Darshan Pindoria: The Psychological Knowledge and Power Behind SaaS Companies #198

Hello, hello everyone. This is your host, Akhil Jabbar, and welcome back to another episode of SaaS District. In today's episode, we'll be talking about the psychological knowledge and power behind how SaaS companies run. Today we have our guest, Darshan Pindoria, joining us. Darshan is a psychology and mindset coach at Deep, uh, Deep Sik, which is an organizational psychology service that impacts key areas of mental health and performance. Darshan holds a bachelor in psychology. He's a vlogger, public speaker, and course creator who also took up training for 9 months as a monk in a yoga ashram, which we'll talk about today. His past experience in SaaS includes working as a business development manager at companies like VertoCloud, eBusiness Guru Limited, Avassam, and Reply Co. So welcome, Darshan. Super excited to have you on the show. Love to hear what you're all about.

Yeah, great to be here. It's finally get to put SaaS and psychology together. It's the first time I'm coming across anyone vaguely ready to go into that space.

Yeah, I was quite hesitant, to be honest. And I can see why a lot of people could be. But I said, you know what, let's see it. I mean, We all work in psychology. There's a lot of power behind it. I mean, that's what drives us every day. And I think there's a lot you can share with our audience that they probably don't think about rather than getting into the weeds. Sometimes it's good to get out and understand how the mind works.

So, but before we get into that. So it's, I'm just going to throw it in there. So for me, it was always psychology and SES. So I was a psychology student and studied psychology, a psychologist in and around work and day-to-day working in SES. So the 2 worlds are always together for me. Now, yeah, coming into your world now, it's heavy on the SaaS side. So hoping to bring that psychology introduction in.

Let's hear it. So maybe we can start off with a story. Let's talk about your background. So you worked as a business development manager. That was your job working with a SaaS company. And then did you transition over? Was that a quick 0 to 100? You quit and you started this psychology practice that you have today? Or what did that transition look like? And what was the motive? You know, since you're a student and then you're working in SaaS, and then tell us a little bit about it.

Yeah, fair enough. So in and around my university, it was sales came a lot more natural to me. So I was always doing sales and then SaaS sales was the place to be. I was heavily into the whole concept of selling Second, second, the benefit over the feature. So as soon as we're talking about automation, we know how much time, resources, the software can save someone. So, but to get them to that point, there was a lot of digging that used to be required. So even when I was in my psychology lectures, I was always thinking, okay, yeah, that, that, that's a whole deeper motive than anyone else in sales is going. So really and truly, frustration is a big part of everything, especially on the receiving end, on the sales, even whilst I'm the guy selling frustration concept. So I was just, I was observing people and in terms of I was raised heavily within the community, so communities helped me out a lot. So psychology, I was, I had a lot of practice clients. I had a Evenings, weekends, and yeah, day to day. SaaS-based sales was day in, day out. That was the breadwinner. So over the last, I'll say, 10 years now, just over 10 years between taking on clients for psychology and in terms of my main income until before COVID it was always in SaaS sales. And COVID came. The company that I was with, they didn't quite make it through lockdown. And then that's when I said, okay, now's my time to go full-time with psychology.

Okay, so since then you've been kind of at this full-time. So you quit your job and this has been your full-time practice now?

Exactly. Yeah.

Interesting. Okay, so but before, let's go back a little bit. When in kind of your world, so you're working, you transition here, but you also became a monk for 9 months. So maybe there's people who are maybe thinking about, you know, following the same journey in their own lives. Maybe they're quitting their jobs or, you know, before starting their careers or somewhere further down in their careers. This is something that they're looking to transition to. What did you learn from it? And then how do you apply it today, whether it's professionally or not?

