65. From Dragon’s Den to Startup Success | Jinesh Vohra

27:07But you recognize it required more development and complexity to deliver the service you wanted to deliver. So you took a bigger risk in a sense doing it the way you did. How did you finance that? I mean, because what we're talking about here, building apps is not cheap, I know, because we do it ourselves and especially complex ones that have friction-free offers. So I'm confident you must have put a lot of money as well as time into this endeavor?

27:36Jinesh Vohra:Yeah, I mean, it's a fintech. We're registered with the FCA. So there's a high bar there. It's not something you can just bootstrap. Let's put it that way. So we invested our own money. So again, another risk there in terms of taking money from our savings and putting that into the business. And then just people that I knew in my network. So I never asked kind of what I call like a friends and family round was the initial kind of injection that we got. and I never would ask friends or family for money. I would literally talk about what I'm doing and what I'm building and the fact that I'm leaving Goldman's to start this.

28:12Jinesh Vohra:And I started this while I was at Goldman Sachs. So I tell people, this is what I'm doing on the side. And what I found is that people tend to get FOMO. So as an example, we had someone that was quite high profile, like the former CFO of Microsoft US and India, who I kind of knew through my network. And I met him and I was telling him about what we're doing and he does angel investments. And he was like, I like the idea of this. I might invest. So I started telling everyone that he's probably going to invest. And he had actually 100 % committed, but everyone else was like, if he's going to invest, then I want to invest.

28:55Jinesh Vohra:And I went back to him and I said, look, we pretty much got all the money in. Are you going to come in? And he was like, yeah, yeah, sure. So he did invest. Yeah, so you did invest. So, you know, these types of things kind of helped. So you didn't ask, but you just shared the information. Shared the information. And people would come to me asking me, please, can I invest? Because they knew me. They knew I'd either worked with them or I'd gone to university with them or they were like members of my family. And they knew that, you know, they like to think I've got quite a sensible head on my, you know.

29:27Jinesh Vohra:And so I kind of would have thought this through. and they saw the excitement and they believed in what I was saying, that they could see this kind of being very big. And so, yeah, they gave me money and that kind of was our initial investment. And that got you? That got us to like launch. And then once we launched, with things like the first day, a couple of thousand people downloading the app, I then went to angel investors, so a little bit more professional investors, and then they invested and that was done. So you had to put together a sort of presentation deck? Yeah, presentation, financial model.

29:59Jinesh Vohra:And so I did that. Well, what advice would you give to people who are seeking angel investments? I think it's all about the network and getting kind of warm introductions. It's super key. So if you don't have that network, you need to build that network. And because I was at Goldman's, people automatically think that you have this whole huge network of angel investors. But that wasn't the case. I was in the risk division. so I wasn't in I wasn't a trader I wasn't a like a an investment banker and so by definition risk people in risk generally are very risk averse and so they hope so yeah so there wasn't like a lot of people I could tap on so I had to build that network from scratch and one of the things I did for example was post on LinkedIn every day and that was really helpful because people about what you were doing about what i was doing every day every day um monday to friday and i would literally just share my story so if i'm doing something like this you know i take a picture and post that and if i was whatever it was and so people started to feel like a real connection and they could they could almost feel like they were living this journey with me that's so interesting it's so helpful to people yeah and and a lot of people obviously knew me from from you know my corporate days and a lot of people that are employees who work in corporates they do have that itch that you know and i think a lot of them would do really well i think we have so many talented people in the uk it's just having that kind of that that bravery and taking that risk and it's a big risk um but those people would see and they would know people that know people and then introductions they would be willing to help um and then just network meet people meet people meet people and that helped that helped a lot and you tend to find with angels they like to they like to invest in groups so if you find someone they'll and they invest they'll then start to bring their friends over and you can that can be a real domino effect so that worked really they tend to be networked themselves exactly and that worked really well and then and then i did one more round after that which uh was in kind of um towards the kind of the beginning of last year um and that was more institutional so that was like vcs venture capital how much did you raise in that so that was a two and a half million cash and then three million tv media for equity so we now for example have a tv ad that's running on cross channel four so channel four ventures also invested in sprive and the reason why i did that investment was to get more brand awareness so hang on so how did that work so they give you airtime they give you airtime yeah for equity for equity you're trading equity for airtime that's right yeah interesting And have they given you, I hope, a lot of airtime?

