300. Startups Inside Out 300th Episode Update w/ Amardeep Parmar | Bae HQ

0:00Welcome to episode 300 of Startups Inside Out by BayHQ. Thank you for being part of this journey. And honestly, it's mad that we even got here, right? And this all started way back in October 2022. And at that time, I don't think many people thought we'd get as far as we have. So thank you to you. Thank you to the community. Thank you to everybody who supported us. And this episode is going to be part celebration, but also filling you in, right? What is the point of this? What do we actually do? How can you get involved? and how together do we make a difference? So what is Bay HQ? Bay HQ originally standed for British Asian Entrepreneurs HQ.

0:40What we realised by accident is that some people who are Asian heritage in the UK might not consider themselves British. So you'll notice now as we talk about ourselves, we tend to say Asian heritage, and at the same time, if you're not Asian and you're listening to this, doesn't mean we can't help you and doesn't mean you can't get involved. So today, BayHQ is the ecosystem for Asian heritage founders and investors in the UK. And there's been a few different things, right? So obviously we started out with the resource side. So that's this podcast. This podcast, first episode came out October 16th, 2022.

1:19And we had three episodes coming out. So it was one solo episode. It was actually an episode of me and Gurvis, my co-founder and the CEO of BayHQ now. We had Jasper Ikor and we had Hassan Kuba. And along that journey, we've had so many people come on this, right? So I think we've had well over 100 women come on. And I think it's 47 % female guests, right? And the criteria for the podcast has changed over time. But now you have to have at least 5 million revenue or 5 million funding, or you're a venture capital, partner or principal, or you're a super angel. So we're getting on the cream of the crop from the community to give their advice to you.

1:55and the podcast honestly it's not about marketing the guests at all it's about them giving their insights and their learnings to you so you can do better and also just presenting this pantheon of role models for you of all these people who look like you who maybe have the same background as you do and they're doing incredible things because we want you to not put any limits on yourself we don't need to put a ceiling like oh no people like me don't do this people like you do do this and we've proven it over and over. Now we do more and more interviews with investors as well because we've realized that that's really a gap in many founders' knowledge bases where they don't really know how investors think.

2:33So by seeing them, sitting opposite me and chatting about things in a normal way, you get the insight which can hopefully help you on that journey. And we've had many standout guests, right? Like I'm not going to try to pick out too many, but on one side you've got, say, Amar Shah who co-founded Wave. Wave has raised billions now. They're an autonomous vehicle company. They're just changing the world. And they're on that vanguard of like everything that's incredible in this world in terms of technology. You've got someone like Saranga Chandratalake, who's a general partner of Borders & Capital, one of the biggest VC funds in Europe, if not the biggest, who invested in some incredible startups.

3:12People like Hussein Kanji, Rish Chowdhury. Then there's people like Rupa Popat. all of these people of Asian heritage who built their own funds, who managed large amounts of capital, and are directing that into some of the most innovative companies in the world. You might also notice this too. There's my book behind me, very conveniently placed. So we also have a book, Startups for Outsiders. And this is because I've listened to so many podcasts. I've done so many podcasts. We've done so many events. We want something easy that if you want to pick up and learn, you feel like an outsider for whatever reason, this is your guide about how to go about it, what do you need to know, what are the fundamentals, so that when you're into the rooms which we want to get you into, you don't feel like you're behind, right?

3:55You feel like you belong in those rooms. So check that out and if you do check it out, give it a five-star review on Amazon. Thanks, thanks. And also on the resources side too, we have the State of Asian Funding UK Report. So we launched this last year in Parliament at the House of Lords and honestly it's incredible because that data really gives us the backing for the work we're doing and also the spot where the gaps are. So one of the shocking stats, for example, was only 0.2 % of funding in the UK goes to all Asian female-founded teams. And part of what we want to do for the work we're doing now is to change that.

