Where the idea for his start up originated The regrets Anand has about his exit strategy How his start up weakness, became his next venture You are selling everyday. All day, everyday. The most important sale you can make when you are married is selling your spouse on your business. How the green card changed the course of Anand’s career Where the name Huna Makia originated Why Anand wasn’t afraid to re-work his product when it wasn’t working How collaborating with other entrepreneurs can help your business The lengths he went to in order to refine his product and get it right
Anand shared with us 4 guiding principles to consider when you are afflicted with the “brain bug” of a new business idea:
You should not do a start up, just for the sake of doing a start up. The only reason to create a start up is if you can’t get an idea out of your head. This idea will be a bug in your head that you can’t get away from. When the bug in your brain drives you to feel deeply about this idea, then it is time to start. Try pusruing your idea without making it a start up. Do it as part of an existing company.
Mentions: Huna Makia
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Anand Karasi on LinkedIn
Anand Karasi on Facebook
Sarah Corstange is an immigration attorney who focuses on representing startups and small businesses with the U.S. immigration service. She works with entrepreneurs to help them develop strategies and plans to keep their employees, investors, founders, and partners in the U.S. Sarah has made it her missions to help people deal with the complexities of immigration law and visas which can often be frustration when immigrant try to navigate the bureaucracy alone.
Sarah joined me on Breaking The Borders for this very important and informative episode, where we covered a wide range of topics, including:
The visa waiver program OPT work authorization for students who want to form their own startups How the B1 visa allows people to work through the preliminary stages of starting a business Using an H1B for nonprofit organizations How an employment contract can impact visa status Alternatives to the H1B E2 investment visa for entrepreneurs Companies that specialize in business plans for immigrant entrepreneurs The difference between immigrant and non-immigrant visas
Resources: StartupImmigrationAttorney.com
Corstange.com
UpCounsel.com
Twitter: @sarahcesq
Blog.CyrusMehta.com Free Download: Immigration Options for Entrepreneurs
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Vikrant Mathur is the CEO of iFood.tv. Vikrant came to the US for grad school and was able to hustle his way into landing a job prior to graduating. He worked a few different jobs, until he was able to get on at Microsoft. Vikrant was a part of a group of freshly minted MBA’s at Microsoft, and he was able to learn the leadership skills he needed to jump into the start-up world.
Vikrant joined me today on Breaking The Borders to discuss all the aspects of starting iFood.tv. Listen to this episode to learn:
What it takes to build an online platform Ways to decide your niche for your online business How to drive traffic to your business Where to find a virtual team to run the day to day tasks The importance of being first in your category Ways to leverage free press stories to drive traffic to you How to take advantage of word of mouth advertising for your launch Why they didn’t consider YouTube a competitor How they scaled to make iFood.tv their full time jobs and the timing of it How to mitigate the risks of a start up Ways to pursue your dream without having to leave your job How investing in yourself can make the risk worthwhile Ways to start with no venture capital Why getting investment may not be the best thing for your start up
Mentions: Seth Godin’s Podcast and Purple Cow Blue Ocean Strategy You can connect with Vibrant on LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/vikrantmathur You can visit Vibrant's website at http://iFood.tv
Andrew’s parents came to the United States from the Middle East. In the mid-90s, Andrew saw that people in the U.S. had different perceptions of immigrants, so he changed his name from Shuki Khalili to Andrew Warner. After forming a startup with his brother, he tried different ideas and spent a lot of time analyzing how people connect, and what makes a successful professional relationship. In 2003, Andrew was burned out, and took a break to read and study various aspects of business, and travel abroad. 2004 saw Andrew forming Mixergy, which started out as a meetup group, but evolved into an interview platform where business people share their experiences and knowledge so that people learn about the human beings behind the companies and brands. Andrew is also my interview coach and mentor! Andrew joined me for this episode of Breaking The Borders, where he discussed:
How he overcame shyness and embraced the concept of one-on-one conversations How using cards, letter, and physical mail makes a much bigger impression when growing a relationship than email Stressing personal connections to make inroads instead of online methods Inviting people to dinner or drinks to grow professional relationships How moving away from social media to learn about people on a personal level improves the signal to noise ratio
Mentions Mixergy
Address: 201 Mission Street San Francisco, CA
Andrews Doc
Hani Mourra was born in Kuwait. When the Gulf War started in the 1990s, his family moved to Iraq, Jordan, the United States, and eventually Canada - where he now resides. Hani's first passion was video, which led him to launch Easy Online Video Tips to show people how video could boost the success of their business. From there, Hani created the Simple VideoPress plug-in to help automate uploading videos and integrating them into websites. One thing led to another, and Hani moved on from video to audio, revolutionizing the podcasting community by developing Simple Podcast Press - a plug-in that allows podcasters to automate the processes of building their email lists, growing their audience, and publishing their podcasts. The player you are seeing above is in fact a part of the Simple Podcast Press tool. I had the pleasure of interviewing Hani for this episode of Breaking The Borders, and he shed light on:
Experiences (both good and bad) working with other developers
How to market and beta test your product
Early success with developing Simple Video Press with ups & downs along the way
Transition to audio and the development of Simple Podcast Press
Grew email list by well before the product launch
Reaching influencers and collaborating with John Lee Dumas (EntrepreneurOnFire)
Mentions Simple Podcast Press
Simple Video Press
EasyOnlineVideoTips.com
John Lee Dumas EOFire.com