32:39Jinesh Vohra:Yeah, I mean, it's a lot. And is it working? Do you see, does advertising work in that respect? Yeah, I mean, since... Did it work as well as this is money? Let's put it this way. Since I closed that last round, we've been growing 30 % month on month. So that's pretty strong. I'm pretty happy with that. So yeah, we've been growing pretty rapidly. Did you do any other trades for equities? So you did... Just the cash, which is obviously the two and a half million and then the TV media deal. Did you put a valuation on that? Yeah, there is a valuation, yeah, that we put. And then I'm actually going out to market now and doing another raise, yeah.

33:18Jinesh Vohra:So we've grown pretty substantially and we want to be more aggressive. There's 11 million homeowners in the UK that we can help and so we want to kind of help as many people as possible. So yeah, we're raising more capital. You have big ambitions for Sprive. so I understand that you went on Dragon's Den to raise some money I did you've just done this yes so what was that experience like it was it was interesting so I've I've watched Dragon's Den like since I was the age of 20 yeah it's like an institution like an institution so you've watched it but and and so to be on that show is it was very surreal I remember like watching the show and almost acting like you know as if I'm a dragon and being like that business is great or that business you know how's that ever going to work and and it it's it's a great show because i do think it encourages entrepreneurship i agree and and and so and so when i got the opportunity and i got an email in my inbox saying would you like to apply i was like okay yeah why not i i generally when i think of dragons then i think of actual products like things that you can actually like touch and feel and you know from memory i can't remember seeing many apps on on dragons then but i went through a process it was quite a rigorous process in terms of being selected in terms of being selected when you say quite rigorous as in as in like it was um it was things like sending a video interview like a video clip of yourself on camera um doing the pitch and then there was things like um interviews over video calls where they interview you um you know a few different times and then there's a whole like diligence process on your business because the The BBC are very careful about making sure everything that's said and everything you're saying is 100 % accurate.

35:07Jinesh Vohra:The last thing they want is to kind of mislead the public. Or the dragons. Or the dragons, yeah, because obviously that's very true because they want to make sure that what you're saying is completely factual because ultimately they are going to invest their own capital if they decide to do so. Yeah, the BBC is facilitating this process. They're like the investment banker in a sense. Yeah, effectively. Introducing you to possible investors. Yeah, and so obviously it was really nice to then get selected. And then they gave you very short notice, or at least for me, they gave me very short notice in terms of going, okay, here's the studio date.

35:39Jinesh Vohra:You need to do your pitch. So the date for the pitch was just suddenly next week or something? Exactly. So it's a very little time to prepare. And the actual pitch, you need to make sure you've memorized it. And because I'm in financial services, they were very like, they made sure that they made it clear that I had to say what I prepared. I couldn't go off piece. Terms and conditions apply. Yeah, because. Which I find myself saying on our ads quite a lot. Because they were. That was very rigorous. They were very rigorous in terms of, you know, they wanted to make sure everything that I said was completely, completely factual.

36:18So you managed to stick to the script.

