Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast
about innovators, both in business and real life.
Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona.
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Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Innovation
Conversation. Today we are joined by Sumit Ahuja.
Sumit, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Ricardo.
Pleasure to be here. Sumit, would you like to
introduce yourself to the audience, please? Yes,
absolutely. And again, thanks for the opportunity.
So yeah, my name is Sumit and I'm based in the
San Francisco Bay Area, you know, the innovation
capital of the world. And of course, there's
many more. So this is the right podcast for me
to be on. I like to describe myself as a product
builder and an innovator. And I've been in the
product technology innovation space for the last
25, 27 years across different industries, telecom,
mobile, blockchain, and AI. And I'm currently
the founder and president of Evoke Impact, which
is a boutique product and strategy consulting
firm. and be focused on enterprise, universities,
and startup ecosystems to help them with their
innovation journeys. Quite a lot on your planning.
You're just on the epicenter of all the innovation
in the world. So quite exciting to be there,
I imagine. How do you get started with all this?
Because obviously, did you grow up in San Francisco
or you moved there? What was the journey like?
Yeah, so I think there's many ingredients behind
the scenes. There's not one particular reason
or one particular factor that caused me to be
where I am. So I was actually born in the Middle
East. lived there for several years, moved to
India, went back to the Middle East, came back
to India. And then after my high school, which
was in New Delhi, I moved to the US for undergrad.
And I got a degree in engineering in Wisconsin.
And very early back in the 2000s, I moved to
the Bay Area. So I've been here for quite some
time. And my career then took off in semiconductors
when, you know, semiconductor was really just
the only thing being talked about. There wasn't
any even internet or AI being talked about. But
I built my career from that point on into semiconductors,
into telecom, mobile, and then moving to fintech
and blockchain and AI with companies such as
AT &T, PayPal, and Circle. But the common thread
across all of the things I've done in the past,
I would say is, and maybe this is the fact that
you're in the Bay Area, in the Silicon Valley,
and some things are more available to you, is
that I was able to work on some cutting edge
technology and products right from the get -go.
whether it was in semiconductor testing, whether
it was building our first Converse entertainment
services running on fiber optic cables, fintech
when it was booming back in the 2010s, and more
recently working on digital finance and stable
coins. So, you know, I guess I'm a sucker for
innovation. It just draws me. I like the chaos,
but I've been able to build that journey along
the way in this fashion. And I think it's linear.
Obviously, some of these things are more opportunistic
as well. But during this journey, I had a chance
to also sink my teeth a lot into the startup
ecosystem. Because like I said, I enjoyed disruption,
innovation, and actually working with people
who are bending the curve. And through this path,
I was able to work on some advisory roles. I
got a chance to invest in some companies. And
again, when you start doing certain things in
a certain direction, more doors open up to you.
So on this path, I had some folks come and say,
hey, you should be teaching at some universities
as well. So that kind of opened up doors for
me to teach in Barcelona, in Bangkok, and other
places. And then all this coalesced into saying,
I need to do something that really drives innovation,
but I want to enable it through bridging the
skills gap, which I see emerging quite a lot
in the Middle Eastern region, in Asia, in India,
and America. my company Evoque Impact was born.
So really, you know, the journey is, there's
a little seed of innovation right in the beginning
of the career. And then it kind of builds like
a snowball over the time. So you've been in a
lot of companies and you kind of, I should put
this, you're an expert in all things innovation.
What I want to ask you is what defines, what
defines successful policy of having a lot of
innovators within the company? Like how do you,
how do you manage to make that work? Cause you
work in PayPal, AT &T, Circle. how do you keep
I guess people under control but at the same
time also very creative and always launching
new products? Yeah well I don't think I'm an
expert at the level I want to be there's still
a long way to go for me but yes I've been in
this space for a very long time and I've seen
what I call the web one to web two to web three
journey here and worldwide but I would say you
know in terms of how you run innovation? How
do you control innovation? How do you measure
innovation? I think it's not one single answer.
