Build successful startups - A Masterclass on Business
In this episode, I sit with Balaji Ganesan, CEO - Privacera, and discuss all things startups.
Balaji Ganesan is a serial entrepreneur who is on his second successful startup and continuous growth. We talk about his journey, transition from IT Consultant to sales, and then to build successful startups. He shares what he learned at #apple and attending #stevejobs keynotes.
We also discuss how to test ideas, key risks that make or break startups.
This is a masterclass on business and startups.
About Balaji:
Balaji is a serial entrepreneur and current CEO of Privacera. He comes from an IT Consulting background and intentionally moved into Sales in a small company to learn and develop business on grounds. He used his experience to then build and sell a startup and then build another successful one.
Connecting with Balaji:
https://privacera.com
Connecting with Manpreet:
https://linktr.ee/themanpreetbawa
Transcript
The test is again going back as people are ready to spend money
Speaker:and they're saying, I'm ready to give you a check if you can give me that.
Speaker:Then our listeners are getting in
Speaker:the right way of doing things in the consumer world, slightly different.
Speaker:They not PayPal, but they are ready to use it.
Speaker:And a lot of people are and they are ready to recommend to the friends and do it.
Speaker:You know, you're hitting a sweet spot, right?
Speaker:So there's different nuances, but points down to
Speaker:you have to really address the product market fit very early on, and it's
Speaker:OK to take time because if you build something, the market is not ready,
Speaker:that's going to cost you years in the lost R&D investment and all that.
Speaker:All right, everybody, welcome.
Speaker:And I am so excited today for having this interview
Speaker:because who I have in my front virtually
Speaker:is none other than biology is my friend.
Speaker:We have worked together in bars when I was in my programing roles.
Speaker:And I have worked closely
Speaker:in some of the initiatives with him and then I have seen him grow
Speaker:as an incredible end to preneur, starting one startup to another startup.
Speaker:And the thing I love about him is is is humility.
Speaker:After, you know, all the success he has, he's so humble.
Speaker:Every time I message and ask for help, he's
Speaker:already available, you know, always available for his friends.
Speaker:So that is the thing I love about him, and that is the reason I have him there
Speaker:because I want to bring all people who represent something they have.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:it's not just access that matters how you get successful, that matters.
Speaker:So welcome Balaji, and thank you for being here.
Speaker:Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure.
Speaker:It's a pleasure to work with you.
Speaker:Congratulations on your new initiative.
Speaker:It's amazing
Speaker:what you're doing, then bringing the community together
Speaker:and building assets that can help everybody.
Speaker:So incredible to see an encouragement
Speaker:to work with you and in to see this growth as well.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:So we'll dove right into it because I know biology schedule is very tight
Speaker:and he has to jump quickly after this recording.
Speaker:So let's start with your upbringing, your journey so far.
Speaker:Share with us how you were raised,
Speaker:where you were born and liberal in your journey so far.
Speaker:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So again, thanks for the opportunity to share my story.
Speaker:I was born in
Speaker:India and I was born in the southern part of Afghanistan.
Speaker:Called them and I was born there.
Speaker:Spend my initial childhood there,
Speaker:and then my dad got a got transfer.
Speaker:He wasn't in the central government role.
Speaker:I was working for Department of Telecom and Indian government,
Speaker:and he got transferred to the capital Delhi.
Speaker:And then that's when I moved very young, when I was around eight.
Speaker:I moved to to Delhi.
Speaker:Complete transformation because your language
Speaker:and everything is very different.
Speaker:And so you're going into a school where
Speaker:you don't even understand what people are talking about in that way.
Speaker:I was, you know, I was born and raised talking
Speaker:some other language, and the entire environment was different.
Speaker:It was a little unnerving initially.
Speaker:But you know, as kids,
Speaker:I think we are all adaptable and I think we are not fairly quickly. And
Speaker:so my and
Speaker:my siblings, we all adopted fairly quickly and grew up in Delhi and enjoyed it.
Speaker:So I grew up all my normal schooling.
Speaker:My my colleges were all in North India.
Speaker:And so even though I look South Indian a little bit,
Speaker:but I sometimes talk and but but that gave a very different perspective,
Speaker:a different perspective of appreciation of how diverse India is
Speaker:in terms of culture and how diverse India is in terms of everything it does.
Speaker:And it's so much variations within the same country,
Speaker:and we always go and go back and forth during summer holidays.
Speaker:My my summer holidays will go on or every other holidays
Speaker:will go this long train back from Delhi to South India
Speaker:to Chennai and other places and got an appreciation
Speaker:of the all the, you know, variations of states that come in between.
Speaker:And so in a sense, you get a better sense of geography
Speaker:trips.
Speaker:So but it gives a very different perspective of growing
Speaker:appreciation of that.
Speaker:And and I did my engineering
Speaker:and in my post-grad MBA in India.
Speaker:And then had an opportunity to come to us through a job that Infosys,
Speaker:which was meant.
Speaker:first, the problem with second give after my MBA
Speaker:and we had a customer while Apple at that time,
Speaker:which is fairly and growing, they were setting up retail stores and
Speaker:part of my team was job was to help Apple expand retail .
Speaker:Now they are setting up retail stores in the US,
Speaker:and they were expanding that to other countries.
Speaker:It was one of the best times in the valley because Apple was growing exploding.
Speaker:This was
Speaker:when you are part of Apple, you know,
Speaker:in the atrium they would go on to keynotes.
Speaker:And so you have Steve Jobs come in and
Speaker:everybody in the company is just engrossed in those keynotes.