Yeah, fair enough. So 2010, I went work experience in IT. And that's when I realized I don't want to be the guy sitting at a computer all day long. So I went out to India. I never knew I wanted to be a psychologist or anything to do with the whole life coaching side of things. And then I met a yogi. He, his level of thinking, it was, it just came as a shock to me. The way he lived his life, he was able to wake up 12:30 every day at night, go to sleep around 10. He's up and running. He doesn't really get tired. The same level that I would get tired, he'll be working in the kitchen in the day. He's fine. I was just studying his lifestyle. I started asking the questions, then he taught me how to ask questions. So that's something that I was never taught in school. I was never, never really delved down on it. The whole concept of asking questions, making sure a question actually leads to a solution. There was, there was a lot of Q&A that was happening between me and him. That's what inspired me to go into psychology. He told me, go get a degree. And then come back after, then we will talk. So I spent 5 years at uni and then in my mind it was always ticking, after this I'm going India, I'm gonna go spend time with the yogis and stay as a monk. Then you got the two, you got the two options, you could either give your life up and stay a monk or you could take the training and come back. So I I ended up going open-minded, say I might want to do this full-time, just leave my life out there and then, then between the two of us we decided, okay, I'm better off going back, take what I've learned and apply it in London essentially. So yeah, 9 months as a monk, it's very different to everything that happens here, everything is different, oh boy, the way you sleep, what you even do everything for, so you don't We eat to stay energetic. So right now we feel we eat just to stay alive type of thing. No, we eat to energize ourselves. We breathe to control our mind. So a lot of things, it was really about self-mastery. Now within one week, I've covered a lot. I'm sitting there thinking, wow, a lot of changes happen in one week. And then I'm pulling through for for a longer period of time. Then you start realizing, okay, I need to question why some of this stuff is working. So then I went into the whole, the whole deep dive into the knowledge. I got the knowledge. I spent 3 months my first time in ashram, then came back, was in the UK. I felt I had the knowledge, but I was struggling to apply it. And that's, that kind of got me a bit still in life. It didn't, it didn't get me the results. So then I went back to ashram. then it was just practical only. I didn't get to— my trainer, he said, no more asking questions. You're gonna just get on with life, do exactly as we say. If you struggle to do what we say, then come back to us, we would advise you. But really get on with your life 24/7 in the whole concept of self-mastery and build up your power, build up that energy inside of you, build up your physical strength, mental strength. So done that. And yeah, since then, I've— honestly believe life's been really good. It's just mentally, the focus level, ability to apply these concepts, apply a lot of training, really sparked a good spirit into my life essentially. And then I went back again for another 3 months. That's how I made it, is 9 months as a monk. So the in and out concept helped. It just helped me recalibrate every time I thought I knew something, but I didn't. So then get it checked.

Little reality check, yeah. Just a few follow-up questions. When you went the first time to India, and did you go with the intention of like, I want to go and become a monk? And did you seek out this yogi and how did you find him?

So that came because through family, we've always known. My dad went when he was young, his dad would have went when he was young. So it's a bit of a family tradition, but that was in India. That tradition never never quite made it to the UK. So I knew where I wanted to go. I've been in interactions with these yogis prehand, so I kind of knew which— there's 250 of them. So I kind of, depending on what you want to learn, you go to that individual and depending on the relationship that you build. So yeah, that essentially built me up. So It's one of those things, I did go with the hope of staying there forever, if that makes sense.

Okay.

But I didn't go deciding that I'm going to stay there forever. I went with an open mind, essentially. Now, because I went with an open mind, I wasn't— I was working at a faster pace out there because I knew I've only got a limited time here. This might just be a limited time I've got here, so let me learn at a faster pace, that type of thing. Otherwise, if I knew I was just going to stay there forever, done it a bit more, a bit more eased, ease myself in type of thing.

Got it. And you use the word now that what you're focusing on, you know, 24/7 is building up your power. Now I'm assuming that comes from, you know, spiritual side. What does that look like? How are you building that up? What is— do you have a routine that, that kind of, uh, defines that?

