Scaling a New Technology in Automotive: Insights on Customer Focus, Team Alignment, With Varun Shah

Welcome to the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast, where we talk with entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders at B2B services, tech, and SaaS companies to learn the systems and processes they've used to create success for their business. We'll also learn from marketing and sales experts, uh, to provide insights to help you grow your business. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and the podcast is brought to you by Modern Revenue Strategies and their 10X ROI B2B Growth Guarantee. Schedule a free diagnostic call to learn the fastest path to double your B2B revenues in just 90 days. Hello, thank you so much for joining us for the B2B Growth Blueprint. Today I'm very excited to have Arun Shah joining me. Varun is a tech entrepreneur. He's the co-founder of Xcentric. Xcentric is an omnichannel purchase platform powered by extended reality focused on the automotive sector. There's a lot there to unpack and we're gonna get into it. So in addition to working in this space, having started Xcentric at the age of just 23, Varun has grown it into a global corporation, driving force in the automotive retail space. They have offices in California and Mumbai. And Xcentric has created foundational technology that allows both original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, the guys that make the cars, as well as the dealers, those local car dealers, to democratize 3-dimensional visualization and provide an unrestricted visualization of their products for the consumers in that retail marketplace. And when he's not building Xcentric, Varun goes for long runs. Enjoys reading. We'll talk about some of your favorite books, Varun, and as well as good coffee. And it looks like you have a cup of coffee there with you as it's early morning your time there in India. Am I correct?

All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It is.

Well, looking forward to sort of unpacking some of this with you and really learning from your experience in growing Xcentric in the B2B space for automotive. But that extended reality, that's not something that everyone has a lot of experience with. Tell us a little bit about what that means and what Xcentric really does.

All right, Mark. So first of all, it is nice to be here. And I think this is a great platform for all the entrepreneurs who are looking to find their product market fit and even their GTM. I've seen a couple of episodes and I like how you go deep into some of these topics. So coming back to this, right? The question was, what exactly is XR, right? I think that's the question. So extended reality is, you know, is a term that covers, you know, things like augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, all into one. There is no one standard definition of what is extended reality and what is not. It evolved over time. As you remember, back in 2013, 2014, all of us believed that virtual reality would be the next big thing. You know, in the next few years, we would all be roaming around with our VR headsets and just teleport ourselves to, you know, I would say, various parts of the world. And that didn't happen.

Right.

Of course, you know, I mean, you know, it is always going to be a very daunting task for that to happen. I'm not saying it won't happen in the next few decades. But I think it's a very gradual shift that we are seeing from 2D to 3D. Think of the websites that you have explored over the last couple of decades. All of them are in 2D. This is where you're beginning to see some amount of 3D content on a lot of websites. Like Amazon is now increasing its 3D presence on their platform. and so on and so forth. So as we are seeing now, this is the advent of essentially 3D. Now 3D is something which will take multiple shapes and forms. It could be augmented reality, it could be virtual reality, or it could be just simple 3D on the browser.

Right?

Our thesis at Xcentric is that it has to be simple for people to use.

That's right.

And what we believe is that the simplest form of extended reality is 3D on the internet that people can just explore on their browser, on their Chrome, on their Safari, or anywhere else they are. So that for us is the simplest form of extended reality. That is what we are addressing first. And what we are building is a platform that democratizes extended reality for the benefit of automotive industry. And people buying the car. I hope that makes sense.

Well, and I was playing around with your, with your site a little bit before the call and just to kind of give an image in the mind of the listener. If you think about, you know, sort of those 3D renders that you can turn in multiple dimensions so that you can really see, well, how much space is in the bed of this pickup? And what if I put different items in there? How much would they take? Or how would this look different if I put on the bumper package? in a really 3D rendering of that is really what you're providing to the automotive sector so that the consumers can really play around and get that experience of the car even through a flat screen on the internet, right?

Right. So I mean, I think that's a very powerful use case, just exploring features and, you know, customizing your vehicles.

Yeah.

