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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Sharmin, welcome aboard to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Well, you for having me. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1:So most of our guests are in The US, but I think you must be definitely our first guests from Singapore. So first I want to take the opportunity to kind of share some more information with our audience about Singapore. What was it like growing up in Singapore? How is it different from The US? And what's really interesting about Singapore, it went through a lot of change in the last, I would say twenty to thirty years.
Speaker 1:So I'd love if you can kind of talk about that as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I've spent the longest period of time in my life in Singapore, but actually I didn't grow up here. I've been here for eighteen years. So I've seen the massive change. If you think about it, Singapore is only 60 years old. They just celebrated their sixtieth anniversary.
Speaker 2:So it's a very young country. Went from being, looking like a little village to being this massive city, which is like the global hub for all of Asia. What I love about Singapore is that it's safe. It's ease of doing business and it is such a melting pot of different nationalities. They're putting a lot of emphasis on technology startups.
Speaker 2:The government is investing huge in that space, especially in AI. You know, the other thing I like is that the government here, they think fifty years ahead. So every plan that they make, they're like, what's gonna happen in fifty years. You know, it's, I came here thinking I'm just gonna have another expat package. And I ended up staying here for eighteen years.
Speaker 2:So I guess I'm still loving it.
Speaker 1:I think what's absolutely beautiful is that if you kind of look at the history of Singapore, every year, ten years, more or less, they've made radical change from a port city to manufacturing, from manufacturing to early kind of basic technology, to the incredible, really technological advanced state it is today. That is amazing, right? Every decade to make such strides is really something unique. Yeah. There were strict laws that were put in place to kind of increase the cleanliness, incredible, incredible changes in such a short amount of To me, this has always been amazing.
Speaker 1:Do you have any explanation in what has kind of driven this incredibly fast pace of accelerated innovation and progress?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, you know, they hire very smart people. I don't know if you know, but in my cohort, we had Pei Ling, and she is now a member of the parliament. What they do is they take bright young people. They don't want to have an exodus of smart people leaving the country. They said, We will finance your education as long as you commit to five years afterwards.
Speaker 2:And after that, they get hooked. They wanna do stuff. Pei Ling is now all over the news. She's doing amazing stuff. The second thing is, you know, the way they pay the political people here, it's more than what's paid to the U.
Speaker 2:Government. I mean, a finance minister here earns more than the president of The U. This is no reason to have corruption. All they wanna do is like, think ahead and see how they can improve.
Speaker 1:And Singapore actually headhunted people from all over the world. So Singapore basically said, we're gonna find the smartest people and we're gonna bring them to teach in our universities. Amazing, amazing strategies, brilliant ideas. I just fell in love with all things Singapore. I just stayed over for a day for, and you know, you come over, you have a long layover, they'll for free, they'll bring you into the city and show you everything.
Speaker 1:Absolutely brilliant. So I learned a lot about its history. What's driving this? Is it, is it the people? Is it the culture?
Speaker 1:What's making this kind of innovation?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a combination of things. If you think about it, and I'll, I'll come back to that. Don't actually grow anything here. It's a very small country. You can go around all of Singapore in like forty five minutes.
Speaker 2:They actually don't have anything that they export. So the biggest export here is technology, the mines and IP. So they've been very smart. They've given money to the likes of Google, Microsoft, and every to build their regional headquarters here. That's number one.
Speaker 2:The second one is that they're investing heavily in IP. So, you know, any sort of, you know, there's a lot of IP lawyers here. So anything that comes out of Singapore is like, oh, it's a Singapore unicorn or it's a Singapore something. Because what else can they export? They don't have food.
Speaker 2:They don't have, you know, anything else that they really manufacture. They don't have the space. So they wanna differentiate themselves in the fact that we are smart people that is in the forefront of technology and we have ease of doing business. Now, when I was working for the New Zealand government, a lot of the New Zealand companies would come here or really three things, ease of doing business. You can open a bank account, no problem, low corruption, and everyone here speaks English as opposed to Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, and Japan.
