290. Meet the Cofounder of Bae HQ w/ Amardeep Parmar

17:22Amardeep Parmar:How could you? And my parents were like, yeah, go and do this. Fine. And it was just, why am I stressing out? You guys, like, you should be telling me off, right? And that, I always think about it. If they didn't do that, I'd have had to quit my job. yeah if my dad was like don't be an idiot i'll be okay cool but they validated your belief in yourself basically yeah but even once i put my job behind my notice those i free my notice period which is hell yeah but so many times am i just an idiot am i just overthinking getting overconfident am i like who am i to become a writer who am i to do this stuff and it was a wake up in the middle of the night it was really like heavily anxiety but i even admit this now i had like several hundred thousand in my bank because my consulting career because my investing so when people talk about quitting their job and just go and do it is that it's not that easy because i was in a position of relative privilege i was already out earning my day job and still i was terrified yeah so i think it's really unfair when people just go quit your job when you don't know other people's situations but yeah it was i look back on it and i the funny thing is i can't really remember having a job.

18:31Shreeya Thakkar:Yeah.

18:32Amardeep Parmar:But it was seven years of my life, and I quit my job in June 2021. June 2021 was my last day, so it's been nearly five years. Did you enjoy your job? I really enjoyed having a team about me.

18:45Shreeya Thakkar:Yeah.

18:45Amardeep Parmar:And it's one of the things I miss now. Okay, it's great that I can make decisions all the time.

18:48Shreeya Thakkar:Yeah.

18:49Amardeep Parmar:But you know I didn't have, I wasn't an ultimate decision maker. If I messed up, there was somebody else above me, and that team environment was really good because it was different now. even me and Gave were co-founders but at the same time they have so much responsibility on us whereas when I had a job if I want to go away on holiday I'm not going to stress out I just go on holiday and the company covers it right where it's different now so I really enjoyed that element the people I worked here was the main reason I stayed there for so long and even my bosses when I quit my job they said to me we could offer you more and he's trying to keep you here but we actually think that you just resent us and they said like we believe in you you should go and do it and to make it easier for you, if in a year's time, within the next year, you want to come back, come back, no questions asked, but we want you to at least try it and we'll be cheering you on.

19:37Amardeep Parmar:But to have that bit of confidence from them, because they could have been like, well, it's obviously, they're going to lose money because I'm not there and I was obviously revenue generating. But for them to say, actually, we think you're going to be happier doing this, go and do it. If it doesn't work out for whatever reason, just know you've got a safety net with us. and I look back at that as such a big moment too because they could have made that really hard for me to leave. If they offered me 20 % extra,

20:05Shreeya Thakkar:I might have been like, oh, I actually know, should I quit my job, should I not quit my job?

20:09Amardeep Parmar:And it's a weird one because some people might think, oh, they didn't try to keep you, but it's because they knew me well enough.

20:15Shreeya Thakkar:It's not that they gave value. Yeah.

20:17Amardeep Parmar:And again, I think I was so mature of them and so I really admire them for doing that. Hello, hello. I hope you're enjoying the show so far. I'm Amarit Prama, co-founder of BayHQ and the host of this show. For those of you who don't know, BayHQ is the community for high growth Asian heritage founders and investors in the UK. Over 7 ,500 people have attended our events. 200 people have been for our impact programs. And obviously, there's been over 250 episodes of this podcast. If you want to join us and take part in the program when it comes to the event, go to bayhq.com forward slash join. We also just released our first ever book called Startups for Outsiders, which you can get on Amazon now.

21:02Amardeep Parmar:And the link is in the bio. Hope to see you soon at our event. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode.

21:08Shreeya Thakkar:And so you mentioned Gervis and now we're going to transition to BayHQ. And so you've been writing and at what point do you guys go, right, we've got this idea, this is what we want to build. Like when was that like moment?

21:23Amardeep Parmar:The story is so random and this is why I love telling it because people think everything is so well planned out. So Gurvir's wife, shout out to Runvir, me and her were in the same Bhangra team in the mid 2010s and she went to the same school as my sister. So she was at my older sister's wedding because of family connections and this person's cousins or whatever, right? So I knew his wife quite well. And she was the chair of the EYC Sock. And then I was like, oh, come and give a talk. So I gave a talk there. And my basic problem at times, I'd been out, I'd been out of a job. So I was finally employed or working for myself for about eight months then.