So strengthening. So if anything feels hard for you, uh, anything that's good for you that feels hard for you shouldn't feel hard for you. So that's, uh, That's the concept of self-strengthening. If you strengthen yourself up, what is necessary in your life should not feel hard. It should just feel, it should feel a lot more casual, essentially. So waking up, whether it's bathing in cold water, whether it's doing a yoga routine, whether it's controlling the mind, whether it's focusing down on anything, all these things that naturally feel hard, it's big. We haven't strengthened ourselves up on that. So therefore, we feel it's harder. So Strengthening ourselves up, keeping that discipline and really making all these essential things casual in your life. That's what we call the starting platform. So now we've got a body to use to go out into the world and do whatever we need to.

So you're talking about physically at the first, is that the first thing you want to focus on?

Yeah, it's always going to be physical, mental and spiritual. So physically is heavily to do with routine. If you get ill, there's ways to build your immune system. There's ways to not damage yourself through what you eat. And in terms of the yoga, yeah, staying flexible, making sure you can stay still for a good amount of time. And then mentally, if you've got that physical aspect sorted, mentally, you're not going to feel drained. Now, that's the biggest key. Mentally not being drained is is a big answer in itself. So if you're mentally energized, everything else comes a lot easier. And then digging into the whole spiritual side of things, making sure you feel the right way, making sure no one can come and interrupt your flow. So all of that, that's where the spiritual growth comes in. So keeping that as a focus, that's— there's going to be times where you focus down on certain aspects of it, try to really build them stronger. So Let's just say my daily routine, making sure I'm able to wake up on time, make sure I feel good when I wake up. There's going to be phases where if that knocks off, I'm going to have to go focus down on that, make sure I get back up. And then, yeah, carry on making sure a lot of these things do not become hard again because you have to do the effort all over again.

Right. So you kind of have to recalibrate your set point, right? So first you have to get the set point up, kind of build it up to get that strength, then you're kind of You know, once the body is built up, then I guess the mind kind of follows, right?

Or vice versa.

Oh, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I want to hear about a little bit more of the kind of the meditation side of it, right? Because I know a lot of people are maybe listening in follow some kind of meditation practice. Um, how have you found that, you know, meditation probably can improve, you know, creativity? There's a lot of benefits, so I'm just going to focus on those things, you know, creativity and maybe better decision-making in business. Because if I'm a SaaS founder, I've got to make better decision-making. That's going to help me. I mean, you're making, you know, thousands of decisions per day. And maybe share, what does your meditation practice look like?

So essentially, meditation is what we consider everything. So if I'm putting my shoes on, I'm either thinking about something else or I'm actually thinking about putting my shoes on, that type of concept. So being aware, being constant, being a level of assertive on purpose with your mind. So We call contemplating the first step of meditation. If you can contemplate what you need to contemplate at the time you need to contemplate it, you've got a level of control. Now when you go into meditation, if you know what you're looking for, if you know a direction of where to go, if you want to channel energy through you, all of that, those all become your style of preference. Now I ventured into that, I ventured into the whole going inside, I ventured into the whole Eyes closed meditation, sit down. That's a journey in itself. That also needs a good lifestyle with it as well. You can't be worrying too much on a day-to-day basis. Now, when it comes to success, essentially everyone in IT, they've got their own skill set. Now, if you want to really master that skill set, that skill set, if it's enjoyable, you're naturally meditating on it. So you're naturally meditating on your skill set, but your skill set is either logical or creative. Some people have them both, but they're logical. So 2 of my best friends, they've gone and taken up life as a monk full-time. They were computer programmers, so they were on 50K salaries whilst they were in the UK. And about at the age of 20, he was a good friend of mine, he's gone and become a monk. Now, if he uses his style of enjoying himself or really engaging his mind, it's a lot more programming type of style, it's a bit more logical. Now, his ability to dive into his mind, find out what's going on, really reorganize his thoughts, that's his style. So what essentially I'm saying, you pick up your style, you find it, you make sure you own your style. And then if you want to, if you want to power up an aspect of your life, if you want to power up an aspect of your work, your family life, you've actually got an asset in you. You've got, you've got an asset that helps you concentrate and helps you bring your mental energy 10 times higher than it would if you were kind of fighting against it. So a lot of the time we're trying to be creative when we're trying to be creative. for comedy, essentially, when we're more the serious person. So you end up fighting against your asset, essentially.

