Blending Art with Technology to create a global startup I Building in India

0:00 So to answer your question, what made me be a designer? It's some sort of a mental breakdown and a lot of free time and and some generous friends who would basically pamper you for all of your stupidity and you put it all together, you get a designer. You're a designer, right? You decided to study design and you had studied engineering. So did that influence your decision? The kind of focus I've seen you put into certain endeavors, that kind of intense focus is very difficult to relate to normal creative people. Good day everybody. Welcome back to building in India. Today we are in a special location and we haven't been in this location in a while but we are in Tandram and we are proud to be associated with Atomic is one of the coolest co-working spaces along and it's a special day because we've got one of the most audacious entrepreneurs I've met in the last two decades. Abi, welcome to the show. I I guess Abi will explain more about his journey and background. But so Abi has been in the ecosystem for the last 10 years or so and built one of the most incredible vertical SAS businesses to have come out of India called Cashstack. Abi without further ado, it'll be great for us to know more about you. Sure. so thanks for having me on your podcast. So chest tag was like a happy accident right because I don't come from the world of product engineering or even business building. I have more to do with arts and some bit of architecture than to do with software or business.

1:57 in 2010 I started a user experience design consultancy called Good Methods Global. And all that we were interested in doing was to work with corporations which were building enterprise solutions and be part of their team and provide them rapid visualization services which is like really talking to the stakeholders and building prototypes for those projects that they would want to take to market that year. And then that use the prototypes as the visual narrative to interact with a range of stakeholders who could then give feedback, do some testing with the end users with the business functions within their organizations and really decide if these projects were worthy of investments and focus. So that's what we used to do. most of our clientele if not all of it were US-based. Some of it we had from Australia as well.

2:57 and it was a three-member team which was behind good methods global just working on user experience design and rapid visualization project. You guys were a three- member team that is doing a million dollars in AR. Yeah. Wow. so that whole business unit ran for 4 and a half years where we were just involved in the process of design and then that led us into working for an obstructive sleep apnea management business which was launching their solution in a dental practice owned by America's largest dental insurance company called Delta Dentto. So this is back in 2013. So I got pulled into that project to basically provide the user experience design layer and because it was like a bootstrap business, I ended up being the product owner for the solution as well.

4:01 And I ended up being part of like a fairly large-sized dental practice operation. So this practice is called a Celebration Dental Group. It's in the town of celebration in Orlando, Florida. It was started two decades back by this insurance company in US called Delta Dental. It's a group of three offices with one office having 55 chairs of fairly large operation and then two satellite offices with 14 chairs. and it was built like 30 years back by Delta to provide care to the Walt Disney employees in Florida mainly. and then the thesis was that we build a sleep apnnea solution to sit on top of their existing dental patients. So you could use the same large captive patient base and sell them more sleep apnnea specific services and then go on to treat people with sleep apnea for other comorbid chronic conditions like diabetes, weight loss, nutrition etc. That was the scope of the project and I ended up being part of that for two years working within the practice from front to back all the way from reception to clinicians to the back office. And so over the course of those two years, we came up with this with this thesis that perhaps these dental practices need to be operated very differently. Mhm. And and then Kristak was like a natural byproduct of that thought.

5:40 So to recap, I I don't don't have a background in terms of building a business. This is more of an artist stepping into creating an opportunity some sort of like a social experiment which then became a business because we were at the right time with the right set of people. Yeah. Yeah. Pushkal it's unbelievable because I remember meeting Abby about 7 and a half years back and I remember him telling me very vividly in the first statement I'm not a product entrepreneur. I'm not a tech entrepreneur. I just stumbled on something and and I was like, "Is this guy bullshitting me or not?" Because I'm sitting in the swanky office with 120 people. It was like a complete Silicon Valley setup, but he knew exactly what he was doing. And I was like, h it's kind of difficult sitting here and building a product for US healthcare market, right? Yeah. But what got you to design? I mean, I've worked closely with you from 2017 to 19, but you studied engineering, right? And from engineering to design, what what was that process?

