309. Meet the Serial Founder Turned Investor Who Built His First Startup in High School w/ Akshay Ruparelia

0:00Amardeep Parmar:So great to have you here today. Can you tell us what you do? Awesome. So I'm Akshay Ruparelia. My background is built and exited various companies, but at the moment focusing on Bridge, as you can see here. Bridge AI is a generative AI consultancy and venture builder. So we help non-tech founders build AI and emerging tech enabled startups or larger enterprise adopt AI property. You told me as well that Bridge has kind of grown to about 30 people now as well in like a couple of years. Tell me about that growth journey. Yeah, so we kind of got into this space because for me personally, I'm very passionate about enabling entrepreneurship, right?

0:32And for us, it was about scaling purpose because I realized as emerging tech picked up pace so quickly over the last few years, so many people are going to get left behind, hence the name Bridge, right? We help them cross the bridge. And my business partner, Sachin, was the youngest consultant at Accenture globally across data science and AI. So when you looked at our skill sets together, it was how do we bring that together to help scale purpose? And that's kind of our core belief set and help people cross that bridge. So, yeah, we've grown very quickly over the last couple of years across startups and enterprise teams now about 30 across engineering, data science, venture leads and so on and so forth.

1:07And that's across India, Dubai, Nigeria, Canada and the UK. And it's just been a really, really interesting journey because we learn so much in the process and help people understand emerging tech properly, which is fantastic.

1:20Amardeep Parmar:Having that kind of global workforce as well, it's behind that, why did you go for that strategy? Yeah, good question. Most people think I save loads of money by going to India, but it's actually not the case. To be honest, for us, it was about finding the right talent. So if we could find the right people, even if we're paying effectively UK equivalent rates, to be honest, we were just getting much better work ethic, response, intelligent workforce and people with incredible experience, right? So the goal was to try and diversify in terms of thought process, culture, experience, and that's allowed us to kind of broaden our horizon.

1:55So we're now building products for the Indian market, for the Dubai market, for example, for the UK market, because we have the different perspectives, which is really nice to have.

2:04Amardeep Parmar:You said about some of the challenges there as well that's been on the journey. Tell me about that. What's been harder than you thought was going to be? Good question. I think with Bridge specifically, I think it's been trying to understand. So we've been trying to focus on like I said non-technical founders and help them scale that purpose and enable that right but I think as the world has changed so quickly most people are forgetting or not realizing that actually building something whether it's lovable or anything else and base 44 and so on and so forth becoming a bit easier to bring that vision to reality but actually going from reality to scaled infrastructure something that you can put out into the market understand how you're building, why you're building, what you're actually building, is there a product market fit, do you understand your consumers, do you have distribution channels, all of those things I think people are underestimating massively.

2:55So we've had to shift our focus a little bit away from just tech and actually understand, just really start with why, right? So actually going back to, you know, Cinex principles and going, actually, why are you building this? What problem do you feel you're solving? Is it enough of a problem to solve? So that's been quite challenging and building along that journey and keeping up with where the world is going. But as long as we're a few steps ahead, we want to bring as many people on that journey as we can.

3:19Amardeep Parmar:So I used to be like a tech consultant for years, right? So I did all the CRM, the backend, you have to get the rest of the requirements, you have to do infrastructure, database, all that kind of stuff. And as I said, when people sometimes, you look on LinkedIn, right? And everyone's like, oh yeah, I built this thing in like five minutes. It's like, yeah, but that'll break in like this education, that education. And it's like, as you said, it's now very easy to get something which is decent. It's like a junior could build it, right? But then that was never the problem in the first place, right?