4:28Then we also have our events. So now by the time this comes out, about 12 ,000

4:33Amardeep Parmar:people have been to our events, which is mad, right? When we started this out, like who would have thought we'd get that big? Who would have thought so many people would be packing our rooms over and over again. We've done it with the likes of HBC, Innovation Banking, NatWest, Google, AWS, so many other big names. And we're just like, I'm just some little random kid from Ilford, right? My co-founder's from Southall. We've been able to put this together and work with some of the biggest brands in the world, including Dell, Morgan Stanley, and so many others. And that's testament to the need of this community, right?

5:06And there's events of bringing people together, it's educating people. We've got panels, workshops, fireside chats and so much more. One of the things we're super proud of this year too is also expanding into the regions. So we're now doing work with, I think it's Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, Birmingham, and it's going to be more and more added to that calendar. So if you're not from London and you're like, when did BHK come to us? We're coming, we're coming. And let us know, right? If you want us to come to your town, your city, tell us. If you keep telling us, we're going to have to pay attention to that.

5:39And that event comes under this community part, right? In the community side, we have a community feature called Baywatch. Get it? That's one of my favorite puns of what we do. So Baywatch is featuring these up and coming startups who are too early for the podcast, but through our network, through our reach, through what we do, we can put a spotlight on them and just give them the exposure, give them the chance. So if you're somebody at the early stage of building a startup and you're only featured in it as well, reach out, I'll send you the link, we'll get you in the office. you're recording the same same singing right now the same seats that all the podcast guests sit in actually that's kind of crazy to think about right these seats like billions of found billions of pounds have been raised by people who've sat in this seat which is nuts right and for you who at

6:26Amardeep Parmar:the beginning of stages maybe you're one of those people too and what i'd love to see some of these people who've been on baywatch to come back on down the line come as the podcast fully for like yeah, this size scale is like 100 million. And that's why I want to see it, right? But then we also have the WhatsApp group. So if you're not part of that WhatsApp group, make sure you join the community. You get the link to join the WhatsApp group. And that's where you can chat to each other, ask each other for help. And that's how you really interact, right? Because the resources side is me to you pretty much, right?

6:57You get to read my book. You get to hear me talk. The community and the events and the WhatsApp group is you talking to each other. And that's where the real difference is going to be made. And one of the things I can tell you I'm working in the background is I'm clawed-pilled now, so I'm working heavily with clawed-code. And my background before all of this was as a coder and as a developer. So I'm building a new community platform, which is going to make it easier and easier for you all to connect to each other and help each other out. Because that's the point of community. The point of community isn't chatting to me, isn't listening to me, Babylon.

7:27It's about you guys helping each other out and raising up that new generation and a bunch of people coming through, no matter how old they are. And then the Vanguard, right? The most important part of what we do and I think we're making the biggest difference is in the programs. So we've got three different programs. The Bay Accelerator, which starts next week. So this comes out on Friday, the something of April. And the Accelerator is going to start straight after these holidays. And we picked 12 incredible companies, which I can't name just yet, I don't think. But if you haven't followed us yet, make sure you follow us.

8:03Make sure we see if they are. there was 10 people applying for every space we gave. And for those companies in the Bay Accelerator, it's all about how can we get them venture capital to get them the backing that they need to scale. And how it's going to work is we took loads of feedback from loads of different founders about what do they enjoy about different accelerator programs. And what we found is nobody really wants workshops at that stage. So what we're doing, we're doing 22 sessions, 11 with VC partners and principals, 11 with scaled founders, you've got 50 million revenue or 50 million in funding.

8:37And it's all off the chat, off the chat, off the record, Chatham House Rules. And it's about them being able to ask the questions they need to ask, being able to get that really blunt feedback with nobody worrying about getting their feelings hurt or nobody worried about other people hearing about it. And that is the feedback that you need to succeed. So what we're doing is splitting up the cohort, 12 companies, six with me, Siksou with Kavir, and with me dedicated for 12 weeks about getting them to the moon. And the final demo day at the end is at Google Cloud. A massive shout out to Jolson, our legal partner too, on that, who are backing this project and making it happen.

