Other people’s questions

Índico Capital Partners 0:07 Okay. Welcome to the Red Chair. Today we have, uh, another special guest, Kunal. Uh, good to see you. Welcome to the Red Chair.

Kunal 0:15 Thank you.

Índico Capital Partners 0:16 Who are you? Tell us your story. Entrepreneur, meditator, investor, but who's Kunal?

Kunal 0:22 I'm just a guy hanging out in Portugal. Enjoying the sun.

Índico Capital Partners 0:25 I wonder why.

Kunal 0:26 Enjoying the beach. Yeah, yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 0:28 Tell us your story. I mean, how did you start your, like a successful entrepreneur, but, but tell us more.

Kunal 0:33 Yeah. Canadian, born and raised, um, went to school in Canada at, uh, University of Waterloo. It's very well known globally as a top engineering school.

Índico Capital Partners 0:41 Absolutely.

Kunal 0:42 And started my company in my fourth year. Uh, this was 15 years ago, so this was at a time before it was-

Índico Capital Partners 0:47 While you were still in university?

Kunal 0:48 Yeah. I was still in school.

Índico Capital Partners 0:50 Did you drop out or did you-

Kunal 0:51 I didn't.

Índico Capital Partners 0:51 You didn't, you-

Kunal 0:52 I didn't. I didn't

Índico Capital Partners 0:53 ... you stuck-

Kunal 0:53 I passed every class somehow.

Índico Capital Partners 0:54 That's well done.

Kunal 0:56 Uh, I stopped going to class in the last couple of years.

Índico Capital Partners 0:58 Okay.

Kunal 1:00 But managed to, to, to get through. And, uh, 15 years ago was a very different time to be starting a company as a 20-year-old. Uh, the support systems, the infrastructure, the incubators, the investors, uh, the role models, nothing was there. Uh, entrepreneurship wasn't seen as something to do right out of school-

Índico Capital Partners 1:18 Right

Kunal 1:18 ... 15 years ago. So it's amazing to see how today it's a, a real option and people strive for it and aspire to do that.

Índico Capital Partners 1:26 For sure.

Kunal 1:26 Where 15 years ago it was, okay, you couldn't get a job, so maybe-

Índico Capital Partners 1:30 Right

Kunal 1:30 ... you should start a company.

Índico Capital Partners 1:31 And 15 years ago was not that long ago, right? I mean-

Kunal 1:33 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 1:33 ... I remember it very well, right?

Kunal 1:35 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 1:36 So-

Kunal 1:37 So-

Índico Capital Partners 1:37 But how, what did you start?

Kunal 1:38 Yeah, so we, um... The idea was to start a company. The actual product was secondary.

Índico Capital Partners 1:44 Right.

Kunal 1:44 The idea was I and other colleagues wanted to work for ourselves.

Índico Capital Partners 1:48 Mm-hmm.

Kunal 1:49 We did not wanna work for, uh, a big company. And we started to prototype all sorts of ideas. Um, back then, um, BlackBerry was, was a big deal. This was before the iPhone existed. Uh, BlackBerry is a Canadian, uh, innovation.

Índico Capital Partners 2:02 For sure.

Kunal 2:02 So we were heavily influenced by mobile technologies. And this is before 3G networks existed. We're onto 5G today. This was edge 2G networks.

Índico Capital Partners 2:10 Mm-hmm.

Kunal 2:11 And we came up with all these ideas of what might people do on their phones in the future. And the, the big insight for me was that mobile devices will be used as consumption devices, not just communication devices. And I-

Índico Capital Partners 2:23 Where did you get that insight from?

Kunal 2:25 Yeah. I did, um, I did a study term in Hong Kong earlier, and I did a work term in the UK, and I saw people kinda 18 years ago using a phone I, in a way I'd never saw somebody use a phone in North America. In North America we were just texting.

Índico Capital Partners 2:40 Yes.

Kunal 2:41 And 18 years ago, like I was in Hong Kong watching TV on my phone in a subway under the river.

Índico Capital Partners 2:45 Right.

Kunal 2:46 And-

Índico Capital Partners 2:46 Incredible, right?

Kunal 2:47 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 2:47 And Japan also worked like that as well.

Kunal 2:48 Yeah. Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 2:49 Mm-hmm.

Kunal 2:49 So that, that's where the inspiration came from, is that people are gonna consume on these devices, and fast-forward and we were right. Um, versus only communicate-

Índico Capital Partners 2:55 This was right before the iPhone came out, right?