Trello.com
Vijay Ragavan came to the US to get his masters in CS at the University of Georgia. He became an intern at Motorola in the Bay Area (California) and fell in love with it. From there (late-90s) he worked as an engineer for a startup (cellmania.com). After the .com bubble burst in 2001, Vijay was laid off and had to hunt for a new job. He was contacted by Yahoo! to be an engineer and had to return to India to get his visa in order, so he could return to work. Within Yahoo!, Vijay started in Yahoo! Autos, and eventually wound up as the head of Yahoo! Finance. After that, he had the notion to claim financial and personal freedom by creating a startup, MoneyChakra. With MoneyChakra, Vijay learned a lot about running a startup, but he was losing enthusiasm with the project. Vijay took a break to join Bloomspot, which he ended up being acquired by J.P. Morgan-Chase. Vijay then started getting into podcasts, where he realized the power of audio, but was becoming frustrated with finding additional information and related links for individual shows. He then embraced that need and developed Jabbercast, which gives visual information, as well as related materials and integrated data. Vijay joined me for this episode of Breaking The Borders, where our conversation ranged from such topics as:
The importance of being surrounded by good people within an organization How meditation helped him to focus, relax, and become more productive His experience transitioning from a great position at Yahoo! to taking a risk and starting his own company Developing relationships and partnerships for a startup to be successful How believing in yourself brings natural success, but chasing success will always turn into a struggle The necessity of having a creative outlet and the importance of having strong convictions about your startup
Resources Jabbercast Pranic Healing Tim Ferris Show Adam Carolla Vijay's Photography vijay [dot] ragavan [a] gmail [dot]com vijay [a] jabbercast [dot] com
Bak Zoumanigui was born in Senegal and moved to France where he completed most of his pre-university studies. When his father got a job in Austin, Texas, Bak was thrown into southwestern U.S. culture as he was completing high school. After college, Bak worked in the IT industry, while also developing his love of dance and nightlife in Austin. After launching a blog in 2009 to showcase the personal stories of bartenders, DJs, musical artists and performers, Bak started holding events for the public. In 2013, Bak started to monetize his events - literally giving people the "red carpet treatment" and meeting with the people who make Austin such a great place to have fun. Bak is also the host of The FeedBak - a podcast that talks about the different aspects and interviews the people that make Austin's nightlife an international draw for tourists, new residents, and performers. In this session of Breaking the Borders podcast, Bak and I discuss:
Experiences in U.S. schools and how public education here differs from the educational systems in France Relearning everything previously studied in French, in English, and what it was like to learn the language Social adjustments and dealing with American perceptions of someone who doesn't clearly fit any social stereotypes Perceived norms and the pressure that comes with American social interaction
Resources The FeedBak
The FeedBak FaceBook Page
The FeedBak Twitter
mail: bak [a] thefeedbak [dot] com
Nitin Pachisia spent the early part of his career with Deloitte, focusing on small and mid sized tech companies to help them grow. From there, Nitin worked to help in the R&D aspect of other startups, and saw that there was a void keeping highly skilled workers working on a visa status to start their own businesses. With that vision, Nitin started Unshackled, which funds startups including teams with immigrant founders who are feeling stuck working for other companies because of their visa status I had the pleasure of sitting down with Nitin for this episode of Breaking The Borders, and he shared his insights on:
The difference between working as a consultant for startups, and being directly involved in the development and growth of a business.
The risks involved for skilled immigrants to come and work in the US and starting their own companies.
How leaving corporate culture to work for a startup is easy - if you are willing to step outside your comfort zone.
How emerging entrepreneurs should see a need or quality of life improvement with their company's product or service.
How people should seek opportunities and growth by using the channels they enjoy to gather knowledge for a successful entrepreneurship.
Resources Unshackled
Brad Feld
Mark Suster
Fred Wilson
Shyam Devnani grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and helped in the family businesses, when he was younger. After graduating from Babson College, Shyam worked in India before moving to the United States. Shyam worked in marketing and strategy before deciding to take the plunge and start up his own business – India in a Box. Shyam recently launched his own line of gluten-free, vegetarian, traditional Indian meals that can be shipped directly to customer and can be taken anywhere. Shyam Devnani joined me on Breaking the Borders to discuss:
his transition from helping to run a family business in India to starting a company in US
the importance of testing a product or service rather than assuming it's perfect for consumers
the differences in seeking help and networking in the United States vs. India
the importance of mentoring and group discussions with other entrepreneurs
his admiration for his uncle, who became an entrepreneur as a teenager with nothing in his pocket, and a genuine drive to succeed, despite many big business failures
Resources: India in a Box
India in a Box Facebook Page
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamdevnani
devnani [dot] shyam [a] gmail [dot] com
Lucky or Smart by Bo Peabody
Ramesh Padala had an extensive career working Electronic Design Automation (EDA), and spent many years working for other established companies and startups, before deciding to break away and explore consumer design. During this time, Ramesh struggled with funding his own ventures, borrowing against his own savings and dealing with incredulity from those close to him while he followed a new direction. As a small project, Ramesh created Yoga Tailor, and set it aside to work abroad at Saavn. After a successful run with Saavn, and picking up even more skills and insight with startups, Ramesh returned to Yoga Tailor He has since developed it into a fully functioning app and Ramesh is currently focusing on getting traction so that it becomes more prolific and successful.