36:19Jinesh Vohra:And so, yeah. So, yeah. If people watch it, I encourage it to be on the iPlayer. So, you know, it's the second episode in this year's season to have a look. I don't want to give too many spoilers away. Well, no, you won't be giving any away because it will have come out by the time. No, that's very true. People can hear this. But did it go well? Yeah. I won't ask for details, but were you happy? It went well. I was going to say, in terms of preparing for the pitch, I had my two young boys help me prepare. Because the way I kind of thought is that it's obviously a very stressful time. like you're in that you're in that you've got the cameras on you you've got the lights and so I kind of told them like while I'm doing the pitch jump on me like shout at me that scream right here um and I and they did that and they really enjoyed it but I made them part of that process but if you can pitch when you've got two young boys like pushing you and screaming in your ear then you can that's very good you can definitely do it under the so you knew I could deal with this yeah exactly like you wouldn't you wouldn't kind of get phased and and and be able to like deliver and that was like the key for me in terms of i was in the studio for seven hours so it was a really really long day i didn't realize you're only watching it you only see it in a small snippet but and then i was actually in the actual den part of the recording for about an hour and a half and it was like a real investment pitch they the dragons ask you a lot of questions and they're very they're very clued up they because i've raised investment i was very comfortable with the questions they asked but yeah it was very vigorous so i mean they're investing their own money so they invest their own money and also they do this and it's television so they will throw curveballs they will try to were there some surprises yeah did you get what was the toughest question so i mean it's it was a while back some um but there were questions that one thing i was that i had these red lines that i was trying not to talk about too much so as an example i what they asked me about my background i literally just wanted to say i work in financial services and i was trying to avoid the fact that i know that i work at goldman sachs as an example because why in the past i've had like i've done some press and you the comment section you know people were comparing me to like rishi sunak and you know um and so don't read the comment section unless it's about someone else yeah i know exactly yeah but um so so sometimes people can see that as a good thing because financial services and they probably want someone who you know who's had that background so that because they're obviously trusting trusting um you know survive with with their with their one of their the largest household commitments but it can also you know backfire so you didn't want that to come out yeah so did it come out so i mean i don't i I don't know.

39:04Jinesh Vohra:I haven't seen it yet.

39:07Jinesh Vohra:I see it at the same time. I see it at the same time. So you don't know what they've left in and taken out? I have no idea. That's interesting. So I'll see it when everyone else sees it. But you put seven hours of your time into what will be a few minutes of television. Yeah, exactly. 10, 15 minutes. I remember at the end of the process, I walked out and I was so drained. Mentally, I was so tired because it's very intense. Kind of emotional. Yeah, and they lock you in a little room. they don't really like get you to talk to you know any and you can't really bring anyone in is that called the green room yeah the green room exactly i don't know what they call that they're never green and they get you to put on makeup and things that you'd normally never do so exactly yeah so interesting experience for sure so you found it interesting is it something you'd recommend to other entrepreneurs i really enjoyed it i mean there was a couple that i did bump into in the green room for like literally 45 seconds and they were literally shaking they were so nervous there were a couple i don't know how they got on but but you know it the nerves can really build up i think if you're if you're not careful you can kind of get into your head but luckily i was able to stay calm and i really actually really enjoyed the experience it was nice yeah i i think it's quite important to try and enjoy things like that even if they're sort of new and familiar because i think the energy you're able to demonstrate comes over you know exactly i think I think hopefully that comes across on camera.

40:29But I came out of it really enjoying the experience.

40:32Jinesh Vohra:There's no regrets for sure. Oh, good luck with that. No, thank you. I'll be watching. Yeah, yeah, thank you. So you're really in sort of fast growth mode with your business. I mean, you're moving from startup to scale up, it seems. Is that a fair description? That's probably fair, yeah. And that brings challenges of its own, doesn't it? It does. So you have to hire more people. Yes. So where are you in that journey now? yeah what's on your mind janesh so after the last round we had the team but then we needed to look at the team and look at where the gaps were and how we could you know make take things to the next level and so we did hire we hired in all areas of the business um and i'm because of my days at goldman's i was very used to hiring um i started managing teams probably once about 24 i'm quite quite early in my, in my, in my career.

41:22Jinesh Vohra:And so I've always known the power of hiring good people, hiring good people. Obviously even my corporate career made me look good and make me be able to kind of outperform. And so that's, that's been super key. So what do you look for? You're looking for good people. Give me a bit more detail. Yeah. So I think, yeah, so I'm quite, I go off gut quite a bit, but we try to, yeah, gut feels quite important to me, but what I initially do is I'll have a process. So I'll interview them. And the first half an hour, I typically, obviously I see their CV. And in my mind, it depends on the role, but I have an idea of the caliber of kind of person that I'm looking for.