Kunal 2:57 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 2:57 15 years ago.

Kunal 2:58 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 2:58 It's kind of when the iPhone came out, right?

Kunal 3:00 Yeah. And, uh, we said, "What are people gonna consume? They're gonna consume content." So we started to build, um, applications and ideas and software and websites to put content onto phones. And it sounds very obvious today, but at the time it was not obvious at all.

Índico Capital Partners 3:15 Because there was no platform. I mean, the BlackBerry you could sort of type... There were, there was actually a keyboard-

Kunal 3:19 Yes

Índico Capital Partners 3:19 ... which I loved actually.

Kunal 3:20 Yes.

Índico Capital Partners 3:20 It was way easier to type than, than the iPhone. Still today I think it was easier-

Kunal 3:24 Yeah. Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 3:24 ... to the, the BlackBerry. Uh, but there was no content basically. There were no... Very few apps really.

Kunal 3:29 It didn't exist. Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 3:30 Yeah.

Kunal 3:30 We were, we launched some of the first apps on, on the BlackBerry device. Uh, we went to a large media company in Canada. Uh, I was still in school. They didn't know that I was still in school, and we showed them this idea of a magazine on a phone, and they said, "Okay. Let's do it."

Índico Capital Partners 3:45 Interesting.

Kunal 3:46 Uh, and I still remember, uh, my second meeting with them. They, they said to me, "Okay, we'll try to find you some budget for this pilot." I hadn't even thought about pricing or how to charge for it, and they asked, "How much do you want?" And without pausing a second I, I said, "Well, how much budget do you have?" Uh, this is me as a 20-year-old. And he said, "Uh, we could probably get $10,000 for you. Is that enough?" And I responded back with, "No, we need 20,000." And that was the pricing strategy.

Índico Capital Partners 4:14 It was like a reflex just-

Kunal 4:15 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 4:15 ... to sort of ask for the double.

Kunal 4:17 It's get what you can was the pricing model initially.

Índico Capital Partners 4:19 Right.

Kunal 4:20 Um, and then I asked him, "What would success be with this pilot?" And they said, "If we had 5,000 people use it this year, that's success." And we had 20,000 people use it within three weeks.

Índico Capital Partners 4:29 Amazing.

Kunal 4:30 And that's... We were still in school. And that's when we said, "Okay, there's something here. People-"

Índico Capital Partners 4:33 And what magazine was it? I mean, what kind of content did you produce for the BlackBerry at the time?

Kunal 4:37 It's Canadian Business, Maclean's, so the big news and business publication, uh, in the country.

Índico Capital Partners 4:42 So the, the publication already existed. You were gonna put it online basically-

Kunal 4:45 Yeah. Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 4:45 ... into the phone-

Kunal 4:46 Exactly

Índico Capital Partners 4:46 ... into a smartphone-

Kunal 4:47 Exactly

Índico Capital Partners 4:47 ... which was not the iPhone, it was-

Kunal 4:49 Yep

Índico Capital Partners 4:49 ... the BlackBerry.

Kunal 4:49 Yeah. The iPhone didn't exist.

Índico Capital Partners 4:51 No. Right.

Kunal 4:52 Uh, and then the Apple launched the iPhone a few months after we graduated, and then we were there, and then Time Magazine, uh, CNN, Sports Illustrated, they saw what we were doing, they called us and said, "Hey, we want to be on these phones."

Índico Capital Partners 5:05 What was the name of the company?

Kunal 5:07 Uh, the name of the company was Polar Mobile at the time.

Índico Capital Partners 5:09 Polar Mobile?

Kunal 5:10 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 5:10 Okay.

Kunal 5:10 It's gone through several changes, which we can talk about.

Índico Capital Partners 5:13 But so they found you, you know, they found-

Kunal 5:15 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 5:15 ... Polar Mobile in Canada-

Kunal 5:16 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 5:16 ... and, and they got in touch.

Kunal 5:17 And we were six guys right out of school, 20, 21 years old, um, putting software together, and then we got them as, uh, our first major US client. And we were the ninth app on the App Store. And Apple-

Índico Capital Partners 5:30 Amazing

Kunal 5:31 ... featured it, and within 12 hours we had a million downloads and then everything stopped working.

Índico Capital Partners 5:36 Right. You were not ready. I mean-

Kunal 5:38 We were not ready

Índico Capital Partners 5:38 ... the infrastructure was not, not, not ready-

Kunal 5:40 No

Índico Capital Partners 5:40 ... for the whole thing. And you were still called Polar at the time when, when you, you went into Apple?