3:47Amardeep Parmar:It's always easy to build. If you knew what you were doing in terms of computer science or like that, you could build something fairly good in that time. You might be able to get to fairly good quicker. But in terms of the business, fairly good doesn't really cut it, right? Like you've got to be the best in class for whatever you're trying to solve. And I think that's the interesting thing that I think is difficult for people who are listening maybe who are at the early stages. you're seeing with stuff on LinkedIn like oh I built this like Asian I built this thing it's like but does that hold up and when you're talking to people how are you finding the attitudes of people understanding that or is there something where they're like oh no I built this thing in five minutes and people are gonna pay like hundreds of thousands for it yeah good question we've had a lot of yeah we've had a lot of those experiences and to be honest all around I think it's fantastic I think it's a great thing I think people because I'm a non-technical founder and in my previous businesses that you know I built and exited I've you know in my first company I started at 17 and I went through probably about six different dev teams all across the world and by the time the seventh dev team tried to jump onto my code base they were like this is horrible we're not touching it because we're scared everything's gonna break so having been through that process that's what for me that's why I feel so passionately about doing this if I had the opportunity back then to use these tools it was amazing right because I think it's so great for again bridging that gap of understanding between what's in your head and getting that onto paper at the moment that's about it I think um whereas like you said when people are conflating oh this is my vision on paper to this is my enterprise grade product it's not right um everything from you know security to again scalability is a problem so I think it's great in terms of democratizing access to people going right I'm going to go and play around in a few hours I've got my vision on paper but really work with professionals, work with people who understand what you're trying to do and why to make sure they build the strong foundation.

5:33Otherwise, you're building a house of cards. So that's the only problem.

5:37Amardeep Parmar:Yeah. And the thing is, AI is really making it easier to start. And there are a lot of people who just won't get started because they don't. How do you buy a dev team? How do you get a start? And if you can just put your vision down on paper, and then it helps you in that sense. But that's not it. And it's hard because a lot of things... I think I see founders about how the hardest thing is starting and I kind of disagree I think the hardest thing isn't the starting bit is that when the problems come in when you've got customers and how do you handle those customer problems and when customers are demanding new things and that's the bit that's sometimes difficult where starting is almost the fun bit the easy bit is the honeymoon bit right like building something can AI but then when you've got a customer who's like actually I've had my data leak now how do you deal with that right and you you'll see building this is like one of your projects right so you've got different things going on how are you juggling those different things you've got going on and what else do you have on your plate yeah so um i think to your to your first part i completely agree right starting is and my personal passion is again helping people start and helping people build that's what we do as a business right in terms of our so we've got two sides bridge launch pad and bridge enterprise enterprise again is a little bit more transformation focus in terms of current businesses and organizations but that kind of launch pad is what we call the zero to one so we love that zero to one because it's so exciting because the possibilities are endless and what we say to people now is because of ai and because of the expertise we have in the team bear in mind we do everything from fractional cto down to the engineering team so so we genuinely see it as everything is possible like anything is possible which is a good thing and a bad thing because you got some wacky people who come to us i want to do everything but and we say that's great and now we prioritize right so i think i agree starting is is the diff is the easy bit sorry and then i think it's as you scale that and as you like you said as you face customer problems it's that resilience and tenacity right the one thing i say with anything entrepreneurship related is it's obviously it's never a silver bullet but it's like hundreds if not thousands of lead bullets right it's about the strength of those lead bullets that keep going through to get to where you need to be right so from my point of view it's about building the core foundations and scaling that and scaling a team with the real purpose focus and that's kind of how I've tried to focus on having several projects.

7:47Amardeep Parmar:So going back, I built a prop tech business from 17, then the recruitment and training business, just a charity board advisory staff, and then set up one club, which is an entrepreneur's members club about three years ago. That's become a lot more self-sufficient and very much a passion project about bringing great founders together. And we run events in London and so on. A bridge, of course, and now pivoting also to a bit more in-person physical presence around sports and leisure space business as well. So the few things I'm going to pick up there and I could try and keep it in a nice float, right?

