Asim Amim, Founder & CEO @ Plumm

Welcome back to another episode of The Graduate Guide. Today, John Versum. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Peter, for having me.

So I think a good place to start is, for those that don't know, what is Plum and why did you start it?

Wow, that's going to be a long-winded answer, but I'm going to try my best to shorten it as much as possible. So Plum is Plum started off as a workplace mental health platform, but then now it's just evolved into a HR platform as well with mental health at its core. Why it started? It started because of my own personal experience. So just to give you a little bit backstory, I had my first business when I was 17, started off from online gaming and then dabbled into many different businesses. I was digital marketing, food and beverage, and always wanted to do something within the mental health space. But because of my mom— so growing up, my mom suffered from severe depression. She's a completely different person now. She started seeking therapy. She didn't stop there. She became a therapist herself. So that really gave me the ins into both the negatives and the positive aspects when one addresses their mental health, but never did anything within the space because I was absolutely ashamed that my mom was a therapist. As you can appreciate, there's a lot of stigma around mental health even today, and this is about 16, 17 years ago. So the stigma was even more so. It wasn't around 2016 when I had my own fair share of mental ill health. As I was in the property sector for a very long time, I invested a lot of money, I lost a lot of money, and I went into a really dark place. I believe I was fortunate that I had my mom's experience, so I started taking care of my own mental health. And when I came out of that headspace, I really wanted to get into a line of business when my only motivator wouldn't just be the revenue or the top line or the bottom line of the business, something that would be bigger than me, bigger than my mom even. So started exploring the whole telehealth, telemedicine space, saw a lot of platforms and apps that would connect you with GPs and doctors and specialists. But the whole mental health space was not as robust as we see it today. So started developing a platform and mid of 2018 is when we launched the platform. So really, I mean, the mental health space was from my own personal struggles and and a problem that I innately wanted to solve. But then the recent development into the HR space was also from the premise where the ethos of the company is to help people thrive. And for us to be able to do that, just one facet of, you know, taking care of one facet of an individual is not enough, you know, because we human beings, we have an entire spectrum. There's emotional health, mental health, financial health, and so on. And that's why we moved into the HR space, because now it gives us the ability to look at that individual from the time you interview up until the time you exit and everything in between, from L&D, development, mental health, and then some.

It's very important work you do. And I think before we get into like the whole journey and the benefits of what you do, I want to go back to the beginning. You sort of alluded to yourself as your younger self then, but I think one thing we really like to do on this podcast is make sure that everyone feels heard in the career sense. And, you know, with that being said, I want to know what that younger Asim was like. Like, who was he just at his core before your career even started?

Um, so we grew up, um, I mean, humble beginnings, and it was, it wasn't a nice place to grow up where— I mean, talking about my household, so the reason my mom suffered from severe depression is because of a failed marriage. So, you know, I grew up with a lot of domestic violence at home, um, and my only way to, to solve that was just to run away. So I, I tried to stay away from home as much as possible and And my exit really, I found, was through playing games. So I played a lot of games. And off the back of that, I— and that's why, you know, that was my first business as well. I somehow convinced my uncle at that time to invest and start this online gaming business, which I was, you know, I mean, it was actually very successful. I was really, really successful in that business. And because of that, I feel my younger self, my— me at 17 was very cocky. I just thought, you know, I'm like the smartest person on this planet, especially smarter than my parents. And yeah, I think I just thought that I knew everything and Yeah, obviously things are slightly different today. When I was 17, I thought I knew everything. When I was 27, I thought, wow, my 17-year-old was an idiot. Now I know because I've been through life so much more. But today I've come to realize that, you know, human beings are just winging it in life. And it's a very privileged position to be in where I feel that I do not know anything anymore. And that just allows me to be, you know, allows me to, to open the space to absorb information, learn from others, learning from you today and so on. So yeah, my younger self, I would say, was very naive, but also very adamant to change his life. Because I was— I mean, the upbringing or, you know, humble beginnings, not enough money, a lot of violence at home. So I just wanted to change, like, like I was very hungry and desperate to make a change in life.