Got it. So you're saying kind of work with your strengths, right? Rather than trying to force a creative side that maybe you're not built for at this point in where you are now. Yeah.

If you know your style, you use that. Oh, that can take you places.

Yeah. Yeah. It's always interesting, right? People look for meditation. They'll say, I struggle. I can't do it. I'm like, Hey, if you're looking at me right now, if you're paying attention to the words I'm talking, if your mind is not looking elsewhere and we're just talking, you're meditating. This is meditation. If you're— as long as you're here with me right now, right? But it's that simple. We just— it's a lot harder, right, when your mind is wandering and always thinking, right? Um, yeah. So I mean, what is your— what does your meditation practice look like today? Do you have a practice, or are you just, you know, in flow right now and trying to keep that awareness while you— while you're in your day?

Yeah, meditation-wise, I've, uh, I've linked it with my physical activity, so my yoga routine. I just make sure I'm able to cut out everything. And I've always— it's— if you could do something physically, and so it's like people that go to the gym, they focus, they literally meditate on the muscle that they're training, and then that's how they do it. So for me, in the yoga routine, I'll be meditating on the actual routine, making sure the breathing And then I do a bit of, we call it the pranayama, which we call it. So it's breathing exercises to slow down the thinking. Once I've slowed it down, then I can take it wherever I need to take it. So right now I might be looking for answers in psychology for the clients that I have. So if I need to go into a space and find them answers, that's when I know I won't do it any other time in the day. I'll just do it at that set time. I'm going to go into my practice and then try to find any answers that I need to get. Same thing business-wise, same thing even reaching out to you today. Whichever way it is, it's— I don't let these answers come to me randomly, willy-nilly. I try to just make sure they're not disturbing me in a day. And when it's time, I should be able to just go into my— go into a bit more of a meditative state and do what I need to get on. Love it.

So if I'm a SaaS founder or employee, I mean, you work with, you know, I'm assuming you work with a lot of entrepreneurs. What are some of the things, what are struggles that if I'm coming to you, what am I generally facing? What am I looking for? Why am I searching for a program like yours? Where am I in my mind that I feel like I need your help?

Oh, yeah. So everyone in SaaS likes to think they've got the answer. Now, when they don't have the answer, that's the biggest frustration.

Yeah.

So, oh boy. Yeah, that's everyone. I could just whip out a conversation with literally anyone in the SaaS field, whether they're a developer, whether they're a sales guy. Oh, if they don't have the answer, they will find story after story. They could, you know, they're not as happy either. So yeah, that's how happy are you not knowing the answer really and truly? that's when we come alive, but we don't realize that because we don't have the answer, because we're searching for the answer. We're putting a lot of energy, it's just coming out of nowhere, all this energy that programmers get. They get loads of energy to sort out these issues, but they can't get that energy when it comes to maybe taking care of kids or when it comes to driving or whatever it is. So really and truly, the happiest point is The body is feeding you that much energy. Now, they don't— they may not have seen it this way, so I'm just looking out for it. Now, if they wanted to sort out anything in their life, they could just utilize their shrimp and sort out anything in life because their thinking power is a lot higher. Their ability to solve issues, all that skill set is there. It's just being able to roam it in and apply it. So if in SAS, I think the best, the best of the best are the ones that actually utilize that skill outside of work and they build it and it starts becoming who they are. So, you know, when we're in teams of hundreds of people, there's still that superstar individual, that type of thing. That superstar individual won't be won't be known for doing every single task in the world, but they will just be a— you can just tell this person lives that style of programming or that style of thinking. So essentially, finding your style of thinking first is always the first scope. And if you do find yourself getting frustrated too much, and it's kind of a good thing because technically you come alive when you're looking for the answer. So yeah, that's just a common trait amongst the whole industry.