And the cop -out answer is it depends. If you're
in a startup, the answer is different. If you're
in a large company, the answer is different because
the priorities are different. The culture is
different. The commitments to stakeholders and
markets are different. But I would say that the
single most important thing that defines or can
lead to innovation in a company is just generally
their appetite for risk and also bringing the
right talent and the right culture. So if you
have the right combination of all of those and
those things are not easy, you'll have one or
two or maybe three or maybe not any one of them.
So the way that you would be in a large company,
I've been in large companies for the most part
and of course some unicorns after that. So the
way innovation is approached is very different.
You know, in large companies like AT &T, innovation
becomes something that becomes sometimes an afterthought.
Or if it's something that is more incremental,
it takes a long time because you've got markets,
you've got large sets of products and people,
large commitments to Wall Street. So things can
get slower. I moved from a 200 ,000 people company
to a 20 ,000 company at PayPal. So things became
much faster, like 10 times faster. And then you're
actually building products and you're disrupting
what I call infrastructure. In this case, in
FinTech. you're really rebuilding the financial
systems across the world. So just the nature
of the work you do requires you to bend the curve.
So the people you bring in, the people you naturally
attract, the culture at the top, the empowerment
at the bottom, all of those things matter. And
some of these things begin to happen more mentally.
But I would say that, like I said, the risk appetite,
the talent you bring in, and the culture is really,
really most critical to foster that innovation.
And then I went from a 20 ,000 person company
to a 200 person company. at circle. And you can
imagine it's a rocket ship. So over there, you
know, you like I said, you shoot first and then
you aim. Right. Or you make the commitment and
do things and ask for forgiveness after. So it's
just a very different way of operating. But all
in all, I would say there has to be something
that sparks that innate need that this is where
you want to be. So innovation culture doesn't
get built overnight. It takes years to build.
So those are some of the things I've seen. And
now I'm obviously in a one -man show or two -man
show. So 200 ,000 to 20 ,000 to 200 ,000 are
two people in my company. And, you know, I, you
know, you take the shot first and you aim. So
sometimes you got to go down the plot, but not
a simple answer. But there are some key ingredients
that are necessary to drive innovation. And,
you know, when you teach your students now, what
do you tell them not to do? Because we know,
you know, they should focus on getting talent,
on managing risk, and also getting a nice culture.
But what do you always tell them? You know, guys,
don't even try to do these things these ways
because it's not going to work. Yeah. You know,
innovation, again, is done best when you let
ideas fly, right? When you don't put too many
bounds around people. But I think innovation,
just to the heck of it, is not worth it because
you're burning resources, you're burning time.
And, you know, the business world is not very
forgiving. You know, you don't get very many
chances to come up with a blockbuster idea or
blockbuster product. Unless you're a large company,
you have the resources to fail. So I think one
of the things I always like to focus on is, yeah,
let's brainstorm. You know, let's whiteboard.
Let's kind of think about how you can actually
solve a problem. But at the end of the day, you
know, innovation too quick, too fast, too early
does not see the light of day. And it just fails
and there's enough precedents in the history
where things have happened early Didn't connect
and it came back five years later or ten years
later or never came back So I think one of the
most important things as innovators you have
to do is you cannot get married to What you're
building you have to say it through to what he
is solving for you know, if you believe that
your first idea or your first product or your
first you know, tangible or intangible offering
to the market, to the people is going to be the
end product, you're mistaken. Which is why if
I fixate myself on what I'm trying to solve for,
as opposed to what I'm building, you're better
off. Because what you're building is going to
change. You know, investors put money in companies
and teams, not because of what you're actually
building, it's actually what's the problem space.
Is it big enough? Because they believe that if
you tackle that, you will find the way to the
right product at some point. Hopefully fast,
but if you're fixating yourself on just at one
solution that may not be the right answer so
as an innovator as You know a leader in product
which I've been for the last many years I like
to tell my teams that fixate on the customer
on the value proposition and the rest should
flow from there so those are the things I like
to tell and you know or In terms of you know
to do and not to do talk to the customers all
the time all the time talk to your vendors all
the time, talk to your stakeholders all the time.