Speaker:And that was the time they'd launched a report.
Speaker:And then an afternoon after that, they launched the iPhone.
Speaker:So but there was a magical time when Apple of fairly growing fast
Speaker:and everybody was really excited
Speaker:to do that contribute to even though we belong to enforce this.
Speaker:We, you know, it was really exciting to work for Apple
Speaker:and being part of the company, and we had badges, Apple badges
Speaker:and we are pretty much part of the Apple culture as part of its
Speaker:very exciting time spending influences.
Speaker:Then I switched over from Infosys and joined IBM,
Speaker:which was really good experience of working with a global company,
Speaker:but soon realized that I was not meant for a large matrix organization.
Speaker:So my IBM journey was fairly short a year and a half and
Speaker:didn't see a fit of mine at that point.
Speaker:I kind of realized in my career that
Speaker:me and I'm just not made for working
Speaker:through enlarge in some cases, bureaucratic organizations.
Speaker:And as part of it, maybe it was impatience in me
Speaker:and wanting to do things more faster and less
Speaker:let hindrances of doing things.
Speaker:But I didn't see myself, you know, working 20, 25 years, 30 years
Speaker:in a large public art and working through the change
Speaker:and having the patience to do that
Speaker:in general, that's that competition has drawn me into doing many things.
Speaker:So so ended up on a whim.
Speaker:You know, talking to to somebody who my wife was in the plane
Speaker:and the
Speaker:person was running a company was at least adding
Speaker:some portion of the company was going to say, Hey, let's check.
Speaker:So when none of them talked and liked the fact
Speaker:that it was a smaller company and given
Speaker:I was an IBM, that's the direction it was going is
Speaker:I want to do a small company and do a startup.
Speaker:And and so I ended up on a whim, joining in sales
Speaker:and never done sales before, but as part of consulting work.
Speaker:But this is something I direct and I wanted to do and say,
Speaker:Hey, this is a good opportunity.
Speaker:No idea what Salesforce bought, no idea what it entails,
Speaker:but it was a fun right with skill on that.
Speaker:And that's when I got to meet you and you were still in that.
Speaker:But you always had this notion of, Hey, I got to,
Speaker:you know, start a company at some point in time.
Speaker:And unfortunately, in 2011 I started working and 2012
Speaker:I started working with a gentleman who quote unquote wandering startup.
Speaker:I met him through
Speaker:to the folks at Skinner.
Speaker:So and we explored a few ideas.
Speaker:Few ideas took off.
Speaker:one of the ideas was around big data and security.
Speaker:Again, no idea on that sort of thing,
Speaker:but by I felt like this is the right time for me to go and jump out.
Speaker:So I moved away from scaling up and then from a comfortable job,
Speaker:which was just fairly comfortable
Speaker:and it was doing OK at school to go and do a startup.
Speaker:And I know we were we were in the right place, right time
Speaker:at that time and I wasn't around.
Speaker:Big data and security and big data kind of exploded was exploding at that time.
Speaker:And from marketing, we this is 2013,
Speaker:and we were soon acquired in 2014 by another big data company from Hortonworks.
Speaker:I joined the company there
Speaker:and led security and governance, but we always felt,
Speaker:you know, we haven't fully solved the problem
Speaker:and private started as take two of that and how solving
Speaker:that security problem and in a much broader way.
Speaker:So we have fires in in the company,
Speaker:you know, growing the market is growing, but it's fun.
Speaker:It's fun being being, you know, taking a company from a piece of paper
Speaker:now to fairly 200% plus organization today and then growing as part of it.
Speaker:Different challenges as as you have kids and as well
Speaker:in every stage of account, it's a different challenge,
Speaker:but that's what you sign up for and that's what you sign up for it.
Speaker:So I enjoy being part of the company building process.
Speaker:I enjoy the fact I enjoy the fact of being able
Speaker:to contribute every day if in. two.
Speaker:And it's a learning when you learn so much every day.
Speaker:But it also it's it's it's enormous time
Speaker:and it's it's not.
Speaker:Looking back, you always think about maybe you should have stuck to a nine
Speaker:to five job at some point, and that's one way of looking at things.
Speaker:But but, you know, I think in startups, you're creating value,
Speaker:you're creating something every day.
Speaker:And and there are so many things that are not in your control
Speaker:that can't have a perspective on saying,
Speaker:Hey, there are things you can control and do it, but some things line up.
Speaker:Some things may not be.
Speaker:But you always have to have a perspective.
Speaker:So that's my journey so far.
Speaker:So have been in the US for about 17 years now.
Speaker:In the Bay Area, I have two kids,
Speaker:13 and ten, growing.
Speaker:I'm glad they're back in school after school.
Speaker:But now we we were blessed, blessed
Speaker:with being part of good friends,
Speaker:good coworkers throughout the way as part of it.
Speaker:So that's what I've been always saying.
Speaker:I'm fortunate to be in the midst of really good people throughout my career.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:So that part's about your journey.
Speaker:I didn't know because we never went
Speaker:in there, but it's amazing.
Speaker:There are so many things there.
Speaker:You know, for the listeners who do not know about the geographic
Speaker:and the cultural aspects of India.
Speaker:India is a country where your culture changes every eight
Speaker:km to the language, the food, everything of the culture changes.
Speaker:So I can imagine going from, you know, all the way, from the south
Speaker:to all the way to the north.
Speaker:It's it's a culture shock in itself, but
Speaker:it's I mean, if I look at the
Speaker:differences between India and us in a way.