22:03Amardeep Parmar:And my problem was that all my friends have got day jobs and everybody had work with us in the US. But I didn't want to leave the UK because my friends are here, my family is here. But it just became really annoying because I don't have any... One of the things I really love my job is that connection I had to people day to day. So as you know, I come to office every day because I like being around people. And so I gave the talk and then she was like, oh, you should talk to my fiance. And yeah, yeah, cool, right? So we ended up meeting and went to like such, so just around the corner, so shout out to the Malaysian restaurant there.

22:35Amardeep Parmar:and we basically just like bitched about how like Asians don't help each other and how other groups of people are supporting each other and Asians pull each other down and the experiences we've had where people who we thought would try to help us just rubbed us like just brushed us off and didn't want to help and then it was like how do we change that at the time he was at kindred capital and I had all the American stuff going on so I was doing well he was doing well so it was like oh We're just a side project. And then we met again and we kind of rented again. And then eventually, let's just start into what happens.

23:10Amardeep Parmar:And the hard thing to think about a name is all strength. It's like, how wide do we go? So I was at a conference and I was really bored. And then I was thinking about different names. Okay, who are we going to target? British Asian entrepreneurs. That's a really long name. That doesn't make sense. Oh, it's the initials. Oh, Bay. Oh, that's quite cool. And then there's even the text me and him still have it of when I sent him the name and then, his reaction to it. And then even at that point, it was meant to launch August 2022. But it was just meant to be, we'll do a podcast and we'll do an event every now and again.

23:41Amardeep Parmar:There's never the ambition or the idea for it to become much bigger than that. And then the turning point came with like my dad and when he passed away. Because then I needed something to obsess over, to take myself away from grief and try to channel it towards something positive. And for that first year of BHQ, Gervis was his day job. But then as it got bigger and bigger, it made sense for him to come full-time as well. and that sort of thing really started to take off.

24:03Shreeya Thakkar:And what was the scariest part of deciding that you were going to switch into this, I guess, founder, community builder role? Was it the financial side of it? Was it you didn't know what the long-term plan was going to be? What, I guess, kept you up at night when you think about BayHQ?

24:20Amardeep Parmar:BayHQ has been a massive pain throughout, right? There's always so many crises. There's always so many things going wrong. And that first year, so part of Challenge Me is all wrapped up in grief at the same time. So that first year, so we actually launched in August 2022. But I say 2023 is just a hellish year for me. So I've written off, I've just blacked out so much in my memory. So people ask me individual things, I can make it out. I never, I don't like to go back to 2023 because it was just constant anxiety, constant pressure I was putting myself. It seemed to me I put a lot of pressure on myself.

24:55Amardeep Parmar:So that year I would be barely sleeping. I'd have constant, like, my face would be hurt, my arms would be tingling. It was that level of anxiety all the time. And the early days at BayHQ, yeah, I don't even know how it made any sense because I look back at how we did it. And at the time as well, it was never meant to be the moneymaker because I was making money from writing, I was doing other things. And where it started to shift, we had the... And the other thing too, which is bad, but the reality is because of the grief, I just dropped the ball on a lot of financial stuff. where I just wasn't really paying attention.

25:30Amardeep Parmar:I would just keep myself busy. That's all I was trying to do, keep myself busy, keep myself distracted, and it hits you hard later on. But at that time, I wasn't thinking properly from a business perspective. And even as we were looking at BHQ, how do we fund it? We didn't properly map out. We didn't really understand it. The way we thought about it at the beginning is totally different to what it is now. And yeah, it was, what kept me up is just the idea, because I wrapped up my dad's legacy in BHQ. If BHQ failed, it meant that I failed my dad. And that was the very top... It's weird because it wouldn't have gone as far as it did if I didn't think like that.