Speaker 2:You know, you know, you're speaking the same language, so why not make it that? And, as I mentioned, you know, now they're thinking during COVID, what happened was there was a shortage of food. So they've put a new plan in place saying that by 2050, Singapore is going to be, you know, producing 30% of the food for the country, which is massive because right now they import everything. So they have invested heavily in agri tech and vertical farming. So every time they think Singapore can't have it, they're like, no, let's find a solution in which we can actually, you know, grow our infrastructure to cater to our people.
Speaker 2:So if COVID happened happens again, we will not be in a space where, you know, we don't have enough food or our nation. I mean, I can go on and on again with the stuff that they're doing, but it is, they have been invested 1,200,000,000 in the AI infrastructure. Now they are not the fastest to adopt. They are fast followers because they put strict laws and governments into place. If you look at some places where they've moved really fast, but then they've had cyber attacks, they've had people hacking into so many things here.
Speaker 2:They're like, no, no. Yes. We want to have blockchain. Yes. We want to have AI AI, but let's think through the safety of our people.
Speaker 2:You can't just have a FinTech coming into here and saying, we will do payments. They're like, oh no, hang on. We have to educate the people before they get into this investing platform. So they are aware of all the risks. So they really go, it's not just about feeling safe here.
Speaker 2:Really go out of their way to make sure that the people here are safe and protected in many different ways.
Speaker 1:That's absolutely brilliant. So you are heavily involved in the entrepreneurial startup community. How does it differ from The US? What does it feel like? Kind of bring us, bring us right there with you.
Speaker 2:So I, I spent actually two weeks in Silicon Valley, where I was wearing, working for ENSET. And you know, one of the things I like here is, and maybe it's just a, maybe it's just a personal thing is that, you know, when I work here with entrepreneurs, you know, I am, I am a big fish in a small pond in The U S I'm a small fish. If you know what I mean, there's so many startups there. Match, the market is so saturated. So many VCs.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can probably scale faster. Yes, you probably get money faster, but there are so many people that have let down VCs. If you look at WeWork and what happened with SoftBank, yeah, brilliant idea. And he sold it. And then what happened?
Speaker 2:The same thing with Theranos, right? But here they go through immense due diligence. Yes, there is money here. There's private wealth here. It takes a little bit longer, but once you do get into the space, it goes through a little, you know, it goes through something that is actually solid.
Speaker 2:Also what I find that when people are here, they're much more willing to collaborate and, you know, they are willing to sort of work with many different entities. The biggest part here is that the Singapore government gives a lot of funding. I think that's, what's different from The Us. I don't know. I don't know in detail, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but when companies come here and set up a subsidiary, you don't even have to have the company.
Speaker 2:You set up a subsidiary. It opens you up to so many different kinds of Singapore funding because they want with, with of course, the criteria that you hire local people here that you sort of, you know, you, you bring up, the country as a whole and all these other things. So I, I thought that if I'm in the entrepreneur space, it probably run out of, opportunities. But every time I talk to different entrepreneurs, there's new things in which they are scaling and moving. And really Singapore is not a way Singapore is not a country where you can just have an idea and think I'm gonna be like The Us they come here and then they look how they can export, expand into rest of Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2:This is just a testing ground or a place or a sandbox. Once they get it right, it opens up doors for Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other places. And of course, you know, you have the credibility. I could do it in Singapore. I got funding from the Singapore government.
Speaker 2:So, you know, why not do it somewhere else?
Speaker 1:Brilliant. And I had, have heard many times the expression that Singapore is almost the jumping bedrock to the rest of Asia. It's well kind of accepted in many entrepreneurship and business circles. Very true and the talent that I've met has always been quite incredible. I've got some good friends that even though we were in China with a previous company of Mind Mentor Graphics, the team lead was from Singapore and I had such a humane respect to him.