6:43 What was that pathway? I mean, you graduated in 2003 around about that time. And how did you land up in design of all things? I mean, I know you like art and design, but was it a natural progression? Was it because you were inclined to? Because most people are forced to study engineering like I was. Yeah. So, I graduated as a mechanical engineer. not by choice, by chance. then I went into my first year as a software engineer and within a year I realized that I was a horrible software engineer.

7:17 So I stopped devoting any time towards nurturing skills to becoming a developer or an part of an engineering team. then I dabbled with product management and business analysis sort of projects for like roughly a year and a half. and that didn't seem interesting as well. It's like a lot of documentation and conversations. There was just no fulfillment.

7:49 by end of it I basically went into a very depressive phase of life and I went out of a full-time job for like almost 2 years where I did nothing. and I was back in the states then. and I piled up on a friend of mine who took care of me for 2 years and I stayed with him and during that time I took a formal course in design where I devoted two years of time you know building up skills which would give me a shot at life as a designer.

8:26 so was that just in graphic design? Was it in product design as well? Graphic, UX, UI, all of it combination. Because I was selftaught, my interests were very varied. So I did study a little bit of graphic design, a little bit of product design, some bit of architecture, some bit of experience design. So it was almost like a very natural calling. So to answer your question, what made me a designer? It's it's it's mental breakdown, right? There was some sort of a mental breakdown and a lot of free time and and some some u generous friends who would basically pamper you for all of your stupidity and you put it all together, you get a designer.

9:14 Interesting. But why design? It's it's pretty much I I think most designers are not made I mean not born I mean not they're not nurtured they're you you sort of like you're born a designer so I I think that was what I was supposed to be and then I took a long time to get there because I was trapped in the noise that comes with everyday life till I found my calling. So it was like a natural choice. That's sort of where I could actually, you know, survive and be relevant to some extent cuz I'm also a mechanical engineer.

9:57 Yeah. And mechanical engineering has a big competent design, right? You you learn engineering design. Yeah. So you didn't find that part interesting and you were doing engineering. No, this is basically I think most things that you get to learn in India when it comes to your academic sphere. there's something so screwed up about the system that never gets you to fall in love with anything that gets stopped. Right. Where did you study? I studied in Kerala in a in a a college called TKM College of Engineering. And it's just like any other college in in India perhaps where you institutionally destroy creativity. So engineering I don't think did you really like design when you were in engineering? We had courses. So I think Oh, you're right. Like how they teach engineering in India? I went to Manipal. Yeah. And like it's of course a fabulous place but how they teach engineering in India is not very creative. They just kill the discipline.

11:01 They just make you remember everything. Yeah. But I thought since you're a designer, right? You decided to study design and you had studied engineering. So did that influence your decision or at all? No. No. I think you probably had more fun in Manipul than he had in Colon. But maybe. Yeah. So you know the opportunity that you get in the real world when you deal with design related projects. It's it's a lot more consequential and it's a lot more exciting because you also get to work with people who are you know who will make you a better version of yourself by the sheer amount of depth that they bring to the table to these projects. I consistently work with really really good people. once I dropped out of my full-time job and decided to have a two-year break and learned design as my sphere of interest then I had the choice of who I should be working with. Right? So I was not compelled to work with on any project that I s thought was a suboptimal use of my time. So I picked really really good people to work with or or they picked me to work with them.

12:17 Right. and so the whole process of being a designer and and really understanding the discipline of design and its effect in the world of business and the most crucial role that it could perhaps play in value proposition that happened because of this sort of an experiential way of embracing it to become part of my life.

12:48 so that that ability to think design sort of helped me build Kristak downstream because everything at Krist was a design exercise for me subconsciously whether it be building the product, defining the customer segment, your ICPs, building teams, structuring the sales process, generating demand and evangelizing the company, hiring people. There was always design to it. There was It was not economics, you know. It was more of design at work. It was like design and artistry. Yeah. Has anyone ever told you you talk like Steve Jobs?