Speaker:Even though we had such a diverse culture,
Speaker:it's unnerving, but it's also easier to set
Speaker:like we don't have the similar
Speaker:challenges that the US
Speaker:has in terms of the culture and you move from state to state.
Speaker:So getting back to your job,
Speaker:I didn't know you didn't have any sales back at all.
Speaker:And so
Speaker:and it was never apparent to anybody in Scotland, at least to myself.
Speaker:I remember the first time or not, but one of the meetings we were in
Speaker:and this is where I knew you were,
Speaker:you know , different than the other people that I had met in sales.
Speaker:There was a account you were working with and there was a budget
Speaker:allocated by a customer and you know, one of the managers,
Speaker:your managers wanted to spend it all, but you wanted to just
Speaker:spend enough to get the work done, but also save something.
Speaker:And there was a little bit of argument, but this showed that you wanted to do it
Speaker:the right way from the get go.
Speaker:It wasn't it, you know, there.
Speaker:So I was at the sales for you.
Speaker:Like, did you have to invest in self learning to love?
Speaker:Yeah. And I think that's a great question.
Speaker:No, I think part of my background,
Speaker:when I was brought up in fusses and like, you're always customer facing, right?
Speaker:So Apple was a customer for
Speaker:you working in Apple offices,
Speaker:so you always are looking at and then
Speaker:having the customer up front and working very closely with the customer .
Speaker:It's not like you're sitting back in the office,
Speaker:so you learn a lot of I mean,
Speaker:even when you go from school through to first jobs
Speaker:and you learn a lot about the soft skills,
Speaker:it's the soft skills of how do you work with the customer?
Speaker:How do you understand that person as a human
Speaker:and try to think from their perspective, right?
Speaker:So try to
Speaker:understand what they are looking at, why they're seeing what they're saying.
Speaker:And I think that's an important attribute for any customer facing roles
Speaker:that you have is to have that appreciation,
Speaker:have that understanding you can go into the room.
Speaker:But if you instantly can understand what the person is thinking about
Speaker:and their journey, you have a better way of having a conversation.
Speaker:I'm having with that, and that's something I learned part of the consulting role.
Speaker:So which is this is not just going to be delivering that, but you are in meetings.
Speaker:You are you are going back and forth and sometimes emotions are high
Speaker:like you really need to understand and be a calm face at some point and say,
Speaker:Hey, all right, no, let's it's always part of that.
Speaker:And the part of the other part of this is, you know,
Speaker:how do you solve a problem, right?
Speaker:And that's that's something you pick it up as you pick a problem and dissect it
Speaker:and say, Let's let's look at this one first and let's look at this one.
Speaker:How do you break a bigger problem into smaller confidence?
Speaker:And those are some things I picked in school and in the
Speaker:in the initial part of work is the the interfacing, the kind of problem
Speaker:solving approaches and knowing that you can solve everything on day one.
Speaker:How do you put together a plan and how do you dissect
Speaker:bigger things into smarter things and have everybody focus on ?
Speaker:It is something you pick it up, and that was fairly useful in my journey
Speaker:and when I joined school, and that is where the role is, is where
Speaker:you're bringing a partner like someone like Oracle and customer and you.
Speaker:It's a three way conversation together, and a lot of the nuances are on
Speaker:how do you work and interface with customers, really?
Speaker:And also understanding
Speaker:why your
Speaker:customers suddenly doing certain things in their technology journey.
Speaker:They are making certain decisions what their needs are in.
Speaker:Even if a front facing and sales, you really need to understand
Speaker:why the customer is doing certain things.
Speaker:And if you're able to have an appreciation of that and that's immensely valuable,
Speaker:and then you have to then figure out how to move the needle for it.
Speaker:How do you bring everybody together and bring different parties together
Speaker:to move forward in this case will then move forward to go on with the deal.
Speaker:And it's constantly,
Speaker:you know, you have to solve the problem breaking into chunks and then do that.
Speaker:So I would say those approaches really and set a foundation,
Speaker:even though I was not title wise, did not have a sales role.
Speaker:But the attributes of those things that I initially work with
Speaker:when I was at Infosys, really even
Speaker:prior to my schooling in MBA and others really helped
Speaker:to have that approaches of problem solving in other parts of it.
Speaker:Yeah, and I can relate to it.
Speaker:Like when you just look at sales as a sales and it can be daunting.
Speaker:But when you look at from the angle of, you know, problem
Speaker:solving, you're listening to the problem and solving the problem.
Speaker:And if you solve the problem problem.
Speaker:Of sales just become the byproduct of a product,
Speaker:and I tell you also,
Speaker:first of all, a very
Speaker:big point like dissecting problems, you know, bigger problems into smaller
Speaker:because sometimes we just overwhelm ourselves with those bigger problems.
Speaker:So, yep, yep.
Speaker:Mission
Speaker:since you were an apple.
Speaker:And so I'm going back.
Speaker:But and you mentioned you were able to,
Speaker:you know, sit in the keynote and see, so you
Speaker:basically were able to listen
Speaker:to Steve Jobs in person and, you know, hear the keynotes.
Speaker:How was the experience?
Speaker:Yeah, I would say in some places,
Speaker:you can do something in physical and other things.
Speaker:What they would do is they being the keynote in every building. And
Speaker:so I've been part of both nights.
Speaker:It's an amazing, amazing experience.
Speaker:You know, and in and as as now we are building the company,
Speaker:the the energy levels that Apple had at that time
Speaker:was the sheer excitement everybody had was was immense, right?
Speaker:And then the sheer excitement pervaded through the organization it was
Speaker:we feel like we're creating something magical that people love right and left.