9:15And the others as well who are involved. So we've got so many partners and so many people who support us on this journey. I'm going to forget people, but do know you are appreciated. Maybe you're early in the journey, right? Maybe you've got a startup idea, you've got a dream, you listen to the podcast, you hear about all these stories, but you don't know to get started. That's the incubator. The incubator, and you like the pun there, incubator, with the incubator, it's six different sessions. And right now it's free to do online. You can just watch YouTube videos and you go through it. And what we'll do at different points in the year is cohorts where you can do it as a cohort together, you're all in the same stage, you can give each other peer feedback, you get feedback from me or you get feedback from the team about your idea and whether or not you're iterating correctly.

10:01And the point of that is to give you the confidence to know is this the right path for you or not. And Incubator, we've had two cohorts so far. I think the average rating is 9.1 and 9.6 gave us less marks there. 9.6 out of 10. So that program is working and we look forward to do more and more of that in the future. And to mention too, all of our programs are completely free and we use corporate sponsors and other people in order to make that happen. And then the final thing, which I'm going to explain on the BayHQ side, is a youth startups program. And I would say I've saved the best for last.

10:37This is the bit that makes me happy. This is the bit that really makes a difference, that really gets us to use all this power and influence, all this random whatever. We're really making a difference here. So we're working with six state schools. Most of them are East London based and there's 120 students coming into our offices over summer. We're teaching them the core skills they need about how to find a problem, do customer research, find a solution, build a MVP, build a pitch deck and then pitch to us for investment in like a Dragon's Den style competition. And the feedback from this last year,

11:15Amardeep Parmar:man, like there's sometimes I'm working crazy hours, but sometimes I don't get enough rest. You can probably see my eyes, you can probably see it in my face, you can probably see it in my belly where I eat too much junk. But when we're doing this stuff and like you just see the difference you're making to these kids, like that is it, man. That is the point of all of this. As I go through this, as I'm sitting here talking to the camera on like an evening to make this video, that is the point, right? The more we can do with all these different programs, the more that everything works together, the more power, the more influence, the more we get, the more that we can channel that to their next generation to give them opportunities.

11:50So I can open up doors for the people who couldn't have doors open for them before. And the more that we can do that together, the more that this is something which is really making the difference and really doing the impact of why we set up in the first place. And part of that too is backed by patrons. So patrons are just people in the community who love what we're doing with the students and want to financially support us. So absolutely no pressure on this. But if you've got that ability to financially back this, to make sure this program, we can deliver for free and we don't go bankrupt by delivering it, then that's going to be super helpful for us.

12:22So that's the core of what we do on the BayHQ side, right? But we also have BayHQ Ventures. And we've teased this bit this year. And there's a limit of what we're allowed to talk about because things are in stealth. we're not allowed to say different things. But we can say that we're exploring a fund thesis and we're on the pathway fund fund manager incubator. And it's all about can a venture capital fund work, which is investing in the community that we're building. So rather than just being support and just being the resources, programs, all the stuff we do, can we actually put our money where our mouth is too?

12:58And that's what we're exploring this year. and we're not actively fundraising. We can't take your money. What we can do is bounce ideas off of you and for you to learn more about what we're working on if you are a professional investor. If you're not a professional investor,

13:13Amardeep Parmar:we're not allowed to talk to you, soz. But as we explore that thesis, we're super excited about what it could mean, right? Because if we're able to pull off a fund in the way we hope to, that could then mean that we can use those profits to channel back into the community I'd say it's on another level, right? Because that's where we are today, but there's been so much hardship along here. And now I think we've covered where we are today, where we're going and some of the things going on. We've just hired a new community manager, Catherine Park, which make a big difference, right? So as me and Gervé focus a bit more on the fund and exploring that thesis, Catherine is going to be really holding down the thought on the community side.