Yeah, that's, that's interesting. So another common thing we, you know, theme we see these days, maybe especially after, you know, post-COVID, is a lot of issues in terms of mental health, you know, from, from employees and, you know, across the board. What are some suggestions that maybe you have to companies that they can maybe apply today to work with their employees or help them improve it or, you know, their teams or even themselves or families?

Yeah. So main thing when it comes to the organization. So I've done a lot of work with SaaS companies over lockdown. Now you've got people that they come to work as an escape mechanism, and you've got people that can't escape when they come to work. So you've got people that bring their issues and then they could bring it to work, or you've got the people that they've got situational issues in their life, they've got other, they've got other factors going on, and they come to work and they work hard at work because they don't have to think about all of that. Now, if the company doesn't address these 2 types of people, it's going to work against them because the person that's trying to forget everything, they can be triggered. And if that trigger happens in the workplace, everyone's just going to be left confused and say, oh yeah, this guy is normally a calm person. What happened all of a sudden? This, this, and that. I never knew there's something this deep going on in his life. So they actually need help, but they're the more quiet ones. So you're never going to find out that this person even needed the help in the first place. They might just never talk about home life, things like that. Companies, they need to get aware of how to build these engaging conversations. So, you know, if someone actually needs help, they can access it. It's literally just that, staying too quiet about certain topics in life. You would know it amongst your friend circle, but would people even know how to engage that type of conversation? So That's for the person that's trying to escape everything. And then you've got other people that bring the issues from outside of work, they bring it into work, and those people end up getting excluded in the workplace. People don't like to talk to them. They find them too negative or they find the conversation's always about them, them, them, that type of thing. So it's a mental health issue at the root of it, and it's shown in a different way. But if it can be sorted out, it will actually make the whole workplace really, really good. It uplifts people instead of putting them down. Because fair enough, the person's annoying, but they've got stuff going on in their life. So if they get that help, now that person's going to bring a lot, a lot brighter energy into the workplace if they get the help.

That's a really good way of perspective. I never thought of that, right? Like looking at your personal life, Making sure to address that, see if you're bringing that, you know, the issues there or vice versa, right? If your work is stressing you out, how are you bringing that to, you know, your family and your friends and the rest of the time, right? And then, you know, being able to manage both, you know.

Because we get the people that do overtime and we know if someone's doing this much overtime, something mustn't be going right at home, most likely. So it's— but is anyone in the SaaS workplace going to talk about this? Why are they even going to address it? Why are they just going to carry on letting it happen? And then until one day Something heavy enough does happen to that individual. And then they're thinking, oh, well, we never expected that from him. That type of thing.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's too late. So last question, Darshan, before we get into the rapid-fire questions, just quickly, you know, people love, you know, routines, they love kind of, you know, tips. What are some successful mindset or routines that you suggest that people that are thinking about starting or scaling their business look into and maybe start applying to their lives, if you can share?

So it's looked down upon, but because we weren't— because we've grown up to have a negative connotation towards the concept of having rules for you. If you've got a rule, you follow it type of thing. But because of the way we were brought up, we were taught there's consequences and there's negativity around having rules that you're going to follow. Really and truly, we need to put rules in our life and be able to follow them and be able to follow them effortlessly. So people that join a weight loss scheme, they know, okay, now they've got all these requirements they need to follow or else they don't get a result. Same thing in life. Are we able to give ourselves a rule and follow it or are we not? The reality of it is if we give ourselves a rule, we follow it, We kind of end up struggling for a day or two, but after a day or two, it's fine. But getting us to follow that rule in the first place, that's the difficulty. That's the whole, that's the whole, oh yeah, what if, what that, this type of thing. So your biggest, you could do self-discipline courses, you could do whole motivational schemes, they will get you off the mark. But it's the rules, it's the habits that are going to keep you. Yeah, going all the way. And then if you start putting rule on top of rule, so it's like people that go for a run every day, they don't call it a rule to themselves, but they go for a run every day. So it would have started as a, okay, let's get myself up, this, this, and that. But then it started becoming them. So essentially, that's what, if you want to build yourself up in life, are you meant Are you building your mental capacity through putting yourself through better rules in your life?