Kunal 5:43 Uh, we, we evolved. We, we had a pretty big pivot five years into the journey-

Índico Capital Partners 5:47 Right

Kunal 5:47 ... and we became Polar from Polar Mobile, 'cause we had products for the web as well.

Índico Capital Partners 5:51 Right.

Kunal 5:52 Uh, and then just recently, um, in the summer of 2022, we rebranded to Nova, and that was a, a brand we've been working on for a few years with some new products. Um, so three kind of company brands, probably about five major chapters over the last 15 years.

Índico Capital Partners 6:06 Of course.

Kunal 6:07 So I feel like a serial entrepreneur within the context of the company.

Índico Capital Partners 6:10 But it was the same, same company.

Kunal 6:11 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 6:11 But tell us a little bit more, you know, how was that first feeling of being there in the first sort of iPhone, i- you know, one of the first apps?

Kunal 6:19 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 6:19 How did it all happen? How did Apple get in touch with you and, you know, just a bunch of kids and suddenly you have an app and a thing that is new and that revolutionized the world?

Kunal 6:28 Yeah. It was, it was exciting and scary. It was exciting because we saw the potential, and it was scary because we didn't know what we were doing. Uh, and what was even scarier is we didn't know that we didn't know what we were doing.

Índico Capital Partners 6:40 Did, did they know what they were doing?

Kunal 6:42 They didn't either.

Índico Capital Partners 6:43 No.

Kunal 6:43 So it was interesting that the tolerance was so high for the software to have bugs and for it to not work.

Índico Capital Partners 6:50 Because they're just-

Kunal 6:50 And people download the app-

Índico Capital Partners 6:51 ... trying, right?

Kunal 6:51 It doesn't work.

Índico Capital Partners 6:52 They were trying to see if the apps would work on the iPhone, right?

Kunal 6:54 Yeah, yeah. We, we launched the first app for Wall Street Journal, the first app for Bloomberg, and we were trying to stream real-time financial information, and initially that didn't work, and people were okay with that- 'cause the technology was so new there was an understanding. Where today if that happened-

Índico Capital Partners 7:10 It'd just be like unacceptable, right?

Kunal 7:11 ... your business would be, would be done.

Índico Capital Partners 7:13 Of course.

Kunal 7:14 Uh, so in the early days of a, a new platform, uh, what I learned from that is the need to just to, to try things out and not strive for perfection because it's just technically almost impossible-

Índico Capital Partners 7:25 To do it perfectly

Kunal 7:26 ... when it's something that's so new.

Índico Capital Partners 7:27 In fact, you don't know because the customer might want something else, so you shouldn't really sort of stay in the cave and get out there and speak to customers, right?

Kunal 7:34 Yeah. Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 7:34 And to providers. In that case, you had providers of content and you had the customer which was... or the channel, which was the, uh, these platforms.

Kunal 7:41 Yeah. I moved to New York, uh, pretty, pretty early into my, my 20s, and I was there constantly and just to spend time with clients. And that's the biggest thing I learned in running a B2B company is the, the client is, is king, more so than the users, than the team, than the investors, than anybody else. It's, it's all about the client. And I had this mantra of get a client and keep them for life, and that's how we were able to work with our clients to keep innovating and understand their problems and develop new products and continue to grow our share of wallet and, and revenue. And some of our, our clients have been clients with us now over 10 years. The people have changed over in the company, but our relationship and our software are still being used in lots of ways by them.

Índico Capital Partners 8:23 So how big is the company right now in terms of people and clients and...?

Kunal 8:27 Yeah. So we have about 250 clients in 30 countries. Uh, about a third in North America, a third in Europe, and a third, uh, in Asia and Latin America. Um, team is, is actually nice and small, which I like, um-

Índico Capital Partners 8:39 Which is good

Kunal 8:40 ... which is just under 50 people. And, uh, our team was actually bigger at a certain point, and then I realized if we can use software efficiently, that's the beauty of software is it scales, uh, then we can build a high margin business. Um, so then we had-

Índico Capital Partners 8:55 That's the idea, right?

Kunal 8:56 We had like a business model pivot probably about three years ago where we said, "Let's focus not just on top line, but bottom line." Um, so we've been operating at 50% profit margins, um, for the last couple of years-

Índico Capital Partners 9:08 Sounds good to me

Kunal 9:08 ... um, from this pivot to we need to take care of the bottom line and the top line, which is another thing that I didn't realize early on, but now I see the value in doing so.