13:54And we're going to be hiring more and more people as well in the future. So if you want to work for us someday, I get in touch. I'm going to be paying attention to it. And there are going to be opportunities coming up. So that's where we are. But how do we get here? Because I'm so lucky to be sitting here talking to you. I'm so lucky that you care enough to listen to this episode. Because it didn't have

14:15Amardeep Parmar:to go this way, right? So many people have started communities and failed. Most podcasts don't get past 10 episodes. So for us to get to 300 is a pretty big deal. And for us to be still be going three and a half years later. So history-wise, right, let me try and run through it and not bore you too much. We're only on 16 minutes. We've got time. We've got time. Hello, hello. I hope you've enjoyed the show so far. I'm Amarit Parma, 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.

14:50Amardeep Parmar:Over 7 ,500 people have attended our events. 200 people have been through 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 programs and come to the events, 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, and the link is in the bio. Hope to see you soon at our event. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. My history. I'm born and raised in Ilford. East London and where I grew up, right? I was smart, but I had no social skills and I just didn't have confidence.

15:32So I didn't think I'd be the kind of person who does something like this. The idea of like 15, 16 year old me, I was thinking I'm the kind of guys on camera on YouTube. Like there was just no way. Then into Bath, did economics there, went to Bank of England for a year, went into tech consulting. Fairly good Indian kid path so far, right? Good grades,

15:55Amardeep Parmar:good university, first at university, worked at a financial institution, and then went into consulting. But I always did stuff on the side. So I was Nashville at karate at one point, I was a competitive bhangra dancer, I traveled a lot. And in January 2020 is where all of this kind of originated from this weird random path of me sitting here today started there. So New Year's resolution, I was reading a lot. I wanted to see, can I write? And it wasn't writing because I wanted to become famous or because I wanted followers or because I'm so up myself. I wanted to write because I wanted to understand my ideas better because I was reading so much, but I wanted to know what do I actually think, right?

16:38Amardeep Parmar:Like, who am I? What is it that's in this like empty noggin here, right? And that first ask went viral, that blew up. And a year and a half later, I was able to put my job to go full time. And my parents encouraged me to do it. I did the lame ass thing of February 2021, taking a week off work. I made a little PowerPoint of like my future career plan. I like presented it to my family. I did it to some of my friends because I wanted their approval, right? I wanted people to believe in me because I didn't necessarily believe in myself. And my dad was so nonchalant, right? He was just like, oh yeah, I don't know why you did that for.

17:17Amardeep Parmar:I back you. You're going to do well. Go and do it, right? Like it's going to work out. You'll figure it out. And that's what cascaded to all of the things you see today. So I was managing one of the main entrepreneurs publication on a platform called Medium. And at the time, because one of the fastest growing writers. I was actually second to Barack Obama. I'm going to use that stat until I die. And through that, I just had incredible access. But access to so many people in the US who were replying to me. I interviewed the founder of Netflix, the founder of Twitter, all of these kinds of things.

17:54But in the UK, I just didn't have that network. I didn't seem to have many people outside my family, at least, who backed me, who would get me into different rooms. And the original podcast started over 450 episodes ago, just as a way for me to try and gain confidence. Because now, although I seem crazy and I'm sitting in a room by myself, talking to myself, talking to a camera, I was really insecure. Like I had really like deep struggles with confidence and social anxiety. And I just didn't think I was very cool.

18:30Amardeep Parmar:And I put myself down a lot. I beat myself up a lot. not physically, but like mentally beat myself up. So I started that first podcast because it was a challenge of like, could I put myself out of my comfort zone? Could I overcome that internal fear and the internal need for validation I had or my worrying about people judging me? And here I am, right? 450 episodes later. I think this is episode 450 overall. So So my two podcasts before Bay HQ had 158 episodes. So now that we're here, right, that first year of me working myself, it got lonely because I didn't want to leave the UK. My dad was sick.