On this episode of Breaking The Borders, Ramesh Padala joins me to discuss:
Staying active in your field of expertise, as well your passions
The insight he gained from working with successful startups in the areas of grows and design on both B2B and B2C levels.
Being mindful of how your endeavors impact the world and society in a larger sense
The “chicken & egg” conundrum of getting financing for an app from investors for a successful launch
The importance of attending conferences and speaking to people in the industry
Resources Yogatailor
Startupclass
YCombinator
Raj Sidharthan left his stable corporate job to start his own UX design firm, Freshdesign. After becoming an entrepreneur, Raj landed big name clients like Facebook, Adobe and HP. Raj joined me to lend some words of wisdom about becoming an entrepreneur, and the empowerment that comes with taking control of your own destiny.
In this session, Raj discusses:
Taking that leap of faith from well-paying job to becoming an entrepreneur How some personal circumstances inspired him to go outside of his comfort zone and start his own business The importance of setting up a company framework (payroll, billing, business entity etc.) prior to jumping into business How the definition of “entrepreneurship” goes well beyond a product-based model The paradox of taking that “leap of faith” into entrepreneurship, while simultaneously being in control of your own future. How to deal with uncertainties in the world of entrepreneurship and how new challenges motivate him to keep going forward Advice for people who are dreaming about starting a business, but having doubts about leaving their secure job to be successful on their own.
Resources Freshdesign
Book: Who moved my cheese by Spencer Johnson
Book: Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore
Sasha is the founder and CEO of Eversnap which is a mobile app to share pictures from any event. After getting fired from a corporate job in Atlanta, he moved to silicon valley to pursue his startup dream. After moving to silicon valley, he hustled his way to start his own company Eversnap. You can reach Sasha through email.
Links Eversnap and Eversnappro
Article: How to Crash any Event by Sasha
Sasha writes at medium.com Recommendations Mixergy for interviews of successful entrepreneurs
Book: Earn the Right to Win by Tom Coughlin What I learnt Seeing things in a positive light is essential for entrepreneurship
Don't get married to your idea. Be willing to tweak it based on feedback
Reading biographies helps you understand the mindset of successful people
Preethi came to the US as part of an on-site software development project. After the birth of her daughter, she found herself juggling motherhood and freelancing. When she was looking for parenting advice online, she saw a lack of outlets for Indian mothers. In 2011, Preethi founded Indian Mothers Connect (IMC) a global community for urban Indian mothers to connect and share stories. IMC has since grown from a small operation to a fully monetized global network where Indian mothers can meet, give parenting and pregnancy advice, and review books and products for other mothers to read and share. You can learn more about Preethi and connect with her on IMC about page. In this interview, Preethi discusses:
Moving from India to the U.S., and then acclimating to lifestyle in California How she developed IMC from a two-person project to a full-blown social network How IMC spans the world to let Indian mothers in every country to be part of the community How she managed juggling motherhood, starting up IMC, and overcoming self doubt The future of IMC, and how IMC is the go-to place for Indian mothers, people looking for product reviews, and people seeking pregnancy & child rearing advice, and the upcoming IMC marketplace – including other Indian mothers who are creating their own home-based business network on IMC
Episode Mentions Preethi is the founder at IMC Preethi enjoys Jane Austen's writing
Recommendations Book: Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Arjun Buxi is a Professor of Communication and a motivational speaker. He has developed the “Culture of Speak,” which shows immigrants how to communicate more effectively, what makes a good speaker, and how to identify audiences in order to effectively deliver a message – not only in a professional setting, but in our day-to-day conversations.
You can connect with him on email.
I had the pleasure of having Professor Buxi on my podcast as a guest, and during my time with him, he discussed:
How he adjusted to the overall culture of the United States How he refined his tone and vocabulary in order to connect to the audience How no two audiences are the same, and each culture (even business culture) uses different phrases, intonations, and idioms in order to communicate The differences between Manuscript, Memorized, and Extemporaneous communication delivery patterns across global cultures The difference between circular and linear communication delivery How to combine informal speaking with important message content How to keep an audience engaged with successful transitions, analogies, and humor
Episode Mentions Ted Talk: The Power of Introverts by Susain Cain
Book: Art of Public Speaking