Índico Capital Partners 9:17 This is interesting because actually at the time when you were starting, I mean, there wasn't that much funding, right? Particularly you were in Canada, you were just starting, but you had clients. So how did you approach, you know, the fundraising and how did you develop the company, uh, without, you know, the climate that we have today? Uh, even today with a kind of a crisis or a real crisis-

Kunal 9:37 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 9:37 ... there's still a lot of money, there's still a lot of capital, right? There's dry powder in the funds. But 15 years ago there was no capital. There was very, very little capital available.

Kunal 9:45 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 9:45 How did that go?

Kunal 9:47 I, uh, I feel I have like 15 years of fundraising experience now as a entrepreneur, and I've done it all from angel investors to VC investors to recently private equity investor to bank debt. Like, so I've done all types of funding. And the, the headline that I have, which is it's, it's controversial, is a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, say and complain that funding is- fundraising is hard. I believe fundraising is actually very easy, and is that if you-

Índico Capital Partners 10:12 If you have the right product and-

Kunal 10:13 If you have an investable business-

Índico Capital Partners 10:14 Right

Kunal 10:14 ... people will see that and write you a check.

Índico Capital Partners 10:17 Of course.

Kunal 10:17 And if you don't have an investable business, people will see that and not write you a check. So, uh, like anything in life, if we have to try too hard to do it, then we're probably not doing the right thing or we don't have the right skills or setup to, to do it. Uh, so I don't, I don't buy into this notion that entrepreneurs should spend a lot of effort and energy fundraising.

Índico Capital Partners 10:37 'Cause if you need a lot of effort, maybe there's something wrong, right?

Kunal 10:39 There's something wrong.

Índico Capital Partners 10:40 And, and so did you first... What was the first capital you had?

Kunal 10:44 So I was kind of six weeks out of school, and we were all out of school and living at home, so there was no costs really to the business.

Índico Capital Partners 10:50 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kunal 10:52 Um, we had some client revenue. You know, I took a bit of money from my parents, so there wasn't much costs. And I remember I had a meeting, um, with a peer-to-peer group of CEOs, and that was very helpful. So I found community, all traditional businesses. And they, they said to me, "How are you gonna pay your people?" I said, "I, I don't need to. We're all 21. We live at home. We don't have expenses." And they're like, "No, you need to, you need to pay your people."

Índico Capital Partners 11:15 Yeah.

Kunal 11:15 So then I was like, "Really?" They're like, "Yeah." Like, "Okay. How do I pay them?" And they're like, "You should get an investor." I'm like, "How do I do that?" "Well, you need to go talk to people." So I called my lawyer right after that session and I said, "Can you introduce me to some investors?" And, uh, one of his clients was an investor, so we had a drink the next day. Uh, shared home the product. We talked a lot about his actually entrepreneurial journey.

Índico Capital Partners 11:36 In Canada. This is in Canada.

Kunal 11:38 In Canada. And then that night he called me and he said, "I'll do it." And I said, "Do what?" He said, "I'll invest." I'm like, "Okay." And he's like-

Índico Capital Partners 11:46 How much?

Kunal 11:46 "How much?" I said, "I don't know." Um, he's like, "Okay. Well, come up with a business plan and then come back to me." Uh, so the next week I went to his house and then I showed him kind of a plan and then he tore it apart and he was like... I said, "I think I need 500,000." He's like, "I think you'll need more. Take 800,000." I'm like, "Okay." And then we talked about a valuation And I was like, "Okay, I need the money 'cause I need to start hiring people." And then he just wrote me a check on the spot. There was no paperwork.

Índico Capital Partners 12:11 For 800,000?

Kunal 12:12 For a portion of it.

Índico Capital Partners 12:13 A portion.

Kunal 12:13 I think it was 150.

Índico Capital Partners 12:15 Okay.

Kunal 12:15 And then-

Índico Capital Partners 12:15 And then you had to raise the rest?

Kunal 12:18 Uh, no, no, he was doing the whole round.

Índico Capital Partners 12:19 Oh.

Kunal 12:19 But he wrote me a check on the spot-

Índico Capital Partners 12:21 Oh

Kunal 12:21 ... so I can go start-

Índico Capital Partners 12:23 Right

Kunal 12:23 ... getting to work.

Índico Capital Partners 12:24 Right.