13:27 Because I saw one of his interviews calligraphy. Yeah. No, see with with Abi and I I think in the last 17 18 years I've probably met a couple of thousand entrepreneurs and Abi is really up there because he just doesn't fix fit in a box. I he just has a canvas and he can figure out what to create and I think it comes very naturally to him and I I think he just doesn't I don't I mean I think one of the things with you is that I don't think constraints have ever mattered to you right you revel a lot not having any constraints or the constraints don't affect you like a lot of other people no it doesn't it does see for the most part I think a few things happen the way you when you think like an artist, right?

14:16 You look at most things in life a little bit different. most things in business a little bit different, right? So I I think most things that I have to deal with I it starts off with forming a perspective for myself, right? So the perspective is probably where most of my time gets spent. When you think through a particular problem, you try to figure out a perspective which is very first principle driven, right? you get down to the whole process of thinking about that whole situation or problem or that thing which fascinates you in a in a multi-dimensional manner that gives you a perspective. Okay. And if that perspective is worthy enough of basically being commercialized then you need to increase the critical mass of people who buy into your perspective. And most people really get there when the perspective gets communicated to them in a way that actually goes deep into their core. That's where you got to really think through the best form of communication when it comes to conveying your perspective. So there's a little bit of storytelling.

15:43 There's a lot of empathy storytelling. Is that what you're trying to Yeah. So you turn around your perspective into a story where you increase the critical mass of your believers, right? And then then you you get your pool of people to take the perspective to its next stage of realization. From that point onwards, you're basically going into your third phase of your journey, which is where you're you you've got to still do the grind and the activities with some degree of what you call as courageous uncertaintity.

16:18 So you create a perspective for yourself, turn it around into a story to build a critical map believers and then you fully submit yourself to a process where you're courageously embracing uncertaintity. And when you when you do that, you sort of it's sort of very static with the outcome. you are constantly prepared to deal with the outcome. The outcome doesn't really bother you anymore. So, you're slightly unemotionally attached because you are already embracing the uncertaintity, right? Yeah. So, you you you go you're you're sort of engaged.

17:03 You're not attached. Right. And then you submit yourself to the process. and then you deal with the outcome and you just move on to the next. So you you don't really you don't really feel defeat or you don't feel lack of energy or lack of enthusiasm. You you you just deal with it. So tell me something. I mean you talk about being an artist and very creative.

17:35 This is really like art. No it is. It is. No. really you don't know what the heck comes out of this stuff when you're starting to paint. No, but yeah, but but the the kind of focus I've seen you put into certain endeavors, like for example, if you're focused on sales, you're just focused on sales. You don't care, the world could crumble. Or if you're focused on product or you're focused on getting a customer, right? That kind of intense focus is very difficult to relate to normal creative people because normal creative people have certain es and flows they go they are not able to say that oh no no no next 2 days 2 weeks 3 weeks I'm just going to do this I mean we've all worked with creative people right pushka like whether it's filmmakers whether it's graphic people etc etc that changing of you are exploring your understanding what needs to go into the framework etc.

18:33 to actually drilling down on execution. How do you switch from I both modes? I don't have that that switch thing. I don't I don't switch. It's so it's just natural to my being and to how I think about it. Right. I the place where I put a lot of thought into is to frame the perspective. That's when I think storytelling, you know, ability ability to deal with uncertaintity, ability to execute on a plan along with a pool of people and and keep everybody aligned towards those missions. Those naturally fit into my skill set like I I think I have a lot of those attributes by default. But the place where I have to really put in all the effort is to you know build my mind towards a perspective that I can sell to myself and once that is done then you know it becomes a lot easier that's 80% of my process how do you do that like is there a yeah in the case of care look pushkar I haven't done a lot of things in life I have only done ket stack you before cast there isn't much to my existence. This is sort of like I sort of bloomed very late in life, right? So this is the only thing that I've done but go on. Yeah.