But there is so much more to it. Think of your in-vehicle displays. For those of you who drive a Tesla, you have these, you know, control panels, and it's a really slick looking panel, right? You know, just, you know, conduct operations within the car itself. Very soon you will see some of those controls being in 3D. Why should 3D be restricted only to customizing and exploring features? Why can't you just put 3D on that basic homepage image. If you go to any manufacturer website, you often see a nice image of the car in a great background. But hey, what you would love to do is just start playing around with the car right there. Because, you know, one thing you really want to do is just dive right in, because, you know, buying a car is just such a fascinating, you know, process. And it should not be a process. It should just be fun. And so we are the ones who essentially, you know, give the next best alternative to really being in the showroom, which of course you need to do at some point in time because you need to get your hands on the physical car. I would not really buy a car without, you know, driving it, you know. Yeah. So it's very ambitious for us to say that people will buy cars without taking a test drive. That's not what we are here for. But how can we give a great pre-test drive experience and post-ownership experience with the car as well? Just playing around with the 3D assets of that vehicle.

That's great. So if we think about, you know, sort of where this fits in the equation of, you know, car buying, obviously the car, the automotive manufacturers are really excited because this, you know, gives them a chance to show off their cars better. And the local dealers are really excited because, you know, This helps them stand out from all of the other dealers in their market that they're sort of creating this really rich online experience. For our listeners that, that, that aren't aware, those tend to be kind of different buyers and different sort of parts of the value chain. The automotive manufacturers do sort of national advertising and they kind of have websites that are really nice glossy brochures, more sort of brand oriented. But the dealers tend to have websites that are a little more focused on actual inventory, getting people in to, you know, sort of do a test drive and actually close a sale and make a purchase. So those are 2 very different customer sets. And I noticed on your website, you talk about servicing both of those. How do you balance the different needs of those 2 different customer sets? And how do you think about, you know, sort of crafting an ideal customer profile or, you know, balancing your efforts as you go to market? between those very different groups?

I think that's a great question. I'll tell you how it all began, right? We didn't really at the outset decide that we want to go after 2 audiences. Usually, that's not a great strategy because you need to focus, right? So our initial focus was the car manufacturers who, you know, believed that our tech could help them take their product experience to a whole new level. Once we embedded ourselves on their websites and some of the other interventions that they had, it was a part of their team that deals with dealerships that saw a logical progression of the tech onto the dealerships as well. So some of the initial ones said, okay, can you just help us? We already have a kiosk at the dealership. that just shows videos and nothing else.

Now, why—

what if this content goes into a dealership? Because, you know, you'd love to give a great experience of the car at the dealership. Besides the fact that dealers don't have the entire inventory of a car at any given point in time, that's not possible because—

Right.

You've limited real estate, you know, even within a car dealership. So that is how we essentially got the entry into the dealerships. It was with the manufacturers. After we deployed our initial, you know, I would say software, you know, onto the dealership screens, we realized that there were a whole lot of unaddressed needs of the dealer. which nobody was really catering to. So we said, hold on, you know, someone's got to solve this. Are we in a position to solve this? Probably we are. That is when we, you know, took the, you know, we took the decision of having a division or a segment which really focuses on the dealerships. So while the two are very different segments, which is why we could really find the unrealized potential at the dealerships, Yeah, you know, the 2 products are heavily connected as well. Because once you start serving, serving one market, you find the adjacent market. So I see the 2 markets as adjacent ones, yet ones which have very different needs. And these needs also compound as you speak about multiple countries and multiple continents.

Yeah, yeah. And oftentimes in marketing, we talk about like a bowling pin strategy, for conquering markets where you pick one market and then you pick those secondary markets that are near to it and close to it. And it seems like that's a lot of sort of what you did once you started to win with those automotive manufacturers, you moved into that adjacent market of the dealers. How do you sort of, you know, position the value proposition to those 2 different groups? Or because what you're accomplishing within the dealerships is very similar, what you're accomplishing for the manufacturers? Is it the same value proposition?

It's a little different. What a manufacturer wants is to show their car in the best possible manner, and to generate demand. Because that's what their role is. You see, the marketing teams at manufacturers are engineered to, you know, get as many acquisitions as possible, get as many leads as possible. Yeah. And, you know, then eventually, you know, send them downstream, you know, to the dealer network. So for them, it's all about the product. It's not so much about the offer. It's not so much about how soon they can deliver the car, how soon they can fulfill the order. And yeah, so that's how a manufacturer website is or a manufacturer you know, tech stack is designed. If we speak about the dealer, dealer is a businessman individually, and they want to make profit, right? So for them, it's, they know that if anyone walks into my dealership, they're going to buy a car anyways.