Kunal 12:24 And then it took three-

Índico Capital Partners 12:25 That's amazing money

Kunal 12:25 ... months to get all of the paperwork in place. Um-

Índico Capital Partners 12:28 I mean, 800,000 15 years ago, that is quite a lot of money, right?

Kunal 12:31 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 12:31 It's, you know, it's a-

Kunal 12:32 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 12:32 ... very good investor.

Kunal 12:33 It lasted me nine months.

Índico Capital Partners 12:36 That was quick.

Kunal 12:37 Because-

Índico Capital Partners 12:37 For someone that didn't need money

Kunal 12:38 ... it's easy to spend money, and in B2B, I didn't realize clients take a long time to pay you. Uh, so we ran out of money nine months later.

Índico Capital Partners 12:46 Quite often they take a lot of time to actually onboard you and actually start-

Kunal 12:49 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 12:49 ... using you and then to pay you is something else, right?

Kunal 12:51 Yeah. Yeah. So the spreadsheet lied to me. The spreadsheet said that-

Índico Capital Partners 12:54 It always does

Kunal 12:54 ... I wasn't gonna run out of money, and it lied. Uh, and I was still so naive that I'm, like, 22 years old now and I said to the team, "Hey, we, we ran out of money, but, but don't worry." And we were, like, 14 people, and two people quit the next day. And that's when it hit me.

Índico Capital Partners 13:12 They were afraid, right?

Kunal 13:12 Yeah. I was like, "Okay, I might be comfortable with this level of risk, but not everybody else is," so.

Índico Capital Partners 13:18 And that's normal, right? Because not everybody's gonna be-

Kunal 13:20 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 13:20 ... you know, a leading entrepreneur and, and have that... But you need all sorts of people in your company, right?

Kunal 13:25 Yeah. So those early days, 'cause there's, there's no role models, there's no examples, so I had to learn it by doing it, uh, the hard way. I went to my investors and I said, "I ran out of money." And they're like, "How come you didn't tell us sooner?"

Índico Capital Partners 13:38 Right. Exactly.

Kunal 13:38 And I was like, "Some people quit, and I don't know what to do." And then they wrote me a check on the spot, and they brought some more investors to the table. And then a year later, same thing. Ran out of money again.

Índico Capital Partners 13:47 But did you tell them in advance?

Kunal 13:48 I told them in advance.

Índico Capital Partners 13:49 Good.

Kunal 13:50 We, uh, we raised another about a million each time, and then a year later I was like, "Okay, I think we need some more money." So then we did a, a VC, uh, fundraise. And, and the way we met that, um, VC was really interesting, is I'd been introduced to him through a business conference, and I, I liked the, the guy, and I didn't pay much attention to what he did. And I just went to ask him for business advice, and he had B2B experience. And I was like, "How do I do sales? How do I do pricing?" And just normal business, you know, operations questions I asked him. And then at the end he's like, "So how are you funding this?" I'm like, "I don't know yet." Uh, and then a few weeks later we talked again, and then a few months later we, we, we did a deal.

Índico Capital Partners 14:27 You settled. This was a Canadian VC?

Kunal 14:29 Canadian VC.

Índico Capital Partners 14:29 Canadian VC.

Kunal 14:30 Yeah. They primarily were investing in the US, but yeah, we were one of the Canadian-

Índico Capital Partners 14:33 And at the time, so 15 years ago or 14 years ago, what were the... what kind of terms were you getting? Like, you, you, you sort of got a capital raise of a million or 800,000.

Kunal 14:43 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 14:43 For what percentage?

Kunal 14:44 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 14:45 Do you remember?

Kunal 14:47 Um, I don't remember the, the percentages, but the-

Índico Capital Partners 14:50 Broadly.

Kunal 14:51 I'd say, I'd say the, the focus is, you know, a bunch of guys in their 20s. We didn't really care about the cap table. We didn't really care about valuation. It was more about, like, we wanna just do it. So it was the passion for growing the business and trying to make it work. That was the satisfaction that we were after.

Índico Capital Partners 15:08 But was it very different from terms today? I mean, you don't have to share, of course, the, the numbers. But, uh, the point of the question is, is it different from today? I mean-

Kunal 15:16 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 15:16 ... were the terms different back then 15 years ago than what, what they are now?

Kunal 15:20 I'd say they were. So I'd say today investors have a lot more protection, preferred shares, and things of that nature, where our first round was all common shares, same shares as me.

Índico Capital Partners 15:31 All common shares. Right.