8:19Amardeep Parmar:But I think if we go back to actually the beginning now, about you starting out when you did, and like a 17-year-old you who started this business that obviously then went on to do very well, what would you, like, if you could like transport yourself back in time, you had the knowledge that you have today, what would you have done differently about that business? If you had your brain today back then? yeah good question so yeah starting at 17 you learn a lot and it's a very very steep learning curve and that's one thing as you'll you probably notice have gone into different spaces because i really enjoy that steep learning curve you know starting off with it so the first business was an online estate agency we scaled that to third largest in the country sold over a billion pounds worth of assets and then i kind of sold my stake by the time i was about 21 22 and you just learn so much in that journey, right, given that I was supposed to go and study economics and management at Oxford, and, you know, the learning curve in those two comparables was just insane.

9:15Going back, I'd say, actually, I think I did the best I could in terms of that steep learning curve, and some of that you kind of have to gain really through experience. Like, it's very hard to be taught those things. You just have to go through the kind of war stories and make those mistakes, but one of them was actually, to be honest, partly why I sat at One Club and really focused community now is was actually building a stronger network because at the time I didn't really have any contacts in the entrepreneurial world whatsoever I was kind of born a little bit outside London and Hertfordshire so I was kind of in my own bubble building doing what I thought was the right thing without real points of reference from others and you know I don't come from an entrepreneurial family right so for me it was about actually if I'd branched out a bit sooner I think I would have learnt a lot of those lessons through others and through guidance probably a bit quicker to be honest.

10:03And obviously like you said you had the steep learning curve,

10:05Amardeep Parmar:right? What were some of those hardest lessons you were at that point of where like obviously you're scaling up, you're a 17 year old and I'm guessing as you're talking to customers, you're talking to like different people, when they realise you're 17 you might get treated in a certain way. Actually did that actually impact you? Did people treat you differently when they realised you were young? Was it a good thing of like oh wow it's so exciting to put, or like oh why do you think you can do this? How do people perceive that? Yeah good question. It probably happened in a couple of different ways so when and this is kind of where i learned the biggest lesson about identity and i kind of learned it inadvertently actually so now one of my favorite books is psychocybernetics which is about how you um how you identify yourself and that alignment and even some of the talks i've done ted talk and stuff was about that identity piece because how you see yourself is how the rest of the world sees you right and as simple as that sounds like even fundamentally the likelihood of your success or the the chance of your success is directly linked to how likely you think that success is right yeah so if you extrapolate that same principle um at the time i kind of really went into investor meetings and conversate especially when fundraising that's when people were a bit skeptical thinking hold on you've not come from the property space you've not built any tech before you don't you don't you're not actually a coder either um they're trying to do all these things so what makes you think you can come in and do it and for me it was about disrupting the status quo from outside of the status quo and it took me time to realize that but when I kind of went in with the approach of actually the reason a state agency is not being disrupted by state agents because they all have the same experience they all have the same baggage it's the second most hated profession in the country after politicians slash recruiters and there's a reason it's got that reputation and if no one from the industry is going to disrupt it because they've all got that bad reputation and they're all carrying that status quo because that's how they make their money right they make their fees by having that old school way and that really helped you know we ended up raising a couple of million and kind of scaling after a couple of years so um that perspective but to be honest even my first probably 25 member 20 members of staff 25 members of staff didn't know how old i was and i never told them until it until it was on the news and they all looked at me on there and at the time i I think it was 19, 20.

12:20And they kind of looked at me on there. They were like, we saw you in late 20s. You didn't tell us you were 19. I was like, there was no reason to. So it was kind of, yeah, hidden in plain sight.

12:32Amardeep Parmar:And you said about going to the team as well, because you said with one club, for example, have you grown a good team there? And that's how you're able to run different projects. What is it you're looking for in those early team members to enable that to happen, right? Because obviously, if you want to run multiple businesses, you want to scale different things. You've got to get the right team in place. Yeah, it's a good question. And I've found it quite hard because as most entrepreneurs are a control freak, right? So started off just really having to get a, I want to make sure I understand everything and the direction.