Speaker 1:I want to hear a little bit about what you're doing today in the entrepreneurial environment. Not so long ago, you started as a city leader for FounderLive Singapore, and you're just immersed in entrepreneurship, mentoring across the board. Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So, I had the first founders live event last month in October. There was actually five founders that signed up, but one of them, she had to leave because of some personal problems. I was quite surprised because I didn't actively market it. I just created an event bright.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, within two weeks I had five founders sign up and the rest were on waiting list. And these are all varied, but interestingly, and you know why I love this is all of them have an element of AI from agri tech to, you know, for your mental health, fitness. So that was amazing. They had to pitch in ninety nine seconds and you got voted and you got crowdfunded by the audience. So it's, it is, instantaneous validation.
Speaker 2:If your idea makes sound, which you had to do it in ninety nine seconds. And if someone liked your idea, they could like crowdfunded. Now, how did I come across this? So I got approached, by Nick, who is the CEO of Founders Life in Seattle. And he knows that I'm quite involved in the tech community here.
Speaker 2:I do mentorship, not just for the German accelerator, but also for NUS, Women in Business and for NUS Entrepreneurship Society. And I've been a couple of times a judge for a lot of these things called Switch, which is the Singapore Week of Innovation. And he said, look, you know, you know, you're part of an accelerator. You've, you've been a judge here. Let me sort of present to you another option in which you can give founders without being attached to any of these things, chance to have a platform to pitch, but we make it a little bit more interesting.
Speaker 2:They have to pitch it in ninety nine seconds, get their value proposition out and they get instant validation. What do you think? I'm like, wow, that sounds amazing. Of course. So I wasn't sure how the idea was going to pan out, but we had about like 65 people turn up, five founders, an amazing night, and they can't wait for the next one, which is going to be in January.
Speaker 2:But as I mentioned, what was surprising for me was there was five founders, four of them females, all of them in the AI space. So, you know, that, that sort of shows you that, you know, this is where Singapore is going. And interestingly, only one of them was from Singapore and the rest were all expats. So again, it shows that it's a big melting pot in terms of like mentorship. What I like, about this is that a lot of the people coming here are coachable.
Speaker 2:They don't come with a fixed mindset and say that I've got my product and my service, and I don't wanna hear anything else. Just give me some leads. They're like, okay. Tell us how we can customize to the audience here. How do you think we should bring down the price point or how should we work with the different partners that we have here?
Speaker 2:So, you know, as opposed to working for big companies, what I love about working with startups and scale up is that I can have an immediate and long or short term effect with them. You know, when I was working at KPMG Deloitte, I was a small cog in a big machine and there was so much stuff going on. I didn't really see the effect that I had in some of these companies. And also when you work with big enterprises, you see the much later with startups is very fast moving. You sort of help them with a POC or something, and you can see the effect immediately.
Speaker 2:I work with companies, which is a 10 man team and go up to IPO in two years. So for me, the satisfaction is huge, you know? I mean, yes, the money is not great, but if I love what I'm doing, think it goes a long way.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I don't know anybody that money has made them happy. Some cases, it's been quite the opposite that money has made them even more unhappy. So I wouldn't cry about enjoying what you do if you're really enjoying it. I think that's absolutely wonderful, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I've got to tell you, I stepped away from a few lucrative opportunities to do the things that I love as well, We're definitely like minded in that perspective.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Ninety nine seconds, that's novel. How do you convey value or convince an audience of 60 people in ninety nine seconds? Do do you coach the, the Tell, tell us about this. This is really interesting.
Speaker 2:So, I have a little bit of background in, pitching. When I work with the New Zealand startups, I help them with something. It's actually literally an elevated pitch. So they would get to the top and then they would have to convince a bunch of CEOs and VCs in that elevator, which would come down in, you know, one and a half minutes, which is more or less like ninety nine seconds on how to pitch. So it was a combination of storytelling.
Speaker 2:What's your value proposition? What problem are you solving? And that's it. And it is actually ninety nine seconds is doable. So I, I, I get on a call with, you know, with, the founders, they go through it.