19:59 no but is the only worthwhile thing that has happened in my life. Right. So I can talk to what I did at cast. so you know one of the perks of being naive and ignorant is that you're not constrained at any point. you're almost like a fresh canvas all the time. and that's I believe is the perk of being a designer, right? Because you're led by imagination. You're not led by logic.

20:30 Mhm. So when I went to work at celebration in 2013 to build the sleep apnea solution, I was part of the operations and I ended up working inside the practice and what I figured out was you know for a dental practice to work usually people have to rely on a bunch of different software systems a bunch of service partners and vendors that they have to interact with in order to just really make the day work, right? And the space was largely served by large distribution companies which followed a cradle to grave playbook to serve the customers. Which means a distribution company engages with the customer right when they graduate out of the school all the way to them joining an existing business as an associate dentist to them setting up their own practice as a firsttime business owner to them expanding their operations into a couple of more sites to them becoming specialists to them becoming like enterprise owners right so this whole path is supported by the distribution companies.

21:47 and therefore most of these practices are at the mercy of distribution companies, right? And in spite of having such deep customer connect and loyalty, you know, the service levels that the practices get from distribution companies are very very poor and legacy software, right? What would all these distribution companies like for someone who doesn't know them? A distribution company would be a company like Henry Shine which would basically help a dentist identify a site, build their office, staff it up with not staff it up, fit it up with equipments, okay, sell them the daily consum consumables, give them the software to operate the practice, help them run their operations, help them sell their practice when they're ready to transition out, right? So they sort of manage the full pipe. and most practices are sort of slaves to distribution companies because that's the place where they get it's like a business in a box correct sort of value proposition that distribution products bring to the table and they have a enormous amount of SKS to serve the practice for them software is a small part of the offerings. Correct.

23:05 so my thesis was that okay I so the playbook was very clear. M so once you're inside these offices you you know the there isn't a playbook to invent. I just wanted to be a distribution company where I could really have an impact. But I chose my entry point as software because I believe that software would have the high ground when it comes to serving the customer eventually and the loyalties would shift towards a softwareled distribution play as opposed to a distribution-led software play. And therefore, Kirststack was conceived as a design project trying to build a set of software systems that can relieve a practice from the clutches of the distribution companies when it comes to the software side of the house. So the PMS would create the maximum impact to the because it's a course and then you kind of slowly weigh them off correct the legacy clutches of the distribution company. What's PMS? the the practice management system the what you call as the core system of the core system right like ERP for a lot of industrial companies the PMS is the same in clinics and hospitals so that's what we did we built the system of record first the PMS first then we built adjacent systems around it then we started building other sorts of software systems which are not related to the PMS but which are essential to running the practice and over time we created a portfolio of products to serve of a dental practice.

24:37 Then on top of this portfolio, we built a service division to provide services to these dental practice and now by services you mean software services not like not not like a distribution company model. No, you won't find them a place or you won't no outs for them. Not to that extent but we still have other services like which involves human labor like billing with insurance companies. Okay. So we started pro or pro providing like a trained front office assistant who can actually answer calls provide them with procurement or spend optimization services to bring down the procurement spend. Mhm. We started doing all of these things with our customers and then it became like a portfolio business of digital products, a service layer and then tightly set up to serve customers. so there was design to that whole project you know you work two years and you figure out this is the design of what you want to do and then you work backwards from there and then it's a matter of rallying up. So that's the perspective that we're not going to build a software company. We're going to build a healthcare delivery infrastructure company for dental.

25:56 So that's the big overarching design. And then in order to do that you need the resources to do that. So then with that perspective you turn it around into a story that investors buy into, employees buy into, partners buy into. Then you create your ecosystem and then you continue progressing through that whole process year over year dealing with uncertaintities courageously. I I have one very interesting question for you. Sure. Like you just said you're not a software company. And why is that? Because most people looking at you will say, "Hey, but it's a software business, right?"