Right.

So for us to say that they sell cars because of us, well, is partly true, but it's overambitious for us to say that they sell cars because of us. That's honestly not the thing. But let's look at a lot of aspects of their business, one being the fact that while they can sell cars and they have all the data on which agent is selling which cars and stuff like that, but how do they know which agent is working hard enough? Who's really putting in the efforts to do that? Who is really showing the buyer the things that they need to see? Who is really, you know, showing them the customization options that not only helps the buyer get a tailor-made car, but also helps increase the profit, you know, of that particular outlet? Those are things that a dealer would want to know. So when we integrate our offering, to give dealers these kinds of insights at scale, where they understand that what exactly is the quality of showcase that actually happened. It really makes a lot of people at the dealerships accountable, you know, to follow the right process, right? And that is essentially the kind of need that we unlocked and that we uncovered. And made a lot of features around that.

Interesting. Interesting. So as you think about, you know, kind of back to as you were first getting going with the company and I looked at your website, you have a lot of really impressive logos and, you know, large automotive manufacturers that you've worked with. How did you find that first toehold in the marketplace? You know, the automotive industry can feel kind of daunting and monolithic. How did you break in there?

That's an excellent question and a question I love answering. So I hate cars.

Okay.

Right. I mean, that's a personal opinion. I mean, that, and my customers know that too. But I love the industry. And how it all happened was that Our origin as an organization or as a company was not really in the automotive industry at all. I mean, similar to yours, we were actually a marketing agency for the longest time, having in-house tech capabilities, right? We worked with a lot of industries, with a lot of sectors, including FMCG, you know, retail, of course, banking, helping them to augment their customer experience. And we found our footing in the automotive industry, because that's where we just stumbled upon the fact that, you know, here manufacturers care about showing their product. You know, you just think of it this way, a carmaker cares much more about their product compared to someone who just sells sodas.

Obviously.

Right? So that's the first insight that we gathered, that this is where we can build a product because the options which are currently prevailing are not really robust enough in terms of everything— quality, performance, cost. So we did the first pilot, and trust me, you know, 3D is hard. It's not easy. The first pilot that we showed to our first customer, which was in India, just got booed off the stage. If I can— and he said, this does not look like my car. This is horrible. You guys have ruined my car. I said, okay, we'll fix it. So we understood that this is not going to be easy. And that's when we eventually embarked on building our own 3D engine. So, you know, if that makes sense, because we saw that none of the options out there really did the trick. So we had to really dive deep into engineering and build our own 3D engine, which is what we did. We took a couple of months, just like put together something which we thought was better than what we had showed last time around. And a senior executive in the organization saw that and said, wow, this is amazing. I've never seen anything like this in my life. Maybe the other people in the room disagreed at that time, but that was the luck that we carried. And I think that was the first trigger that we realized that, okay, we are doing something different. Now, how do we scale it up for all the models that they make? How do we scale it up to all the trends that they make? And how do we scale it up to all the other OEMs operating in this market? and eventually all the OEMs operating in the global market. So that is essentially how we got the initial, you know, taste of success. I would say it was coincidence, it was luck. Initially, when we started doing this, we didn't really have any projection of the market size or anything like that. It was purely serendipity. And I think those are the things that work the best. Because, you know, if you are just focused very early in your journey on things like what's my TAM, who is my, you know, like ICP and everything else on day zero, when you just have a great tech with you, you are probably limiting yourself in terms of what you can do. So I think the initial, you know, I would say pre-seed stage of a company, I think is the most exciting for a founder. Because you have the license to really go all out. Of course, you have limited cash with you. So that's the— it just makes it super interesting as well. But I think if I have to go back and see that, that is that moment that felt like magic because we were just creating things that we didn't know we're creating. Maybe we got lucky there. I think we did, but I will take the luck.