Speaker 2:And you know, when you realize and you write it down, you there's a lot of ums, but here, this, that you don't have to talk about valuations. How are gonna make money? You have to say that this is the biggest problem. These are the numbers, and I am going to address this problem and solve it in this way. And that's all you have to do.
Speaker 2:And why are you gonna solve it? So how is the founder capable of solving this? And that's what they look at. I've got a background in ABC. I've done this and I know I can do this.
Speaker 2:And that's all it takes, right? To give you an example, Eduardo, the gentleman who won the last one, he comes from a background. He's done so many marathons. He's so much about clean food and eating. And he was trying to find, because you have to, when you're, when you're doing all this workout, you need to have a lot of protein in your system, but people get sick of having chicken breast and steak.
Speaker 2:So he worked with a chef. He worked in Vietnam and other places to come up with snacks that actually give you a lot of protein. And instead of meat, he looks at plant protein, which is also quite difficult to do. And then in each one of his snacks, there's about like something like 25 grams of protein. So instead of having a shake, you could just have a snack and that's it.
Speaker 2:And when he pitched it, he goes, look, look at me. I was working out. So he made it personal. He told a and people actually relate more to stories. So when I work with the founders, I said, make it personal, tell them a story, put some emotion in there because then they will remember you and give some examples.
Speaker 2:So the end of that, he goes, you see the snack, try it afterwards. So each one of them had something to give afterwards. They told a story, they made it convincing, and they touched upon an emotion because people buy on emotion. They remember some of the rational facts. And the other thing about this ninety nine seconds was they started strong and they ended strong.
Speaker 2:People don't remember what happens in between. They remember the beginning and the end. So yeah, I w sometimes I've had to work up to an hour with some of these founders, but before they get on, the ninety nine seconds, I worked between, fifteen minutes. Like Eduardo was really good. I only had to work with him for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2:Others, woke up to an hour and we go through the pitch at least four or five times. I record them to see what they sound like. And then I sort of help them narrow it down. And it's worked. All of them managed to finish, on time and they were so happy.
Speaker 2:They're like, no one's worked with us like this. So, yeah. And it gives them a lot of confidence that I can get my value proposition out in such a short period of time. And people are convinced. So when I looked at the voting, it was actually quite funny.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like there was a huge difference. There was Eduardo getting about 40. The others were like 35. You know, the second one was like, you know, 30. So they were all good.
Speaker 2:It's just that he excelled in telling his story.
Speaker 1:What are the big, let's say mistakes that people coming in to tell their story? What are, what do they need to overcome to really get that perfect story?
Speaker 2:I think a couple of those never memorize it. It should really come from here. People also get a bit nervous, especially if they're introverts speaking to an audience because they're like, oh my God, there's so many people here. Nobody that I know. So in some of those things, I'm like, please don't memorize it.
Speaker 2:Just practice. It should come from your heart. Put in a lot of emotion into it. If it's something you are passionate about, it's going to come through. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:And if they're a little bit shy, say, just look at me, look at me and tell me that you tell me that story. I'll stand right there. And I look at you, forget everyone else that's around you. And you know, I mean, last time there was this lady and she was super nervous and I, I sat with her in the toilet and I held her hand and we went through it a couple of times and she was okay after that. And she did a great job, but you know, it just depends on people to people.
Speaker 2:Right. And it also helps that when you give them a warm welcome and you give them some encouragement, I think it's, it's really just about people, right? They can have great ideas, but sometimes they doubt themselves when they come in front of such a big audience. And when they have come out of the other end, they realize it actually wasn't so bad. I got, got my value proposition in ninety nine seconds.
Speaker 2:I did it in front of a big crowd. I overcame my fear. So I think other than just getting their idea out there, they felt really good about themselves. And that's important, right? As an entrepreneur, because sometimes the journey can be quite lonely and you, you're not sure.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are not that encouraging, especially when you go in front of VCs, you talk to them and they're like, yeah, that was great, but I don't think I'll invest in you. So, you know, if I could do a little thing in which I can say that, Hey, look, forget the VC. Was sixty, sixty five people in there that thought you had a great idea.