This sort of authenticity you're sharing in this story, I think that's something that deeply comes through on your LinkedIn, which is how we met. And I wonder when it was you realized sort of dropping the guard and like being authentic in your business journey became so useful because I think it's like a whole new revelation, right, in the world of careers, how much you can benefit from actually just saying, you know, this is what I know, this is who I am, and this is what I'm not, and this is what I want to learn, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I think fundamentally, if you look at business, I think, you know, they used to say that ideas are worthless and execution is everything. I truly believe these days, especially if you've done a few businesses, you you, you've kind of learned how to, you know, um, convert an idea into, into reality and bring people together, raise investments, and so on. Execution has relatively— has also become easier, especially with the whole AI revolution. I mean, things are just so much faster, so much seamless, and so on. But I really feel, uh, the biggest gap we have today, or the hardest part, is attention. How do you grab attention? So attention has become the new commodity. So that was the first start, or the premise of, oh my God, we have a great product, we have We have a great team, but we don't have enough eyeballs. Like, what do we do? You know, we need to grab attention. And the world has absolutely changed. People don't buy from companies, people buy from people. So building trust is super important. So that was a strategic decision where, okay, you know, I need to be out there, I need to share my story. And the only way to share your story is to be authentic because, you know, since I started sharing my story, I also have a new profound respect for creators because it's hard. I mean, consistently, you know, you know, showing up every single day, it's hard work. And somehow, you know, sometimes it just feels like a full-time job as well. But the only way to scale— and it's like building anything else, right? I mean, it's a long-term game. You can't expect to, you know, for miracles to happen in a couple of weeks or a few things that you do. So the only way to scale and to be consistent is really to be authentic. I mean, if you're not authentic, it's going to be very difficult for you to scale that for a long period of time. And I think, you know, people also somehow— it's also interesting, whenever I've been as vulnerable and authentic, people have just resonated and connected with that so much more. I mean, somehow people— I know there's a screen, but somehow people can read through the bullshit. So yeah, people connect with you more. When you are authentic.

I think so. You mentioned the commodity of attention, and the other side of that is, you know, as a founder, you know, knowing what to pay attention to and when something— you know, you've done a lot of pivoting even with this business, I'm sure, before. You know, actually knowing when you've got the right thing to build and, you know, what to pay attention to, what not to— I think it's a really difficult skill as well, especially as a student founder where you're just trying to make things happen really quickly. Have you got any advice on when you know that something is right and when you should really just go all in on building that one thing?

I don't think there's an absolute science behind it. Definitely there's this intuition and the gut feel that you build, and that really happens over time. And that is anything, not just building businesses or pivoting. I mean, you build intuition like any other muscle, you know, you just get stronger if you hit the gym every single day. But I think it comes off the back of trying a lot of things. So, I mean, we place a lot of bets. The reality is a lot of the bets also fail. But of those failures, there's a lot of learning. And of those learning, there's growth. And only when there's growth, there's success. So I think really the relationship with failure is super important and to be able to try a lot of new things at as fast as possible. I think that's what I would advise because, you know, even if you look at industries, so for example, in the mental health space, but no two companies within the mental health space is also same because the reality is what is a company? A company by definition is a collective of people. And all human beings are different. So a particular team within a company, even if it's in the same industry, would operate differently from, from another company. So yes, you have a high-level playbook, but the reality is you will only know by doing. So the more you do, the more you know. So I would encourage people to just do and just have a different relationship with failure. I think that's super important.

Yeah. And I think to actually really start doing anything in your career or building a business. You do need to have your personal life ducks in order. And, you know, this is what your business does, right? It's saying that it's really hard to work for a company and really do your best work unless your mental health is in check. Um, I know, uh, people, they, they do understand how important it is, but for you, like, with, you know, being able to look at it across so many different industries and companies and watched so many individuals benefit from improving their mental health and the productivity that can bring to a company. Why is it so important to get your mental health right before you start even thinking about your career?