42:00Jinesh Vohra:So let me take an example, like marketing hire. So I wanted to hire someone to run marketing. And I wanted someone who had consumer, fintech, app experience. so what i did is i made a list of that in the last three to five years all the consumer apps in the uk in the personal finance space that essentially had done well and grown really really aggressively and then i wanted to find someone who had been through that growth period for at least you know and worked there for at least three years and so once you get that universe of like apps and then you get that kind of criteria you're really narrowing down the you are so you You were very precise about the backgrounds you were looking for.

42:39Jinesh Vohra:So in that example, I was very, very precise. And how did you find them from there, though? I used the recruiter in that example. And then I hired a product person as an example. So you used an agent? I used an agency, yeah. And then for a product hire that I did, I did both. So I did agency and I also did a LinkedIn job post. And on LinkedIn, it was crazy. The number of applications that I got was massively overwhelming. but there was only one person that actually sent me an individual message connected with me, sent me an individual message and then had like this. Only one person did that. Only one person did that.

43:21But this thing there, people, if you want to get a job, that's quite a good tip.

43:25Jinesh Vohra:So he did that, but he also had like media, like in the, is it medium where you have like loads and loads of like content about product. And so you could tell if someone was really passionate, he had amazing design portfolio, but also he was talking about you could just see realms and realms of content over the last like 15 years that he'd been putting out in the ether and so straight away i could see through his linkedin through through just the medium kind of i think it's called medium it's like a platform where you can like share your like your leadership and your thoughts and your work and and you could see he loved product and so then i was like okay i'll um i'll interview him and when i interviewed in my head I wanted to give him the job on the spot.

44:11Jinesh Vohra:But what we tend to do is also give people a task. And I try to make it awkward. So I like doing things that most people would not do. So it'd be like I'll give them like a little task to do. I might even tell them to do a second round interview and that task on a weekend. And so if they don't want the job that much, then they're not going to really be the person for me. And so I just try to see how they react. task i mean i've got the the apprentice in my mind yeah so for like product i'd essentially say go look at my app right and this is what we do and if the if the objective is to get more people to download the app and do their first shop as an example because when you download an app a lot of people browse but they don't actually start using the the product and what we found for the data is once you start it's something that you really incorporate as part of your life and then it becomes regular regular a regular habit but the the biggest challenge with anything like an app is how many apps do you download and they just sit dormant right you want people to like engage so i said this is what we currently have and look i designed the app me and my my partner and we're both from goldman's we're not product designers we've just been making things up as we go along and using kind of you know our common sense where possible what would you do right now some people what they'll say when you ask people is that they get very upset they're like you're basically asking me to do free work and they would just either refuse or they'll do something but it'd be very like high level and it's just there won't be a lot of effort put into it the people that really want the job will put a lot of effort and i and when i do the first run interview i spent half the interview convincing them why this is this getting accepting a job at spry is going to change their life um and so i do a lot of that and then the second half is where i i really start to interview them and so if that if that if that doesn't convince them to then put some real thought and hours into into into the project and and then present then you just know that they're not going to have the energy that's very interesting i mean because it's an interesting mindset issue oh you're just trying to get me to do some work for free versus what if i put a lot of effort into this i'll get the job and i'll have made a good start yeah i've already made some progress yeah yeah which is another way of looking at exactly and then the final thing that i always do um i then get the team to make sure culturally is a good fit because so the team are part of the team yeah because for me it's very important that um people get on and that there's this um like i've been i've been in an environment like you know like a corporate environment like goldman's where there's all sorts of people but when you're small you want a really nice environment because if one or two people don't get on it can become really toxic and so for me just people that are easy to work with that was kind of very important so i wanted to make sure all the entire team had this kind of warm fuzzy feeling about new individuals kind of joining and that they they felt like they could work with them that was super important to me as well i'm imagining listening to you though jinesh that your business model is doesn't require you to have a huge team yes we have 16 16 and in a way you know as you grow the company the upside of this potentially is that you know the income could outpace the costs yeah substantially in the future already we're like cash flow like in november we were like cash flow positive um so we're trying to really create a sustainable business there are a lot of fintech apps out there that spend a lot of money um and i've seen it time and time again with founders who get a lot of like venture venture money and they balloon their teams to like 100 headcount when they're making like one or two million pounds in revenue and it just doesn't make any kind of business sense and they're almost trying to grow into um into into that headcount i don't feel that's the right way to do business so we do things quite differently and then you've got ai and um the power of ai is just incredible and so um i'm just amazed around just what it can do and so you're embracing and so we're really embracing that too yeah so looking forwards i mean you talked about legacy yeah how would you like the sort of next chapter to sort of evolve for you and your business what's your sort of you know if you're visualizing the future for Sprive and yourself.