So that's very much in that sort of lean startup idea of getting out and talking to people about the product. So I I want to say that back a little bit and get you to sort of confirm or deny this. So it was less that you looked at the market and said, well, automotive really cares a lot about their product and it's a really high consideration item. So let's build specifically for automotive. And instead, you had a technology that you knew could do this thing, which is you know, create these extended reality experiences for consumers as they're evaluating products. And you went out and tried to sell it to lots of different people. And the ones that sort of bit was automotive. And then building on that initial success is sort of how you scaled the company. Is that right? Did it really go that way?

Yes, yes, it is fair to say that, that we just found our footing in the automotive. We were not like really searching for it. Because of my background in marketing and everything else, I did get a chance to do a lot of projects with leading corporations across the board, including automotive. While the others were nice to have, you know, for the CMO or for whoever is within the organization, in automotive, it really began to feel like it really belonged there. So that is how it was. But of course, you know, that's just the beginning, you know, about where we initially found that, you know, initial product market fit. A lot of people, but to be honest, your struggle actually just begins after that. It's great to find because you know that you will not die as a company because you can always go back to your simplest denomination. But for us, the unique challenge, Mark, is that we are selling new tech to a really old industry.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, something which is the worst possible situation for scale, right? So if my advice to founders out there would be, well, while we are doing that, and we are at it, But try any other combination. But new tech and old industry is something which needs a lot of patience. New tech and new industry will give you a great product market fit. I'm sorry, will give you great acceleration after you find your product market fit.

Right.

You know, I wouldn't say old tech, but familiar tech And an old industry will again give you the pace because people know the language that you're speaking about.

Sure.

But if it is this, then it needs a lot of consultative selling, a lot of education, a lot of relationship building. And yeah, I think it's a patience game, to be honest. I believe we have a great product and great tech. I'm very proud of it. But, you know, the GTM is a lot to do with patience. It's a game of attrition rather than aggression.

Interesting. So you said a couple of things there that sort of pivot into one of my next questions, which is you talked about, you know, once you, once you have that fit, there's some acceleration. And you talked about, you know, sort of, you know, there's a lot of education and there's a lot of sort of things to do. So you're building innovative technology. You're building relationships in a new industry, relationships that require a lot of education and, you know, sort of collateral material to be made. How did you sort of build systems and processes to scale yourself? Because as you know, oftentimes founders, CEOs at companies, you know, they have it between— they have the vision between their ears or they know what needs to be done because they've been in the space a long time. You, You knew the benefits of your tech. How did you create systems that allowed you to sort of scale out and make sure that the same quality that you would deliver in an education session with a client or the same relationship that you would be able to build, that your team was able to build so that you could really start to achieve that scale and accelerate once you did have that product market fit?

If I were to give you a one-word answer to that, it's by failing.

Okay.

You try a whole bunch of things that actually don't work, you know, till you get to a point that actually works. You know, for something that's never been done. So think of it, you know, from our lens, an XR company in the automotive space. How many XR companies do we know around the world that have succeeded?

Right.

You can answer my question.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I can't name one right off the top of my head. I'm sure, I suspect there are some, but that are probably doing more simplistic things like, you know, standard 3D renders or things like that.

What I'm trying to say is that, you know, when it comes to a SaaS or when it comes to, you know, a scalable business with Excel, Nobody has done it. Right? Because of the simple reason that even how many VR headsets do we really see around us?

Yeah.

Do we own them? The answer is no. How often do we say that, hey, let me augment this object in my surroundings? That's not really something that's a natural, you know, or how many 3D experiences do you really see on websites? Not many. So we didn't really have a playbook from any successful company, even in any other industry that had done 3D correctly. And a lot of success that companies had got in the automotive industry, you're speaking about companies like Salesforce, SAP, and all the other people who, you know, are huge enterprises. who invest in multi, multi-decade relationships to eventually embed themselves within these companies. So what we really had to do is really set ourselves up with the level of thinking of an established company. How do they speak with their customers? How do they build their relationships? Selling a multimillion-dollar software to an automotive company for a company at our stage, you know, was difficult. So the first process in the system that I built in was taking inspiration from a lot of companies who have been there, done that. And not just the software and tech companies, this included vendors who even, you know, supply ball bearings to automotive companies.

Okay.