13:01And there's still the case in terms of overall strategic direction. But to be honest, even when we hire now, whether it's in bridge or otherwise, is based on attitude for the most part, attitude and work ethic. Because most skills can, and we're seeing this with AI, right? Most skills can be learned. And this is not the kind of hard skills in terms of engineering. and this is kind of wider team members, but a lot of those things can be picked up. It's really that work ethic and attitude. If you really genuinely understand our purpose around scaling purpose, making entrepreneurship accessible, helping people cross that bridge, and you feel passionate about that, that really shows in your work, right?

13:37That passion can be cultivated, and if you cultivate it well, like really, really makes a difference. So that's probably the main thing. And work ethic, because I just think building a startup, as you know is is like the way i see it is like pushing a boulder up a hill right the early stages in any startup you're put you're climbing a mountain you're pushing the boulder up the hill and you just need momentum to be able to do that like there's no two ways about it you need people to be there kind of day in day out you need to yes have the flexibility you need and everything else but you need to have that work ethic to be able to push that boulder because it just comes

14:10Amardeep Parmar:tumbling down otherwise i think some people say like working hard versus working smart it's like you don't get to pick as a founder you're working both if you're working smart and your composition working smart and hard you're going to lose and it's like and i think one of the hard things too is like obviously you've been in the industry for a while you've been an entrepreneur for a while the way you can do things will be different to something at the beginning because you're going to make better decisions because you've built that muscle right and it's one of the things i think about is that like i think it's extremely hard to have good balance at the beginning of a company unless you're saying like exit founder so you know your systems already and as you said in your first business you made loads of mistakes but that makes you how you are today and i always think it's an interesting dynamic and i think we also shouldn't like it's making sure in the industry of diversities for that we don't just tell people like oh yeah you can have everything you want and you can work a few hours a day and you're going to be able to build a billion dollar company when well what about all your competition what are they doing if they're working 80 hour weeks and you're not and then you've got to get yourself to a moat right and with your moat right now obviously you just won that you've got so much experience you can hire well you can do all the things you've got that experience if you haven't got a moat yet you've got to earn the right to get a moat 100 and how do you do that as well right and how do you think you did that in the first business right you said like you're coming in as an outsider but i'm sure there's other outsiders who tried to disrupt the industry too what do you think you did at that point that was like okay this is why you won compared to other people I think to be honest I completely agree with that right I think there is the the harder you work that the greater the chance of success right and obviously like it sounds very very obvious but I think when you're when you're literally running like when I think of entrepreneurship especially in the early days you're literally running through doors you're breaking down doors and barriers and there are no side doors there's no shortcuts like and people think there are oh let me go around the side of the house and no no there is you have to run through the front door every single time consistently.

16:05And that consistency compounds over time, right? And I think I realized that quite early on, partly because I was an amakerer to my parents. So in that process, I think I learned a lot about seeing their work ethic, working two jobs to put food on our table each, and all the adversity they faced being deaf people in this world, in this Western country, migrating from East Africa, going through all of that. That gave me a really deep sense of gratitude and a deep sense of if they can do it, I need to do even more to be able to give back to them. Ultimately, for me, that's where the thought process around work ethic came.

16:40And then once you combine that with the entrepreneurial approach, it was genuinely that. So it's actually, okay, yes, there's other people that outsiders that could do it. But if we're all getting on a treadmill, I will outrun you. That is it. I know for a fact at 17 years old, I've got nothing to lose. I've got no risk, which is why I deferred and ended up giving up the university place because I've got very little risk. I'm lucky enough to have roof over my head, food on my table, and really deeply understanding that I literally have no risk and I have all the time in the world. You can't outpace me.

17:12And look, again, lots of mistakes and everything else, but even just that thought process meant that there's enough self-belief to at least break down the barriers.

17:21Amardeep Parmar:Hello, hello. I hope you've enjoyed the show so far. I'm Amradi Parma, co-founder at BHQ 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 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.

