Episode 28 Abhinav Gupta

Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of Veerai's Wellness Podcast. Today we have Abhinav Gupta with us. He is a serial entrepreneur, founder of Data Labs, and he has invested in multiple startup companies. He's multifaceted. He handles so much that I cannot even imagine in one life. He's also doing his PhD right now. And I would really like to welcome Abhinav Gupta to come and share his wisdom today with us. Welcome, Abhinav. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Neetu. Thanks for such kind words. I mean, I don't know if I deserve all of that, but yeah, I'm just trying to keep my head over the water.

You're just trying to be humble, Abhinav. Abhinav, I mean, from our last conversation, let me draw your attention to that again, because you have worked with so many startup founders and you're still working with them a lot as a consultant, you know, as an investor. What is that number one problem that you see with startup founders these days? Because, you know, I think that is a lot of founders are worried that there is a funding winter and it's actually causing them some kind of, you know, stress. Let's accept it, right? So what is your view on that?

100%. I think, you know, ecosystem is not that good right now and not being very kind. To founders as well as for businesses in general, right? I would like to break it down into a few aspects, right? And then there are problems at a very different level with the stage of the founders that we're talking about, right? Early-stage founders, first of all, I think there's a mindset that is required for a founder, right? I think the founders always think about, you know, they can raise in millions and then sell it in billions, right? Uh, I have very simple statistics on this, right? How many number of unicorns, right? Total number of private limited companies in India are over 15 lakhs order, right? And some of them are LLPs also, which we are not even considering right now. So that accounts to on an average about like, you know, 30-35 lakh startups, right? Proprietary firms, forget about it, right? Not even getting started over there. So all of these businesses, right? And we have about 110, 120-odd unicorns, right? So look at the percentage of the companies in terms of the actual value is very, very less, right? So it's not a very easy task, right, for a founder, number one. Number two, founders also get into this myth of raising capital very early, right? So I think one of the very, very big problem that I see with the founders is like, you know, raise capital, raise seed, right? And then give away like 30%, 40% of the equity. And then, you know, so they don't have a lot of money left in to kind of raise it for the actual growth stage, right? And then they really think, most of them, I mean, early stage, which are not that mature, right? Think that, you know, we can raise another round, we can raise another round. So they have to protect equity with very close to their heart, right? I mean, at the end of the day, bootstrap today is the mantra. Not only today, I mean, it was always the mantra. I mean, being a Marwadi, I think, you know, I personally feel that, you know, how to make danda out of any business that you do, right? I mean, you're just not here to raise some valuations. right? Now talking about a couple of the founders and the category of the founders that we talk about, right? Category 1 of the founder is confused, right? He doesn't know anything, right? So he requires a bit of handholding, right? Fresh grads coming out of college, I used to work with them a lot earlier, but now with the press time, I don't kind of give. So there's another way that I do it. I teach at a lot of management institutes to kind of bring that particular sense and the thought. To some of these kids just coming out fresh off of the colleges and then saying, oh, I can just build, you know, a competitor for Spotify and YouTube. It's like, wow, that's huge. Let's, let's, let's take a deep breath, guys. Why? It already exists. All right. Number 2. So that's one kind of a founder which are completely confused. They are living in their daydreams. So we need to kind of build their mindset, right? Be a little brutal to them, right? Because sometimes not talking right, just doing word massaging is not going to help them, right? They're going to burn a lot of— yeah, so I personally feel being brutal sometimes is important because sometimes a lot of people in India are very nice to talk to. And I've lived all over the world. I mean, I personally think that, you know, when you work with, you know, Americans and when you work with some German guys in your life, right, I mean, they're like absolutely bang on, on target, right? I mean, no, no bullshit about anything about it. So that's one. Number two is the kind of the founders which have matured, right, have done pretty decent set of education. They, they need ideas, they need mentorship, they need process in their head, right? And where I do help them is in terms of, you know, getting what's the job to be done, right? Why are you building that startup, right? Define JTBD, right? Define your product market fit, define your financial health day one, right? Why do you raise capital? Right? And if you need to raise capital, what's the net outcome out of it, right? Who's going to be your co-founder? What skill that you have? So it's more personal than actually being about the company first, and then be about the company and then about the product, right?

And the fact that the product—

oh, absolutely, 100%, right?

You know, the story of impact in anybody these days, it's just get me funding, that's it. I'm so desperate.

Yeah, so, so the funding doesn't happen like that, right? I mean, I, I, uh, I have very brutal ways of, uh, spashing out some of these founders as an investor also, uh, where it's like, okay, you want funding and you've shown me these hockey stick curves in your PPT, right? Like, okay, I'll make you— you give me 1 crore, I'll make you 6 crore next year. Like, don't give me 6 crore, Just give me 45% of interest month-on-month basis. It's like, oh, that's huge. That is huge, right? It's like, guys, I mean, you are asking me to do a 6x return and I'm just asking you not even 1.5x return, right? So either you are making a fool out of me or maybe you're not right with the numbers that you have kind of manufactured, okay? So one, that the hockey stick curve doesn't work in businesses. I mean, businesses are always like an ECG heart rate, right? So I personally believe that ECG heart rate is a founder's heart rate and the businesses are ECGs and the founder heart rate is based on, you know, they'll have ups and downs. It's when they have their peaks, they need to capitalize something very quickly. When they have their troughs, they need to seek for help. And I think, you know, there are a lot of people out there who are really willing to help, right? I mean, it's a very big chicken and egg problem that I see. Founders don't go out to people to reach out for a solution. They'll rather burn the money, okay, and then come out with like, oh, what to do now, right? And the other way is like, you know, a good VC or an angel group is always looking for a founder wherein they should reach out to invest, right? At the end of the day, VCs, angels, whatever that we call them, they are themselves a startup. They themselves are startup, right? They also need to kind of give back certain extra returns to their funds, to their investors, and so on and so forth, right? So it's very heart-taking. So I think that particular set of people are matured enough They understand the tech, they understand the product, they understand a bit of marketing. They might not understand every nuance to it. I think it's easier, uh, for a mentor to kind of tell them, boss, go reach out to this person and he'll help you or she'll help you in, uh, so branding and marketing. Sorry. So branding and marketing about it. Right? So in, in, in that particular case, you know, there's a time wherein you want to reach out to experts who can actually cut short your time to market. Because there's one thing that in today's world I keep telling the founders is, you know, you have to be very quick. You don't have to be perfect today, right? The time is changing very, very quickly, so don't build everything. Try to partner, try to, you know, collaborate with people. Be open for suggestions, be open for, um, you know, anything that comes your way, right? There's nothing that you're going to lose until unless you are doing it legally correct, ethically correct, and you are not cheating someone, uh, in, in, in, in the hindsight, right? So I think you should be open for that particular set of collaboration. Please feel free to reach out to people. So that's a mindset change, right? Then, um, there's a third set of the founders which are very mature, right? They have run out of ideas, right? They've been running businesses for 13, 12, 13 years, right? So they're like stuck, okay? They're stuck. What do I do now, right? They've seen businesses which were flourishing, they have raised capital, Series B, Series C, whatever, and now they're like I have about like a 1,500-member team. I don't know what these guys do. I just hired them. Like, why? Right? Did you ask the question every week to yourself? Right?

Because it's very important.

Why is so important, right? And why are you building this? Are you going to gain out of it? So, so hire fast, but fire faster. Is the way a startup should work, right? If you're not making any monetization out of a particular experiment that you have done, right, it's, it's okay, right? I mean, you, you should, you should bucket that out in your balance sheet that, okay, out of a million dollars that I have raised, I would invest about like, you know, $80K or about $100K in experimenting for the growth right? But if you run out of that 100K, at least don't lose your core lever from which you are getting the remaining, you know, money in terms of the revenues and so on and so forth.

What is the solution, Abhinav, if I have to ask? What is the solution to this?

So solution to this is two things, right? I think, you know, reach out to people, right? I think there's a very important aspect, uh, that a lot of, uh, senior founders have started doing is they get a third eye view on anything and everything, right? And there are portals today, like if you go to Product Hunt, right? Um, so every startup today kind of goes and publish their, you know, uh, product over there. How many upvotes that they get will define 'Oh, can this go viral?' I mean, if you have launched a product on Product Hunt which has over, you know, 5 million plus viewership, okay, and if you cannot get like 300 or 400 upticks, then I think, you know, there's something really bad about it, okay? Or you may have to really look back at the product that you're trying to sell, right? So good things sometimes do not require a lot of marketing. But marketing is definitely required for pushing it to the next level, and acquaintance with the people, right? So that's one. Third eye view is always very important. Like, you know, if you remember as a child, you know, what our teachers used to do is like, okay, they cannot check every class test that we used to have in our classroom, right? So what they used to do is like, you know, Nitu, you give your paper to Abhinav. Abhinav, you give your paper to Nitu. And Nitu and Abhinav don't know each other, right? So they'll, they'll do checking of each other's paper. So it's kind of a peer review, which is not like via friend so that he can give whatever marks that he wants to, right? So essentially, that particular is a very in thing today. Um, and, and again, I mean, one of the other thing is like, you know, founders really need to take a break. Founders really need to take a break. I think, you know, I've been there, worked crazy hours in corporate lives, led large-scale organizations. Sometimes I was like, why am I doing what am I doing, right? And that's where you need vacation time, right? It's basically you recharge yourself, you come up with a new thought, new ideas, press a reset button on your head. Okay, and that is so important, right? I mean, you are as good as what you can think new, because this is the supercomputer. This is better than any AI. This is better than, you know, AI cannot replace this because it cannot replace this.

This is so, so—

I mean, even if you look at, uh, this way, right, uh, Doctors have invented artificial heart, limbs, all, all like artificial skin. Are they able to reinvent an artificial brain? No, right? They cannot even get like to 5% of what brain can process right now, right? A human brain can process. It's, it's how you are looking at a particular thing. It's, it's all going here. Right? It is the output what you want to see, right? Say for example, you are a chartered accountant, right? I mean, you might have met with a lot of people who don't want to file taxes today, right? They might be making— I mean, Modi ji, which are How is that possible? Right? So like, people have programmatically put it into their head, okay, that paying taxes is not going to help them. Okay, they will do donation by themselves, right? So then they find all the ways and the means and the mechanisms to steal taxes. Right? So it's all wired, hardwired here.

Yeah, but then, Abhinav, when you're doing something wrong like this, siphoning of taxes, your subconscious mind is such that it will always keep it in its mind that I have done something wrong, and it will always bother you. I think it's best to do what is right and make peace with it. That's my philosophy for life, that do what you can do best, honestly, virtuously and let your mind get that peace. So one less thought to process in your mind, honestly.

So I, I would agree and kind of a little disagree also. It depends where you are as a person, right? Say for example, not a lot of people would actually have a luxury to do that. Like, um, the reason why I'm telling you, like, a founder that I was just talking last week, uh, had a pretty big startup, right? I mean, one of the top ones. I don't want to name that, but then they just lost because of a government policy. They just lost ₹950 crores. Okay, now in, in, in their last financial year, right? ₹950 crores is a huge debt, right? It's a huge debt. Now the founder is, is so stuck in a hard— in a, in a rock and a hard place. He doesn't know where to go, right? So he's in a deeper depression, right?

Abhinav, in that state, I would still say, do the right thing. I would never suggest to do anything which is wrong. Always do the right thing because there is always a way.

I don't know what is the right thing. That's where, like, you know, that's where I initially said, right? Your mind will tell you what is right and wrong.

Yes, but if you have to take that break, yeah, you have to take that break.

Yeah. And your mind is going to tell you programmatically that what you think is right and wrong, right? So it's very perspectively that have to be think through, right? What I think is right for me may not be right for you, right? Right for that particular founder is Boss, I should shut my shops and like let go that 950 crores and start afresh, right? That could be one right way, right? Another way is like I'm gonna struggle and I'm gonna make the other party pay for it, right? And fight till the end of the last breath. And there could be so many other perspectives to that, right? Point that I'm trying to make, it is the hardwiring that you are putting in your head, right? And again, at the same time you are afraid sometimes as a founder, you are afraid of taking, taking very cautious calls, which very dangerous calls. Like, you know, I was talking, I mean, I work with one of the other company very recently, pretty large scale. They have a top line of ₹1,500+ crores, right? And I said like, you know, guys, I mean, you need to fire these people, right? I mean, this doesn't make sense, right? I mean, you already burned like ₹25 crores last financial year and this, you're not getting anywhere, right? Now founder is very nice, right? He's very nice. As a human, he's very nice. He wanted to do the right thing, right? And he said like, you know, yeah, let's see for another quarter and how it goes, right? It's like, Boss, you don't have a runway. You don't have a runway, number one. Number two, you cannot be nice to these 40 people and be not nice to 650 people against which you are burning, right? So it's that balancing out, right? So then they hired me and then I said, like, you know, guys, let me do the dirty job for you. Let me do that dirty job for you, right? And then I did have to fire some of these people because they were not making sense, right? I mean, so That's the mindset shift that sometimes founders, or sometimes even we as humans, cannot take very decisive calls when it comes to us, right? But doosre ke upar point out karna is very easy. Is very easy.

What is the solution, Abhinav? I will come back to that. What do you think is the solution again?

I think a couple of things. One is I personally feel having both your emotional guru, okay, having your spiritual guru is equally important. Having some time off, going out, just shut your mind, go out and write everything down. Yeah, what people don't do is they just talk.

They don't write.

I personally feel even in my, in my PhD, right? I mean, one of my mentors, right, he said that, you know, human mind can only read anything between an A4 size sheet, okay? It took me a year and a half or maybe like 2 years to put— I had this many papers, okay? So how do I concise that? And he's like, he was like, I don't want to read, I don't want to read. He keeps throwing my paper. It's like Boss, I wrote like a 25-page. I mean, it is important, right? To you, you need to read, isn't it? First, show me a picture diagram. I can just only read on an A4. And after a lot of, lot of effort, I mean, when I was able to kind of put that on an A4, and I was like, wow, that is beautiful. And it's, it's like, you know, your child who is drawing the first time that, you know, as a child, right? I mean, in India, right? The first painting that every child draws is like those mountains with the sun and then the river coming out, right? That's, that's the painting in India. Okay, so the first time that I draw, it's like very, very vague. Okay, and then the next time, like, he keep, you know, tearing those pages. And I was like, the 7th and the 8th time when he did, I was like, you know, I went out and I was like, hey man, I don't think that he's the right guy for me because he's not telling me what to do. Okay. And he's just like—

that is the, you know, a job of your mentor not to tell you what to do. It should come from you. The job of a mentor is to take you to a place where you answer your questions. I mean, you come up with the answers.

So, so at the end of that whole 7th or the 8th time, right? All he did was show me an ad from Feviquick. Okay. Oh, machli pakad na sikharata. You know, like, I don't know if like, if you have seen that ad, right, on YouTube, you can check, right? So they're like, there's this guy who can give you a bucket full of fishes. And then there's this guy who's like, okay, put a stick and uske bahein feviquick. And then like, you know, he's telling me that You know, at the end of the day, he's like telling me, I'm just trying to teach you how to catch fish. If I give you the fish, you will not learn how to catch the fish, right? So I think it's, it's, it's the solution to the problem that you were asking is in the mind shift change for the founder. Reach out to the people, uh, people who may be senior to you, who may be junior to you in terms of years of experience, does not matter, right? I learn a lot from the new age kids today. right? And that is so phenomenal, so phenomenal. I, I, I just met a girl who's just completed her BCA, like in third year, and she does some amazing content writing, amazing content writing. And, uh, maybe she must be about like 21, right? Just 21, right? And she is such an amazing content writer. And I was like, How did you devise this framework to write such good— I mean, and you don't know anything about the topic, right? How much do you know about NFT and blockchain that you're writing such good articles on NFT and blockchain? For person like me who has spent like almost 20 years in investment banking is like, oh, it is interesting to read, right? So it's— they have just nurtured a particular skill, gone back to people, just who can, you know, take that particular skill, refine it, refine it, refine it globally. Now I think you can reach out to people on LinkedIn, social media, and I think, you know, people are very willing to help. It's like, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine, she leads NASCOM AI, and she was like, you know, we find it difficult sometimes. We don't get startups who we can actually mentor. Right. So it's the other way around, right? So people don't reach out to these bodies. Otherwise, like, you know, I personally think, you know, if you reach out, I think there's a very high possibility that you will, and again, reach out in the right way also, in a very simple way of accepting certain things.

Yeah, I think, Abhinav, maybe I have an input. We have never been taught about self-love and self-care. Probably that's where, you know, the problem is that even for startup founders, whoever it is, you know, if you're talking to them something about their wellness, their mental health, or, you know, taking breaks, they do not resonate with the idea because they don't know what self-care and self-love is, probably.

And 100%, and I think, you know, it goes and it dates back, right, from how, um, you know, we have been kind of, uh, parented or like, you know, have been coached, right? Oh, you're the pagalog, ya? Brain is also a part of your body, boss, right? Right. I mean, oh, what is the big deal, right? I think that that's what people are unable to— and but it is the need of the hour, right? I mean, I mean, if you look at all the surveys today, it's crazy, right? Post-COVID, I think, you know, people have just gone crazy. I mean, the number of divorces that I see, the number of breakups that I see, the number of people just going absolutely crazy. Then you have these good fancy words— Great Recession, Great Resignation, great this thing, great that.

And the number of suicides also, Abhinav. Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day, and I did put up a post on it from, you know, from my experience also. I'm not sure if you've seen that post. I myself have been there, you know.

Yeah. Oh, and I think, you know, it is important that, you know, we address that particular problem and, you know, fight with that with complete humility in terms of that, you know, psychiatrist pagal ka doctor nahi hota hai. I think that's the first thing to start with, right? He's or she is actually helping you. Right? When you do NLP, right? I mean, you know, computer— can— that NLP is natural language processing, right? But neuro-linguistic programming is in your head, which is here. It is two different things. Come on. I mean, you are investing X amount of money in buying these AI tools. Why are you not investing in this supercomputer?

Yes, you're spot on. People don't realize the value of understanding, and probably they are not even aware that there is something like this, that you can actually reprogram your mind, and there are tools for that. It's just like, you know, a software update for your mind.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Why don't you do it? I mean, and if you come to know of it, just grab it with both hands and just You know, take in as much as you can to reprogram.

That would be great, Neetu, that I think, you know, as a part of, uh, so again, I mean, this, this has been a great conversation, Neetu. I think what we should do is, I've been working a lot for the last 4 years on, you know, my psych— my PhD is into psychology, human psychology and customer experience, right? I have run multiple businesses. Uh, when I talk about businesses, one business is a traditional restaurant business, right? I mean, it is very difficult to gauge a person's mood, right? And when you are doing a fine dine, it is the, the hospitality has to be paramount, right? Oh, the person who is coming out is like, for your ₹20 product, he's paying you ₹200. Why? Because he wants to have an experience, right? So that's a customer experience journey that you have to take him through. You have to make them feel privileged, right? Otherwise, like, you know, why do you go into like a Rolls-Royce or like a Mercedes, right? It's your privilege, right? I mean, you feel privileged that, oh, I am this now, right? And to me, money is— I mean, even in one of my talks, I mean, what I call money, money is nothing but energy stored in a particular form. Okay, you have 20 years of experience, you worked with X, Y, and Z companies. What did you make, right? You bought a house, you bought a car, you spend something, you go on a vacation. Ultimately, money was— I mean, it was the energy that was stored in a particular form, which is money, right?

And it got exchanged for something else in value. So money is like, you know, it's, it's an Value exchange, that's it.

Yeah, so I mean, energy has to be there. And I think the other important aspect that I personally feel, when I started this restaurant, right, um, uh, you won't believe, I, I was in London making pretty, pretty good, good amount of money, about like £700 to £800 a day, okay? And then I'm talking about 2007-8, right? That time, being a bachelor, £700, £800 used to be a huge amount, right? I mean, what is our expense, right? At the end of the day, £100, £150, right? So all that you were saving, saving, saving, right? And when I came back, it's like, I wanted to start my own thing. And then I did that, right? And then like, then the first day, the— oh, business is not that simple that you can just start with only one. Business is not that simple that I can just hire people just by throwing in money. Right? And then you start seeking value for money for every single thing. So now you start valuing money. So that's the other important aspect. I was at a point, uh, Neetu, was after at like a peak of my career, uh, I did not have money, uh, to even go on an ST bus, okay? Because I invested everything into my business. Okay, and that day, if the deal did not happen, I had no money to even come back from that factory. Okay, and so this is where I think, you know, your survival instinct as a human will kick in, right? When you're left with no choices, right, in, in the world, right, you are then going to do or die, right? So I mean, if you look at very successful businessmen, right, I mean, they are not like from the Harvards and the Whartons of the world, right? They are the ones who really care. I mean, I mean, and being a Marwadi family, like, you know, you've seen all of your cousins, right? Wherein they're not like MBA from IIMs or within, but they're doing like pretty good business, hardcore making money. Okay. And they are not asking for money from anyone else, which, you know, today the fancy of these startups are, right? They are businesses which are making shitload of money every day in, day out, and then giving employment to hundreds and hundreds of people, okay? And then they are like 10th or maybe B.Com, you know, from, from a, you know, Tier 2 engineering college or a Tier 4 MBA college, right? So the beauty about this is like they had no choice to experiment, okay? Their survival instinct was very, very kick-ass in their head. And that's what Elon Musk also tells, right? That every time when he was doing any business, right, he put all the money in, out, right? Then he has no money to play around. That is, there is an escape out route, right?

Right.

So when he was doing PayPal and when he was doing Tesla Right? All the money that he earned from PayPal, right? He put everything into Tesla and SpaceX. It's like, was this is just going to go belly up, right? I mean, you had like millions and like, you know, you will be left with nothing. Had it been like NASA did not give that particular contract to SpaceX, SpaceX would have gone belly up. Okay? The Tesla Model S did not go through and hit the sales sunroof, right? It wouldn't have gone belly up. But the idea is hitting that two parts. One is to value the money. Number two, value your brain power. Number three, work on your survival instinct.

So, so I think work on the belief system. Uh, when you are giving example of Elon Musk, he completely, completely believed in himself that he can pull it off. And I think the moment you start believing in yourself, you know that this is going to work out because you will make it work out. That is your belief. And thoda bhi shakhotao usmein that, okay, no, I don't think this is going to work, then you will push, you know, take a step back.

Correct, 100%. I think there's a small cultural difference that I think between— again, I've spent a lot of time in the UK, US, and, uh, you know, traveled around like 50+ countries, right? Especially in India now, uh, our parenting is like this, that, you know, parents have invested money in their kids They want them to do a job, right? So they, they, they would be really very anxious if, if the son kind of tries or the daughter tries to do anything which is not the regular course of action, right? Regular course of action is doctor, engineer, when you see when you— Waqil, the last priority here, right? So I think, uh That's where even like from a parenting perspective, right? Kids today are so smart, right? I mean, they just need help in terms of guiding them. Oh, why don't you try this, right? Today my daughter, she's like 9 and she comes in and tells me that, you know, there's this new AI tool that I'm using for my assignments. Like, baby, you can't use an AI tool for your assignments. Right? No, I mean, I was telling because— so she— and then like, look, look at her prompt response. And she, after like, she listened to me, she doesn't argue, okay? She comes back to me. I think she was looking at something on her mom's Facebook, uh, this thing that the highest paid job is not a product manager job, not a CFA job or not this thing— a prompt engineer job. Dad, I have a prompt— I want to become a prompt engineer now. It's like, wow, she's a 9-year-old, okay? And like, she is arguing with you with fact and data, right?

So that's the future. That's the reality of future, right? That's— welcome to the future, Vinay.

Welcome to the future. But I felt so proud of that particular fact that minute. That, and, and, uh, you know, uh, look, look at these kids who are like, she's like so concentrated on her studies, right? She's in Cambridge board. And, um, you know, she was having 103 fever during her board examination. Cambridge ma'am, in the 4th, 5th grade, they are in examination, right? So board examination. And she's like Uh, she scored 99.7 or 98 percentile marks, okay? And she's like, Dad, I'm not very happy. Like, what? Why? Because I did not score a state rank. Seriously? And my, my teacher is not going to be very happy because she was expecting that I would— like, don't take that burden. I think that's where, as a parent, You know, you need to give that space to your child, right? Don't worry, it's all gonna work out like how it worked out for us. It'll all go to work out for you unless if your value system is good enough, I think, and if you are doing the right things at the right time, you're seeking help and being very— not wasting time, right? I mean, wasting time in the sense to me is I mean, even if you're bunking class, right, it's okay. I mean, I have bunked classes, right, even in my engineering, even in my MBA. So when I bunk classes, I was doing something to upskill myself. I might be teaching somewhere, I might be working with some startup, right? So I think if you're investing the time into something which is good to upskill yourself rather than watching a Netflix or a YouTube or something or a reel or something, then it's all good. I mean, at least in my head, it is all good, right? So that's where I am, and I kind of go with.