Speaker 1:And, you know, beyond the pitch event, you've mentored, I think it's like four or five different organizations. What do you see as the big, challenge for entrepreneurs to be successful? What's the thing that just keeps repeating itself and you kind of help them get over it?
Speaker 2:You know, I tell myself because someone just asked me the question the other day, because it's actually really simple things. And if they had figured it out, then I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do what I do. Right. So, one of the key things is when you're so close to the service of the product, you just tend to have a very silo view. You don't see outside.
Speaker 2:I give that devil's advocate. I questioned them. You know, I sort of every assumption they made, I'm like, are you sure about this? Let's talk about this. Let's break this down.
Speaker 2:Also, sometimes I've seen that a lot of CEOs that are startup CEOs are not scale up CEOs. They, they work really well with a small team, but when they're looking to sort of expand globally, they just don't have that mindset. The other thing is, you know, when they come into a new market, it's just holding onto the idea they had throughout the New Zealand companies. I work with New Zealand in a very small country. It's also very, you know, they don't hustle as to must quite slow.
Speaker 2:When they came to Singapore, everything was moving so fast and they were so close to their product. They didn't want to change anything. They're like, no, this is me. I built it like this. But you know, Singaporeans don't think like that.
Speaker 2:Internationally, they also don't think like that. So maybe tweak it a little bit, put this here, put that there. So I think biggest failures would be, you have a great idea. Can you execute on it when you're going globally and to different markets? Now, if I was just helping a startup in one market, maybe my job would not be that hard, but when they're looking to scale globally, it is thinking differently, being able to scale, being able to implement the changes and to do it fast, because I only work with technology companies.
Speaker 2:It is not an agri tech. We're waiting for everything, you know, the building to come up here. If you're not successful in twelve to eighteen months in getting a deal flow, getting customers, having some partnership, it's very likely that you'd run off money and a VC or someone who's willing to invest in you say, what did you do in the last eighteen months? You burned through all the cash and you don't even have a single customer. So my job, feel, is to sort of make sure that they can get through this process and actually start making money in the first twelve to eighteen months.
Speaker 1:You talked about the difference between kind of a local operation and scaling globally. What's the shift in the mindset that these founders need to have?
Speaker 2:So there's a few things. One of them is they have a term in New Zealand and a lot of them are trying to adapt it now is think global from day one, right? Because the market that you're in, if if you start from thinking that I'll only do it in this market, you'll not be able to scale. So from day one, you're thinking, you know, what is my exit plan? Now exit plan doesn't have to be, I'm going to give the companies like, am I going to go IPO?
Speaker 2:Am I going to sell it off? Or am I going to do ABC? One of the things I find about a lot of these startups is when they start the company, there's never an exit plan. You know, that's number one exit plan can be me scaling globally and giving my CEO position to someone who can handle So
Speaker 1:let me challenge that for a second. Why is the exit plan important? You know, you hear from a lot of famous CEOs, I built this to last. I'm not trying to make a quick buck or turn around, but the exit plan is still incredibly important. Why is that?
Speaker 2:Because it means they haven't, they haven't thought through, let me start with the negative side. They haven't thought through what would happen if it would fail. They think that it's gonna success and it's going to last forever. But if you haven't thought through what could happen if I don't make IPO, if I don't, you know, if I don't scale globally. So I know it sounds a bit negative, but if you don't plan for failure, then you haven't, you know, you haven't planned properly.
Speaker 2:That's number one. The second one is that you need to have an exit plan because if you don't, the exit doesn't mean, you know, I'm going to leave the company. It could be, I'll just take a step back and give it, and I'll be part of the board, or I will go IPO or I'll do a joint venture or whatever. You need to have that strategy because a startup is never gonna be a startup forever. It's gonna be a scale up and there's gonna be a huge growth company at some point.