And you know, how was it when you made the leap
from, you know, big corporations like PayPal
and the likes to running your own startup, running
your own business? How was it? It must have been
quite scary, I imagine. Or was it completely
organic and actual? It is scary. It still is
scary. But you know, there's a point in time
where you you take the leap of faith. And I think
entrepreneurs the way I see some entrepreneurs
are you know I guess they are born with entrepreneurial
mindsets some get created along the way just
like leaders are born leaders are created so
there's a debate in this thing right but I'm
not the guy who was you know sitting under a
tree and then an apple fell on my head and I
came up with that idea none of that happened
so for me it's been a journey of many pieces
coming together where I was able to validate
my hypotheses where I was able to build conviction
where I was able to build enough partnerships
and then take that leap of faith when I knew
that what I'm doing is solving a real need. For
me, it became very clear over the last, let's
say, 10, 15 years that, again, I've been in mobile
and consumer tech and fintech. There's always
a promise of democratizing technology, democratizing
financial services. That's going to level the
playing field. It's going to make the world way
better. You know, the same thing was happening
back to AT &T, at PayPal, at Circle. But the
one thing I realized is that, you know, we can
give all the financial access to anybody across
the world. That won't do anything unless you
also prepare these people across the world with
the right skill sets, these countries with the
right skill sets to use that financial freedom
or assets or resources to build for the future.
So yes, you need financial democracy. You need
financial access across the world. And I'm a
true believer in that. But the gap I kept seeing
over and over and over again, especially in the
growth markets, India, Southeast Asia, parts
of Europe, Africa, Latin America, that's 7 billion
people. Now think about it. We've been talking
about financial democracy for the last 20 years,
but still we haven't grown or bent the curve
in these markets. And one of the reasons for
that is the skill sets. You've got markets here
that have people who are averaging 20, 25 years
old. I can give them all the money you want.
It's not going to do much. You need to give them
skills, right? So for me, that became very clear
that I'm an expert in innovation, product strategy,
go to market. And I want to map that to bridging
the skills gap. And that's how this began to
percolate in my head. I wanted to create an impact.
I wanted to evoke an action. And that's how evoke
impact. was born and you know, we're getting
some good traction in different markets, but
that's the path I'm on. It's scary, but that's
how it's kind of all germinated. And how quickly
do you think these skill sets can be taught to
all these different markets? Because there's
always, you know, I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs
here in Europe and they always say, we should
move to the US, the US is where all the action
is. Which to a certain extent is right. But then
you kind of wonder, why don't you start building
locally on something, right? Why don't you try
and make a gigantic company like I'm thinking
Spotify, for example, is a really good example.
So how long do you think it's going to take for
the other markets to keep up and to actually
get to the same level? That's a really hard question
to answer, Ricardo. And the answer is hard because
there isn't one way to do it. There isn't one
factor that determines. how quickly these economies
these countries can really get to the next level
but I'll say that you know the way I think about
it is you know right now the innovation that's
taking place worldwide you're either solving
for local regional national needs or you're building
local like you said and then going to the biggest
market the biggest market being you know the
US and maybe Western Europe and so on so the
answer is There is a little hanging fruit. If
you're trying to build product services and offerings
and value proposition for your local markets
and sell in your local markets, there is a good
chance that you can iterate a lot faster than
building something that has to go global. But
that might make a lot more time, which is why
you see in parts of Africa a lot of small fintech
companies coming up. You see a lot of things
happening in the Indian startup ecosystem catering
to hyper -local needs in India. And same thing
is happening also in the Middle East, in Latin
America. So those things are, I would say, they're
not easy. There's no low -hanging fruit. There's
nothing that's easy. But those things can be
a little bit faster than saying, you know what,
I'm going to produce a product or build a product
and software that's going to solve global needs,
and I'll land up selling in the biggest markets
in the world. Those things can take a little
bit more time. So it depends on what the company's
trying to solve for, what that audience looks
like, what's the impact area that you're trying
to take ownership of. And that will then dictate
your roadmap. That's going to then dictate, do
you have the right ecosystem available? You have
the developers, engineers, do you have the right
investors, the regulations and the policies,
you know, all of those things matter. So some
things can be done quicker, locally, regionally.