You know, great question. And the reality is, if I flip that around, why is it so important to take care of your physical health? No one's going to ask you that question. The reason being you can see your physical body. And for human beings, seeing is believing. If I cannot see it, I do not believe it. But the reality is, and science has backed that, majority of your physical ailments are a direct correlation to your mental ill health. So everything is connected to your mind. If you look at a lot of chronic diseases now, I mean, it all stems from your mental ill health. So It's, it's, it's important. I mean, it's as important as taking care of your physical health, you know. But sadly, we start looking after our mental health only if we've hit burnout or we've, you know, somehow become chronically depressed or things like that. And, and again, coming back to that example of physical health, you will not wait until you've got a stroke or a heart attack to hit the gym or start eating clean, you know, I mean, that obviously doesn't make sense. So you start proactively taking care of your physical health so that you don't reach that stage. And I think same goes with your mental health as well. You know, I think it's just COVID has done a great job in terms of awareness. I mean, and I've been in the space pre-COVID, so I know how the whole landscape has changed. I mean, we perhaps would not be even talking about the mental health subject if it wasn't for COVID now. So, so COVID's done a great job. However, I think there's still a long, long way to go because I think there's more talk and less action. But I mean, speaking to students, aspiring entrepreneurs, I would say even before your physical health, your mental health needs to be in check because only when you are in a good headspace are you able to think clearly for your physical health. For your business, for the people around you. So it's one of those, I mean, your container, your cup needs to be full first. And for your cup, if your cup is not full, you will not be able to operate. And this game of entrepreneurship is bloody hard. So taking care of yourself, I think, I mean, is the prime indicator of you being able to, you know, go that long way or that extra mile because it is a long journey. It's bloody hard. So take care of your mental health, take care of your physical health first.

So why then entrepreneurship for you? Because it is hard. And I think, you know, you didn't go to university and it seemed that being an entrepreneur, being a founder was kind of innate within you. I know there was other reasons for you wanting to start your business, but why entrepreneurship and why could it not be anything else for you?

So, I mean, I dropped off from high school. So for me, I think from an optionality perspective, I just thought, oh shit, nobody's going to give me a job because I don't have a degree. So I picked that route. I also kind of saw people, some people around me, everyone who was quote unquote rich was an entrepreneur. And I came from, as I said, humble beginnings. We didn't have money. So I thought, you know, I want to change my life. And the way to do that is through entrepreneurship. So I think That was the prime reason when I first got in. But the reality I quickly understood was if you actually chase money, you don't make money. And this game is too hard and too long. You have to have a deeper purpose or driver to be able to, you know, not just embark the journey but actually be successful. Because, you know, like, I mean, the motivation isn't enough. Discipline is super important. And to be disciplined, you need to have like a, like a deeper purpose, deeper, deeper reason behind. So for me, really, I, you know, even, even when I started Plum, like I said, I was in a very bad headspace. I came out of that headspace. And so I was in the property sector and I was in that headspace because of financial struggles. But then I came out of it also because I started earning money again through the property sector. And when I had this idea and I thought I'm going to— also, I was raised in Dubai, so I lived in Dubai all my life, and then I had this idea, okay, I'm just going to, I'm just going to shift countries, move to a different country, don't know anyone, don't have family, and I'm going to get into a new line of business altogether. People thought I was absolutely mad. I think delusionality is important as well when you're an entrepreneur because, you know, In hindsight, if I look back, yeah, it was, it was crazy. If I knew how difficult it was, I probably wouldn't have started. But I'm also grateful that I didn't know. But what really made me push through is I just, I just kept asking myself this one question. What if, what if I started? How many people can I impact with their mental health? What if I started? How many lives can I change? What if I started? How many people can I recruit and change their lives? And so on. Also, I did not want to die with that question, what if? So I just started.

And the world of HR that you're, you're in now, I mean, it's interesting just speaking to you now and seeing it through the lens of why it moved into the sort of B2B HR space. It was really on a how can I impact as many people as possible? How can I grab that attention where it's not maybe being done right? Because initially you were like, I just want to solve mental health, I want to help people. But you realize that the best way to do it was actually through businesses. Is that fair to say? And I'm just, I'm trying to, I'm trying to gauge really like why businesses seem like the right thing for you to really solve that problem.