Speaker 2:So you need to have that ambition. Has some people said that, look, I just want to leave it a boutique company, really small. How many boutique companies survive unless they've done a partnership? In my opinion, a lot of companies that I've worked with that have stayed boutique have not survived. They've, they have failed in three to five years.
Speaker 2:And this is just from my experience. So I, I tell them that you need to have this plan. Think of a partnership, think of, you know, maybe giving up this position to someone else or think of, you know, some other exit, but you have to have that because remaining a very small company is just not going to work, especially in this day and age, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's the difference you're alluding to that there's a difference between the kind of the startup CEO and the scale up CEO. What is that difference? Is it just experience and knowledge or is there something more fundamental?
Speaker 2:There's a couple of things. And it's not always the case because you have successful ones that actually can start navigating and thinking differently. The startup CEOs I've seen is that they are so close and so attached to the idea that they've produced, that it's their baby, that they're not willing to shift and think of a different business model. They're not willing to shift and think of the, you know, customize the product to different things. And when, when they start scaling, they feel like they're losing control.
Speaker 2:So they try to be quite centralized and have a lot of say in every decision. So it becomes a bottleneck. They don't like, okay, I'll give you, okay. You know, Singapore becomes a different entity. You run with it.
Speaker 2:As long as you're making money, they don't do that. So if they were to think differently and say, Hey, you know what? It's okay. I would be happy to delegate the responsibility to all the different markets, as long as they report back and make certain amount of revenue in a certain, yes, I'm willing to customize it to different markets. If they do that, yes, then they're good startup and scale up CEOs.
Speaker 2:If they can't, then they need to sort of, you know, give it up to someone. If I could just give you an example, I worked with this company and now he had to step back, but he was a brilliant man. And he comes from a background in AI. He created something called the soul machines. They were the first company in New Zealand that sort of came up with a digital human that looked so real that you wouldn't even know.
Speaker 2:And to sort of prove that point, what they did was they created a digital human baby. And, you know, you would interact and you think, is this a real human or is this a, or is this a AI machine? Because they use eyes, the facial expressions and everything to sort of mimic. And he was so close to that, that when they started expanding and saying, we want it in airlines, we want it in beauty shops, all these other things, he goes, no, I just created to sort of show that we could replicate AI in the space. So eventually by the board, he was pushed out, which is a bit sad for him, but he just wasn't thinking differently now.
Speaker 2:They just recently raised 40,000,000 in The U S they are expanding Yeah. If you can look them up, they're doing amazingly well, but when they first started off, Greg Cross, who was a CEO is no longer, the CEO of the company because he just didn't want to let go of that little, not baby, literally his product and service that you created.
Speaker 1:And let me ask you this, the entrepreneurial journey can be difficult. The way I describe it as myself, an entrepreneur many times over is bipolar disease. One day you're on the top of the world. You're happy. Another day you're the worst day in the world, you know, fully depressed.
Speaker 1:It's a hard journey.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:You also lose people. I don't think I've spoken to a single CEO who hasn't lost relationships through the journey. Happened to myself as well. Would you recommend your children to be entrepreneurs?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. And I'll, I'll, I'll tell you why. So this has probably been the hardest and the most, learn steep, steepest learning curve for me. You know, when you work and I worked really hard when I was younger for HSBC and I worked long hours, you know, eighteen hour days and things like that. But here I'm doing it intentionally.
Speaker 2:No, one's pushing me to do it. It is also very lonely and you doubt yourself many times. So when you come out of the other end, you're like, you know what? If I lose everything, I know what I'm capable If, you know, I had to do, even though I learned it in Booth, I hate accounting. I had to do accounting.
Speaker 2:I had to do my books. I had to learn how to create a website. I had to sort of create a business model from scratch and with no validation for anything. And when customers ask me, can you bring down your price? Can you change your business model?