26:07Amardeep Parmar:But also that's a very stupid thing to do and a very toxic way to think because then that's why it was constantly just... Every time something went wrong, it was so much deeper than that, which is just really difficult to be in. Whereas now I have a little bit of detachment where if something goes wrong with BHQ, it's like, okay, cool, we'll figure it out and work it out. It is in the catastrophe.

26:26Shreeya Thakkar:Yeah.

26:28Amardeep Parmar:And the craziest thing about that first year too is actually that even now, to a lesser extent, the good moments will hit me the worst. Because when we do stuff that people are like, oh, your dad would be so proud of you. And that hits me really badly. Not as much anymore. That first year, it's just every time someone would say that, I would then be bed bound for a couple of days because it would make me think about, oh, okay, but he's not here. and then the spiraling and it's that sub mania which I think I don't think people have an idea that I was like that yeah but I don't think people quite know the extent of how much I couldn't be in my head own head I had to be out because if I sat alone in my own thoughts that was a dangerous place

27:08Shreeya Thakkar:yeah and I think it's I mean really brave that you're opening up and speaking about it because I think that when people meet you obviously you're extremely extroverted and you're very bubbly and I think people often forget and I we've had this conversation about founders is that there's so much more to that personality than what you're seeing online or what you're seeing at events like that person is a son they're a parent they're a husband they're a wife they're also just trying to figure themselves out and I think founders and community builders has been really glamorized because it comes across as being quite fun because but they're the moments you're showing and they're the moments you're portraying and so I think conversations like this are super important to show that there was a reason you were meant to do this and whether or not it was a positive or a negative it's allowed you to create this amazing community of people who genuinely need you know what you guys are building so I think it's really great that you can channel that into something that's positive for a community of people that you know I do think your dad would have been extremely proud of so you know kudos to you um but another thing I want to talk to you about is this whole kind of founder world right i think and again i just touched on it it's very glamorized it's very romanticized um you interview tons of them on a daily basis and you've met some of the probably the biggest kind of asian founders what do you think is the most romanticized part about it and what do you think is the biggest misconception about founders and the founder

28:35Amardeep Parmar:journey one of the biggest challenges is that founders what they say on a podcast that's what what they tell me before and after is very different. And that's what people sometimes realize is that as a founder in the public spot, I can say what I want because I've reached a certain level. And just because the reason why I'm doing this, it gives me a different path. But if you're from like raising investment soon, you don't want to potentially seem weak. You don't want to potentially seem these things. And I've gone for like a very extreme emotional intelligence journey, which means I'm able to buy some things other people can't.

29:10Amardeep Parmar:But there's so many founders who've been on the podcast who maybe started out of belief as well, but they won't talk about it publicly because they're worried that we judged. And one thing I think people don't realize enough is that what you see is not the reality as you said. And a big bit that people don't realize too is that the relationships is so important, is that you can be making all the money in the world. if you hate your co-founder, if your investors treat you like you're nothing, that can have such an effect on people's mental health. And even beyond that too, to the family side, is that you can think somebody's doing so well, you don't know that their husband's got cancer.

29:49Amardeep Parmar:You don't know that their children are sick. And it's really hard because we create these images of people based on a very small amount of data. But you don't realize when you zoom out further, actually they've had some really tough moments. and you might have 100 million in revenue but if you've just lost both your parents the last year how do you think they feel? But they don't feel comfortable saying that public whoever it is and I think that's one thing I say to anybody who's listening to any of this stuff is you've got to remember there's so much more to that person than what you see so try not to be too judgmental too because I know I've done it in the past and I look back and I was like I'm such an idiot because I see it so annoyed at people maybe said no they were rude or whatever like that and then I look at it and my perspective if I'm under a lot of pressure.

30:35Amardeep Parmar:So when I'm saying no to people, it's not because I don't like them or because I'm trying to be rude. It's just I'm trying to figure out my own self and how do I manage this pressure? And I think a lot of people glamorize too, the brand and go and create a personal brand. It's like, yeah, but then you have to deal with all of the stuff that comes with that. And one of my mental models that I use is that when I'm with people in person, I'm friendly, I be present, I give them the attention, but I try not to do is promise future time. because I don't know where I'm going to be in the future. And if I say to you, oh, anything I can do to help, let me know.