26:34 Yeah. it goes back to what I was trying to talk about having a good perspective on for yourself. if you look at the business that we are in, we are serving dental practices. Mhm. We are serving different types of dental practices in three different markets. we serve anywhere from a small startup dental practice to a well-running single office single dentist practice to a high production sing multi- dentist single office. Mhm. To a group practice with anywhere between 2 to 20 offices to private equitybacked large dental organizations from 20 to 2,000 offices. This is sort of our universe and then we have a similar setup in US, UK and Australia. So those are our markets. That's sort of who we are serving. Okay. it's very easy to reduce carstack to a software business.

27:48 Mhm. because your launch offering is really like a practice management system which is your system of record which is the central nervous system around which you operate the office. So if your practice management system is dysfunctional the office becomes dysfunctional. It has the ability to destroy an office. Okay. So, so usually it's natural that people develop this opinion that Kstak is a software company. The perspective that I have is Kstack is a healthcare delivery organization which is software.

28:32 Mhm. But not software only. Okay. And why is that perspective important? Regardless of the type of dentist you are, okay, you're not a trained business owner by the sheer process of being a clinician. Most dentists are primarily clinicians and less of business owners. Mhm. Most dentists require a stable operating partner who can give them support from their cradle to their grave.

29:07 Okay. Traditionally this role is fulfilled by dental distribution companies. Big massive companies like Henry Shine, Patterson Dental, Benco who would give them everything in order to start a business, continue to service them during the course of running a business, help them exit the business and make transition out of a business ownership role to retirement. This is sort of like the life cycle. Mhm. in our world we think of ourselves like a when I say healthcare delivery partner, it's somewhat a combination of being a distribution company and a bank. Okay, extremely system. So if I were to draw a road map for Clarstack, we started out building for practice management system which is like the software side of the house. was the core system of record. Then we went on to build telephony systems which integrates back into the practice management system. A telephone at the end of the day is also a system of record. Right? You take the telephone out, you don't answer 70% of the incoming inquiries which means you don't have new business. Right? So it's a system after all. Then we went on to build a data company which can take data from multiple systems that works inside a dental office and aggregate it together to create a unified view of the business all the way from practice management to accounting to asset management to procurement to lab systems. Bring all the data together so that the owners of the business can have like a top-down view of what's happening in the business. How do I make changes?

30:55 How do I align my frontline teams to execute decisions? All three things are fundamentally systems of record. Mhm. So while I say we are a healthcare delivery organization, the foundation is to be a systems of record company. That's step one. Okay. Step two is reduction of administrative burden inside our customer base which allows them to focus on what matters to them which is really patient care and business relationships.

31:32 And in a typical dental office there is a bunch of administrative tasks which can really take your focus away from the core. Right. Right. So in a US context you have tasks like insurance billing, patient collections, all of these tasks which take an emotional load on your staff in order to collect money from patients, in order to collect money from insurance companies and to keep the cash flow running. Right? So second step post the systems of record is really building a service layer which can reduce the administrative burden within your customer base so that they can do best at what they are supposed to do right which is focus on patients. So that's like the second layer we built. The third layer in healthcare delivery transformation is to basically be that optimization partner to your customers.

32:23 And what does that mean? You know across things like procurement. Mhm. Mhm. access to capital clinical workforce productivity. A healthcare organization needs to basically bank on partners who will bring optimization to the business and allow them to do cost control and allow them to operate the business at prudent levels. So the third layer that we are building right now which we have launched is really we start with now helping them optimize the procurement followed by setting up clinical trainingmies to optimize the clinical workforce and the productivity of the doctors eventually going on to becoming a lending partner to our customers where we can lend money on debt so that the business can basically expand. So system of record, service organization and a category of services that can optimize the profitability of the business. You put it all together, you get a healthcare delivery transformation organization which can partner with our clients without owning equity in our in their business. Using systems of record, you can actually streamline their operating efficiency. Mhm.