You know, there's a certain way to really, you know, be with the industry where you need to be respectful, where you— this is not a place where you'll get 10x growth in one year and your customer is going to ask you for more. This is not that space. If you're looking for that, then automotive is not the right industry. Unless, of course, you're playing a very small fringe role within their ecosystems. For us to be a meaningful partner, you know, we really had to spend a lot of time with them. So the first process and system I built was making myself more customer-centric while leaving my teams to really, you know, deal with the tech and the product and improving the interaction that happens between business and product. Because, you know, we realized that every market, every customer in a way was unique. There wasn't that one playbook that we could actually follow that just worked across our customers. Of course, there were a lot of commonalities, but a lot of, you know, I would say tailor-made options that we had to make, which eventually got us educated. So there was a lot of learnings that were distributed across our customers itself. How do we really optimize ourselves, get all those learnings on our table, and take an educated call on how our product roadmap looks like? So in absence of a formula or a success case study in this industry, all the answers lied with our customers themselves. And that explains how our growth has been, that we are bootstrapped. We haven't really raised capital so far, for the simple reason that for us, our customers are the ones who, you know, co-innovate along with us. And it takes a lot of years to win that trust.

That's right.

It takes a lot of time for them to really take those risks along with you. And of course, they know that you're working with their competitors as well, which is again a tricky aspect of our business, which initially was a huge red flag for a lot of them. But eventually they realized that as a partner, even you need to do business. And that's when they, you know, even they understand that it's what you're bringing to the table is the learnings or compounded learnings of the global automotive industry onto their doorstep. So they see you as someone who is not just a vendor, but someone who is actually like advising them on what needs to be done. And the kind of respect that you start getting from them is probably alongside the ones that they would be you know, giving to some of the McKinseys of the world and the other people, you know, who educate them, who give a great, you know, strategic advice to them. But in our case, you know, it's for this particular thing, we just have these conversations along with them. So, again, sorry, I just like took that drift just to help you, you know, paint that picture.

No, that's really great context.

Yeah.

And actually, before you move off of it, like, there's something you called out that is really sort of core to one of the things that we see a lot within the space is you talked about co-creating with your customers and, and being, you know, sort of in it together for the long term. And we, we talk about, we actually, you know, published a book last year called Are Your Leads Killing Your Business? Because when companies chase the wrong types of customers. They wind up with a customer who doesn't really believe in their vision, that doesn't wanna co-create with them, that just wants you to, you know, sort of build what they want, not necessarily what the market wants. And that pulls you really further behind your competition and further behind where you could be. Whereas when you find those right customers that align with your product vision, your, you know, buying vision, what you think they should be getting out of the solution, That gives you that opportunity to co-create and to really create that partnership where both of you can grow together, which I, it was a great call out that you had there. I really wanted to highlight that.

Yes. You know, and again, this was serendipity at play. We didn't have a playbook that says, okay, now co-create your, with your customers to get more business. It's something that we learned that we had to do. It, of course, you know, comes at the cost of, I would say, slower growth compared to your counterparts in the other industries who have a lower ticket size but have hundreds of customers. Here, you know that you have limited customer set, but the surface area of business that you can actually expand with those customers is actually very interesting because every customer has their dealer network, every customer has their marketing agencies, every customer has someone else. So how do you then bring all of them together to really start believing that they will get some benefit out of this, right? And how will they eventually be part of this movement? So it's about you creating that movement that really gets everyone to the table and everyone wins. So that's essentially the kind of you know, spirit that we create. I'm not saying it happens with all the customers, in all honesty. For a lot of them, you're just, you know, doing your thing, you are, you know, you know, still helping them do a lot of things. But the best customers are the ones who really say, okay, let me know what I can do for you. Like, you know, we have a customer flying, flying, flying into our office next week with a 50-member team that comprises of all their partners, their CRM agency, their media agency, their website agency, and like, okay, Eccentric, can you please educate all of them? And it's, you know, a privilege, right? And some of these things just go way beyond your economics because— but I think that this is where we really compound and this is where we really take things forward. So yeah, I think that's essentially there. So again, just how did we— your base question here was that how did we make systems around this? All our systems are designed to be extremely customer-focused, to educate them and eventually, you know, get them to feel the need that, hey, you need this.

Right.