Speaker:And even though you're doing, you're not directly maybe involved in designing.
Speaker:And I think even being part of even people really interact who are
Speaker:in it.
Speaker:Organizations are all you could see and feel the excitement.
Speaker:And because this was early, you know, early 2000, Apple wasn't trouble.
Speaker:So people who are gone through the Dot-Com days
Speaker:and now seeing the newer version of Apple, they were extremely excited about that.
Speaker:So you can talk to the organizers and say, Hey, like things were really
Speaker:not that great in the late nineties and early 2000.
Speaker:Now you know, it's starting to come.
Speaker:And this was when iPod was probably one of the first
Speaker:breakout devices
Speaker:that Steve purely left right on that list.
Speaker:And after that came the series of ones like iPhones and other things. But
Speaker:but there's also a part of what I always learn from someone like.
Speaker:It's it's a part of storytelling.
Speaker:So essentially,
Speaker:and it's it's in the way you can get in
Speaker:for the period of 45, one hour or whatever the keynote is.
Speaker:And you would hear, I mean, I've been in places where we are.
Speaker:You stuck to a projector on a monitor and everybody in
Speaker:the company is looking at it and dropping everything and listening
Speaker:to talk, to listen and saying, Hey, something is going to come
Speaker:is going to have some stuff in the keynote and it's always happens right?
Speaker:And and you'll always keep something at the end and say, Hey, one more thing.
Speaker:And it was a famous thing that so the storytelling and the art of doing
Speaker:that is something every leader can learn about from from Steve Jobs,
Speaker:who was fairly magical
Speaker:for somebody who has maybe not had a professional training or CEO.
Speaker:But the way he would tell the story here
Speaker:it can bind an audience together is as amazing.
Speaker:Yeah, I remember
Speaker:the keynote speaker of his iPhone,
Speaker:like I saw it on YouTube back then, but it was amazing.
Speaker:And so, you know, having that sort of
Speaker:exposure to the environment
Speaker:and apple that culture.
Speaker:I mean, I'm sure that, you know,
Speaker:the reason everybody was excited, it was a part of the culture and
Speaker:that comes from the leadership itself
Speaker:of those things,
Speaker:from your early exposure in leadership, how to run the companies,
Speaker:some of those lessons you were able to take into your startups.
Speaker:Yes. So when when you do a I mean, imagine
Speaker:my journey always picked up on on on previous experience.
Speaker:A certain bit of always experience shapes you as a person and your perspective, and
Speaker:the journey in Apple definitely
Speaker:helped me, at least from really understanding
Speaker:how do you bring the company together and create that excitement part of it?
Speaker:How do you how do you create exciting products, right?
Speaker:And that can potentially change the world?
Speaker:It's not that Apple was a consumer product,
Speaker:you know, in our world, in my role, athletes will be in the enterprise space.
Speaker:Space is what I call it apples to apples.
Speaker:But you learn from from, you know, the way they think about the way they do things,
Speaker:you know, the way they approach things is certainly an art to that part of it.
Speaker:There's an art to delivering a story.
Speaker:So in this art to enthralling an audience and
Speaker:in our rules, we are always in front of an audience.
Speaker:Inside, whether it's your customers, the investors, whether it's internal
Speaker:teams.
Speaker:Leadership is always about, you know, telling you have to tell a story
Speaker:over and over again and and connect with the audience.
Speaker:So those are things I certainly picked it up.
Speaker:And obviously, you know, the journey after that I journey with skill
Speaker:that was really a foundational part only.
Speaker:Again,
Speaker:the sales part and the journey that we did
Speaker:together to get to that part of it was something that was also helpful.
Speaker:As part of its, I would say, every bit of my career
Speaker:has helped in the journey forward.
Speaker:You picked some pieces at Adobe.
Speaker:You don't realize it, but it adds up to you your way of thought.
Speaker:Process your way of thinking.
Speaker:When did you know that like you know,
Speaker:you wanted to do your own startup in Seattle?
Speaker:Like, there was a pivotal moment because I know
Speaker:I remember when we used to set for teas and peptides used to say, OK,
Speaker:I want to be CEO, I want to open a company and in
Speaker:and there used to be jokes around that. But
Speaker:you know, I know.
Speaker:There was a drive in you like people could see that you wanted to do.
Speaker:There was something
Speaker:driving you to go that direction.
Speaker:You know, could you talk about that?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:No, I think it's the journey started even in my earlier days.
Speaker:I can go back to even IBM days, right?
Speaker:So we're part of it again.
Speaker:This is all things coming together, but part of things
Speaker:are going to came to you as it came to bear. Mind.
Speaker:And you see a level of energy in the air, which is different than than
Speaker:than any other place in the country as we travel to other places.
Speaker:But area was especially, you know,
Speaker:there's always the notion of you can go and create your own thing and
Speaker:whether it's realistic or not.
Speaker:But people have this concept of they can change the world. And
Speaker:so and I see it firsthand in apple of technology
Speaker:change, change, completely change the world if you need to.
Speaker:So and it's a driver of force in driving new things. So.
Speaker:So I was fascinated by that.
Speaker:I was fascinated by that journey.
Speaker:So even when I was in IBM, one of the reasons
Speaker:I probably left or IBM early was because I had made up my mind things
Speaker:my journey is going to be leading up to.
Speaker:It's so part of it, and I don't see a part
Speaker:of being in a corporate, so why I would go and risk
Speaker:losing the call from skilling that came in.
Speaker:I feel like, you know, having a small company experience would help, right?
Speaker:So being scrappy and and also having that experience of sales
Speaker:would help because of the startup, you've got to go and sell in other parts.