Kunal 15:32 Um, it wasn't until... And first few rounds, it was until we had a VC investor that we structured the investors-

Índico Capital Partners 15:39 Right. So when institutional-

Kunal 15:39 ... got some protection

Índico Capital Partners 15:40 ... capital came in, then there was a-

Kunal 15:42 But up until then-

Índico Capital Partners 15:42 ... regular term sheet kind of thing

Kunal 15:43 ... kind of I think we had 3 million, uh, invested. Um, all the same. So there's, there wasn't any investor protection like there is now. Um, I would say uh, kind of board or investor kind of control, veto rights, that, that came much later as well.

Índico Capital Partners 15:59 Mm-hmm.

Kunal 16:00 So initially I may not have owned more than 50% of the company, but I had essential control over decision-making. Um, and that's how it was m- it was very much presented as, uh, a lot of trust in the idea, but a lot of trust in me as the founder. Uh, and that's reflected in the legal, um, framework for the business, which I don't see the case today as much.

Índico Capital Partners 16:21 Right.

Kunal 16:22 Um.

Índico Capital Partners 16:22 But at the same time, currently, normally entrepreneurs have more percentage, right? They, they-

Kunal 16:27 Correct

Índico Capital Partners 16:28 ... they stay with more percentage until much later on.

Kunal 16:30 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 16:31 Although, uh, the VCs protect the downside, let's put it this way.

Kunal 16:34 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 16:34 I think the-

Kunal 16:35 That's why I don't think the percentage and valuations matter nowadays because-

Índico Capital Partners 16:38 Good point

Kunal 16:38 ... people don't realize how much protection there is for the investors. And, uh, it's a very different, it's a very different mindset.

Índico Capital Partners 16:46 Yeah. Of course, if you have the upside, you know, if things go well, if you have more percentage, that's great. What you're saying is that, you know, if things go wrong, you know-

Kunal 16:54 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 16:54 ... the entrepreneur might, you know, find-

Kunal 16:56 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 16:56 ... itself not having a lot or nothing really.

Kunal 16:57 And let's, let's be honest, the chances of things going well are very low. When we look at all the startups, all the companies out there, not all of them are going to do well.

Índico Capital Partners 17:07 For sure.

Kunal 17:08 And, uh, that level of, I guess, humility and grounding, um, has been helpful for me. And having gone through it over 15 years and lots of pivots, uh, I understand how hard it is.

Índico Capital Partners 17:20 You think when... So when you started, of course, you were saying very naive, uh, and, uh, you know, full of ideas, but you didn't know the journey.

Kunal 17:26 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 17:26 You were just learning by doing. You think people know nowadays, you know, entrepreneurs, they know, they know what they should expect, or there's still a lot of, uh, naivete and, and people are doing the same mistakes? You know, ha- have the, has the entrepreneur evolved?

Kunal 17:42 Yeah. I think the type of founder entrepreneur today is very different than, than the type I am or the type 15 years ago. And, uh, I think a lot of people today are starting companies that probably shouldn't be starting companies.

Índico Capital Partners 17:54 Shouldn't be starting.

Kunal 17:54 Shouldn't. And, and I think you see that by burnout, by mental health issues, by a lot of other challenges that are happening. Um-

Índico Capital Partners 18:02 And why are they doing that? Why are the people starting so many businesses? Is there, like, too much money available to start businesses maybe?

Kunal 18:07 I mean, it's cool. It's, it's sexy. Depending on which part of the world you live in, it's almost an expectation.

Índico Capital Partners 18:13 Mm-hmm.

Kunal 18:13 Uh, there's this shiny reward opportunity presented But it's really, really hard to, to, to get there.

Índico Capital Partners 18:21 Yeah.

Kunal 18:21 And it takes a lot of-

Índico Capital Partners 18:22 The odds of making it are still very low, right?

Kunal 18:24 Yeah. And it takes a lot of, uh, mental, emotional, um, I'll say skill to navigate the journey. And it's not just about getting to some destination, and if you kill yourself along the way, what's the point?

Índico Capital Partners 18:38 So what have you learned on a, on a personal level? Has... I- in that journey and other entrepreneurs you've seen, you're also an investor, we'll talk about that later.

Kunal 18:45 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 18:45 What have you learned personally on how to adapt to all these stressful times of raising capital, increasing your, your, your top line and, and your bottom line-

Kunal 18:54 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 18:54 ... and dealing with employees and so on?