33:48 The service organizations reduce their administrative burden and then your optimization categories create cost control more more workforce productivity on the clinical side which helps them to have a regular supply of doctors, hygienist assistants which then is really that's really the heart of the engine, right? And then eventually becoming a lending partner give them gives them access to capital and resources for growth. That's the design of a healthcare delivery organization. This is design.

34:22 Yeah. So, so if if I were to split strip it down and if I just think about it, you have a software application layer on on the top and you have at the bottom at the bottom that's the foundation and then you've got the clinical operational and financial. No. Then you then you streamline administrative burden. Okay. Then you basically go down to a bunch of offerings which can create optimization of clinical and financial divisions which then increases the IBIDA profitability and free cash flow of our customers which then creates enterprise value for our of those assets which are sitting on carstack or our customers.

35:00 Sure. Right. So that makes us truly the healthcare delivery organization to our our customers. Usually folks like us if we don't do anything if you're just providing capital it's a private equity fund or a bank. M you could look at Kristak as a private equity fund or a bank which has complete control over the assets that we basically engage with it because all of that information the data layer goes the data layer is secured the workflows are secured the user experience is secured the professional service layer basically can be used to reduce the administrative burden the optimization layer comes in to improve clinical and financial outcomes. That's that's truly what we are building now. Having this sort of like a view of the space that to me that's design that's not even strategy. It's like design being able to understand the three layers and the sequence in which you want to solve the the layers like you don't want to really you could you could have really gone vertically or you could have basically stayed horizontal.

36:11 You make these choices around sequencing when to do what across these layers and those choices are built around a macroeconomic view of the space, a deep sense of understanding of the timing of the business that you are in. resource allocation and the constraints around resource allocation. So you put it all together to sequence out things and all of those things contribute towards design. That will design we've reduced design to a fancy word called as go to market motion. There's no imagination in a go to market motion.

36:47 Mhm. You know if you if you really think of it like designing then you become it becomes a lot more interesting and playful. Abby like we're also talking about the importance of sales like you think of yourself as a sales founder someone who core for of course design is one part you said but you also said like I like sales like you are a sales CEO so thoughts on that how important is sales for a B2B business how do you do it okay first of all I think there is like a distinction between sales and and the art of influencing decisions. Right? So I I think I belong to the latter not to the former.

37:36 Okay. So what I mean by that is sales is pretty much a science which can which can actually be perfected and measured through a bunch of repeatable steps and processes, right? And therefore you can scale sales teams and you can you have a method to that madness around producing revenue using sales. the art of influencing decisions building a critical mass of believers that's it's an art. It's there's a slight distinction between the two.

38:14 so across the journey of building care stack we have had instances where as the founder I have had to wear the hat of influencing others to become part of the movement. Mhm. Mhm. And then I've also had a reasonable degree of involvement in you know really on the science side of it which is really setting up teams to capitalize on the movement and the demand that we create to fulfill that demand in a pretty consistent manner using a set of repeatable processes.

38:50 Mhm. So I've had in different parts of the journey I've had different roles to play with more concentration on a particular role which that the time was of importance at at that point which was of more importance right most of Kristak's early stage capital raising hiring building partnerships has all been around this whole process of influence influencing others to basically identify themselves as part of the movement.