Speaker:So I done a sales role before that, so I thought it would be end up being good.
Speaker:I just finished final four years in Scotland, in hindsight.
Speaker:So if
Speaker:it's always going to be, but things just flew by
Speaker:and enjoy it, really enjoy the journey and enjoy
Speaker:the people like you and have a lot, I would say a lifelong relationship now.
Speaker:The people I've worked with,
Speaker:but I always had this notion that I'm going to do a startup, right?
Speaker:So which is it was the step I'm going to end up with the journey.
Speaker:And skilling definitely helped in how against problem
Speaker:solving and working with people, working with customers, working partners,
Speaker:selling in sometimes very difficult scenarios and losing .
Speaker:I thought we had lost deals
Speaker:and you learn from that and why it looks to gates as well.
Speaker:So that kind of set up for a good journey in the startup.
Speaker:And so in the startup world, it's fairly in my philosophy.
Speaker:You need two roles within startup, right?
Speaker:So you either need to build a product
Speaker:or build a service and then you need or you need to sell.
Speaker:And if the one person can do both, then you don't need anybody.
Speaker:You can go and start on your own.
Speaker:Yeah, but if you don't and in my case, I don't know how to build,
Speaker:I could know how to
Speaker:stop and go to the market.
Speaker:So I was fortunate to go and work with me through
Speaker:school was my current co-founder and again, the story and vice versa.
Speaker:I met through on Rock, who was my boss at school,
Speaker:and so he and Bosco in common friends, the kids went together,
Speaker:so it was just went through a common connection.
Speaker:And, you know, and we build upon that. So.
Speaker:But having met Bosco and I think you had him
Speaker:arrive at a situation where he had very common goals of,
Speaker:he had already done a startup and sold it to Oracle,
Speaker:but he was looking at startups.
Speaker:So the things kind of clicked an ally and say, Hey, it's the right time,
Speaker:you know, I have a team , I have team somebody I was.
Speaker:I can go on to the market.
Speaker:I need somebody who can help put together.
Speaker:And Bosco is one of the most amazing technical minds I worked with.
Speaker:And he had,
Speaker:you know, really good solutions for some of the problems
Speaker:we are seeing in the enterprise market, especially on security.
Speaker:And so it brought together and then just click and then, you know,
Speaker:make a hard decision to to venture out of a very comfortable job.
Speaker:And that was what it was at some point and to say into an unknown code starts.
Speaker:And but but that journey again was was
Speaker:a 56 year planning part of it
Speaker:there.
Speaker:You always had in the back of the mind to go to it,
Speaker:and it's part attributable to being in the Bay Area,
Speaker:I would assume,
Speaker:like if I was in any other place, I may not have not picked up a drive
Speaker:then .
Speaker:And in your fascinating Bay Area, looking at your going
Speaker:and driving by a Google office or Facebook office and you
Speaker:you're fascinated by their journeys
Speaker:or how small they were started in a garage or a dorm room.
Speaker:And now they're are massive companies and public companies.
Speaker:And so, you know, Bay Area has proved quite strong
Speaker:a building at scale, but.
Speaker:What you learn, that's what I'm doing, startups, is, you know, there's this
Speaker:like nine out of ten startups don't make it make it
Speaker:and probably 98% don't make it right.
Speaker:It's incredibly high risk.
Speaker:And so while you think about Google and Facebook, but they are outliers
Speaker:and there's a there's a huge part of the culture that
Speaker:is in the between part of it.
Speaker:But you know, again, I've been fortunate in the journey so far
Speaker:with my first startup, we were in a good place,
Speaker:a good time and you had an early exit and the second startup, the marketing
Speaker:starting to pick up.
Speaker:So this blissful of that.
Speaker:But it's always a long journey and this is what I keep
Speaker:telling everybody who wants to do.
Speaker:A startup is have a very long vision of things
Speaker:and be prepared for a lot of ups and downs.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, there are.
Speaker:There are so many nuggets in there.
Speaker:And what I took away from
Speaker:that was that it's important to surround yourself
Speaker:with like minded people like, you know,
Speaker:and you never know which one will select, but you don't make the relationship
Speaker:because every really clicked for you make relationship because you want to be
Speaker:with like minded people looking forward and then, you know, being in surroundings
Speaker:that where people are doing good work, like if you're surrounded by people
Speaker:who are just doing nine to fly you and that's all they care.
Speaker:And you know, you're less likely to think about doing something
Speaker:great in your life.
Speaker:So you mentioned that, you know, 98% of startups fail, which is a fact.
Speaker:It's not like you're making up.
Speaker:Well, what would you think of the reason they feel after
Speaker:successfully done
Speaker:two startups is that idea is it fails as it.
Speaker:You know, what is it that you really need to have to make,
Speaker:you know, be successful in doing startups?
Speaker:Yeah, I think every every.
Speaker:It's a great question and this is something I have learned.
Speaker:When you go in my first startup, I probably did not have awareness
Speaker:of all of that.
Speaker:And but
Speaker:since then I've spent time talking to other CEOs
Speaker:looking at our own perspectives.
Speaker:And there are three things there are three risks that obviously can kill a startup.
Speaker:We put three ones where there's one thing all market risk there is a market
Speaker:risk is you bringing a product the market doesn't want?
Speaker:You're too early into the market, too late in the market.
Speaker:It's not the absolute need.
Speaker:And so timing matters and timing matters and many things.
Speaker:So many of the challenges many startups fail is
Speaker:they've been too early into the market and they're bringing in a concept which
Speaker:market is probably five, ten years away from doing that?