So beyond a point, it doesn't feel that you're selling to them. You're just conversing with them. And the best sales don't happen while selling. The best sales don't happen on a PowerPoint deck. Best sales don't really happen, you know, yeah, you know, over because of an offer that you give them. It happens when you have a conversation with them and you resonate very deeply with that. Um, so yeah, so a lot of my other SaaS founders, just, you know, post-SaaS founders, just because of the nature of business and everything, is just, uh, reduce their customer down to an ICP. Oh, who's my ICP? Okay, I, I'll send them 10 emails and then they will respond, and this is how I'll meet my target. It works, it works, right? But everyone has their own calling. We are not one of those companies. For us It is about really building that trust over time and then compounding it. So again, to each its own. If I was selling a CRM, this would not work at all. But right now I'm not.

Sure. So that you describe a really sort of complex, you know, relationship building, lots of blurred edges between what's marketing, what's sales. And you talked about, you know, they're bringing in all of their agencies. That's customer, you know, success and customer service. How do you balance these, you know, these different aspects? You know, in a lot of companies, they live in silos. There's a marketing team that delivers MQLs. There's a sales team that delivers closed deals. There's a customer success team that delivers renewals. Seems like you've got a lot more blurred lines there. How do you balance it? Do you see them all as sort of one team? How do you manage that?

Well, we have to at some level see them all as one team.

Yeah.

Because, you know, as a founder, you know, your role is to align them all, right? Then you have your teams to engage with these teams individually and understand what their aspirations are. In large corporations, you will more often than not have, you know, conflicts which happen within those organizations as well. Because different people and different teams need different things and that's absolutely fine. And that's what happens. So again, at a founder level, we look at those, you know, teams as one team, but at a functional level, you have to look at them as separate, you know, modules or I would say separate customers.

Yeah.

One being an opportunity, of course. And yet, you know, understanding where to draw the line. So any sales, you know, so, and that brings me to my point about the fact that we don't really hire sales talent from outside. We groom our own engineers, our own internal teams to take up the sales responsibility because they are the ones who will know the context. I can have the best sales executive coming in from the outside. And well, they will do a great job. But will they build a multi-year partnership or a multi-year relationship? Not really.

Right.

So yeah, you know, so that's, of course, for new markets as we enter different countries. Even there, we don't look to hire the our sales rockstar who is going to churn in lots of revenue on day 1. Maybe they will, but that may come at the cost of long-term relationship.

Yeah.

So the way we are scaling in different markets is by having our advisors around the world, all of whom are, I would say, their success is intertwined with our success as well. You know, they are people who our manufacturer partners will listen to because they have a long, you know, longstanding relationships with all of them and having them as our advocates and our evangelists over time. So that's the approach that we've taken to, you know, for our global expansion as well. where we, you know, don't want to be a sales-led organization. We want to be an organization which is not only product-led, but more context-led. Because, again, you know, this happens when you have a finite number of potentially huge, huge customers, right? And that's the playbook that we realized works well for us.

But it's also really clear that you've you've structured your business around your customers. So you're very customer-focused. And I was really happy to hear you say that you think of that sort of marketing, sales, customer success as sort of a unit in the way that you approach it. And even the idea of your best salespeople coming from within the product side of the organization. I didn't want to lead you too much. I wanted you to answer the question. But one of the things that we see Is that the most successful companies are the ones that really build— we call it a revenue team. And that revenue team has some people that are a little more focused on the, the top part of, you know, building those initial relationships, what you would call marketing. And they've got people that are focused on the sort of the, the renewal part or the second, the bowtie, second half of that bowtie funnel. But by bringing them all together and, and really having them aligned around growing the business, and by really being obsessed with the customer, that's how we really see companies in the B2B space really achieve that growth and that success. So I'm really happy to hear you say that and sort of validate that.

I think our background as a marketing agency helped us create that empathy, you know, because before we got into the automotive, we were a largely services business. And as a services business, you have to be customer-focused and customer-centric. Over time, we learned to really have that, you know, to draw that line between being very service-driven and eventually, today we are a very heavily product-driven company. But we still have a lot of values from those days, which we've ingrained, which I think still stay on. And I think that's for the better.

That's great. So at the beginning, you said that you enjoy reading. What's your favorite book that you've read recently or that you're currently working on?