Yeah, and, and maybe answering that question is also going to give a little bit insight on the pivot and the reason to pivot and when you pivot. So we started off as a B2C platform, so going direct to consumer, so business to consumer. But I quickly understood that, you know, therapy sessions are expensive, you know, and not everyone can afford therapy. And then we started exploring the whole B2B space, so going direct, going to business, because, you know, if you look at a lot of the mental health-related stresses and anxiety are also caused because of work. You know, because I'm not performing at work or I'm performing, but there's too much pressure, financial well-being, salaries, promotions, and so on, or I'm on PIP and getting terminated. So again, there's a lot of work-related stresses. So I'm like, it obviously makes sense. I mean, corporations, companies have money and they should take responsibility of their people, you know, because ultimately, as I said, as I mentioned before, this company is nothing but a collective of people and From a, from an ROI perspective for the companies also, it obviously makes business sense because if your people's mental health is in check, they'll be performing better, they're happier, and it's good for business. It's good for them, it's good for business. So we did that pivot, but it was just before COVID And wow, that was a tough sell because it was very difficult for us to convince corporates how important it is for you to take care of your employees' mental well-being. But then COVID hit. And as I mentioned, you know, since then we know the demand or the conversation around mental health has just exploded and it continues to rise. So that was a silver lining. COVID really was a silver lining. And companies like ourselves also saw that explosion in growth. I mean, we were looking at exponential growth month on month, but then COVID died off and human beings have a very short-term memory. We forget. And then there was a new problem to look at, another problem, and so on. Cost of living crisis. Kicked in and then there was a war in Russia and then, you know, layoffs last year, we saw how many, you know, companies in the tech companies, especially in the US here and across the globe, started doing these massive layoffs. So that became a fundamental problem for us where companies started seeing mental health as a good-to-have and not a must-have. It's not business critical. Business can operate without providing mental health benefits to their employees, which technically is a fact. And so initially I was really pissed off. Obviously, I have, you know, you know, bias around the subject. Yeah, but I was also pissed off, you know, thinking, you know, you wouldn't think twice before you pay for a CRM system for your employees. But, but, but the person who's actually managing or executing on your CRM system, you will not take care of their mental health. But, you know, sometimes you have to lose a few battles to win the war. So So, so that was one problem, trying to articulate the actual value of taking care of your employees' mental well-being. But then also, how do you show— how do you represent that from an ROI perspective? And like I said, when there's physical health, I can see it, I believe it. But mental health, what's the correlation? So I thought, okay, you know, if we had an element of, you know, tracking or showing companies how taking care of their employees' mental well-being impacts on absenteeism, for instance, then we have a winner. But the problem is we don't track absence data because we're a mental health platform. We're not an HR platform. So then we thought, okay, let's just make a feature where we— where people can log in their time offs and absence and whatever. But then why would people do that? Because people do that on an HR platform, not on ours. And why would people do double work? Like, it didn't make sense. So very naively, we thought, okay, you know, it's going to take us about 30 days. Let's just make an entire end-to-end HR platform. And like I said, delusionality is important. It took us just over a year until we completed that whole HR platform. But really it came from a place where, like, a necessity, because we were in a space where it was becoming harder and harder for us to, you know, articulate the importance of the service within the business. And so now we've come into a place where, okay, buy the HR platform for us and we subsidize mental health for you, because we fundamentally believe that mental health should be a, you know, basic fundamental human right. So that's what we've done off the back of our HR platform. You get mental health for free. You—

I want to focus in on something you said earlier, which was about battles versus the whole war, right? I think this question is as much for me right now as the listeners. But I think one thing that I've learned so much in the short time I've been doing business is that you want things to happen quickly. Obviously you see it online, like people are doing things, they're announcing all these successes, so you want that for yourself. But I've really seen that the, the trade-off of things happening too quickly, like, you know, for example, if I were to just go viral this podcast like a year ago, you know, when I, when I was starting, I wouldn't— I would have been my one shot as a host to be put out there. Like, I wasn't my— the same person I am now. I've learned so much. And the same with like raising investment. And there's so many things just in business and careers where I think actually in retrospect you always say, oh no, it probably took the right amount of time. But what would you say to someone who just feels like they couldn't be working any harder and they're just constantly going for these battles that are losing? Like, what would you say to them to like just recalibrate and look at the bigger picture, the war, if you like?

Yeah, I think life in general is a marathon, it's not a sprint. And so is business, right? So as you know, I also went viral last month, like I had like 4.5 million views on just this one post. Yeah, but yeah, but how do you, how do you, how do you maintain that? You know, so I think in hindsight, okay, it was great. I mean, it rubbed my ego in, in, in the right or wrong places, but off the back of it, have I had any other post which is even close to that?

No.

So maybe from, again, a mental health perspective, it just caused a lot of stress as well. It's like, oh my God, like, why is my other post not going? Not just me and my team. So consistency is the key. Like, I mean, even if you look at physical health, I mean, you can't expect to go to the gym or eat salad for a week and then expect six-pack abs. Like, that's not going to happen, you know. So, and as entrepreneurs, we also, and rightly so, I think we also, you know, we always want everything as of yesterday, but we have to be reminded that, you know, your resources and time is not infinite, is finite. And I have also evolved as an entrepreneur, not just, you know, since I was 17 till now, even the last 3 years. And I have started being a little bit more kinder to myself. I think it's important. Things do happen when they're supposed to happen, and they always happen at the right time. That doesn't mean that you don't push. You always have to push harder than, than, than you think you can. Because again, coming back to muscle, you know, you only build muscle when you tear muscle. So you have to push boundaries every single time. But the reality is when things move at speed, it's not necessarily the processes or the systems that break. It's the people that break. So we have to be mindful of that. And again, this whole startup world, no matter how mindful you're in the space not to be too hard on yourself and okay, you know, move at speed, but, you know, take it easy also. Your only superpower is also speed. That is why startups are disrupting conventional businesses. So, so maybe I'm kind of contradicting myself, but what I'm trying to say is that you have to move at speed. You cannot, you know, you cannot deny that. But, but keeping your, you know, prioritizing your mental health and keeping your mental health in check, I think that is super important because if you break, then everything around you just breaks. And that's why, you know, initially when I said as well, your cup needs to be full and also be mindful. Like I said, I mean, when things move at speed, it's the people that break and you're only as strong as your team. But having said that, this space is also not for everyone and that's okay. I think having clear communication and that conversation with your team is also super important because social media has absolutely romanticized, you know, the whole startup world and everybody wants to be in the startup world. Everyone, everyone wants to start a company. But like social media, you know, expectation versus reality. The reality is a lot different than the actual, what you see on social media. So just to summarize, I mean, do not let go of speed because that is ultimately your superpower and you have to keep on disrupting, but be mindful of how it will break other people. And also because they have a different vested interest than you as a founder of a company. And just ensure that your cup is full.

I bet. And, um, talk about the reality of entrepreneurship, because there are a lot of people that do want to become, you know, a startup founder, and there is nothing wrong with that. But I think people need to know the actual reality, not the online version. For people who are just starting off and, you know, really just playing around with the idea of building a business, maybe they're at university right now, what What do you want them to know as the reality of entrepreneurship? What's like the main thing? It's like, okay, this is why you should do it and this is why you shouldn't do it.

You should not do it because of money. Absolutely not. You should not look at the valuations of the multibillion-dollar companies and so on, because the reality is majority of the startups fail. If you're thinking about money, you're better off getting a job. That's a fact. Yes, there can be anomalies, but also another reality. If you look at the success metrics, it's founders who are in their mid-30s to mid-40s who are the most successful because they've gone through life experiences, they've had a couple of businesses before, maybe work experiences and so on. And really it's the experiences which teaches you all the lessons that maybe a business school can't, you know, and that is a reality because like I said, every business is also different. So if you're going to do it for money, please do not, because money itself is not enough of a motivator to pull you through, because for the most part, you're not making money. Initial, you know, initial couple of years, I think the first 3 years of Plum, I did not take a salary. And again, I was in a different position because I had saved a little bit of money and I was eating shit every single day. When I moved to the UK, I was on a £3 budget per day for food. So it was, it was horrible. But I went through that not because ultimately I thought I'm gonna make shitloads of money. I did that because I had a serious problem that I wanted to solve, and that problem was so painful to me that I would have— I was in a mindset, well, I either do it or I die trying. So money cannot be the motivator. So if you are deeply connected to a problem get into entrepreneurship because although the journey is extremely difficult, but it's also very beautiful. And no money in the world can buy the feeling of you being able to create, build, solve a problem, and drive humanity forward.

My final question to you, which I ask every single one of my guests, is when you first start off on your career journey in entrepreneurship, you would have a certain idea of what success would go on to look like. But fast forward of everything you've learned and achieved along the way, what is your definition of success and how has it changed?

Well, interesting question. When I first started, what success for me was, how am I being better every single day? From an experience perspective, from a knowledge perspective, from a growth— basically my growth, you know, how am I becoming 1% better every single day? But today that success measure has completely changed. How can I enable the people around me to become better every single day? That is my success measure. You know, before we started the pod, we were talking about, you know, personal brand and so on. And I spoke to you about how we're also doubling down on our people's personal brand. And just yesterday, one of our— some— our head of partnerships went viral on LinkedIn. I can't tell you. It's interesting. I was happier for him this morning. And so since yesterday he's gone viral, I think he's going to— yeah, I think he's going to blow up in the next— this entire week. I'm actually happier today than I was last month when I went viral. It's, it's interesting. So success for me really is, okay, how can I create the space for people around me to thrive? And the reality is when they thrive, I'm thriving anyway, you know? So I think, I think that is where the shift has happened.

Sam, thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you. Thank you so, so much for having me, Peter.