But if you're playing on a global scale, then
things will take a little bit more time. Would
you ever advise a startup to go and find investors
from a different market to invest locally? For
example, an orientation in Spain would you advise
Spanish startups to go and find American investors,
for example? You know, I think that the landscape
in innovation and startups is changing. You know,
you obviously have... I'm a firm believer that
innovation is diffused. There's no one center
of the world. I mean, if you believe that the
barrier is going to produce every single tech
in the world forever, it's not going to happen.
You know, look at what's happening in China with
DeepSeek and so many other things going on, right?
So I think there's a big appetite for even Western
institutional investors to invest in non -U .S.,
non -European markets, right? Because the returns
can be maybe quicker. There may be more innovations
coming from those ecosystems. So that is beginning
to happen. On the flip side, companies in Spain
or in other places across the world, in India,
Middle East here, they want access ready capital
and that ready capital more so with a little
strings attached maybe is available more so in
the US so they will want to come to the US as
well right to get investments and so on for capital
so I think I see a lot more like a bilateral
flow of investments taking place as opposed to
what it used to be before which was more skewed
about US investors investing let's say in US
probably and maybe in the developed countries
but now the flow of money is beginning to happen
towards the middle east it is beginning to happen
in indian companies and vice versa so i think
it's it's this acceptance of um worldview that
you're going to have entrepreneurs popping up
no matter where and you want to fund invest in
good ideas good companies solid traction so i
think you'll see more and more of this And how
important do you think, for example, things like
blockchain and AI are in this process? Blockchain,
you know, makes it easier for people to transfer
funds and, you know, makes it very democratic,
I guess. I had to transfer money from one place
to the other. And the same thing goes for AI,
because all of a sudden you can have a really
good tech team on your computer. Well, not that
advanced, but, you know, somewhat advanced. They
can actually do a lot of stuff. Yeah. You know,
I've been fortunate to work in both spaces, blockchain
and AI. So to me, the way I see these You know,
if you go back to like the early 2000s into 2004,
five, six, or early 90s, sorry late 90s when
the Googles of the world were being born, it
did and Microsoft and, you know, Facebook and
Yahoo back in like late 90s, early 2000s. What
they did was to fundamentally change the infrastructure
layer of the internet, the application layer
that writes on the internet. And yet that kind
of builds the platform for the fintech to write.
It built the platform for other technologies
to write. I see the same thing happening now
with blockchain and AI. Of course, AI has been
around for 30, 40 years. Blockchain is a little
bit more newer, 10, 12 years. But the promise
of the blockchain, again, blockchain and AI are
very different. Completely different. To me,
the blockchain is a promise right now. we're
still in a way in early phases of adoption and
But I'm a big believer in the blockchain and
the use cases that it enables You know blockchain
is often confused with crypto crypto is just
a use case sitting on top of the blockchain There's
so many other things right there's more use cases
to come I do fundamentally believe that the blockchain
will reshape the Internet based infrastructure
to a different level with all you know faster
cheaper transparent immutability all of those
characteristics that we have from the blockchain.
And then you have AI, which of course is on top
of everybody's mind and on top of everybody's
tongue. But people need to look beyond just using
a GPT. AI has been embedded in the things we
do for 25, 30 plus years in many ways or fashion,
and it'll continue to do so. So I see both these
technologies operating on their own levels. Each
one is going to face regulatory pressures, policy
pressures, national sovereign level pressures
from different countries, but they are intersecting.
