The Exchanges

Q And your first job in London was Fidelity?

A No. I joined, ah, the first job was a, it was a Mumbai-based Indian body shopping company, so that's how I got the job. I was with them only for one year, and then the, they, the place where they deployed me, the, the, the client, they basically, ah, bought me out. I think that's what happened. Ah, and it was a company called March first, which was an American company, but later bought by Logica and then CGI. Yeah. Uh, that was my first job, and then I joined Accenture after that, uh, for three years, and my ability was, uh, 2007 to 2010. Yeah, I think, uh, and small stint at Microsoft, so four companies in 10 years.

AI assessment note: “No. I joined, ah, the first job was a, it was a Mumbai-based”

Q And do they face a process like a lot of leaders have said that chat GPT and AI in the, in the US will kill many Indian startups. Is it true?

A I don't think it's true because nobody knows the type of applications it can evolve. You know, in the last few months, like so many new startups all came out based on this AI and ChatGPT thing. Whether it will kill the entire thing, it's, it's doubtful. There will be impact and, you know, any, any event, there will always be winners and losers. Even we take COVID, right? Uh, there's a bunch of companies who scaled exponentially well due to COVID. Zoom is a good example. They went into multi-billion valuation because of COVID. And of course, there's a lot of businesses suffered and died. So any, because that is how the world operates, right? You need to have these kind of events that comes continuously, and that's what resets everything. Otherwise, it can't be stable or it can be going only upward.

AI assessment note: “I don't think it's true because nobody knows the type of applications it can evolve.”

Q So, uh, two questions that, you know, this conversation brings me to, what are the things that Indian founders, especially SaaS founders need to unlearn to create sales force of the world?

A Think big. You know, that's a, that's a number one thing. Because most of the time, I think a lot of early stage SaaS founders, I think they are, they're very confined, you know, like, just to build a small product or a small niche and then make a product out of it. If you want to create sales forces and others, you need to think something like a massive time and massive market. Uh, that's very hard, you know, like, uh, that would come only through experience because you can't just jump and create a sales force immediately, right? And now we are seeing a lot of serial entrepreneurs, you know, they've found the first company and then second company. Um, Nutanix is a good example, right? You know, Nutanix and then, uh, now they're building dev revs. Imagine like they're two big ones and even there's a stepping stone, right? Like, uh, They, they might be doing something. I don't know. Dev rep could be Salesforce equal under disrupting Salesforce. You never know, right? Uh, yeah.

AI assessment note: “Think big... they're very confined, you know, like, just to build a small product”

Q And what What changes in infrastructure that you have seen in India in the last 20 years? Because India Shining has been a mantra for the last 3040 years, but can you share some concrete examples on, like, why India is shining right now?

A Uh, the one thing is talent. Definitely. I think, uh, we need to thank all this, uh, consulting firms like Infosys and TCS and Wipos, uh, what they've done in the last, uh, 2030 years is what the talent pool, what we are seeing now, right? It's, it's a generation, right? Like, uh, so, 20 years ago, you didn't have it. Like, people were just getting into IT and then, um, and then they just, uh, learning along. But today, uh, all the, you know, they, All kinds of experiences are there. They got potential to build any world class product that definitely, you know, like, uh, paid a significant, uh, today. In fact, India become a powerhouse for, uh, talent for the entire world, right? Uh, so that is definitely is a positive side. And also the infrastructure side, uh, the, at least IT infrastructure, like, you know, you can get pretty much, uh, everything like, uh, high speed internet and those, it, even though it looks trivial, but, uh, they are the, Are pillars, right? Today, four G and probably five, I don't know whether five G's available, you know, four G's and five G's are available. You're connected all the time. The tech side, you know, like everything is happening. Definitely on that aspect, you know, like a lot of improvements in the last 20 years.

AI assessment note: “also the infrastructure side, uh, the, at least IT infrastructure... high speed internet”

Q And one thing as a leader, right? Uh, I don't know how, how do you do it? I would love to dive deeper into it that do you show your employees only your strengths or you also show your vulnerabilities?

A I'm very transparent, uh, with my, uh, in the company, like I speak to everybody, you know, like there's no hierarchy in terms of, you know, like I, even interns and everything, and I try to be as transparent, uh, as possible, uh, you know, like, uh, vulnerability in the sense, you know, there are certain things like the founder's journey is always lonely, and you try, you, you can't disclose everything with everybody, that part is there, always there. Even certain things you can't even talk to your first level management people. Certain things you need to digest yourself. Those things I go outwards, you know, like I go find fellow founders or advisors to go with. But internally I would like to, you know, keep it very, uh, as transparent as possible. Um, you know, like, uh, yeah.

AI assessment note: “vulnerability in the sense, you know, there are certain things like the founder's journey”

Q Right. So you have invested, I think, 1.3 million dollars in the office that you created. Correct. Uh, there. Uh, what, what does life today looks, looks for a, for your employee in a tier two city?

A Um, when it comes to work and workplace, I don't, it will be exactly how you will, your, uh, environment will be if you're working in, uh, any city in, uh, in the Bangalore or, you know, we really want to take that equation out. We don't want to, uh, because, uh, uh, when, when we started this project, like setting up a new office in, uh, in 2019 is when we made this big decision, let's, uh, go big and do it. Uh, the, one of the, the first criteria for me is, okay, let's make sure, like, uh, whatever people get on Bangalore and Hyderabad or whatever, let's replicate that, uh, infrastructure, structure here, and all the facilities and everything, what you will get it. For Covey employees, I'm pretty sure, uh, uh, the, the work life is pretty identical. They won't miss out, like, uh, Not only just the, the nice to have things like office and those kind of things, even work wise, we do cutting edge thing and we constantly focus on whether we are doing something innovative, because I feel I'm coming from a technical background. I feel that is very important for tech guys. And also that's where all this work life balance comes in. Like if you really enjoy what you're doing, then that, you know, everything is taken care of, you know, and all aspects I feel, That is what we really wanted to replicate in, in Coimbatore, and also want to set some kind of, you know, like a benchmark, lik…

AI assessment note: “the work life is pretty identical. They won't miss out”