Speaker 2:I questioned myself, but then I had to create that confidence. I know that a lot of entrepreneurs go through this and I'm a sole entrepreneur. I had someone where in the beginning, when I started off with him and he was, he was really, really great, but he has some visa issues and he had to leave. Also, other thing is you really become very conscious of your time. What are the most important things?
Speaker 2:It's your company, it's your family, it's your other things in life. So you become very discerning with who you spend time with. You know, I love meeting with people that energize me, the people that, you know, either give me ideas or they're in the same mindset as me. You know, when I was working for some of these big companies, of course, you know, I would work. It was nine to five job and then I would meet with a bunch of people and I don't want it to come across as negative, but I would meet with a lot of superficial people.
Speaker 2:They're like, oh, you're going to the mall or you want to go, you know, clubbing, blah, blah, blah. Now when I meet someone, I'm like, oh, what's your next big idea? You know, what's happening there? Let's talk about something that's mentally stimulating. And I love it.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't mind the shift. So I, I did lose people from, you know, also when my company's, you know, sort of went from a two man team to working with, fractional CEOs to now being a lot smaller, but I also lost my circle of, I don't if you would call acquaintances or friends because I think differently now. And it's not a bad thing. I was a bit sad in the beginning, but then I'm like, you know, it's okay. People go through these changes and I'm in a different person in a different space right now.
Speaker 2:And I get energy from different things. And when I have doubts, I look at what I've accomplished as opposed to who, when I was working with a huge team of marcoms and stuff. Now I do my own marketing, which I do organically. I do my own business models, my own contracts and everything. And it gives you incredible amount of confidence because no one can take that away.
Speaker 2:No company who's gonna fire me. I'll fire myself. But if I want to, and if I wanna change a job, right. You know? So it is, it is something which is in here and I love it.
Speaker 2:And I would encourage my kids to do it because you take that with you. You can do anything. You know, actually my son, when he was in school, started his own company. That was a cute little company because it was under me on fitness because he was doing all this stuff on fitness and he would create this blogs. He created a nutrition plan.
Speaker 2:I was his first guinea pig. So he goes, you should do these workouts, this and the other. And he created all these videos on how to do the right form. And I said, why are you doing this? He goes, oh, because I really enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I want to try doing podcasts a bit like you. And, I want to do all this nutrition stuff to tell people what are the macros they need to take. Of course now he's, he doesn't have much time, but at least he started it out when he was 18 and he did it for two years when he was going through his high school.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Would you agree that actually taking the entrepreneurial journey as early as possible in life is actually has the most advantages because you have the least amount of risk.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. That's true. There's two sides to it, right? So I have, I've seen, you know, really young people do that and they are fearless and, you know, they have a lot of energy.
Speaker 2:But also I think, sometimes they can be a bit cocky. So, you know, they're like, oh, I can do this. I can do that. And they don't, they don't really respect some of the things that has built this industry. They're like, we can do anything now.
Speaker 2:If you have the grit and if you have a great team around you, and if you've got the money very likely, you know, you will succeed. Right. But then I've seen entrepreneurs that are, and I've worked with a few, again, I'm going back to really working with these news and companies, this guy, he was in his late twenties. He started an AI, chatbot for infra tech and, know, you know, he's like, I can do anything. Look at me.
Speaker 2:I've got such a massive background. I've been so successful and everything. He got really cocky and yeah, eventually, you know, it failed, during the COVID period, but those who are slightly older and have been through the ups and downs of life tend to have more resilience and they think, okay, we are gonna fight it. We're gonna be like a bamboo. We're gonna go through the tides of life and we're gonna be flexible through it.
Speaker 2:And if you're gonna be also humble, I think the best combination of CEOs, not, it's not really the age, it's your mentality. You know, am I sort of, do I have a growth mindset? You know, am I willing to learn? Do I have a humble nature? You know?
Speaker 2:And while these, these don't actually line up with a lot of the seniors, you see they come across as arrogant, come across as whatever. I think those are more important. And the biggest one soft skills are things like empathy and actually listening to your customers. Right? A of people are like, I've got this great product.