You know, they are complementary. You know, I
was delivering a keynote as a conference and
I told it's a match made in heaven, blockchain
and AI. So I think both the texts will reshape
the next five, 10, 15, 20 years, but we've got
to get through a lot of hurdles around how do
you monetize certain things. what use cases are
most stressing, what are the guardrails to build
around both of these because both of them are
just out in the wild at this point, but I see
both technologies as being fundamentally the
same level of impact as the internet backbone
that was built in the late 90s and the early
2000s. Now, for all these companies just starting
out and listening to the podcast, what advice
would you give them? And I know there's always
a couple of key things that people always say,
you know, this works, this doesn't work. What
would that be? Wow. Quite a lot there. Yeah,
it is. And I think, you know, you know, having
a startup or innovation, it's like having a baby,
you know, you can give me all the books you want
around how babies are born, you know, how you
raise a child. So there are some things that
are very common across the board, but When you
have a child or when you raise a family or when
you have your own ways to move forward, it's
very unique. It's very personal. The decisions
you make, the priorities you have. So while it
might sound seem like, oh yeah, you know, everybody
in the world, you know, who has all those same
resources in a way, but it's a very personal
journey. So for startups and investors to some
extent, and maybe for aspiring entrepreneurs,
I would say that it's going to be a very personal
journey. You know, no matter what people said
that this is a playbook, that this is how it
happens. Fundamentals are important, but your
journey will be yours. It can be a very lonely
journey as well. There's no doubt about that.
So I think product, ideas, funding, go -to -market,
talent, ecosystems, all of these are the fundamental
execution blocks of building a startup, right?
But at the same time, you've got the philosophical
angle. of building a company on your own. And
that's, you know, opportunities don't come directly
to you. Opportunities always come in disguise.
So as an entrepreneur, you know, you have to
be not just be ready and open, but also be willing
to take that risk to take that opportunity. So,
you know, one piece of advice I always tell folks
is, you know, opportunities will come knocking,
but are you there to open the door? This sounds
very philosophical, right? But you have to have
that openness and readiness. And to me, that
readiness comes from just being out there talking
to people, having a mentor and advisor, you know,
being in the right ecosystem. So that's, that's
one. And I would say that the second thing, which
I strongly believe in, and that's been very true
in my case of going back in my journey, in my
career, been fortunate to work in some good places
and build a career that I am very grateful for
is you have to truly believe in the power of
non -linearity, in the power of serendipity.
You know as an entrepreneur as a founder or co
-founder There's only so much you can control
But you have to believe you have to have the
faith that there's something behind all of this
or rather in front of all of this That you can't
see and it's true in my case You know when you
start getting out there when you start talking
to people when you put out there what you're
doing When you start demonstrating the value
that you can bring the impact that you can have
Things begin to happen the popcorn begins to
pop now you can't control. You know when which
kernel is gonna pop Well, when you put the microwave
in the put the popcorn in the microwave and you
turn on Eventually it will begin to pop. So,
you know, it's just a power of long linearity
Things will happen in a very serendipitous way
So for entrepreneurs, you know, yes focus on
the hard skills on the execution or all of those
But you have to build in your resilience to be
able to withstand what's going on around you
to be Able to see an opportunity when it doesn't
exist to take the time to be patient with yourself.
You can't be patient, you know, with a lot of
things, but you need to give yourself a breathing
room. So there's a lot of things that I feel
need to be done by entrepreneurs on the hard
skill side, execution side, but also building
your belief system at the same time. And I would
say the last thing is, you know, if you're an
entrepreneur, there's no perfection. You know,
if you're waiting to perfect something, it ain't
gonna happen. So, you know, progress over perfection
is my way to go and we're all, the whole world
is interconnected. So what I do, some has an
influence somewhere, and so on. So those are
the things I think about as an entrepreneur,
in addition to the hard execution and strategy
skill sets that I have. I'm curious on one thing,
and this is by the way, a brilliant answer, which
is what do you do when you face hardships? Because
by definition, an entrepreneur is going to face
tons of them, right? Either you being the moment
to pivot and the need to pivot his company, his
or her company, but then also, you know, multiple
things. You can get investment on time. You cannot
find the right tech team, you know, tons of things
that can happen. How do you manage all that?
Yeah, I mean, that's hard. I think I'll be surprised
if you find any entrepreneur that has not changed
their mind a couple of times or hasn't pivoted
once or twice. In fact, the purpose of building
a startup and entrepreneurship is to find the
right product and service through a process of
iteration through a process of failure through
a process of pivoting every now and then and
making sure that what you're doing is really
going to hit the mark that it is going to be
in service of the market but yes you know this
is where What I was talking about earlier, you
have to have those skill sets around execution
to be able to understand using just feel using
your mentors and advisors, but also data that
if what you're doing, if it's not solving what
you want to solve, if it's not going to have
the impact that it's going to have, then yes,
there will be pressure of investors. So you may
have to make a decision that, you know what,
I'm not going to do A, B or C, but I'll do this
and that. And I'm going to park the other stuff
on the back burner. It doesn't mean you never
get to it. You might get to it at a different
time at a different pace. So it's important that,
you know, for me, for example, you know, I've
had to park a few things on the side and say,
you know, I'm going to pick this up later. I
try not to make anything into like a fashion
project, because if you become emotionally attached
to certain things, your decision making criteria
will be just tied to emotion as opposed to objectives.
You know, entrepreneurship and startups At the
end of the day, it is going to be a business
as well. You have to serve the people, your employees,
your stakeholders, and so on. So I think you
have to have a certain level of objectivity in
your decision making, whether it's metrics around
what's the ARR, what's your burn rate, what are
you doing to have more revenue per employee,
how many customers have you signed. It could
be any of those things. But at some point, those
metrics will then begin to tell you if what you're
doing is actually moving the needle. Based on
that you will be able to decide hopefully what
you should be doing what you should not be doing
I think the challenge comes in when somebody
is very invested in Like I said, like a very
passionate. There's a purpose behind certain
things and you're not able to detach yourself
from it I'm not saying that lose your purpose.
There has to be a purpose but you have to have
flexibility to understand that Shifting and pivoting
does not mean you're giving up your purpose,
but it just means that You know, there's a detour
along the way. But yeah, I think it's important
to have the right sets of metrics along the way
from an execution standpoint, because you can't
debate that. I can debate you on philosophy,
but not on the metrics. How do you manage the
relationship with investors? I mean, I know you've
been on both sides. So how do you manage that?
Because a lot of startups have this belief that
you should actually stake everything and just
make sure that you have crazy projections and
everything is absolutely amazing. It's going
to be the next Google. In reality, we know that's
obviously not the case 99 % of the time. So how
do you manage that relationship and what tips
and advice would you give to start to manage
that? Yeah, that's also a really important part
of the entrepreneurship journey. And I think
just like investors are looking for the right
blockbuster idea and product and they're choosy,
right? There's so many things out there. They're
very diligent about the entire analysis before
they put money into a company or into a founding
team. The reverse should also be true. We all
know that most startups fail and in many cases
they fail It's not just about the product. It's
also about the investor and founder relationships
may not go favorably So for founders from startups,
they should do an equal amount of due diligence
on who they will want to bring to the cap table
Different investors are looking for different
rates of growth, different investors are looking
for different ways of working, different investors
have different ways of gauging, analyzing, managing
expectations with the founders and so on. So
I think it's important that before somebody signs
a term sheet, you know, you are available, you
are aware that, you know, Ricardo is more focused
on growth numbers as opposed to bought online
profits. This stage of our journey, right? That
I know that Ricardo is more focused on us scaling
into 20 new markets in the next two years. as
opposed to going deep and broad in these two
core markets. So I think it's important to know
what is investor looking for? Can you generally
satisfy those needs? Right? Now, the answer to
that is that yes, if I can do a lot of those
things, I move ahead. But if there's a fundamental
disagreement in your operating thesis and your
philosophy for growth, then I think the founder
startup needs to rethink. what they should be
doing in that case and you know should they move
forward or not. Now obviously for startups sometimes
you know desperation kicks in and they don't
really want the money. It's the evil that we
have to live being in the startup world and sometimes
you know you can make those decisions and just
to keep things afloat. I'm not going to say that's
right or wrong sometimes you know like they say
desperation leads to invention or making things
better. So it becomes that personal journey for
the entrepreneur to figure out that if I take
this bite because I'm desperate, can I turn this
curve the way I want to? So I think it's a combination
of those things. But I'll be honest, you will,
as an entrepreneur, you will always get to the
point at some point where you might feel desperate
and make a decision that you might regret, which
is why managing your clap table should be fairly
diverse. But it's important that Majority of
the cap table is aligned with you from your fundamental
business philosophy, your product philosophy,
and just your general philosophy of what you
want to build. You may have some passives along
the way, some innate investors that you may take
money from, but that are not managing you. So
it's okay to go down that path as well. But the
building of the cap table should be majority
biased towards highly aligned investors. When
you have a very nice capital and all that, and
you need to pivot, do you think they would all
go along with the idea because they believe in
you as a person? Or quite on the contrary, they
might be like, you know what, I invested in something
and now we're presenting something else, I'm
not that comfortable. How do you manage that
actually? It's all a function of time and the
value you're seeing as an investor. If somebody
comes and says to me, hey, Ricardo, thanks for
the investments, but I just want to share that
we're going to be thinking about moving in this
direction. as opposed to what we thought about
a year ago. I think investors are, for the most
part, the larger ones who are putting in a lot
of money, and even some investors who are putting
in money through, you know, syndicates and so
on. They understand there will be changes along
the way. If you are expecting things to stay
stationary, status quo, with your founding team,
then I don't think you should be an investor,
first of all, right? Because things will change.
So for me, as an investor, I do expect some changes.
As a founder, as an entrepreneur, it is very
important. I would say two things. Number one,
don't surprise the investors, right? If you're
thinking of something different, the communication
channel has to be open and frequent and meaningful.
So that level of transparency, that level of
communication where you're sharing ideas and
progress and changes and challenges is important.
Because then you're co -building, you're using
the effective, comprehensive brain power beyond
just yours to make the right decisions, right?
And the second thing, in addition to the communication
aspect, to manage these administrators when changes
are taking place, is show me the proof. Show
me why you're doing what you're doing. And this
is where we're going back to the objective set
of execution criteria, product, go -to -market
analytics, data. This is what we're seeing, this
is what we've done. These are the pilots that
we run. This is what failed. This is what didn't
work. This is what worked. This is what the customers
are saying. This is what we're hearing globally
across the ecosystem. And therefore, we're making
these decisions based on these objective criteria.
And use that as your ammunition along with creating
the right roadmap for the future where you're
getting inputs. So again, easier said than done.
I'm simplifying this. drastically along the way
you might have investors that I'm sorry we need
to draw the line or we need to pull out or you
as a founder might say yep you know this is where
we need to draw the line for us as a company.
So things can be a little tricky too. Now there's
a lot of buzz around AI as we pointed out already.
Do you think all the SARVs should be building
something with AI or not really they can actually
get by without using it? Should everybody be
doing the same thing? No, I don't believe in
the herd mentality. But is it going to be doing
AI? Yes, in some way and function. The question
is, what are you using it for? You know, large
companies have been using AI for 20, 30, maybe
even more years and they should continue to do
so because that's going to be more effective
for them in building their own artisans, their
risk management engines. their software for personalization,
for internal processes, for cost management,
for more productivity. So those things are no
-brainer. But if you come and say to me that
every company needs to build an application layer
offering for the consumer markets just because
they can, I don't think so, right? Should you
be building your own GPTs internally to use?
Yeah, absolutely. It's very productive. So I
think you have to be aware again about, you know,
it's machine learning, there's AI, there's deep
learning. What aspect of AI are you talking about?
Right now, most of the people when they're talking
about AI, they're talking about what's in the
news, right? It's chat, JPTs of the world and
so on. Yeah, it's that very, very what I call,
you know, it's the personalization of AI that's
at your fingertips that they're talking about.
Now, for every company to do that and do that
well, it doesn't make sense. It may not be the
use case you're solving for. Building AI is expensive.
Right? Monetizing AI is expensive. It is not
that easy. Getting the right talent in -house
to build AI is very expensive. And then maintaining
that also is not that simple. Keeping up with
it. So I think before anybody goes and says that,
yep, we're going to be all in on AI as an offering
is different from we'll be using AI as a tool
to improve what we want to build for the future
for offering. There's a difference in them. So
I think it's a ladder. which I'm promoting right
now, which is obviously used. It's a tool. If
I give you a better handler, absolutely I'm going
to use that when I'm building a house, as opposed
to a screwdriver. So AI has unfortunately become
a sledgehammer. Everything looks like a nail
these days. But smart people will know, is it
the right use case? Do I have the right resources?
Do I have the investment capability? right? And
can I truly drive value for the consumer and
the customer? A measurable value. So there are
some frameworks around this before you just jump
in and start doing things in AI. I like asking
some personal questions and I'm very curious.
The last, I'm not going to say the last two books
you read, but two books that have changed your
life that you still go back upon and so you know
what i actually some of the ways i think and
the ways i act are because of this book ignoring
all the classical you know all the religious
stuff yeah business books yeah no for sure and
um i would say the one book that i will really
enjoy is sapiens It's a book that really brings
together history, anthropology, technology, human
evolution, religion, all of those things together
and makes you understand and realize how we as
a species, the sapiens, came to be the most powerful
entity or species that has existed on the planet
in perpetuity. But the beauty of that book, it
really breaks things down into how the whole
evolution happened. You know, I always say that
nothing around us is an accident, right? It takes
work. It takes years and decades. In this case,
it takes millennia. So this book, to me, it just
helps me kind of really break away from all the
stuff going on on a daily basis. I go back and
kind of read like a few pages every now and then.
But, you know, for anybody who loves to really
think through, you know, why did we become who
we are? Right? How does civilization happen?
So that's one book I really enjoy. The second
one is Atomic Habits. And this goes back to what
I said earlier, you know, the whole philosophy
of progress over perfection, right? And breaking
things down into smaller pieces, you know, doing
things that are more achievable, changeable before
you boil the ocean. And, you know, I made the
fundamental mistake early on in my career of
being a, you know, the perfectionist engineer
that everything has to be just right. And, you
know, In the ship sails and nothing happens So
one of my managers and leaders, you know back
many years ago. He said to me, you know, you're
so You're doing things really well, but you really
need to break away from that perfection mindset
because everything you do is getting delayed
or is not seeing light of day or it's not really
getting the true value that it should get and
That you know kind of change my mindset. It's
always small thing. But my mindset now is Definitely
towards what are the little things that I can
do to make things better, longer term, as opposed
to that one big thing. Of course, as an entrepreneur,
you're looking for the one big thing always.
But at the baseline, it is the little, little
things that you're doing. So I think those two
books have always resonated with me and, you
know, I still go back to them. Very interesting.
Sumit, as we, you know, getting to the end of
the podcast, if people want to reach out to you,
what's the best way of doing so? The best way
to reach me by all means, you know, I would say
LinkedIn is the easiest But my email, you know,
it's my Sumit Sumeet at evoke impact comm so
Just reach out by email or LinkedIn either spine
and that's Sumeet at EVO QE impact comm that's
my work email and I'll be happy to engage, you
know, just have a conversation and keep the The
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