19:16Amardeep Parmar:I didn't want to be out the country. And all my friends had day jobs, but all my work was US time. So in the evening, there was some calls and Zooms to the US. And the daytime, I was just a bit like faffing about, right? Then I did a talk at EY where my co-founder's wife works. Shout out to Ranbir. And she was then like, oh, you should chat to my fiance at the time about this because he's in the venture space. Me and Gervé went for a lunch around the corner, actually. So it's near the office. It's a place called Laksa. Shout out to Laksa. It's a Malaysian restaurant. Strongly recommend. But in that restaurant is where BHQ started.

19:59Amardeep Parmar:where me and Gervé ranted about how Asians don't help each other, how Asians aren't doing enough. And that's where this idea came about. And we're like, oh, yeah, let's do something. But Gervé had a full-time job at Kindred Capital at the time. He was at Pantheon Ventures before that. And then I was busy with my American staff. So I was just going to say it would be just a little side thing, right? A little side thing. Also, I don't know if you notice, I'm like relaxing my voice a lot more because sometimes if you see him on stage, you're getting the polished version of me. Even when I speak to the guests, you're getting the more polished version of me the one that I'm doing and would make them comfortable whereas this is just me vibing a bit more right so hopefully enjoy I don't know tell me in the comments if you do but Gerver and me we were like okay let's do a podcast because I was already doing that let's do an event every now and again but like we weren't like the massively connected people right I only knew one venture scale entrepreneur in the UK at that time and And Gervir, though he worked at a venture capital fund, he didn't know many other Asians who were in that space.

21:02Amardeep Parmar:And I remember I went to some conference. I'm not going to say which one it was because you could work it out. But I was listening on stage and there's a bunch of people there super up themselves. And I was just daydreaming because I was like, am I here just to listen to this person about how great they are, which isn't my real idea of fun? So I wonder if some of you are reading me like that. Hopefully you know that this is something which is very close to my heart of what we do here.

21:30Amardeep Parmar:Then the idea came to me, right? What are we going to call this? Okay, British Asian entrepreneurs is long. We're not going to use that. What's the shortened version? BAE. Oh, BAE. Oh, BAE. That's like, we can do the puns on that, right? And then there's even the text. So it was May sometime. So You'll see it on my LinkedIn around that time. I'll do the post where you can see the text of where I sent it to Gervi about like, oh, think about that idea we had. What about if we call it this? And then he's like, oh, I love it. That's a sick idea. And that's what it all came about, right? And sometimes people really over plan stuff.

22:02Amardeep Parmar:And we were just like, yeah, it's a good idea. Let's do it. Let's try it out. Let's see what happens. And it was meant to launch in August 2022. And this is where things took that left turn. So my dad passed away about the time we were meant to release this. And the pushback, the release by a couple of months, and also that quite heavily messed me up, right? My dad was my hero. My dad is my hero. My dad did so much. And for many ways, I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants, right? I'm so lucky to be here. My dad believing in me, my dad encouraging me. And I hope through the BHQ and the work we do, we can be that influence on others, right?

22:41Amardeep Parmar:I hope that the work we're doing is encouraging others to do what they want to do and to believe in themselves. But that then flipped a switch in my brain of, I went much more hard into this because like after my dad passed, he helped so many people. And even some of the partners we've worked with now, some of them knew my dad, right? And yeah, like my dad got some people their first jobs because my dad was the first one from like the rough part where he grew up to get a professional job so then he kind of paid it forward to give other people the opportunity too and he made it real different to those people's lives and those people at his funeral remembered that and that's the kind of person I want to be right that's the kind of person we want to be and with Gervir like the whole time we've been building this the reason why this has worked and through all of the troughs and the times where it was difficult, it's because me and him are really aligned on what the values are, right?

23:42Amardeep Parmar:What we're trying to do, what actually matters. And at the beginning, in a way, to be honest, we were too naive. If you go back to the early episodes, we were too naive that people would just support us, people would just give us the money to make this happen, and that everything would be fine and dandy. And we've had to learn, we've had to get better, we've had to be more financially astute as well, because if we don't have the funding, then we can't make as much impact. So we now work with some of the people I've said earlier. There's also many different law firms we work with, many different other practices too.