Speaker 2:Why won't they like it? Well, you're not really, you know, solving their problem, you know? So I don't really see age as a problem. I see it more as your mentality, not so much as an age thing. I've seen young people being really mature while also maintaining that humble and growth mindset.
Speaker 1:I would argue that, you know, trying to follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates is probably a recipe for disaster. That level of arrogance of you're going to save the world is not how 90% of the successful entrepreneurs actually behaved through their success. So I think we get kind of enamored with these celebrities is really what they are, right? Elon Musk, etc. And like, I'm going to be Elon Musk, but that's really not what success looks like.
Speaker 1:No. Again, the ninety nine percent of the cases. I will say that I do advise youngsters of course to be humble, but being an entrepreneur at an early stage, if you, one year of corporate work and in one year of entrepreneurial work, will learn 10 times more as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's, you know, even if you fail, and of course I, you know, I hope that you don't, you're going to come out of that next as an individual. And so there's always that silver lining.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. Actually my younger son, who's still in school right now. You know, I've encouraged him and he's thinking about it. He's going to do a gap year and just work. You know, just do these, you know, little things, entrepreneurship, not but just work.
Speaker 2:And the reason I want him to do that instead of going straight to university is because I want him to understand the value of money. I want him to understand, you know, what the workforce is like, because some people just go straight from the high school to university and maybe try to do a master's. And when they come out, they're like, oh, look, I've got all these education, but it's all just, you know, theoretical. You actually haven't done anything. So whether he takes an entrepreneurship during that gap year or he actually goes and, you know, tries, different types of work.
Speaker 2:I think being there absolutely right. Whether you fail or you're successful being there and actually trying it out is something very important. I wish I could have taken it sooner, this entrepreneurship journey, but it's also maybe a female thing. And you know, the background that I come from, you know, we tend to be quite perfectionist and we also have like this impostor syndrome. It doesn't matter how educated we are.
Speaker 2:It took me a good twenty years to realize, you know, I can do this, because I think entrepreneurs are incredibly, you know, have a lot of courage because, you know, you're like, okay, I've had the safety net of all this, and now I'm putting it all aside. I'm believing in myself and what I'm gonna do and take, take, take the leap of faith. Whereas young people don't really have all that. Then they're like, oh, well, I don't have any money to start with. You know, I might as well take the leap of faith now and see what happens.
Speaker 2:As long as their parents will take them back into the garage, you know, when they fail.
Speaker 1:It's, it's, there's definitely something magical about, you know, not having a mortgage, not having to feed kids, not having, you know, these responsibilities. Absolutely. Sharmin, what an absolute joy to have you on the show. This has been so much fun. We have just one question, it's a hard one because it's personal, but it's the only scripted question we have on the show.
Speaker 1:If you had to go back to the hardest points in your life, whether it was two years, five years, or twenty years ago, what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2:You know, my hardest period was actually very, very personal and it was a very difficult period for my family. So it's not about work. And, you know, at the time I sort of, just went into survival mode and just put my head down. I think the advice I would've given is, you know, this is just passing, you know, everything goes through, you know, phases. I was incredibly hard on myself.
Speaker 2:You know, I almost went through a burnout. I was working really hard. But while was also having this, you know, family issues, my father and all these other things. And I didn't take a moment to really take on and appreciate the stuff I was learning. You know, take time with my family.
Speaker 2:I just put my head down and just did. When I look back now, I learned it really changed my mindset after that. I learned a lot, but, you know, I sort of sacrificed some time with my family and, you know, I'm never gonna have that back. So I think my advice would be that, you know, when you go through these times that you tell yourself, what's the most important thing right now and will you get it back? And this is just passing.
Speaker 2:No one stays in that. There is dark moments and there is not so dark moments. So just go through this and I'm sure there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1:Sharmin, thank you so much for joining the show today. It's a true pleasure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun.