Niraj Shah, co-founder of DKZ Equity and former real-estate-tech executive, survived a stroke at 30 that forced him to rethink work and health. He built wealth through real estate and prop-tech, then pivoted to wellness. His framework for freedom: own assets for passive income, own your life through full accountability for health and relationships.
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3 months into that journey, out of nowhere, I had a full-blown stroke and I was getting ready. One minute I was standing up and next minute my head just went to the floor.
What is that like?
So first of all, I didn't know what was going on. This has happened. I can't control the future. What I can control is— It changed my thinking about everything. Health, time, freedom, energy. And what it did, it afforded me the thing I'd been praying for, which was time and space to think.
Niraj Shah is an entrepreneur and the founder founder of DKZ Equity, an M&A advisory firm that helps entrepreneurs capture more value from the businesses they've spent years building. After surviving a major stroke at 30, Niraj completely rethought how he approaches time, energy, and success. He's co-founded 5 companies and built an investment portfolio focused on both steady income and high-risk opportunities.
Anything can happen to anyone at any moment.
Tell me about your journey with meditation. When did you discover meditation and how did you bring that to a business? I've heard this from so many entrepreneurs is, oh yeah, I've tried meditation. I can't quiet my mind. When did you start finding the unlock and what was that like? Welcome to Money Stories, where we have raw conversations about money, meaning, and what makes a truly rich life. Today I am joined by my dear friend Neeraj Shah, joining us from the UK, founder, co-founder of 5 companies, most recently DKZ Equity Partners, an M&A advisory advisory firm. Had a wild ride. I'm so excited for you to join us and share your journey with us. So let's start from the beginning. And Neeraj, if you could just share some of your early memories with money and how those shaped your relationship with money growing up.
Sure. Let me set the scene. So I was born and raised in the UK, but my parents are immigrants, so they are Indians from East Africa. So my grandparents went from India to East Africa in the '50s. And my parents moved from Kenya, East Africa, to the UK in the '70s. My brother and I were born in— he was '77, I was '79. So a bit of an immigrant story. We didn't grow up in a wealthy household, from a financially wealthy household. I would say it was stable, but my parents' job was really to stabilize things, um, you know, sort of set up a new life for the family and so on. So my father was an accountant for an SME, and my mother had a range of part-time jobs while she was bringing up the kids. So that was, I think, the best way for me to sum it up is that there was always food on the table, there was always a roof over the house, but our bikes were secondhand and our holidays was a week in the UK, right? So we weren't flying off to Spain and doing all these things. What I will say, so my dad was quite cautious with money, but he was very good with money. He was a numbers guy, right? So my early memories, I remember he would come home from the office and I was probably about 7 or 8 years old. He'd come home from the office, I'd be watching TV, and he would, um, flick onto something called teletext, which, uh, it's kind of like a really early version of the internet. Very, you know, sort of block graphics, and there'd be these numbers on the screen. And I'd ask him, what is this? And he'd say, these are shares and stock prices. This is what, you know, this is some of the stuff that we have. So what he was doing, the reason— I only learned all of this in hindsight— the reason we had secondhand bikes and holidays in the UK is not because he couldn't afford to buy us a new bike or go abroad. He was thinking about the future. And thinking about his family. And that was an amazing thing because the first sort of big trauma in my life was I was 14, my brother was 16, my parents were in their 40s, my dad was 47, and a few days after his 47th birthday, he had a huge heart attack and the next day he was gone. Right. So age 14, age 16, the whole world gets turned upside down. And I remember very clearly like my brother saying to me that night when it happened, we're in so much trouble, we're going to lose our house, all this stuff. And I said, I think we'll be okay. And I, I just knew my dad will have done something. And that was when we found out, one, he had really great life insurance, and two, he'd been building this investment portfolio, which basically meant that we didn't lose the house and that we weren't in trouble and that we could just continue our life right from a financial point of view. So I'd say that, that was like, that shaped me a lot. Yeah, I'll pause there. But what are your, you know, where do you want to go with this?
I mean, what a, what an incredible gift. Yeah. To be in this moment of sheer grief and a lot for a 14-year-old to handle. And then in the same breath realize we're gonna be okay. We can grieve Dad without losing everything. I mean, how important was that for you?
At the time, I was 14 years old, so I didn't really understand it other than we can continue, right? We can still eat the same food, go, you know, like, live the same life and so on. So I had to go back and kind of figure it out but he'd effectively, like, it wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was about 8 years of his gross salary. And that was enough for us to grow up basically, right? So I think it forced me to grow up a lot as a 14-year-old. I can't imagine, like, my mother, we're very close to her because she had to raise 2 teenage boys all of a sudden. And I'm like a month off my own 47th birthday. So I'm at the stage of life where all of this happened to my parents. Um, so yeah, I, I just think that the most important thing was we were able to continue, but it also did shape some of my thinking. So as an example, 19 years old, I finished my first year of university. I was very lucky because I was effectively the last year that was— that could go to university for free. And because it's a single-parent family, we got some government grants and all this stuff. And I always had part-time jobs from, from 14 years onwards. I had part-time jobs because I, I just kind of knew learning how to work was important, um, and I wanted my own money, right? Like, I, I wanted a bit of independence. And end of first year of university, I had a little bit of money left over, and which is very rare, um, because I had a part-time job. I was busy doing that instead of going to lectures. Like, I only went because it was free. Otherwise, you know, I would've had a difficult decision around that. I said to my mom, hey, I want to like start investing because I'd seen my dad do it. So my dad's younger brother who played a pivotal role in sort of helping raise us and all this stuff, she said, okay, well you can talk to him and he'll guide you. So this was to place the time, 1998. So the stock market's booming, dot-com's in full bloom, and he gave me some guardrails and said, Okay, you know, go and invest this like $2K or whatever it was. And I remember doing it and then just watching it go up because markets were booming. And about 2 years later it all tanked. So I thought I was a genius and then I learned that I wasn't. But that was enough for me to get the bug of like this mindset of start putting money away.
You've been given the gift of financial responsibility and investing and looking out for your future self very early. I mean, most kids aren't thinking about that, probably because they don't have to, right? And, and you suffer this tragedy and see the, the benefit and then start applying it. How does that start to play out in your career?
So what happened was, I remember as a 15-year-old, I had two very clear thoughts, um, because I'd been reflecting on what, what happened, and I, I knew I was different to my peers because they all had two parents and no worries and all this stuff. Number one thought— so I grew up in Birmingham, UK— like, I was like, I need to go see the world, right? Like, there's more to life than this town where there wasn't really a lot going on. And number two, I need my own business. And the only thinking was because that's how I can make a lot of money. I didn't know about investment banking and all this other stuff, like careers and whatever. So it was a very naive thought, but that was why I had summer jobs and internships and all this. It was like, I just need to learn as much as I can, earn some money. So I think like in my 20s, I was just trying to siphon off a bit of money instead of just everything that comes in goes out. Um, I married very well. You've met my wife. Um, she's definitely the brains of the operation, and I mean that in like like in every way. And, and, um, she's of the same mindset. She also comes from, you know, her dad was a plumber, mom didn't have a university education, worked for the NHS. Um, so she comes from that sort of similar background. And I think I met someone in my early 20s who had the same mindset as me of this is what I want from life. So that was really, really important. Like, you've heard me say this before, but I think your choice of life partner is the most important decision you're ever going to make, right? Like, I fundamentally believe that. Um, so we both had the same mindset that we wanted to get on the property ladder, all this kind of stuff. So we just kind of figured it out. But we also— I'd never bought a property in my life, and the first one we bought to live in is still one of my— on the numbers, it's still one of my best real estate deals I've done, and I've gone on to do quite a few. And, and it was because we just knew that for us to do this, to make sense, we need to find something run down, do it up, or all this, you know, it was just logical to me, if that makes sense.
Did you experience any, any hardship based on being an immigrant, or was that not really a factor?
So I think there wasn't a lot of like overt racism or anything like that. It's always been a very tolerant and multicultural place, so I don't think there was that hardship. I think actually I was blessed because although I didn't experience that life in Africa or India, it got handed down to me through osmosis and the wider family that we've been given a gift here. The whole point of the family making those moves is for opportunity. So I think this is one of the things I reflect on a lot. Immigrants do well because they know life could be so much tougher, so willing to roll up their sleeves and work really hard. And it's not to say the natives aren't, but I think with immigrants it's different because they're used to not having a safety net and so on.
Yeah.
And I definitely got that work ethic.
Yeah. Perhaps like an extra layer of gratitude, of awareness that it is not necessarily this way everywhere else.
Yeah. I mean, essentially for me being born in the UK, because if my one grandparent had made a different decision, I could be born in a village in India where already things are gonna be tougher for so many reasons. So for me, being born and raised in the UK is winning the demographic lottery, knowing how that afforded me opportunity that isn't given to so many people in the world.
Yeah. So you've got this immigrant work ethic and a familial sense of responsibility, investing, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. You meet an incredible woman that has the same shared values and start investing early. How does your career unfold from there?
So I said age 15, I knew I wanted my own business, but I got sidetracked by a career which was, which was okay, but I was learning a lot. Like, I was doing okay career-wise, um, and I was always in sales-oriented jobs, and I was there to learn as much as earn. And at times I earned okay money, and at times I meant earned good money, but the thinking was always I'm going to start my own business. But also, I didn't know how to do it. Like, we didn't have those models in the family or anything like that. So I'd got to 29, and now the financial crisis 2008 has just happened. So I thought that I was gonna start the kind of business that I was working for. Um, so I'd fallen into the recruitment sector, and I was headhunting bankers, and that was really interesting for me. Um, because it was lucrative. And you, like, like, the businesses I'd worked for were like fast-growing SMBs, and I thought that's what I was going to do. And then the financial crisis happened, and I was like, I took a long hard look. I was like, I'm not actually adding value in a way that fulfills me. I'm literally moving someone from Bank A to Bank B. Like, I want to do more. And I'm like, I'm 29, so surely I can figure out something else. So I made a decision because I'd I was actually in Hong Kong at that point, and I came back to the UK after that and moved down the food chain, um, in, in, in, in terms of my role and all this stuff, just, just to stay employed. And at this time, my wife's career was really taking off. She was doing incredibly well. So we took the decision, instead of her moving out to Asia, I'll move back to the UK. So that broke the idea of I'm going to start a headhunting business, even though I knew how to do it and I had a lot of, like, contacts and backing and whatever. I was like, let me go back and think about what am I passionate about. And I set myself a deadline. I said, at the end of this year— so at the end of 2010, in late 2009— I am not going to be employed by this company because I didn't like the people who were employing me, and I'd kind of taken a job because it was there. There was that commitment, and I was like, I'm going to figure it out. So start spending my evenings and weekends looking into it. How do you start a business? What are some ideas? Like, what do I need to do? Let's figure this out. And I was, you know, I'm not ashamed to say I was literally phoning it in at work because I didn't like my boss, I didn't like my team, that they didn't share the values I share. So I decided I'm going to do that. And then 3 months into that journey, age of 30, out of nowhere, I had a full-blown stroke, like super serious. And, and there was no, like, precursor, no warning. And that was February 2010. And what it did, it afforded me the thing I'd been praying for, which was time and space to think.
So, so take me to that moment. Like, what is it like to have a stroke at 30?
So first of all, I didn't know what was going on, right? So I was at home alone getting ready for work. Kushi, my wife, she was in Switzerland because she travels a lot for work. Um, so this was a normal scenario for us. I'd gotten out of the shower and I was getting ready. One minute I was standing up, and next minute my head just went to the floor. And it was like, it was like there was a weight and I couldn't get up. And then I started throwing up, and I just knew something was very, very wrong. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't even know what a stroke was. I managed to crawl to my phone, call the emergency services, and somehow croak something out. And 10 minutes later, the ambulance was at my door and I was taken to hospital. And they told me— so then they basically stabilized me, drugged me up, all this stuff. And, and the rest of that day was a bit of a blur. And the next day, because she made her way back, she was there by that evening. And the next day, the doctors said to me— initially said it could be an ear infection, don't worry. And I didn't think about it a lot after, but they were also doing brain scans and MRIs and all this stuff. But I, I was out of it. The next day they said, hey, it's a little bit more serious. Unfortunately, you've had a stroke. And at that moment, I didn't know what a stroke was other than it, it's something that happens to older people. For the folks who wouldn't know, because I didn't, it's a serious brain injury. Your blood flow gets, um, interrupted, or there's a clot, and then from that point anything can happen, because with brain injuries it just depends what's affected and how and whatever. Um, in my case it was my cerebella. It was a cerebella infarction. This is a bit of the brain, left lower side, that controls balance and whatnot. So I was lying in this hospital bed. I couldn't use my legs. I, I could— I I could feel them, but they wouldn't do what I wanted. Um, and yeah, I spent 2 weeks in the hospital, had incredible care. Um, but by pure dumb luck, I was taken to a hospital which happened to have one of the best stroke units in the country. And also the consultant who was looking after me was very ahead of his time. So they kept me in for 2 weeks, did every test under the sun, because it was very rare then. It still is quite rare now. Um, for this to happen. And then they discharged me and said, there's a couple of things here. One, you're quite likely to make a full recovery. You probably will. Um, and I started having physical therapy in the hospital and all this kind of stuff. Um, so, you know, I could kind of walk by the time they let me go, but it took a month for that to really come back. Um, and they, they said, number two, you're not allowed to like do any— like you need to sleep every day, and the next 6 months no exercise apart from swimming or yoga. That, that was it. So, um, what it did do— now I'm home and I'm got all the time and space in the world and I'm not allowed to do anything, so I could read, think, and sleep. Also, because it's so important to this discussion, so I mentioned we'd bought our first property maybe 3, 4 years before. At that time, the guy who arranged our mortgage, smart guy, said, I recommend you get life insurance for the size of this mortgage as well. But what he did was he found this critical illness policy, and it was very, very, very good. So when I had that stroke, it paid out, right? So I think it was like $390K or something like that. So again, because of that, I wasn't under pressure to immediately go back to work or something like that.
What are the emotions that you're going through, going through a stroke at 30? I mean, there must be, you know, this is a very serious thing that, like you said, doesn't happen to young people. What is that like?
There was two things that I remember distinctly. Like, remember, I'd been forced to grow up, so I was already thinking differently to my peers. So I was lying there and I was like, okay, I have no control about— over what's about to happen, right? What's going to happen? There's a— so number one, let me do everything I can to recover. So that was the first mindset. It was, I'm gonna find out everything about the brain, about what's happened to me, because statistically I was in a really bad place, right? The chance of recurrence in the first year is really high. It was all that. The second thing I was like a couple of years before, I'd just gotten into snowboarding, and I had this thought lying in the hospital bed: in 12 months or less, I'm getting back on a snowboard. Now, I had no knowledge of if that's possible. It was purely, that's my North Star, right? I'm, I'm, I'm doing this. In hindsight, that was a really good instance of me choosing a thought that's useful as opposed to what's true. Because I had no knowledge of whether that would be possible for me. But that got me through a lot of tough moments. Physical therapy is like, I, I want to do that. So I think when we talk about the emotions, it was this acceptance of, look, this has happened. I can't control the future. What I can control is what I do from here onwards, which is what— it changed my thinking about everything: health, time, freedom, energy. It was like, I have to do the maximum and then whatever happens happens.
Yeah, so it, it sounds like it, it gave you a sense that life is precious and you better go out and, and make it work.
Taught me the fragility of life. It taught me anything can happen to anyone at any moment. But up until that point, I was in my 20s, I was bulletproof, right? I, I could go out drinking on a Wednesday night, go to work on a Thursday, and still perform. That now all of a sudden that, that fake safety net is taken away.
And was there any connection for you with losing your father at a young age at this time? Were you—
no. Yeah, not really. 15, 16 years later, those were the two big traumas in my life that has shaped a lot of, like, who I am and who I've chosen to become.
So now you have this time and space to eat sleep, learn, and really think about what's important.
Yeah.
What did you do?
So it took me 6 months to recover, physical recovery, and then I chose not to go back to my job. They kind of had to leave it open for me and all this stuff, but when it was time to go back, I was like, I'm not going to do that. So what I did was— I still haven't— I'd gotten further along, but I still hadn't really figured out like what business should I start and how do you do it. So I went to work for startups. I, I worked for two startups to get experience, right? Like, paid jobs, but I'm here to learn and figure it out. So that was the next year. So now we're 18 months from the stroke, and at the end of that, I'd learned a lot, made some contacts, and, and gotten nowhere with my own ideas. So I was at peak frustration. I was like, all right, I could go back and get another headhunting job, there's people who will employ me. But that to me felt like that's the worst thing I can do because that takes me even further away from what I know I need to do, which is start a business. So I turned to real estate out of desperation, like the most boring thing ever, figure out how to get some property because that's an important pillar of wealth. Um, and number 2 is like, okay, let me forget— I was passionate about health and technology and I'd got nowhere with any of that. So I was like, forget all that, let's focus on real estate for 12 months. So 100% commitment, this sector only. And I figured my worst, worst, worst case is I'll be able to like buy some rundown property, do it up and sell it, and, and learn something and make some money and all that kind of stuff. So I'd say desperation and commitment are very, very important. What actually happened is that I got under the skin of real estate and I was like, I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do here. And just started meeting real estate people, started figuring stuff out. And I just hit on this model, which was I was in the right place at the right time to do something, start their first business. Because also, you know, I'd mentioned this like £390K that's sitting in my bank account. I was so scared to spend it because I was like, like, I, I don't want to lose it, right? I, I, I, I, like, I don't have any other safety net now, so I don't want to screw this up. What that ended up happening, um, a chunk of that money became the seed capital for my first two real estate deals, uh, because I was like, I need to figure this out. But the, the model I hit on, 2012, we're in now, was co-living for young professionals around the Canary Wharf area of London. Which was, you know, an important banking hub, still is. But there was a lot of like sort of gritty areas around it where there was huge infrastructure going in. So I started reading. At that time, the mayor of London was Boris Johnson, who went on to be our prime minister, and he'd already committed like billions of pounds to this area, all this stuff. So I was just applying investor principles to this thing and thinking, well, hang on a second. You've got like this regulations coming in to these shared living households. Landlords are running out. We're still semi-recessionary because 2008 financial crisis. These are gritty areas. It's not glamorous, but they're 15 minutes from Canary Wharf. So from a supply and demand point of view, I was like, this is crazy. These people are running away because they don't like regulation. and this stuff, like, the math just adds up, right? Like, you can buy it for this. So it was, it wasn't, I think this is a really important point, it wasn't, and I know you've done some real estate stuff as well, and with your previous background, um, you know, with your business stuff, this was not let's buy it and hope it goes up, which is what most people think real estate is. At that time, it was just, you know, the timing was right. I remember my friends in real estate, um, friends of mine who had done stuff, they were like, oh, why are you looking around there? It's a bad area and everything we're doing doesn't work anymore because of financial crisis and nobody's going to give you a deal. And these are all things that are said to me. And it's funny, like a few years later, those same people were like, oh, you got so lucky with what you were doing. So yeah, but that was the starting point.
It strikes me that this is a very sophisticated investment thesis for a first-timer. What gave you such conviction when maybe your peers were looking at you going, this is crazy?
The thing in my mind was I need to make one deal work and make sure that I can't lose money on it and just get things going right. I knew the importance of that. So one, because I'd been investing for a few years, Um, I, from an investment principles point of view, I was like, this makes sense, right? Like, if the wind blows in the right way, I'm going to do very well, but if it blows in the wrong way, it will still be okay. The second thing, and I think this is quite important, I wasn't looking for a unicorn deal. I, I decided what's the worst deal I'm willing to do? Not a bad deal, but what's like the lowest return I'm willing to get? 'And then I'll find that and I'll do that,' because you learn so much off the first deal. So, and it has been put to me since, like, it was quite a complicated area to go into for a first-timer. But I was new to real estate, but I wasn't new to investing. That was important. And then fundamentally, the math, because I was spreadsheeting this all out, like, the math just added up. The other thing I did, and this is quite important from a business point of view, I was like, okay, how can I be really sure about this? I, I was 32. My market, my tenants, was me 5, 6 years before. So I understood structurally that landlords, which was mostly old men, didn't get it. They weren't doing anything digitally. They were— they didn't understand why, like, broadband Wi-Fi is important. They, they didn't— they, they were in the business of providing housing rather than making life convenient. So I was like, okay, how can I be sure? There is so much— like, like, it just wasn't good. It was like this cottage industry, um, where there was so much room for improvement. So it was a combination of, you know, kind of figuring it out, walking the streets, doing the math, reading the development plans, which still nobody does, which blows my mind, uh, those kind of things.
So this is really— it's not just a real estate play. You're actually— there's a service component here that you can provide an experience to the tenants. So there's, there's a secondary layer of value add.
Yeah, which is, that's what the business was. It was, I mean, look, fundamentally we're just still, still giving somebody a place to live, right? But it was like, okay, how can we make this seamless? How can we do it? So I was just going at it like with so much focus and I was thinking like questioning everything because I wasn't a real estate guy. So I was like, why are we not doing e-signatures? So then I, then I called some lawyers and said, hey, why Why don't— and they were like, oh, it's quite new and people are cautious and whatever. So I was like, okay, well, I know it's legally robust, so we're going to do e-signatures, video viewings, um, you know, remote entry, all this stuff, right? And I'd say these properties, they weren't super luxury, they were kind of like higher mid-range, so, you know, still mass market. And I remember my first tenant, because I was the guy running around doing this, I didn't have a property manager, that was me. So the first tenant was somebody moving from out of town, and we did a video viewing where I like just showed my phone around and said, here's the rooms and here's this and here's that. And then I sent the contract by e-signature, and then she moved in 2 weeks later without me needing to be there. So that, that was when I realised, okay, what we're doing here is different to what a lot of the market's doing. Now fast forward to 2026, And now everybody's doing this, but back then we had a bit of an advantage.
And when was the first time that you were like, oh, this is working? Like, when, when did you feel the, the uptick?
Yeah, so, so I'd say those first couple of deals, that was the point where I— yeah, it was about 2 years in. And I was like, this, this is not only working, it's going well. Because I was so— so obviously, you know, spoiler alert, the one year in real estate did— went way past one year. Because I was like, okay, this is good. Like, now I, I have my sense of self-worth back because I was like, I'm actually productive. This is— there's something here. Like, I'm not a liability on, like, our balance sheet, all this kind of stuff. So I'd say that was the point of full mental recovery from the stroke. And also now I'm 2 years out from the stroke, so statistically I'm a lot safer. And also, and by this point I was also incredibly fit and well and all, you know, all this stuff like wellness is so mainstream now, but I was a devotee of that then out of necessity. So yeah, I'd say probably about 2 years in, about 18 months into real estate, maybe 2, 2 and a half years out of the stroke, that was a point where I was like, I've made the recovery and I feel like I'm in a good place now.
And what was your first lick financially? Well, when, when did the money start rolling where you were like, yeah, oh man, like when did you first feel wealthy?
It's such a good question. I think I started feeling mentally wealthy probably from the point that the first real estate deal really started working because I knew I'd hit on something. And the reason I say that is, is that was before, like, like our asset base was wealthy and the balance sheet was— it was more I've just created a job for myself out of backing myself and this and the other. So that was a point of like big freedom, right? It's like I was doing this for these other people, now I'm doing this for myself. I think that, that was the point where I was like, the world is my oyster. And, and also because I'd done so much— I suppose in hindsight we'd call it the work on myself— because I've been forced to. I was like, I just— I don't know what's around the corner, I don't know what's about to happen, because anything can happen to anyone at any time. But I've placed the odds in a place where, like, things can be good. So they were good at doing property, but they weren't so good at like some of the other bits like raising money, all this. So I was like, well, let me see if I can make some intros, this and the other. And then I got them to show me what, what they were doing in their deals. And then sometimes I'd get a little piece of a deal or something like that. So there was quite a few like just real estate deals and even things like just buy something run down, do it up, flip it on, all that kind of thing. A couple of years later, I co-founded a real estate tech business, and that was my first experience of being part of a team on a potential rocket ship. So that was amazing because I got to work with great people. But I also, I left after a year because it wasn't mine. Like, it— I couldn't be the— I wasn't the majority owner, I couldn't be the CEO. So I was like, I love that, but I still fundamentally think real estate is kind of boring. And then I tried to scale my real estate business, and I hated that as well. Like I really did not enjoy trying to do bigger deals and all this kind of stuff. So I just had like a handful of really great cash-flowing real estate deals which formed the nucleus of my salary and cash flow. And then I was adding lump sums on top with some, some deals. And I was like, real estate was always just a pillar for me rather than what I want to do. Let me go back to what I'm passionate about. Let me start thinking about health and tech. And at this point, so now we're in 2015, 2016, I could see the seeds of wellness starting to come mainstream. So like now in London, there's a few yoga studios that are a bit more flashy, there's a few healthy cafes. Barry's Bootcamp had just come a couple of years before, so that this whole boutique fitness thing hadn't really, really come. So I was like, well, I've got all this real estate stuff, it's making money. So again, principles of what I like about real estate, you do the work once and you get paid for a long time. Even today I'm getting paid from these deals that we did so long ago. So again, that sort of freedom, that investor mindset of, okay, I'm going to do a lot of work now, but then I don't have to do a lot of work to keep it going. So that freed me up and I was just like, started exploring the whole health and wellness space and I started meeting entrepreneurs and I was like, okay, these guys are super passionate about what they're doing. But they don't really know a lot about business. So I was like, I can help them with business. So I just started helping a few of them out as a way for me to learn about the industry, talking about the effects of technology on a brain, because I was— I'm a nerd about the brain and all this stuff and technology. So got very early in corporate workshops with like Starbucks, Amazon, these kind of clients. That, that was a really big lesson to me in business though, because we had the corporate clients, we had the, um, like, press mentions, all this stuff. But the underlying business, I'd never really got it working. Um, it was, it was okay, but I was still making— like, I'd do one real estate deal and I was like, I'm grinding here to scrape by and I'm doing one random real estate deal here and it's making more money.
So tell me about your journey with meditation, because it's obviously been an important path in my own life as well. What was that like for you? When did you discover meditation and how did you bring that to a business?
So going back to the stroke, consultant said to me, swimming or yoga, nothing else. I didn't have a swimming pool nearby where we were living, but I had some childhood yoga practice from my Indian background, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar. And, um, then I went to a local yoga studio, and the first time I did a yoga class as an adult, I was like, wow, I've just done something amazing. It just felt good, right? Felt good. But also, at that time, I didn't want to be in studios because I was a 30-year-old guy who'd had a stroke, and I was terrified someone would ask me, what's your story? Yeah, I was like, oh well, I don't have a job, I just had a stroke. Because I was like, forget that. So I just started practicing online yoga, um, because there was some like random YouTube videos, stuff like that. Yoga led me into meditation. That was my gateway in because the two are very related. Like traditionally, physical yoga is a preparation for meditation. And then because I'd learned all about the brain and what happens in the brain and started— and I was into the whole wellness scene, and then I started reading some of the early um, stuff that was coming out about the effects of meditation on our brain. So I was just like, this is just a smart thing to do. So it was more from that point of view. And then I, because I'm quite curious by nature, I just started experimenting with whatever meditation I could find and just found it interesting. But it was a good— like, I'd say yoga and meditation were really good for me. I mean, they still are, but when I was building those first businesses and all that stuff, it was a good way to kind of de-stress and be able to calm my mind down and sleep at night and all of that kind of thing.
Was there like an aha moment? Or, or because I imagine a lot of people listening, because I've heard this from so many entrepreneurs, is, oh yeah, I've tried meditation, I, I can't sit down, my brain goes a thousand miles a minute, I can't quiet my mind, that, that must not be for me. When did, when did you start finding the unlock, and what was that like?
I'm not sure, because it all happened iteratively. Like, yoga was the main thing, but that led me into meditation. I did, um, I did a 1-year yoga teacher training course because I— not that I wanted to teach, I wanted to learn more, but I was too lazy to put that program together myself. So I was like, well, I can join a one-year teacher training, like, and I went, found this really obscure one with this incredible guy who is like a surfer, surfer with dreadlocks who lives on the coast. And like, he, he was really into a lot of meditation, and, and I picked that one because it had a lot of meditation in it, whereas a lot of yoga teacher training at that time—
yeah. So what is it about for entrepreneurs?
It was more So why I went down that road— by this point I've got entrepreneur friends. On the one hand, they're complaining about their stress or their sleep or whatever. On the other hand, these tools are there that are scientifically proven to help. What didn't help is there's a lot of mumbo-jumbo around it. There was a lot of people who didn't really understand the corporate world or what entrepreneurs go through or stuff like that. So for me it was like, how do we put these two together and make this super accessible? So I leaned hard into the scientific benefits, um, and treated it more like a sort of physical training program. So like the same way that you have different exercises like boxing, swimming, yoga, running, there's different meditative practices that actually do subtly different things, but it all gets lumped into this umbrella term of meditation. There is no one meditation. It's more of a like, it's more like exercise, it's all movement, it's an umbrella term. So that, that was why I went down that road. It was more seeing a need and an interesting itch to scratch as opposed to, I think we can build a really big business here. As, as it turns out, like, it's an incredibly difficult space to build a business in. I, I, I wasn't successful in building a great business there, although we had a lot of impact and helped a lot of people.
And so, you know, through your journey, you built sort of financial freedom, or at least cash flow.
Yeah.
Early on and have just stacked wins over time. What does wealth mean to you now?
So I think it's intertwined with freedom, right? So we're in a fortunate position now where we're not, we're not like super wealthy. In financial terms, but we're very secure in a sense that our fundamental life is paid for through investment income, and stable, reliable investment income, not like paper investments that might pay off over time. So, um, I think that fundamental freedom takes a lot of stress off the table because we're not waking up worrying how the mortgage is going to be paid or how this is going to be paid or something like that. So I think that That's an important part of it. You know, if we choose to participate in, in the capitalist world, then you can't ignore the fact that like some element of money is really important in this. Um, the, the other side is the mental wealth, right? The, the, the sort of freedom of thought, the freedom of expression, the, um, you know, health, energy, good relationships, those kind of things. Like, like, that's— this is more your domain than mine, but it's— for me, it's— these things start in a mind first, and then you, like, find a way to bring them to life. It took me a while to kind of figure that out.
And how do you cultivate that in your life today?
It's more just the— because I'd had that trauma at an early age twice It's more the importance of just remembering how important it is to live life. How, like, you know, we— something I see a lot these days is gratitude, and I think gratitude is important. Like, gratitude comes so easy— easily to me because every day when I wake up, I have the thought of, I'm awake. Oh, I can think, my brain's still intact because that almost got taken. And then my feet hit the floor and I'm like, I can walk, that almost got taken. So it's easy for me to be grateful It is interesting to think about that versus how do I still have an edge? How do I still stay hungry and so on? So in one sense, I feel incredibly wealthy that there's that sort of freedom of mind, appreciation for life, understanding of fragility. Our life is covered through investment income and so on. On the other hand, there's this, you know, these, these feelings of there's still so much more to do, so much more I want to prove to myself, so much more I want to achieve. You know what I mean?
How do you, how do you balance that? Because I struggle with similar ideas right now, right? Like, I want to live in the moment, be incredibly grateful for the life that I've built. I have everything I've ever wanted, and yet there's so much more to do. How do you balance that?
I don't think I do balance it. I think, um, intentionality is really important. So this phase of my life— so now I have a young company again, uh, you know, just 14 months in. I have the benefits of all the stuff I've done before, stuff that's worked, stuff that's failed. Um, I have the benefit of, you know, we've done some investments in other companies, and I've had some advisory roles with other companies, so you get the benefit of seeing all of that. So this phase of my life is a head down, working, get something going. Certain things get sacrificed, and it's just more me being secure in— I've chosen to do this intentionally, and I understand that you can't do everything at once all the time. But, but it's, it's that choice as opposed to going along with emotions and sort of doing something that I haven't really thought through, should I be doing it or not.
And I know you're bringing a more holistic approach to M&A, which can be very transactional.
Yeah.
What— tell me about that holistic approach. What does that mean to you?
The way this came about was I had a tech startup that in 2023 we decided to pause because we either had to raise more money or pause it. And that was very painful because it's not like I can't put that in the success column. So it was like, I've lost money, we've let other people down, we feel let down, all this stuff, right? So I was like, okay, what do I do next? So my first instinct was, let me just go back to real estate, right? Let me, let me build a business there, blah blah blah. Then my wife, who I've told you is the brains of the operation, she said to me, have you thought about buying a business? I was like, Not really, but that's a good idea. Sounds like a good idea. So I started, went down that rabbit hole and I was like, okay, let me try and buy a business. So 2023 and 2024, I had like real estate and investment stuff going on in the background that, you know, as you know, still needs active work. It's never fully passive. And like, in fact, yeah, I'll just say that sector is never fully passive. It's great because you don't have to do much to get a good return once you've got stuff set up. Um, so I started looking at these smallish businesses, like deal value half a million to 2 million. So they're very small, but they're real businesses, right? Um, and they're all profitable. And came close 2 or 3 times, and a third of those I thought I had a deal, and in December '24 it fell apart. And at the same time I'd started helping out a few friends with M&A stuff, like just, you know, that had a bit of inbound interest or they were looking at acquisitions. So I was just being a sounding board for them and I thought I was going to acquire this small company and then go down that journey and, you know, like use my knowledge and contacts and all this to build something. In hindsight, I'm so glad that didn't happen. So in December 2024, I had a real F this moment. If the deal fell apart. And I was like, I've dealt with these M&A advisors, intermediaries, these brokers, and they're all useless, right? Like, at that level, it's very small end of the market. I blame them for all this stuff. And I just had this famous entrepreneur last words: I think I can do it better, right? So that— then I thought, okay, let me sense check this. So I called up, um, my friend Mac Lackey, uh, who you know, who's like, you know, sort of huge M&A experience, and I said, hey, Mac, do you think I can do this? And he just laughed and said, of course you can. So then I called up an M&A guy I knew in the US, I said, hey, do you think I could do this? And he's like, of course you can, like, I'll help you. So it was December 24th, 14 months ago from the point of when we're recording this. So I was just like, hey, let me just go all in on that because I just think they're doing a bad job for their clients. And when you talk about holistic approach to M&A when it's quite transactional, the deals I was involved in that didn't come about, you had a willing buyer, me, and a willing seller, and the deal didn't get done because the seller was not mentally prepared to either let go, or the advisor hadn't really— I still don't actually understand this, like, they just didn't have the urgency or the thoroughness or all this kind of stuff. But, but in hindsight, I know why, because they're getting paid regardless, right? Like, they're getting their retainer fees or listing fees or whatever it is. So for me, it was like, well, okay, I want to build something that's super founder-centric because I've sat in that seat. And, and, you know, you connect the dots backwards. I've been around this my whole career. Two of the companies I work for as an employee One was a stock market listing at $50 million. The other was a private equity-backed management buyout at $16 million, if it does 8 or 9 figures. Or could be nothing, right? Because as you know, like, it can also be run into the ground. Like, there's a lot that needs to happen. And I'd realized I've been a founder, advisor, investor. I've had a couple of exits as an investor. Buy-side operators. So I'd seen it from all sides of the table. So my whole thesis was this end of the market, which is too small for investment banks, but you're talking about real businesses, not like a laundromat that a broker would list or something like that, where it's like a small entity. My thesis was it's just very underserved and we can do a better job. And that was it. So that holistic element is narrowing the conflicts that exist between any sort of intermediary and their client, but also looking at this holistic element of, you know, making sure that a seller is prepared for what's about to unfold. And that's the mental preparation of, you know, some of the stuff that you go into, like, you know, what's your mindset around the money and do you have a plan for what's going to happen after? Because if they don't, then either that is going to sabotage the exit or they're going to feel incredibly deflated and lost afterwards, which I'm sure, sure you've seen. So, so that was a thesis. And like, as it turns out, 14 months later, like, the first year was just proving that the thesis was correct. It is correct. So we, you know, picked up some clients, did, did some work. It's, it's been really good. The next 9 to 19 years is building this out. I really see this as a, you you know, one, two decade journey now.
And how do you help people prepare for that exit? Because there, there is such, uh, an identity loss, there's a financial windfall, there's a lot of moving pieces that can be very destabilizing.
Yeah.
So how do you help people prepare?
So, so we do two things, like two distinct services. One is exit readiness. So that's where we'll go through their business the way a sophisticated buyer would, ideally a couple of years before they're thinking of exiting. Because that will surface things that they don't realize about how a buyer might view their business. But as part of that, I, I, you know, we start getting them thinking about, well, you know, the first question I ask any founder that gets into conversation with me is like, why do you think you want to exit? Hugely important. And how do you know it's the right thing to do? Now, I've realized I've got a massive advantage because most people in my seat will not ask those questions because they can't. Like, if you work for an M&A firm and you start asking a potential client, how do you know it's the right thing to do? That's career suicide, right? That for them, they just want to get the deal, get paid on it, etc. Whereas for me, I genuinely don't care, right? In that sense, it's like my goal is to do what's right for the founder because I know there's a lot of people we can help and we don't need to do many deals to make a great company. So The first piece is making them think about, okay, well, why, why do they think they want to do that? And how do they know it's the right thing to do? That surfaces a lot of things. And then often, like, we won't be involved for a bit, but I'll say, look, I think you need to go and think about this. Here's a couple of books you should read. One book I think every entrepreneur, regardless of whatever their plans are, should read is Die With Zero. Which I know you're a big fan of. Um, it, it had a profound impact on me, but it's, you know, stuff like that. The, the second piece is I talked about narrowing the conflicts. So for us, our retainer structure is quite low, and everything's on the back end of a deal getting done. So our incentives are more aligned. So we don't make profits off the retainers, or it's just literally the cost of us doing the work. So as a result I need to be really sure if we're going to take on a deal that it's got a chance of going the distance. So then I need to be sure the entrepreneur is mentally prepared. So we'll start pointing them to resources and people and just making sure, because if I'm not, then we just— like, it makes no sense for us to get involved.