18:01Amardeep Parmar:And the link is in the bio. Hope to see you soon at our event. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. And I've seen now you've got more optionality, right? Because you've been through that hard work, you now get to kind of pick and choose which type of jobs you do versus who you hire for. What is it that you enjoy the most of these different tasks you could do? Yeah, it varies. I think I enjoy working with great people. I think maybe because my first business, I was kind of a solo founder. So now actually having great business partners and great team members around and everything else, and being among great entrepreneurs, whether it's our clients or our portfolio companies that we have a stake in or whatever, it's just really nice to be around great people and build with great people.

18:43So I enjoy guiding that process of building with and working with great people so i think the people driven element whether that's you know supporting them in the early stage or bringing on board or even the fundraising journeys in some of our businesses you know we're still capital raising for for example in our new paddle business you know that being amongst that process i really enjoy because i think i've been through again i've got a lot of the war stories and the the scars i want i know how to overcome um so i really enjoy that process to be honest that's that's probably the biggest part so it's interesting to do because

19:14Amardeep Parmar:Because you're a solo founder to begin with, and you said about micromanagement and stuff like that. How has it been to work with business partners and to have that as well? How have you been able to build those relationships? And also, you're going to have to let go of some of the decision-making power, right? It can be hard. Yeah, so definitely made some mistakes there as well, to be honest. So had business partners that it didn't work out with, and have business partners now that it's fantastic with. And the main thing, I think, was, and again, that was a learning curve as well, right? Going from solo founder to being with co-founders and then reducing those number of co-founders or having different business partners.

19:50That itself was a learning curve, right? Because I didn't know how to select it. And having business partners is like getting married. Ultimately, because as bad as it sounds, most business relationships probably last longer than marriages, right? And people take that so lightly. But I say that in the sense that value alignment matters, right? in this context, complementary skill set, it really, really matters. And I see a lot of co-founder relationships where there's so many crossover and skill sets and you think, but why are you guys doing this together? So you've really got to separate that and really discern from that.

20:26And it's quite hard. But that's where I've learned, I think, where value alignment, so where there's been value misalignment, I've then ended those relationships from a business partnership perspective and making sure there's complementary skill sets because then you kind of own your space and you own that and you have that presence in your space and you respect each other's opinion and understanding around your skill sets that you have right we were saying earlier right where

20:48Amardeep Parmar:say for example the events i don't organize the events i have pretty much no idea what's going on all the time like it's i know it's in my calendar but then unless there's something in particular that's just gervia's area that's like he's got yeah catherine's working with him now so they're working that out i don't need to know yeah i don't need to know the little detail i was like i might question something like oh well like what made you go for that like that's kind of random and then told me why all right great and i think it's really important skill to be able to even if you disagree okay cool that's your area you work in this more than i do yeah i accept your opinion right and it's not easy to do it's not easy at all yeah but it makes such a difference right and now you said like okay you've got the you mentioned the paddle business there as well yeah tell us a bit more about that yeah so funnily enough as i've been diving kind of deeper into tech, I've realized that the world is also changing at a massive pace outside of that tech, right?

21:40So if you're not adopting emerging technology, you're going to get left behind, right? And my passion around that is enabling businesses, is enabling entrepreneurs, is enabling individuals to adopt emerging tech. But kind of one, you know, at some point last year, I really thought, actually, what happens on the other end of that spectrum, right? What happens when people need to disconnect and the world is moving with such kind of immersion around tech that actually there's going to be a point where people think I need to I need to disconnect and my favorite way to do that is sport right gym tennis paddle etc and I've started playing paddle the last couple of years and realized how good of a sport it is in terms of accessibility in terms of networking actually has become a fantastic business sport for us and for a lot of people I know so so the next venture it's still early days but is getting into opening a chain of paddle clubs and and the real focus on that is yes it's the sport but it's just the physical embodiment of community is let's bring great people together let's bring people closer together in physical hubs because it's not happening enough anymore and i think sport is such a beautiful healthy way to do that yeah i think on