Speaker:And you know, and we have seen this from,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:just take delivery from which Wichita, DoorDash and Instacart has
Speaker:and we had people and others during dot com base doing their bit.
Speaker:You know, you can do a delivery of groceries, right?
Speaker:That's a simple concept.
Speaker:It's just that the infrastructure and the timing was not there.
Speaker:The imperatives and people are not on phones. And that right.
Speaker:So locked cases, timing matters.
Speaker:And yeah, and there are ways to mitigate.
Speaker:The ways to do that is to go and spend time with customers to really understand
Speaker:what their needs is versus what many people will come with.
Speaker:And I've done the mistake many times that you go with an approach saying
Speaker:this is what I feel and versus what the market needs.
Speaker:And that's that's a cardinal mistake, because what you feel
Speaker:may not be what the market runs.
Speaker:And so you have to be adaptable, you have to be poor,
Speaker:you have to
Speaker:really listen and sometimes be humble and say, Yes,
Speaker:I am totally wrong and this is what the market really needs.
Speaker:So market risk is a big risk, right?
Speaker:So if bringing early, bringing something to market doesn't want,
Speaker:I think that's the cardinal since everybody makes him.
Speaker:And especially in the valley where
Speaker:we have really smart technology, people will go and say, Hey, I have an idea.
Speaker:And and and because that's ideas come from their experience
Speaker:and what their thought processes.
Speaker:But they haven't done the end of research in the market, really understood
Speaker:the market or the customer audience to say, What do you really care?
Speaker:What do you really want and build something which brings that
Speaker:delight, right?
Speaker:So in everything you do, it has to be an incredible benefit
Speaker:for whether you're in the enterprise or the customer to to do that part.
Speaker:And there's a lot of trial and error and in that process.
Speaker:So when you have to give us enough time and so what happens is people will give
Speaker:six months and they'll bring something, build something, take it to the market.
Speaker:It fails.
Speaker:They'll say, Hey, I'm not built for startup and that's hard for you.
Speaker:It's hard to time, a it's hard to go and predict what the customer.
Speaker:It really needs because you have to invest a lot of energy
Speaker:and then you have to time it to the market, conditions have to be.
Speaker:And so in the case of delivery and other things like Uber,
Speaker:for example, took off after forms, but the concept has existed.
Speaker:You know, how do you go and then ask for cars in that part?
Speaker:But that really took off when you had a device in people's hand with GPS.
Speaker:And yes, everything aligned on that right?
Speaker:So you in sometimes you have to align around the market conditions.
Speaker:And so if you the web start up, should think about it,
Speaker:they ought to think about what the current trends are and how they're
Speaker:going to shape up in the next few years and make a bet on that.
Speaker:Those trends and that sort of intimate knowledge involvement research part of it.
Speaker:So I would say a market risk is the biggest risk people have, right?
Speaker:So the second risk is
Speaker:what's called financial risk because you're going to run them and
Speaker:it's because you, you know, you don't.
Speaker:The revenue is hard.
Speaker:And whether you are consumer or enterprise startup,
Speaker:but your expenses or frontload it, you're spending a lot of money on people
Speaker:you're paying and then building something cool, but you have to invest in.
Speaker:And so you have to really balance
Speaker:so many companies of financial risk as you run out of money at some point.
Speaker:And then you know, that can be mitigated by investments
Speaker:and being judicious about how you spend your money, but financial risk.
Speaker:second thing the thought is why I followed execution risk.
Speaker:Many startups die by suicide is they would do
Speaker:that.
Speaker:Things are, I wouldn't say bad, but they're good things which are contrary
Speaker:and counterintuitive in the hindsight.
Speaker:But when the moment of things you, you
Speaker:make a bet on product, you make a bet on the market,
Speaker:you make a bet on some things which can prove fatal.
Speaker:And if you don't look at the fundamentals. So
Speaker:if the market is right, if you've got money,
Speaker:many of the companies are folded because, you know, they just didn't execute.
Speaker:And those three risk exist in every sort of every stage.
Speaker:And as part of the journey of the one figure out how to mitigate that risk.
Speaker:That I think is a,
Speaker:you know, goal right there for people who are thinking of building startups.
Speaker:one thing that comes to mind, as you know, is there a thing
Speaker:like when you were doing start up your small timing on when you borrow?
Speaker:Like sometimes if you borrow or get investment too early
Speaker:and you have too much cash flow it, it can also have
Speaker:a negative impact on execution as say it, right?
Speaker:Yeah, he had too much money can lead to bad habits.
Speaker:And so you have to be
Speaker:judicious about, you know, even though you have mitigated financial risk.
Speaker:Are you are you investing in the right part and be be frugal, right?
Speaker:In the famous thing is Jeff Bezos, when Amazon went even in their public
Speaker:and all like that, they did not have free food free snacks.
Speaker:And, you know, they were very
Speaker:frugal about, you know, delivering every penny back to the customer.
Speaker:I think it's a deliberate strategy around that doesn't mean you.
Speaker:I mean, you have to spend money
Speaker:and you have to sometimes or spend money on doing the right things.
Speaker:And in some cases, it's a capital game.
Speaker:In some markets, it's a capital game.
Speaker:And I would say, if you're building an online marketplace,
Speaker:it's a couple who game you to go and be the number one.
Speaker:So you just spend money to become a number one.
Speaker:In some markets like that, a winner takes all that, you know.
Speaker:And in some companies and we've seen this with Uber or DoorDash
Speaker:as of the wall, like, it's a race to who captures the biggest market.