31:09Amardeep Parmar:But then I'm busy in the future. I have now made a promise to you that I can't keep. And that's one of the things I'm trying really hard to do now, because I know I did at the beginning of AHQ. I was so eager to please, and partly because of, if I'm a good person, that means I've done my dad proud, all these things. But at the end of the day, if I'm burning out, I'm useless. And that's why I always think foundations need to think about, is like okay don't over promise because you might have the right intentions but if you can't deliver that's way worse then you're just saying okay look I've got a lot going on at the moment if I can help I will but I don't want to set expectations high but that doesn't actually make you popular at parties but it's way better to say that up front than to let somebody down after saying oh yeah I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do that I'm gonna connect to that person that person and then you don't do any of it and I've done it in the past and I realized I've just got to be really careful about what I say I'm going to do.

31:59Shreeya Thakkar:And it's almost like quality interactions over the quantity of interactions. As you said, just people pleasing. So again, if we go back to the podcast, because I say, I think that's probably one of the things you're most anonymous to. What was the most inspirational story that you've had?

32:16Amardeep Parmar:So the one I'm going to use as an example, because I bumped into it earlier, Dan Levin Lane Market, Rado R.S. So she met her co-founder. They went on a first date and they're both willing to travel. So they bonded over that. She had an idea for a startup that she hadn't started yet. He really liked the idea too. So they got into it together from the first day. They also founded the business pretty much straight away. And then now, well, they got to 20 million in revenue just before the pandemic. But then the pandemic hit and everything went down, right? They went into administration, they lost everything.

32:51Amardeep Parmar:And they just had their first child at the same time.

32:53Shreeya Thakkar:So they still together?

32:55Amardeep Parmar:Yep, so he was there as well. So that lockdown, just had your first baby. You've just lost your entire business. And she was honest about it. She said, I really struggled. And I did things I shouldn't like. I was drinking to try and recover. I was trying to numb myself. Then I managed to buy it out of administration. And today is bigger than it was before the pandemic. They've got investment and so on. But it's that bit about overcoming that hardship that I find really inspiring. And then there's somebody like Nav Sorley, right? So love Nav. His company's called, Serada's company's called Flashpack.

33:30Amardeep Parmar:Navsorni's company is called The Washing Machine Project. So we relate to each other because he lost his dad when he was quite young as well. And he quit his job at Dyson, went to Engineers Without Borders, which I honestly didn't realize was a thing until him. I knew there's a job that's about borders, but shout out to Engineers Without Borders too. But he then went to this rural village. He realized his neighbor or people in the village were spending so much time washing clothes. because they didn't have washing machines, they didn't have running water, electricity. And it's now built a manual washing machine.

34:02Amardeep Parmar:And I don't know the latest numbers, but over 30 ,000 have been used. They've been using Gaza, Ukraine, the Congo, war zones across the world, refugee camps. So he's gone and used those skills and is making a difference in so many of his lives. And his kind of tagline is that he's giving people the dignity of clean clothes. And I think so many of us take for granted just having clean clothes. And for many refugees, they had homes beforehand. It's not that they chose to live like that. They've been forced into that because the situation is beyond their control. They don't deserve to live like that.

34:37Amardeep Parmar:So if they can just have this simple thing about being able to put on fresh clothes and feel like they feel clean, feel fresh, that can make a little bit of difference to their lives and just have that effect on their morale.

34:50Shreeya Thakkar:I've seen that story and I think it's really inspirational. And again, I think it's bringing your culture and your upbringing into a business that's not only scalable, but again, like helping society and actually like adding value. And so, again, this idea of you being able to meet these incredible people. What do you think is the long term plan for BHQ or like where do you see this community in five years?