Great. So to sum up, you know, Abhinav, if I have to say that if you have to leave the audience with one insight on how to, uh, you know, take care of their wellness, how to take care of their mental health, and, you know, how to take that break actually. So what is that one thing that you would want to leave us with today?

I, I think, you know, um, you need to form cohorts, right? You will need to form cohorts, uh, with your similar tribe of people, right? Um, I, I might wear a white t-shirt, okay? Or I might like wear a hat on the back, and I may have a goatee, uh, as a beard, whatever it might be. Or I may be like a Govinda shirt, right? It's— everyone has their tribe at the end of the day, right? So what I'm trying to say is like, be with your tribe, okay? Not become a— and even a hippie is good. Even a hippie is good, right? It's, it's what's making you happy at the end of the day, number one. Number two, if you are a founder and, you know, being working with the like-minded people, okay, completely not in your circle I just take that 10 days, 15 days, at least once a quarter, right? If not 10 days, at least 5 days. Because that is—

I think you're talking about retreats. I mean, that was there in my mind as well, that, you know, we should have the founders retreat, wellness retreats properly where they can actually go and actually—

a lot of these things have come out really well these days. Because, you know, I went to this and I think even the government is promoting like, you know, Startup Yatra train, right? It's like that entire train is actually full of founders or people who are aspiring to be founder or who wants to actually do some business. And then a founder is like a new geek word that has come up. I mean, businesses always used to be there. Business is always going to be there, right? There will always be small and medium enterprises. MSME will always contribute to the majority of the nation's wealth, right? So, and I think, you know, where we want to collaborate with a lot of people, right? Like, say I'm an engineer, right? So, uh, I understand technology a little better than a chartered accountant, but a chartered accountant understands finance a lot better, right, than an engineer, right? Uh, a marketing grad would understand how to sell a product better, right, than a techie, right, or then a person who is like playing with the numbers, right? So again, I mean, it's, it's the basic bare and bone of the, you know, uh, of the business, right? So I have a very simple formula that I'll leave this, uh, with you, and that's, that's one of a core formula for DataLab too, which is any business is a function of product plus technology plus marketing, right? Any of the three things that you're not doing today nicely, I think your business is not going to survive, right? So I think all the three things have to be given equal weightage and then has to be tied back with the finance every single minute in time, right? And businesses today have to be you have to have a little courage to kind of throw the chips on a casino table, like you have to, before you can actually redeem some chips back. That's where I wanted to leave that particular thought with.

So I think if I have to sum up the whole thing, I would say, because this is our Wellness Podcast, I would say that do the business, do the right thing, but take breaks. Take care of your mental health and wellness, and create your own tribe. Is that correct, Avinash?

Create your own tribe and be with your own tribe. Be with your own tribe at least, at least a quarter, at least once a quarter. And this should not be your normal, you know, family and friends. This should be your tribe, which is, which will give you a very different perspective. To me, tribe is not that you're living day in and day out with. Tribe is someone who is outside, which will give you very different perspective, who has no emotions attached to it, right? And that's what you need to seek for. You need to seek for help. And then please, please, please, I mean, I'll always say this, please don't feel ashamed. Dunya kya bolegi, okay? You do your job and let them say whatever they have to, because they are not going to come and put the bread on your table, right? Right. So don't get embarrassed when someone tells you. I think the first rule of being in a business is be ashamed.

Be ashamed and take very good care of yourself. Thank you. Thank you so much, Abhinav. This has been very insightful. And, you know, we look forward to having you once again, maybe in the next podcast sometime. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Have a good one. Bye.