39:25 and there's a few pieces to that. really when you're starting something from a piece of paper, it's just the perspective that you have you have had and in many ways your perspective at your early stages isn't as deep or clear as it could get down the line. So, you're also a work in progress. sort of like a concept in yourself all the way from the founders to your ability to think of business. There is like time that shapes you into a more compelling perspective for for yourself. So early stages of Kristak, we have had to take a hazy vision and have had to really think through that vision to the point to give it more clarity and light and to really turn it into a more refined perspective and then create a pool of believers all the way from investors of various categories all the way from you know seriously driven angels who are passionate about investing thing in startups to institutional funds to very large dental specific strategic enterprises. I've had to build that pool of believers. because I'm not an engineer more of a designer. I have had to deeply rely on the skills of other people to to form the core of what's most important to the future of Kristak, which is product and engineering. Mhm. and we are set up in this small town in south of India called Travandum which doesn't have a lot of product specific companies vertical SAS companies horizontal SAS companies trandum is new to the scene and when we started back in 2015 the town did not have a focus on product products and and building vertical SAS products so I've had to really sell this or influence this this concept use influence as a way to group together an amazing team of leaders and you know passionate technologists to come and submit themselves to being part of this process. And this process is very very unsexy, right? It's like hard stuff.

41:49 You're not building cool things. You're working in a boring industry. You're building it's quite brutal and humbling workflows. you have to really learn existing legacy systems in order to figure out what's the best workflow to bring to market, how to drive innovations. the process of introducing an innovation is tough. So there's like inherent challenges towards building workflow applications in legacy industries and usually people who chase glory don't find it to be an attractive enough use of their time.

42:19 so we've had to influence really competent people a large enough critical mass of competent people to form the foundation of our engineering team. Again the founding team of Kristak and the and the early members of the team we don't have anything to do with dental we all from non- dental backgrounds and 99% of the company if not all of us don't have a background building or taking a business to market and here we are from this small place we are taking a business to market in the states in in an industry where we have to compete against 100year-old incumbents massive public companies Right. So we have had to build an ecosystem of partners where the brand gets visibility.

43:04 So one side you've got no bias, the other side you got like a lot of domain knowledge that you're going to pick up from scratch on the fly. Yeah. So you're really starting out on a tough industry which is built around functional expertise. you don't have the core skills to really create applications by yourselves because you're dependent on people other competent people to really give the idea life. You don't have partners who are readily accepting you. You'll have to really go and build your distribution engine for brand awareness and demand generation. You'll have to really build all of those things through a mix of an integrated distribution strategy where partnership is at the core of it. And with all these deficiencies, you have to sell the practical fulfillment of this vision to investors in India who have not yet understood go to market motions in a vertical SAS environment in US. So that part of the journey demanded me to in create a stream of influence to to get all these components right.

44:14 Right. So that's influence side of the house. So Abby if if I were to step back I if I want to address a large audience of ours are founders first-time founders very relevantly you mentioned about sphere of influence and how you put that web out and sales right what advice would you give to first generation founders I think the sales part of it is a lot of it it is science probably 80 90% is science and doing a repeatable process sphere of influence is a lot of cycle psychology and personality building and gearing towards that. How would you advise founders who are probably in that path of where they've raised you know friends, family at seed? How do they see these two things and how do they kind of overcome the sort of hurdles that they might encounter? Because a lot of tech founders are not natural sellers. A lot of tech founders naturally don't come into building their sphere of influence.