22:46Amardeep Parmar:the ai side as well because like one of the things i did in a way is like i almost intend well i've got a tech background which helps right so i delayed some of my adoption because like let me wait and then okay now called code at the point that last few months has taken to a new level so like let me now jump in here yeah but then it helps to have a background in it so i could do it quicker and one of the things i think is quite interesting is that the tech is going to get easier and easier to use right easy needs to like for people who aren't familiar with it to use it so that creates like a little wedge of where there's a transition phase happening and that's where there's an opportunity in there yeah because i look at it as like say like when you first had to build a website like 30 years ago right really hard but if people could do it there's a lot less composition whereas now building websites easy so it's not as much is it the different windows that open and close right yeah and also in the community side so i guess on the journey we've been on right so there's so many communities which are online only and to me it's just saturation there's just how do you really differentiate and even we say the online content right now right i don't know how you make the content there's a lot of it's just ai slot and it's just like all people paying go straight to whatever it is right yeah so when you've got that kind of a world how do you really stand out an online forum when you don't even know if it's the person's actual opinion yeah or if they've just like got ai to write it for them and that's a bit of where like you can really differentiate yourself is now in person and i don't know if you found this too say in the pandemic and obviously building a co-working space i'm guessing there's probably alignment how we're thinking here so much the pandemic is like well just work online and that's the way that the future is going to work but it kind of like misses the whole human element of all of this right is that with somebody i know in person and we've like had a laugh there's an element of trust there yeah and playing paddle with somebody's going to be a business partner you build that trust too 100 and and i think that's why we found it because that the nature or the modes of that interaction have changed a lot right because people are moving in different areas people are a little bit more isolated um and i think that's one of the things that is just we will never lose the need for that human interaction but i think as people become more health and wellness conscious as well so also the nature of that interaction has changed so pre-pandemic it might be and it still is obviously but but you know it might be let's go to a bar let's go to the pub now people are saying well i don't i don't want to have a drink another us want to have a drink let's go have a game of paddle let's go have a game of tennis let's go and do this let's go and do you know we're looking at cryotherapy business at the moment getting involved with right there's So that health conscious movement as well is also part of that, but whilst maintaining that community element.

25:20And obviously it's the fastest growing sport in the world in paddles case as well. So it's very complimentary to that. But the low barrier to entry in terms of accessibility to play, like if you've played any sport before or any racket sport, or even you mentioned karate, right? Just that hand-eye coordination allows you to pivot into a sport, which is quite rare to find. So that for us is the best thing, right? And you do genuinely build relationship over, whether it's a dream whether it's a game but that human interaction what you learn about people from everything from body expression to the level of integrity they have by sitting there and looking in the eyes you just get a very different sense about people right and we were to the one club