Kunal 18:57 I, uh, I've become a pretty big meditator. About eight, 10 years ago, I started to meditate, and that as a practice has really helped me get to know myself better-

Índico Capital Partners 19:05 Mm-hmm

Kunal 19:05 ... and then approach not just business, but life with a bit more ease and a little less friction. And that's the journey that I'm, I'm still on. I, uh, started teaching about five years ago and sharing my passion for it and becoming-

Índico Capital Partners 19:18 Teaching meditation?

Kunal 19:19 Te- teach- teaching meditation. Um, I was a mental health advocate for about five years, part of boards and charities and doing a lot of fundraising in Canada and the US. So it's, uh, what I learned kind of the hard way is the need to take care of, of, of ourselves, and then as a leader, the need to create an environment that takes care of others as well.

Índico Capital Partners 19:40 So you're a little bit ahead of, you know, the whole thing about mental health, because now everybody talks about it-

Kunal 19:45 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 19:45 ... in the last, I'd say, two, three years-

Kunal 19:46 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 19:46 ... because of the pandemic and so on. But this has been an issue f- forever, right? That's always been an issue for entrepreneurs, um, and the people that surround them, including investors, I must say.

Kunal 19:56 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 19:56 Uh, where, you know, it's very stressful. Uh, it's a very stressful environment, and you found that out through your own personal experience and, and meditation was or is the answer in your case.

Kunal 20:06 It's this curiosity, this understanding of myself. Meditation is a tool to understand myself. Why do I feel this way? Um, really emotional intelligence. We think of it as and talk about it as a concept. It's taught in schools now, most places in the world, which is great, to, to young people. But we need tools to be in touch with our, our emotions. And there's so many business decisions that are impacted by the founder's emotions, and it's, it's unreal how connected it is.

Índico Capital Partners 20:35 And what are the, what are the signals, uh, that entrepreneurs and others should look for in themselves-

Kunal 20:41 Yeah

Índico Capital Partners 20:41 ... that things are not going well or things are a little bit out of control or starting to spiral out of control?

Kunal 20:47 So I think there's physical health markers, um, and those are the obvious ones around sleep, around nutrition, around exercise, and the, the common sense physical health markers. And if I can't take care of my body, how am I gonna take care of my business?

Índico Capital Partners 21:01 Mm-hmm.

Kunal 21:02 And the two are, are connected. And then there's the, the mental health markers, uh, the emotional health markers, which is if I'm sitting down for a meal or if I'm sitting down with a parent or sibling or friend, am I, am I mentally there or am I just physically there? Am I mentally distracted? Um, meditation actually is, is really challenging 'cause you have to sit with yourself. Can I sit with myself for 10 minutes or is it too much for me to handle?

Índico Capital Partners 21:28 And, like, do nothing, you know, supposedly, right? This is-

Kunal 21:30 Observe. Yeah, yeah. Observe what's going on mentally, emotionally, even physically. Uh, these are, these are simple, simple kind of tests that throughout a day allow any of us to become aware of what is my state. And we have to take responsibility. We have to take ownership of our own state. We can't wait for a doctor checkup or wait for-

Índico Capital Partners 21:51 Yeah

Kunal 21:51 ... a friend to check in on us or a teacher or manager in the workplace or spouse. Uh, it really is our life. Um, the most important relationship we have is the one with ourselves, and being in tune and in touch with that. And it's easy when you're building something to lose touch with that and f- get focused on what am I, what am I building, what am I doing, what's happening here, what's happening there? And the harder work is to be in touch with myself. And if I'm in touch with myself, then I start to make better decisions. Uh-

Índico Capital Partners 22:22 And you mentioned also about others and, and taking care of the team. What are the things that you learned? So you lost a few employees at the beginning.

Kunal 22:29 Yeah.

Índico Capital Partners 22:29 They got scared. There was no money. Uh, but then, you know, the company started growing. It was challenging, uh, but things went very well and you're very successful. But how did people react in the journey, and what did you learn as a leader of people, uh, as a CEO, founder and CEO, how to manage that growing team and, and those expectations?

Kunal 22:52 The, the way that I feel or any leader feels, uh, is gonna get reflected in the culture, and it's best to be intentional with it versus accidental. Uh, so for example, like I became a deep meditator, and then we all started to meditate as a team. Um, I started to get into wellness practices and started to bring a lot more balance into my life, and then naturally we started to create practices and policies that supported that. Uh, we experimented with a four-day workweek for a few years before it was cool. Um-

Índico Capital Partners 23:21 How did that go?