48:24Jinesh Vohra:Yeah. What would you like that to look like? So I like to be the go-to out for homeowners. I think if you take a step back and you think about a homeowner, there's three core parts of their life. There's obviously their debt, their mortgage in particular. There's their spending. So their everyday shopping, which we play a big part. And then there's the saving. And again, we can help people save. And we want to create like saving parts that earn interest. And maybe the interest can help you overpay your mortgage. And so I feel like if we can tackle those core three parts of someone's life, then that just gives us a lot of opportunity to do good for that individual and help them essentially become kind of debt-free faster and get some of that life back.

49:02Jinesh Vohra:And so that's kind of really important. I kind of ask some of our customers, like, what would you do if you're mortgage-free? And you can literally see their eyes light up. I'd quit my job. I'd go part-time or I'd spend more time with family or go traveling. And so we want to help more and more people. there's 11 million homeowners in the uk so we're about 100 000 customers active so a long way to go in terms of in terms of helping more people and then in terms of beyond that people have student loans credit cards you know the student loan thing is a big issue big issue yeah so in my head like we you know with that's something that i'm kind of keen to like help people on globally there's a billion people with some form of household debt so there's just a lot of people that we can help so So I think the sky's the limit is the way I see it.

49:48Jinesh Vohra:And I'm very driven. I feel very energized. I don't feel like what I'm doing now is work. I get to do fun things like this. And, you know, it's nice. It's good. Well, I can feel your enthusiasm for what you do. And that's infectious. So, yeah, well, I wish you every success with that. I suppose that I'm thinking that the team you put around you is going to be critical to your future success. um how what sort of skills are you looking to complement your own yeah and it's a good question so i think it's um i'm a big fan of like fan of delegating and trying to make sure you've got clarity of thought i think if you if you get drowned in the in the detail it's really difficult to kind of steer the ship and so i'm and now i learned that through my corporate days and so So delegating is very, very key.

50:38Jinesh Vohra:I think at the moment, my team is very, very strong. I think as we add like more things in the app, that's when I think we'll probably start to look at like hiring new heads. But I'll be very thoughtful about it. So my head, for example, we help people refinance. And at the moment, we do that with a partner. But over time, I like to have my own kind of mortgage experts in-house. And so I can see us kind of really building out that. that part of the organisation and kind of be a good business line. Maybe we'll get into like insurance. And again, I don't know much about insurance. And so it might make sense to have someone who's got a lot of experience within the insurance space.

51:19Jinesh Vohra:Who knows, we might help in people's pensions. So I think it all depends on how we take the business forward and then where my skill gap is. And then we'll look for the best people in that space. and I'm pretty persuasive or convince them to... Someone said to me, you know, find good people and let them get on with it. Exactly. I mean, once you've set the direction in terms of your delegation. Yeah, exactly. But I think it's very, being very thoughtful. I think there's two ways you can hire. You can either hope and just do like, and let them come to you or you can go and approach the people that you want.