25:57Amardeep Parmar:as well so it's in a similar kind of area how did you kind of foster that how did you try to make yourself stand out amongst like loads of different member clubs how do you try to make it so you have these genuine connections between the members good question so we we kind of we tried to foster that from the outset so again the team have been amazing in terms of actually getting you know we run event one or two events in London a month right and it's about bringing entrepreneurs together and we do it in different members clubs different spaces and they're kind of like podcast recordings or it's kind of workshops it might be talks from great entrepreneurs or whatever it might be from other members coming in but the main thing is from day one the ethos that we kind of focused on and I really tried to set out was you you have one end of the spectrum which is elitism right so given the background i come from you know free school meal pupil and everything else i said i don't want the kind of elitist you know sewer house type vibe where you know don't talk to me unless you know me right if you go to a house and you speak to someone you don't know you might lose your membership yeah mental right i mean that's bizarre so the other end of the spectrum is also the sleazy uh business networking events where everyone's got their business card out you have a three second conversation you don't build any relationship and you're saying here's my car and you get home and go i don't even know who this guy was so we wanted to kind of foster something in the middle which is the ethos was genuine genuinely about around build great personal relationship and business will come off the back of it and that you know again has off to the team but it has maintained that that ethos to date um so again in person and with that ethos with those things combined i think you create a bit of a culture and environment where it's it's not purely about business and it's not you know too elitist right and so we've a youth startup program as well right we have state school kids who come into our office over summer and we teach them startup skills about stuff and i guess it's that bit used by identity too is like what's kind of the most important to you over time and i think sometimes people people are younger they're chasing the status the ego and things like that and now it's like as i'm in that stage like i don't really care what most people think about it anymore and if it's like for example like a 17 year i was like okay that was the highlight of my summer and I learned so much that's way more important to me yeah than somebody who's like sucking up to me telling me how amazing I am because they want some business from me right and how do you think that changed for you over time as well right because when you're kind of coming from the background you did and you've kind of got to prove yourself to now where you are today like how do you think you've learned about yourself more and what drives you and have your motivations changed over time yeah it's a good point I think it definitely has changed over time when you're 17 and I think like mentioned given my background my my sole focus at the time was i genuinely felt there's a big problem to solve in the property space at the time so for me it was solve that problem but it was make money for my parents like that that was that was the the soul the main drivers were based on those two things and although that's adjusted over time i think you realize that actually when you're trying to make money or a certain level of progress you know you you then learn as everyone else does the arrival fallacy and actually there is no end point or end goal right and once you realize that there's a nice phrase i've heard from an author i listen to on podcast recently which is watch the sunset from where you live which the point being is it's all about perspective right if you have that fundamental gratitude for your journey and that you realize that they kind of there's happiness and there's kind of what i like to refer to like nourishment there's being fulfilled on your journey there's being purposeful on your journey it's not people stop looking for happiness right because people portray that in so many different ways whereas nourishment is like a nice word i like to use to convey that do you feel fulfilled do you feel purposeful do you feel like you're enjoying the journey as it is as opposed to a certain point in happiness as a destination and i think that adjustment is the main thing and i'm very motivated by progress right whether again whether that's in sports or business whatever family life so for me i'm just still continuously driven by that and the service mentality is the main thing since then as you mentioned so you know I've had internships in the business since you know even back when I was 17 there was I was taking interns on the same age as me so because it was about giving them an opportunity and I set up my social enterprise at about 22 which was about helping young people get into work and again a lot of these young people were my age or even older than me but because I felt so grateful to be in a position where I was able to go out and set something else set something up on my own to actually help other people get into work was part of that passion so for me that is a yeah a much more fruitful part of the journey because i think it's mohammed ali that says your service to this world is is the rent you pay for for your place on earth right and and that service mentality i think has become a much bigger part of what i want to do and everything moving forward with these young people right so there's so much in the news right now about like the junior roles what is going to stuff right and I think it can be quite a scary time for like a young person right now the thing about what's my job opportunities what kind of way do I go if you've got any like young people listening now what would you tell them I think it's it's tough because I had a few conversations actually even the last few days of um you know friends or friends of friends who were saying look I'm just not in a you know graduated x number of years ago I'm not struggling to find something the main question is don't be afraid to diversify your skill set I think and maybe that's slightly biased because of you know the the random wacky experiences that I've been on in my life but don't be afraid to diversify because even if you look at you know if we go back to AI now for example I think it's going to be the equivalent even looking at agentic AI is probably the equivalent to what Microsoft Office was 25 years ago right like you cannot get a job if you don't know how to use Excel and nowadays if you look at that now it's the case right if you don't know how to use Excel or Microsoft Word or whatever you're not going to get a job in most office-based environments.

31:47It's probably the same thing. So the quicker you can diversify that skill set, forget what degree you did for a second, think about holistic skill set, think about communication abilities and skills, think about relationship building, think about looking at AI. Try and broaden that horizon. I think it will start to become much more valuable to most employers over time, or I hope so anyway.