Speaker:Once you have that, it's it's a self-sustaining thing.
Speaker:Kind of the winner takes all kind of price.
Speaker:So in those markets,
Speaker:you just want a choice, but you have to raise a lot of money
Speaker:and then just go execute.
Speaker:But not all markets are built like that, right?
Speaker:So there's markets where
Speaker:the third or the fourth player have come in
Speaker:and taken their time and really executed that part of it.
Speaker:So you have to understand your market.
Speaker:You have to look at past history of those companies and and really have
Speaker:a clear strategy and a plan in mind on how you're going to spend your money.
Speaker:Because if you if you if you raise money without a plan, then it ends up being hit.
Speaker:We just want to throw money on certain things and see what works.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:But we're just just not always a good player.
Speaker:So the right now, the environment we are in, I think
Speaker:it's a good time to be a startup startup because there is a lot of money
Speaker:floating around.
Speaker:But but sometimes in the goes back to dot com, there's money on some end.
Speaker:A lot of bad ideas came up, which should not have done in the first place.
Speaker:And so sometimes we get into this bubble where every idea is getting funded
Speaker:and you know, that leads to, you know, bad habits as well.
Speaker:So I think
Speaker:entrepreneurs should be very cognizant of taking very early on money.
Speaker:So once you've got a certain foothold, I mean,
Speaker:you can go on accelerate, but very early on, you can be scrappy, can be frugal,
Speaker:but doesn't mean
Speaker:you have to bootstrap all the time and you can raise some money to.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:because you can bring in some incredible people who are working in an industry
Speaker:and they don't want to work for free nights or so.
Speaker:You can bring in money and have to bring in a really good solid
Speaker:team and sell and execute on that vision
Speaker:where you don't doesn't take much to do a startup these days .
Speaker:And we provide, I mean, everything is available in cloud.
Speaker:If you want to build a product called tools are available.
Speaker:So it's it's it's an amazing time for anybody to do a startup.
Speaker:It's very difficult right now.
Speaker:And so you can be anywhere and have access to some capital right
Speaker:now, but also in this cautionary tale of taking too much money earlier.
Speaker:So if I am somebody listening,
Speaker:you know, who is nine to five, like you mentioned, it's a right time
Speaker:or very good time to be doing start ups and wants to do
Speaker:start ups and has an idea.
Speaker:How do how do you know whether this idea is good or bad?
Speaker:How do you just know?
Speaker:I think it's
Speaker:one thing I would say is
Speaker:don't just don't leave your job to go and do a startup,
Speaker:which I've seen in many cases, I've done the mistake to take it.
Speaker:Well, this is before
Speaker:you have to get to a level where that is
Speaker:a bit closer to a product market fit, right?
Speaker:So you have a complete fit, but you have it.
Speaker:You're going from a power point to with some assumptions based on data
Speaker:and those data and based on initial set of customers.
Speaker:And if you have to coming to a point
Speaker:where they're, you know, in the enterprise world
Speaker:where you have 1020 people ready to buy and keep a check tomorrow.
Speaker:For me, I think money is a very
Speaker:great indicator of priorities and interest rates
Speaker:and in what the the challenge mistake most people do
Speaker:is we'll talk to their friends and friends will say that's an amazing idea.
Speaker:And that's part of it.
Speaker:But you have to really go and talk to a stranger about who has a pain point.
Speaker:And and if you're able to convince that person that
Speaker:they are ready to part ways pay is ready to pay.
Speaker:And if you have more than 20,
Speaker:let's say a statistically equal and number,
Speaker:you know that you know you are in the path, right?
Speaker:This is a concept that people are ready to pay.
Speaker:This is hitting a pain point and and if
Speaker:there are a large number of those people, then then you have a market rate.
Speaker:So fundamentally having some level of a product market fit
Speaker:and that Peter is incredibly important.
Speaker:And that period is one of the hardest because you have to go and talk
Speaker:to as many people as possible really to start and then in some cases,
Speaker:not even go with your product but really understand their pain point
Speaker:and say, Hey , what's the biggest pain point you're in?
Speaker:So in many cases
Speaker:last, some of the largest public companies have started with a very different idea,
Speaker:and they quickly pivoted to something the market wanted.
Speaker:And you have to be ready with that straight to you.
Speaker:The mistake I've done in the past is I've gone with the concept in mind,
Speaker:and I've gone to people and say, What do you think about?
Speaker:But I didn't really ask what their pain point was.
Speaker:Why? What are their life?
Speaker:What are they going through?
Speaker:I went and gave my showed my product concept and say, Do you like it?
Speaker:Or which is, I think, is a wrong approach.
Speaker:The right approach should be,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:are really going
Speaker:and talking to the person saying, Hey,
Speaker:you know, really understanding the pain point and what are they going?
Speaker:What are the biggest pain points they have?
Speaker:And then showing a concept saying, Hey, I may have something which addresses
Speaker:your core pain point and this is a and would you be interested people?
Speaker:So I think my my recommendation to many startups
Speaker:is always that take that market validation fairly seriously.
Speaker:Now, if you are in the industry where you are absolutely in and you're,
Speaker:you know, you have a Rolodex of 50 customers tomorrow that can come
Speaker:in, by all means do it.
Speaker:In many cases, in the valley, we are technologists
Speaker:and we have built technology.
Speaker:We don't have that Rolodex.
Speaker:And so you have to go and build that Rolodex, right?
Speaker:You have to go into LinkedIn and start people and say,
Speaker:Hey, I want to have coffee and you know, I want to show you something.
Speaker:I want to talk about something I do not think, right?