So the, in fact, I just have that book with me, the one that I'm reading right now. I just managed to read a few pages of that, but it's super impressive from whatever little I've read. Let me just get it out of my bag. It's called— it's called The Genius Makers.

Your green screen is hiding the COVID Yeah, hold it in front of you.

It's called The Genius Makers. It's the mavericks who brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the world. I'm studying who are these people who eventually worked on foundational tech? over the last few decades to really get AI to the level where it is today. What actually went on to— went inside those meeting rooms when these decisions were taken? Because, you know, of course, while today we are an automotive-focused company, we are, say, 10 years down the line, you know, we aspire to be, I would say, A global leader. the leading XR platform for enterprises as things shape up. So the foundational tech that we are able to create and then distribute to enterprises becomes extremely important. Today we are heavily vertical-focused and we are proud to be that. But I think the next 5-year journey will see us focusing beyond auto as well. getting a lot of auto learnings to other enterprises, and hence understanding that how did AI essentially do that and how can we do for 3D and XR, you know, what AI did for a long time. So this is the book that I'm reading right now. The other book which I love reading over and over again is Shoe Dog. It's just something which— Love that.

Is that the book about the Nike founder?

Yeah, Phil Knight. Yeah, it always, you know, dries up my adrenaline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I'm, since I just consider myself as an athlete by heart who is doing business, so I can resonate to a lot of things that actually happened there. And yeah, so I think those are Of course, I've read a bunch of books, but Shoe Dog is a different emotion for me. It's not a book, it's an emotion. So that's great.

That's great. Those are 2 great recommendations. Thank you for those. So I really enjoyed the time with you today, and you've given us a lot of really great insights for, you know, building an innovative company that's really obsessed with their customer and focusing around how to sort of achieve that and break into an industry by, you know, really taking an idea out and seeing where it resonates. So I'm sure that a lot of our listeners will get a lot out of it. Before we wrap, any sort of parting words of advice or anything for, you know, budding CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs out there who are listening?

I think I've given quite a few, you know, tips and some of these inputs. But listen, I think the only advice that I can give right now, I don't know how equipped I am to give advice out, but still, if I have to give it, it is just to say be unconventional, right? Read everything, absorb information from everywhere, but do what works best for you. There is no formula. There is no formula for you to succeed. I know your VCs will, you know, push you to set up, you know, a few processes based on what has worked so far. Be open, but understand that every successful company have had a lot of decisions that they have taken that have been unconventional. So I think that's one. And second thing is that Maybe this is unpopular advice, but engage with a business if you are willing to spend 2 decades of your life potentially building that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know it's fashionable to really, you know, start a company, sell it within 3 years, and then be a serial entrepreneur. And I hate that word myself because You might just be a serial entrepreneur, and that's amazing. But if you really want to build an epic organization, uh, just fall in love with your product and your market and everything else. Be a student, learn, study, and don't really approach things from that mindset because you're probably limiting what you can do over a certain amount of time. I think those are the 2 things which I can say from my worldview. I'm sure a lot of people will have a contrarian, you know, point of view, and that's absolutely fine.

We could have a long debate over coffee or other beverages around the idea of being unconventional. I certainly believe in the idea of taking risks and being unconventional. However, you increase your probability of success if you do that within a framework. And within a system that—

100%. The idea is to like, you know, just borrow all possible frameworks, put them together, add your own dash of identity and create a framework that actually works best for you. That's right.

Definitely need a bit of magic in there. You can't, it can't be all math.

Yes, yes, yes. I think that's, I mean, yeah, I think that's the, I think you've really articulated this point very well. That is what I would say. There's a lot to learn out there, learn everything, but eventually don't be stubborn to discard what is already working. Yet, you know, just have a point of view on how things should work.

Awesome. Varun, thank you again. Really appreciate your time. Thanks so much for joining us and I know the audience will get a lot out of it. Thanks again.

Thank you, Mark. All right.

Thank you for joining this episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast. We hope you've gained insights to grow your business. If you enjoyed this discussion, please rate, comment, like on your favorite platform, and share to others who will find it useful. Do you know a CEO, founder, or leader at an early-stage B2B services, tech, or SaaS company who would like to be a guest and share their story? Send us a note. Let's schedule a conversation.