51:57Jinesh Vohra:And I always feel like if you're more, if you have more intent in your hiring, the outcome is like is likely going to be um better i also use my network so if i do hire someone i'll ask people like who do you know in this space that you think would be good um and i try to try to de-risk it as much as possible the other thing i i tend to and i haven't had to do this but i have done it in my corporate career is if you know someone very quickly when you hire them if you've done a bad hire just try to address the situation pretty quickly because um i wish you mean exit them yeah um because otherwise um it just it just if you if you if you if you got it wrong then do something about it quickly it's better for both parties is what i would say but we've we've been very lucky we've not had to do that um since i started survive hope is not a strategy i like to say yes exactly you have to you have to have intent you gotta have intent yeah yeah

52:57well I wish you every success with your business which it sounds to me could go in any number of exciting directions and I'll watch it with great interest in the future hopefully maybe one day get you back in the studio Janesh so you can tell us about your journey through the next chapter which I'm sure will be very interesting I always ask two questions at the end sure of my podcast and they're always the same the the first one and because at reed we love mondays is what gets you

53:27Jinesh Vohra:up on a monday morning so the fact the first thing if i'm honest is doing the school run so uh so that that has to has to be done and then i actually do um like a pt training session so um i when i was um building the business i didn't really look after myself and i was eating badly putting on way and it got to a stage where I just sent 40 and you know I started to kind of see signals that if I don't look after myself that could that could not be good for me so I do that and that's a really nice way to kind of get my head in the in the in the right frame and then after that I meet the team and we set the agenda for the for the for the week so that all my whole leadership team know exactly what I'm expecting and that allows me to then kind of focus on what I need to do and i'm kind of comfortable that you know the leaders in my organization uh i clearly like clear direction clear accountability and then obviously i can touch in different points throughout the week but it just really allows me to to kind of hit the week with the with the with the with the bang i also have this like um this this routine of like creating a to-do list um that for the for the week and what's urgent and what's important and i'm a big fan of just crossing things off um and so monday is all about getting getting myself mentally in the right place um and getting organized and um and then yeah making each day count yeah well i think that's important monday is very important day of the week but i'm reflecting what you just said i remember when i had turned 40 i had a bit of an epiphany i remember thinking it's either fit or fat at this point i wanted to make sure it was the former not the latter something about that age yeah um and i I think energy is so important in business and keeping fit is actually necessary if you're going to have good energy in the workplace.

55:15Jinesh Vohra:It makes a huge difference. It does. And then my last question, and it's in my interview book, Why You 101 Questions You'll Never Fear Again, is where do you see yourself in five years time? Yeah, sure. So obviously we talked about where I kind of want to build Sprive. And I think, like you said, the opportunity is endless. and so for that you know hopefully we can make sprive and really help you know a lot of people because i feel like if you think about fintech and financial services i think the whole the whole kind of industry is trying to get people into debt they make money you know a lot of them make money from um making that happen and i think there needs to be someone that's trying to get people out of debt and you know we're doing that and so that's something that obviously i want to kind of continue to build out um beyond that it's interesting i've always wanted to do more charity work um i feel like again i want to kind of take a step back and make a difference and i feel like through charity but real charity not just donations but actually if i can change someone's life just even if it's one person's life for the better and look i haven't adopted but like you know something really like meaningful where a little bit like my um like my grandfather where he made a decision his whole life was like transformed if i could do that for someone at least one person i think that would be absolutely incredible and so i'd love to do stuff like that um for sure and then um and then yeah who knows but uh but yeah i want to be able to like make an impact i i love what you just said about getting people out of debt yeah i think that's a brilliant and inspiring objective and if you do that for lots of people believe me you'll be helping a lot of people yeah through your business no no from through the business and then through your other activities I'm through it.

56:56Jinesh Vohra:But that's what I want to look back. Hopefully, you know, I have a good long life. And I look back and be like, you know, me being born on this planet means that, you know, people were better off. And that, to me, is more important than actual money and wealth. Well, hear to that. Thanks so much for coming in to talk to me, Dinesh. I so enjoyed our conversation and feel thoroughly inspired. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, James. It's a real pleasure. thank you janesh for joining me on all about business i'm your host james reed chairman and ceo of reed a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company if you'd like to learn more about reed janesh vora or sprive you'll find all the links in the show notes thanks for listening and see you next time

57:55Thank you.