32:12Amardeep Parmar:yeah and the thing is on that too it's like a lot of the time now i think you mentioned about who you hire is that who is it that you back to be able to learn new things because the skill if you're hired for somebody now their job you know years time is from quite different with the ai tools out there so it's like who do you feel that can adapt and it's scary but then at the same time that's the world now right you've got to be able to figure out how you're going to keep on touch because ai is now it's like pandora's world right it's out of the box you can't put it back in again and you can't but okay it was like a nice before right you could just build your way up and things like that but in this new dynamic yeah what did it make you stand out and it's even when you come back to communities like the ability to talk to people and make people feel heard and be able to understand how people are thinking communicate well to them is just again like ai it can help and you can write emails and stuff like that but it's not going to replace that like i trust this person exactly this person i'm going to give my job to because i know they're going to get it done and I back them.

33:08Amardeep Parmar:And I think that's the bit that's always going to be there is that trust and I believe in you that you're going to figure out. A hundred percent. I think even in an entrepreneurial environment, it's confidence, even confidence generally is not about, and most people misalign this or misinterpret, confidence is not about being confident about what you know and conveying what you know. It's about being confident in yourself that you're going to figure it out. Like even entrepreneurial sense, you're jumping off a cliff and building a plane on the way down. and that process is therefore about do you have enough confidence that you will figure it out not that you have to know it right and that's and that's really really important even in terms of building teams or you know people looking for roles because you will be thrown into the deep end as things evolve so quickly you need to be able to have that confidence and convey that you can figure it out because i'll give you an example you know one of our recent hires went to uh called logan he went to the london interdisciplinary school right which is a new university that was set up about five years ago so he was the first or second cohort ever firstly it's quite a brave thing to be the first or second cohort to a brand new university and secondly the entire degree was based on how to think so it obviously in the name interdisciplinary but they looked at you know politics they looked at economics they looked at sciences they looked they did some engineering and coding but the whole point was about getting a holistic view on on the world and understand how to think critically and you know when we interviewed him I just you could really see that come through and and that's what most people are missing is oh I think oh okay even if I learn how to use AI you need to understand how to think you are still the one leading the machine right so you've got to understand how to think how to discern from what's right and what's wrong how to discern from you know the strategic way to do things and and I think that's what most people are missing so we're going to wrap up in a second but see we're going to be episode 310 or something like that amazing so we're saying every 200 episodes someone can come back on again so that's like two years later right so we're going to get a little tv up here we'll get like an ai tv pretending to be there right and we'll replay back this right so what would you love today if you come back on in two years time that you've been able to do in those two years i think it's an interesting time in my life i think it's continuously um focusing and and keeping grounded in that service mentality and not losing that to be honest so the things that i build next centered around community to sport in the kind of the AI space as well.

35:33It can obviously scale those in line with the ambitions that we have. So multi-site strategy on sports business and growing from the AI business and portfolio companies. But still maintaining that service mentality and focus, I think for me is quite a big one. Because as you get into new spaces, as you get into a steep learning curve, it's quite easy to lose that. So yes, it's a more, it's weirdly unquantifiable, but I think that's quite important for me.

36:02Amardeep Parmar:It's like an identity thing, right? Holding onto identity, right? 100%, yeah. Okay, so the wrap-up questions now. So first one, who are free agents in Britain you think could do an amazing work? And do you want to shout them out? Good question, there's loads. To be honest, one of them is actually yourself. I think you've done, yourself and your business partner and your team, of course, I think they've done great work, because we've been through a period where, obviously being either first or second or third gen in the country, it's been quite hard to find other Asians who are really proud about what they do from an entrepreneurial perspective but not only that I feel like we're moving from a competitive Asian mindset to a much more collaborative and I really like that because I've never a fan of that kind of competitive Asian mentality around business and I think you know we can all there's enough food in the world for us all to eat together right and I think that's really got to be embraced so I think what you guys are doing is great bring Sunak back to be our prime minister so he's obviously one i think uh varon from magic ai is doing some great stuff um so the pleasure of kind of speaking to him quite a few times but i think they've done some great stuff given it's a really difficult space consumer hardware is is incredibly difficult um and the last one or two i'll probably say it's a bit biased because they're my own business partners but sachin bat and actually bathia because they're both um very young so then they're kind of early 20s and although I started young, I now feel like an old man seeing them because they're doing some great stuff.