45:15 So what advice would you give on both fronts? I don't I don't really have one. I I you know I would actually discourage a lot of people from starting stuff where you know the pursuit of starting right while it seem while it may seem very honorable and and great it's also going to be very risky. So I would deeply encourage people to start with a perspective for themselves first you know before you jump into action figure out a deep perspective around what you are trying to do right and most if you traditionally is it perspective or is it purpose which I don't there's nothing called purpose there's nothing called purpose okay there's just a perspective and some discipline right you develop a perspective and then you develop the discipline to see it through. So how did you develop that through reading, talking to people, thinking? Discipline. I think you know sometimes it would probably have some bit of OCD sort of stuff right like a genetic sort of like dysfunctional behavior that you get obsessed about something in my case it it is just just obsession like I just get obsessed naturally get obsessed on something and then sit on it. So I didn't have to work hard to develop the discipline. But I also meant the perspective. Yeah, perspective is just functionally comes down to reading. Just enormous amount of time committing to gaining information either through reading or through conversations with people people that you find fascinating. You get fascinated by depth. So personally I get fascinated by depth and people who have backed up their opinions with actions. So I get drawn towards I rarely look at what people say. I look at people what they have done. M right and just try to correlate the two but mostly it comes from reading and I mean just talking to people when you are in a certain juncture where you want to get more clarity and gain a better perspective right so so I think for the younger crowd I think the importance of gaining a perspective which is quite often a very inward-looking process I I would suggest people just start there for a lot of founders comm basic communication skills are are are lacking right so why don't we start with some basics around just you know learning some solid ways of communicating storytelling all of which could help you in life in general irrespective of whether you're doing a venture or not okay right so I told you at the start of this conversation if you start talking to this could be a 7hour session But but I have one final question. Do you have No, no. I'm I'm good. I think you should go ahead. One final question because we asked this to a lot of our podcast guests. Which is one book that has influenced your thinking or perspective most and why or could be a book and an entrepreneur? I could Yeah. I've see I I I I'm a phenomenal fan of Charlie Mer and even Warren Buffett Meta Mer.

48:40 Yeah. Yeah. yeah, those could be the entrepreneurs. I'm also a fan of this author called Charles Bukovski. Mhm. you've told me about a Charlie Monger said something very relevant, right? So you quite often you don't even need to be the fastest or the smartest guy around. You just need to be relatively less stupid. Yeah. Right. Avoid dumb mistakes. Yes. and and try to be that way for a long time or a long period of time. You know it for 60 years. Yeah. So, so that in itself is like a good enough whether you should follow it is also a function of the perspective that you have gained around some right some part of your journey right but for a if you take like a timeless sort of like a saying to simply pick off of your book and find some success in life in general maybe that's a good good I agree good u outlook to to at least nurture right what is one book which has changed my perspective for on life? Actually there isn't there isn't one but I have I I sort of like reading literature in general. Not I I don't read a lot of these self-help books. I I don't I stay away. I get it.

50:05 I I've read this book around systems thinking by this guy called Peter M. Sange which is which is a very academic sort of like okay it's not an interesting read it's like these are dry reads that has been very good in terms of getting some foundational thinking right how to look at systems thinking and then there's this book called as design of everyday things by an arment that's that's a pretty that's design of everyday thing yeah that's a lot of designers. Lot of also said that also mentioned that guy like that that influence he's a designer industrial designer. Yeah. So, so there's there you know I don't I don't have a fascination for a lot of other types of books more of these dry boring books and I have I don't finish most of these books. So one one part of the reading is that you go back to these chapters and it's it's it happens to you on a random thought that you revisit some of these chapters at some point in time where it almost comes as a calling back to you. Awesome. Many thanks. It has been an absolute pleasure having you here. Yeah, we we love this conversation. We we absolutely loved it.

51:21 I know it's kind of very difficult to get into your head because there's so many things in there, but I thought we got a lot of things and I think the the way you summarized it, don't try have a perspective is like very very powerful messages. Thanks for taking the time out AI. Thanks. Pleasure. Hope this goes to a lot of founders and we keep building great stuff from India and make the country proud. for these set of episodes of building in India. We are much gracious in order to be partners with atomic that is a pretty cool co-working and manage office space in Tandum and Pushkar I I presume you're kind of happy to come back to Tandum and use the atomic as a facility for our podcast. Yes, I think it's a beautiful space how they had designed the entire area and the community focus around it is just fabulous. hosts they were very generous to show me the entire facility and I have to say this is one of the best co-working places I have been to all over the India. I'm honestly surprised to find such a place in Travandram. I would I wouldn't expect something like this in Traum. We just love the space and whenever we are next in Traum, we would again shoot here.

52:29 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. Thanks and look forward to seeing you in the next episode.