Kunal 23:23 It went great. It went great.

Índico Capital Partners 23:25 Yeah?

Kunal 23:25 Um-

Índico Capital Partners 23:25 So people liked it, and it, it stuck. It's still four, four-day workweek at the-

Kunal 23:29 We, we changed it to flex hours, so letting people work really whenever they want, and that's, that's, uh... You know, we, we moved to a work from anywhere, which at the start of the pandemic was obvious for everyone, but we've actually been doing that for like six, seven years now. Um, we have offices, but people come into the office a few days a week, work from home a few days a week. So we've, you know, been ahead of the curve on that and then kind of... I think that was the future of work 1.0 is, was work wherever you want. Uh, I think future work like 2.0 is work whenever you want, and that's something that we're experimenting-

Índico Capital Partners 24:01 Of course, there's deadlines sometimes, right? There's deadlines in the middle of the, of that thing.

Kunal 24:04 Yeah. And if you, if you hire well- ... and if you trust people, then, uh, they will take ownership, and-

Índico Capital Partners 24:10 Right

Kunal 24:10 ... that's-

Índico Capital Partners 24:10 With the right kind of people, you can do that, right?

Kunal 24:12 And the right environment-

Índico Capital Partners 24:13 And the right-

Kunal 24:14 ... and the right leadership that brings out the best in, in people.

Índico Capital Partners 24:17 Right.

Kunal 24:17 So that's, um, that's kind of the current experiment, which is giving people the flexibility to work when they want. Um, and that means moving to more of an asynchronous culture. We don't have very many meetings at all. Um, yeah, I mean, when people join the company, they, they said, "I, I knew you said this, but I didn't actually believe it, but now I see it." Where people are having maybe one or two hours of meetings a week. Uh, so if you can manage that-

Índico Capital Partners 24:43 And how does it work when you have, um, you know, people which are less experienced? Is it... Do you think there's a need to be physically or a little bit closer in just learning with others, or does it depend on the industry? What's your view on this?

Kunal 24:57 Yeah, so we're, we're, we're s- relatively small company, B2B, so we, we actually don't hire inexperienced people.

Índico Capital Partners 25:03 Right.

Kunal 25:03 Uh, maybe partly for that, that reason. Like, everybody is intermediate to senior on our team. Everybody knows what they're doing. Uh, they have exposure to the industry, and that allows us to operate as a very high profit margin. Now, other environments are gonna have different setups-

Índico Capital Partners 25:20 Right

Kunal 25:20 ... based on the type of talent. Uh, but I think the message there is alignment. Like, align the culture to the types of people that we wanna hire to the business objectives we're trying to achieve.

Índico Capital Partners 25:31 And do you feel that compensation has taken a back seat, or is it still very important and on top of that you need to provide that right of that sort of flexible in working environment for the team?

Kunal 25:44 I think not enough attention is being paid to compensation, and I, I think of recognition as the umbrella to compensation. There's a lot of other ways that people's work and time is recognized that's not related to their paycheck, and I think people value those other aspects more than they realize. So we don't pay above average. We probably pay maybe even slightly below average. Uh, and our average tenure right now is seven and a half years, which for a tech company is unheard of, that people are gonna be there that long.

Índico Capital Partners 26:16 Right. People really enjoy working at your company.

Kunal 26:18 So there's something they're getting of value-

Índico Capital Partners 26:20 Right

Kunal 26:20 ... beyond their paycheck. Um, so I think every company needs to put more attention to recognition versus only compensation-

Índico Capital Partners 26:28 Mm-hmm

Kunal 26:28 ... and, and be intentional about it, not accidental.

Índico Capital Partners 26:31 Super interesting. And tell me, so why did you come to Lisbon? Uh, what's, uh, what, what brought you here?

Kunal 26:38 The sun, the water- ... lifestyle, and, and the nice people. I've never lived in Europe, and I've been here for just over a year now and absolutely love it. Uh, the expat community is vibrant. Um, the Portuguese approach to life is inspiring, uh, coming from, from North America. I'm starting to get tapped into the tech ecosystem, uh, here, and, uh, and I see a lot of potential. So it's, it's exciting moment for Portugal, uh, on the, the world stage, and I'm excited to be here at this moment.

Índico Capital Partners 27:07 Well, it's great to have you here. Kunal Ajmal, it was a pleasure to have you at The Red Chair.

Kunal 27:10 Thank you.

Índico Capital Partners 27:10 Thank you so much. Good to see you.