What are some of the bad reasons to sell? And, and I ask this because, uh, I, I ask similar things to my clients and the right reason, in my opinion, to sell a business is because you've taken it to maturity. You know, you've analyzed the market and you think that you're, you're maximizing your return. In my experience, like 1% of people wanting to exit, usually people want to exit because they're burned out, they're tired, and they don't know what to do.
So there's good and bad reasons. Start with the bad reasons. The bad reasons are burned out, become disillusioned with it, taking it as far as I can, um, that category of things. I didn't talk about the mental well-being business, what happened with that, right? Like, basically I just had enough, right? Like, during the pandemic it was quite good for us, and then I brought on a co-founder, wonderful human being. She was like, you know, helping with the business and She had a change of heart a few months into the pandemic, and she was like, I don't want to do this anymore. So it's all very amicable. But then with her gone, I was like, I felt deflated. I was like, oh man, like, I thought we're going to do this and now it's back on me. So I was like, I just need to quietly wind this down, right? Like, these are all the wrong reasons to exit. Like, what we end— basically, I was just going to wind it down. And then we got very, very lucky and like we'd created some really interesting IP and quite unique and all this stuff, and sold it to someone who'd approached us to kind of work with them. And I said, look, why don't you just buy this stuff? It was, um, you know, like, I don't even know if you can call it— I wouldn't call it an exit, but we ended up doing like a 5-figure deal for that. Um, these were all the wrong reasons to do it. If I knew what I knew now, I would have built that business differently. Um, and this is where I'm going to— like, good reasons to exit are what you've said, taking it as far as you want to. And it's a very conscious decision, right? Like, it's like, this needs new stewardship or something. And another really great reason to exit is to take chips off the table, right? Like, I, I think so. I'd say ultimately what it comes down to, the great reasons to exit are because it's a conscious choice, and the bad reasons to exit is because it's forced on you.
And how do you help people differentiate Um, it's—
so going back to something like Die With Zero, like, like one of the fundamental things with that is like getting really clear on what you want out of life, including what you want financially. So like, what, what's the life you want to live? And then adding up what it's going to cost and then figuring out how you're going to get there. So when I did that exercise for me, it, it turns out that my number was way lower than the one I was telling myself. That, that in itself is incredibly liberating because now it's like, okay, I've got a plan of how we're going to get there and I can see how far we are along the way and all this kind of stuff. So I think in terms of differentiating, it's tricky for us because often, and this is something I'm hoping to change, often I get the call when someone's already thinking about exit and sometimes it's, hey, I want to go to market in the next 3 months. And it's like, okay, well, we can't do this kind of planning and thinking. My favorite conversations are the ones which also happens is when someone's like, I'm thinking in 2, 3 years' time, because then we can— then those questions are like, well, why do you want to do it? And how do you know it's the right thing to do? Then we can work with them on a basis of, okay, well, let's figure out if an exit is the right thing or not. And if it is, this is the playbook of how you do it, as opposed to rushing into it and it forced being forced on you.
I love what you said there of like figuring out the life that you want to live, because so many of us, I think, um, live for business instead of the other way around, right? Use our business to actually serve our life. And I think flipping that is such a powerful concept. Niraj, I appreciate you so much coming on. Uh, where can people find you? Where can they check out what you're doing?
Yeah, so, so the business is dkzequity.com. I have a personal website, nearedges.com, which you can share. That's where I— so I want to write more. I write about 3 themes which I think are fundamental to what I believe, and I want to write about them for the rest of my life. Entrepreneurship as an engine towards freedom, like I think it should be structured that way. Energy as a strategy. So everything from physical energy to the energy in which we enter rooms and the energy in which we do things. And then true freedom through ownership, and that's ownership of assets, but also ownership of your life and all of that. So yeah, those two places.
Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. Let's— before we go, let's just— let's dive into that last one. What does true ownership mean?
So ownership of assets, I think, is incredibly important, and that's everything from real estate to equities to digital assets to whatever it is, because asset-based income means that you don't have to go to work every day to do it. And also, if you're building a business, that's an asset as well, because an exit is just that you built value in that asset and then you sell that asset. Um, and then the other elements of true freedom through ownership is just taking responsibility that Nobody's coming along to build your business or fix your life or fix your health or your relationship. Or, you know, like, good example of that, right? Like, I, I used to think that a good marriage or relationship is 50/50, right? Like, you do half, I do half, la la la. And then it's like, at some point I just learned, you know, it's 100%. I'm 100% responsible. Like, I have to do the maximum, and then it's you know, then we'll see what the rest is. But that little mindset shift has changed a lot. So that, for me, that's ownership. It's like I own my life and I'm responsible for it regardless of what cards I've got dealt. And whatever cards I've been dealt, it's my job to play them as well as I can.
I love it. Mic drop moment. Niraj, thanks for coming on the show.
Thanks so much, Mike. Appreciate it.
Cheers.