Speaker:So it's just it is a wrong product because if you are already
Speaker:asking and feedback on a concept, you are seeding the customer and you most
Speaker:people will not say bad things and they are nice people.
Speaker:Yeah. So failure makes sense, right?
Speaker:But it's a wrong approach, right?
Speaker:They're never going to buy that because, yeah, it's not a product.
Speaker:So unless what people have to understand is, even though if the concept is good,
Speaker:unless it's an absolute hard, but not so the test is a game going back.
Speaker:It's people are ready to spend money if they're saying,
Speaker:I'm ready to give you a check if you can give me that.
Speaker:And ah, this is again in in the rights of way of doing things right.
Speaker:So in the consumer world, slightly different, they may not pay for it,
Speaker:but if they are ready to use it and in a lot of people
Speaker:and they are ready to recommend to the friends and do it, you know
Speaker:you're hitting a sweet spot, right?
Speaker:So there's different nuances, but boils down to
Speaker:you have to really address a product market fit very early on and
Speaker:it's okay to take time because if you build something
Speaker:the market is not ready, that's going to cost
Speaker:you years in the lost R&D investment and other things.
Speaker:Amazing, amazing.
Speaker:I think that's a very valuable
Speaker:message there, how to test your idea and
Speaker:make sure the money is the indicator if people are ready to pay for that idea.
Speaker:You are on the right track.
Speaker:Last question I know we have to run.
Speaker:Tell us a little bit about previous Sarah and what it does,
Speaker:what problem it is solving.
Speaker:So it's what is interesting and then holding
Speaker:that person get in touch with you or somebody in your company?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:You know, Premiere as an exciting journey with a journey where we are today, we are
Speaker:the intersection of data data analytics and what we call data governance.
Speaker:Essentially, we help enterprise teams who are looking
Speaker:for looking to leverage data analytics and
Speaker:balance compliance and security.
Speaker:And with that, and we address help companies address two main questions,
Speaker:right? So
Speaker:what data they have, what is sensitive and non-sensitive?
Speaker:And that is a hard question for many enterprises because data
Speaker:comes from multiple sources and
Speaker:we really don't know what is sensitive and not yet.
Speaker:The second question is how do we make sure the right people
Speaker:have access to the right data only for the right purpose,
Speaker:which is around entitlements and authorization,
Speaker:which is again a hard question to answer because those controls
Speaker:can exist in a variety of databases and applications
Speaker:and all of that together to say somebody accessing
Speaker:the data can only see this data.
Speaker:And that's something we are going and helping with providing them a platform
Speaker:which gives them visibility on the data, but also help them
Speaker:manage policies of access at a pretty fine grain level.
Speaker:And we can take those policies and enforce on any part of the data
Speaker:infrastructure with its databases with a storage layer.
Speaker:So the net result is, let's say, if your customers are using Snowflake that
Speaker:they can govern
Speaker:these rules in one place and they can send those rules.
Speaker:And if you if users are accessing snowflake,
Speaker:they only have access to the data they're supposed to.
Speaker:And so in that aspect of that, as customers can leverage
Speaker:snowflake and leverage the cloud to do more analytics
Speaker:at the same time, they can go and say, Hey, we are adhering
Speaker:to a data governance or compliance sort of security mandate.
Speaker:And so that's something we help with.
Speaker:So we help companies balance that mandate with the need to use data
Speaker:and excited to work with companies across every industry.
Speaker:So getting touches to our website Premiere sara dot com PR i VSC react quickly
Speaker:and leave your contact information and will be in getting touch,
Speaker:but you're solving a fundamental problem in helping customers in their
Speaker:data journey.
Speaker:Amazing, amazing, and I'll,
Speaker:you know, will put the company link
Speaker:in the episode and show notes,
Speaker:but that's amazing and in a nutshell.
Speaker:You know, if you are
Speaker:if you want to have
Speaker:security around your dollar, how that data is accessed,
Speaker:that is the problem that there is always solving .
Speaker:And, you know, I'm just compressing what you meant,
Speaker:but I know that it
Speaker:has that requirement of, you know,
Speaker:especially when you are accessing data, for example, we are in Europe.
Speaker:And one of the challenges I saw the company when they wanted to hire
Speaker:people working in us doing engineering work, they always were managed.
Speaker:They had they could not do that work in us because they could not prove
Speaker:there was federated properly and there was guide, you know, those
Speaker:structure was there to support so that their day is secure
Speaker:going out of the country and yet mandated by the laws of this country
Speaker:and that country.
Speaker:So, yeah, amazing. Amazing.
Speaker:Thank you so much for this
Speaker:time.
Speaker:one quick I learned so much about your journey and there was such
Speaker:good information.
Speaker:I am sure anybody was wanting to do a start up or already doing.
Speaker:Startup can learn a lot from your journey,
Speaker:and I wish you all the luck and I know, you know you're going to do great things.
Speaker:I had also, and I appreciate again, super appreciate it all the time and thank you
Speaker:for the opportunity to talk to you and share my journey as well.
Speaker:Appreciate that.
Speaker:So I mean, fantastic knowing you're really excited about this
Speaker:new path, you're taking my people.
Speaker:All right. Thank you. See you
Speaker:right?
Speaker:Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I hope you enjoy the show as much as I did and got some valuable nuggets out of it.
Speaker:If you liked it, there are other shows you can watch.
Speaker:They are exactly what you need and I ask you to like command subscribed.
Speaker:Let me know what you thought of the show.
Speaker:Really, I want to hear from you firsthand
Speaker:what you found, what you liked, what you didn't like.