35:15Amardeep Parmar:It's funny because I think if you ask me that every month for the last three years since it's been a lie, I'd have said something different. so now where we are so we've got the programs it's a big focus we've got the accelerator we've got the incubator we've got the youth startups program the youth startups program is one that i particularly have a thing about because it kind of comes back to my own upbringing getting opportunities with people like me when i was growing up so if that one is going to be 120 kids this year if it can be 10 000 100 000 kids in the future that would be amazing the accelerator if we get all of them funded and like push them forward that'd be great we've got the events then you have the book you have the podcast and so on and it's changing the model right so how i look at it now is there's going to be bhq ventures coming soon so we're not allowed to wet too much just yet fta regulations and stuff but with that if we get a fund going where we can then use that fund and the profits from that fund to then come back into the bhq yeah and then create that virtual circle if we invest and the very best Asian founders, then of that carrier we get, we then use some of that to fund the school's programs.

36:22Amardeep Parmar:We're then directly keeping that loop going. And I think in the longer term, so I always had this idea of five years in, then I disappear because the organization should be strong enough without me. That was such a stupid thing to say because it takes time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And where are we now? We're three and a half years in. I think it's very unlikely actually to break it.

36:43Shreeya Thakkar:You're not sitting on a beach, rich by it just yet.

36:46Amardeep Parmar:So yeah, far off that. But the idea is to create more leaders within the company. And as we get bigger, and this is where the financial side comes in, because there's a naivety at the beginning of just, we need to do everything for free, we need to do everything for the community. But then we can't grow a team if we don't have money. We can't get, and if we want to make more impact, we need a bigger team. And it's a lot of it too, because you say, oh, you use AI. But it's not the same, because when you've got people there, so much of what we do is community, is people at the end of the day. If you feel like you belong, you see leaders within the company that you can relate to, it's going to make a difference.

37:19Amardeep Parmar:So say in 20, 30 years, my goal is still, I don't want people to even remember that I started this. But BayHQ is just an institution. If you're like an Asian founder or somebody from an Amadeep's background, you want to start a company, you're going with BayHQ's resources, you can use them, you can go to apply to their programs. And people just know that where it doesn't have to be, oh, that's Amadeep's thing. and the example I use is a cancer research who found a cancer research exactly so if that's why I want BHQ to be someday but to get there it needs personal brand it needs these different elements so sometimes it's what gets us here won't get us there but we're learning and the more we do the better it becomes and it's just about getting the leaders underneath us to eventually be the leaders at the top and then I'm just the floating chairman who just does the fun stuff yeah and I just want to do the talks and do that stuff like chat to people yeah but it's not there yet not there yet

38:15Shreeya Thakkar:but you will be and so to end i actually wanted to do some rapid fire round questions um you don't know any of them yet so i hope i've already okay coffee or tea well chai coffee or chai okay chai chai what's your favorite book right now or what book are you reading

38:32Amardeep Parmar:the last book i read was dune okay i would say the funny dune with a d i don't know why i say j

38:38Shreeya Thakkar:I was in like the movie Dune.

38:40Amardeep Parmar:Yeah. Oh yeah. Dune. For somebody who speaks for a living, I say some words weird.

38:45Shreeya Thakkar:I was like, I don't know what Dune is, not the one.

38:47Amardeep Parmar:Dune. Yeah. And it was actually really good because I think when I watched the films, there were so many bits I didn't really understand.

38:54Shreeya Thakkar:Yeah. When I read the book, I was like, oh, that's what I'm... Yeah.

38:57Amardeep Parmar:So it was actually really good. I really liked that. And I like to read fiction when I can too, just to escape to a different world. Yeah.

39:03Shreeya Thakkar:And what's your go-to lunch spot?

39:06Amardeep Parmar:So we've got Levolane Market around the corner. So I mix it up. So I think what's the one that I have the most at the moment is probably the Kung Pao chicken there.

39:13Shreeya Thakkar:Okay. And your favourite inspirational quote. And it can't be something you've said.

39:20Amardeep Parmar:I want to quote myself.

39:21Shreeya Thakkar:Or it can't be from your book.

39:23Amardeep Parmar:Okay. Favourite inspirational quote. But one classic one is, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

39:31Shreeya Thakkar:I like that. And I think that is a great one to wrap up the podcast. So thank you so much for sharing your story and allowing me to also interview you. It's been great.

39:41Amardeep Parmar:Thank you so much.