Got it. It's just inhabiting the new identity, right, of what you want to become. Yeah. Love it.

It's being strict is— a lot of people say being strict is negative. Yeah. Being disciplined is negative. This, this, and that. It's— you can do everything in a nice enjoying way. So if you learn to master that enjoyment, send it through to all aspects of your life, that's ultimate fulfillment. Otherwise, you have fulfillment in one side and not the other side of your life.

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, we're animals, right? And I think that's why a lot of religions were born, right? To help us. We needed those rules to kind of apply and keep us in one place. Cool. Dasha, let's get into the rapid-fire questions here. We'll kind of be Kind of quick here. Let's start off with what's one activity you enjoy outside of your work that gets you into flow state?

So I'm a big socializing fan. If I talk to someone and even if they're the one doing the talking, but someone like me, I like to think I need to talk to 10 people a week minimum, new people. So I like to put myself in situations that allow me to do that. So yeah, talking to people. Self-expression, essentially.

Love it. What's one piece of advice you wish you had known? If you can go back, you would tell your 20-year-old self or 25-year-old self?

Yeah, so it's, uh, it only takes, uh, it only takes, uh, 2 to 3 days to pick up a habit. So I was always, always thought it was 21 for some reason. It's literally 2 to 3 days and then just, uh, just run with it.

Just run with it. Yeah. What are some of the biggest challenges you're currently facing in order to continue to grow your firm, uh, you know, DeepSeek?

So at the moment, I need to get into a concept of making psychology knowledge entertaining as well, because the world has gone into a form of entertainment-only type of process. And then if the knowledge comes, it comes. Before, it used to be— we used to be able to pick up encyclopedias, jump in, even though it was the most boring thing ever. But now it's the opposite. We need the entertainment factor. So yeah, working on it. So yeah, I just need to zone in and Get that key.

Love it. What does success mean to you today? Whether that's personally, business, financial life, no right answer.

So having the energy that I need when I need it. That's why. So even if it comes to earning money, whether it comes to taking care of the family, do I have the right energy when I need it as and when it's required? If you've got the energy, you can do anything. You can go out and work 24/7 if you need to. So whichever way, Assets will come to you, but do you have the resources internally that will— that could get you those assets as and when you need it? Love it.

Build up the energy inside. Cool. This has been great, Darshan. I know I've got a lot of questions I can ask. I'm sure we might be able to do another episode, but, you know, where can— yeah, you know, founders, you know, marketers, anyone listening in, where can they get in touch with you, learn more about you and your company? And can you tell us about any free resources you have on your website?

Oh, perfect. So yeah, deeppsyche.com. I give everyone a first free call anyway. So we end up talking for half an hour, getting to know each other. It's all part of my get to know 10 more people a week type of routine. So yeah, it's on YouTube. I've got vlogs from the Himalayas. When I was in ashram, I've got quite a lot of videos. I've got sleep mastery, how to fast for a long time, mental health explained, the game of the mind. I've got Got some funky, funky videos on this. So yeah, YouTube, Deep Psych. Yeah, that's pretty much me. Same Instagram. So Deep Psych all around.

Okay, awesome. We'll put the links to your social media profiles, your YouTube channel, and your website in our show notes for people to check out. So thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us today.

Yeah, perfect. Thanks for having me.

All right. Cheers. Thank you all for watching this episode and joining SaaS District today. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell for future episodes where we interview top leaders in the SaaS industry. If you're a SaaS company looking to grow and unlock the true value of your business, get in touch with us at Horizon Capital and myself or one of our consultants will provide a free assessment to help you get there and hit your goals. If you have any feedback or suggestions For this podcast, please comment down below and help us improve our content for you all. Thanks again and see you on the next one. Bye.