The Achieve Podcast - Kutral Veerabadran (The Second Whistle)

Welcome to the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight the leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses and shaping their industries. My name is Jesse Warner, and I'll be your host today. And we're excited to have Kutrola Virabhadran, if I said that right. Kutrola, we're excited to have you on the show today. Welcome.

Thank you, Jesse. Pleasure.

So Kutral is a, um, he's a Chief Investment and Strategy Officer for Exphoria Global Talent and has some really interesting story background. Uh, Kutral, give us kind of a quick, quick version so our audience can get to know you a little bit.

Sure, Jesse. So I'll kind of like split into 2 buckets, right? So one is, of course, my professional background. As you rightly said, I've been in the investments field for almost a decade now. And primarily started my career as an investment banker with Citi after my MBA at MIT and was with Citi for like 5+ years and then like moved into general management positions. And over the last 10 years, as I told you, I kind of like gravitated towards the investments fields because I really resonate a lot with startups. And at one point I was running a venture capital fund and now I'm kind of heading investments for a company here in Dallas. So in my field of work, I get to work with a lot of kind of business owners and entrepreneurs and startup founders and primarily kind of in the technology field. And also I kind of like look into some kind of inorganic growth initiatives in my company like M&A and so on and so forth, right? So that is my professional kind of a roundup. On the non-professional slash my past professional kind of the life, if you so will, I used to be a professional athlete. I was a professional marathon open water swimmer and pretty much my highlights are I'm currently in the Guinness Book of World Records for marathon swimming, swimming across 6 straits including the English Channel in 1 year. I was at one point the junior world champion, and primarily that was my complete professional kind of, um, you know, segue before I pivoted into education and the world of finance. I used to be an athlete, so that is pretty much my quick 2 rounds and 2 kind of like aspects to it.

Yeah, I mean, that's pretty interesting, Kunal, right? So, I mean, you were swimming really at an elite level at the age when most kids were trying to just figure out what they're good at, right? So you're kind of out there. How did that experience shape the way you approach your business and your career today?

See, one thing I'm very grateful for, Jesse, is the early exposure to a competitive landscape. What I mean by that is sports. Nothing like sports was teaches you how to kind of like be kind of like, you know, perseverant in what you're doing and inculcate discipline and also give you this particular kind of confidence to keep going after what you want from a very high-level picture, right? Whether you're a swimmer or whether it's an athlete or a football player or whatever it is, right? You train at a very highest level and you maintain your self-integrity and self-discipline at one particular level. Only then you can pretty much achieve in the particular field you've chosen. Right, so that has given a very strong foundation to everything I've done after that, right? So in fact, as you rightly said, I got on the professional circuit when I was 9 years old, right? And I was in the professional circuit for the better part of my high school, and I pivoted to education only after that, to my undergrad. So any kind of business endeavor or any kind of like, um, you know, new initiatives, I personally kind of look at from my capacity for my own personal kind of development and so on and so forth, the strong foundation from sports has really helped me, right? Whether you're kind of looking at a deal, you want to make a particular deal happen, you kind of persevere towards that, right? And you put in your best foot forward. And the best part is you don't get bogged down by the results. You put in your efforts and then you kind of like accept whatever kind of like comes. out of your efforts, and then you kind of like go with it. That keeps your morale high and that keeps your motivation at the right metric at all times, right? So that is how I would kind of like think about how sports is actively kind of giving me a very even keel to go after the various avenues I've gone after.

So you've gone from professional athletics to engineering, high finance, venture capital, Now investing, corporate strategy. What has driven you to kind of keep reinventing yourself rather than staying in one lane, if you will?

Right. It's actually a very interesting question. Sometimes I reflect on it myself, right? Kind of like thinking about it. So of course, like sports to education was a necessary pivot at that particular point, right? A very short story, I was kind of like almost kind of forced to take the decision because I'm talking about like 30 years ago. in a country— I'm originally from India, and marathon swimming, especially swimming, was not popular at all. And every competition was really financially onerous, right? And there were not enough sponsors or corporate sponsorships that came my way at that particular point. So it was a very rational decision for me to kind of understand, hey, if I'm kind of going to reflect on my life, if I have to take my life to some kind of meaningful kind of position, then education becomes pivotal for me, right? So So that was a very conscious decision where I pivoted from my sport into the field of education, and the rest is history. As I said, engineering and finance and banking and so on and so forth, right? Now within the professional career, so I have this habit, you see, like every 3 to 4 years I kind of like sit back and question myself whether my current avenue, wherever I am, is taking me to the destination where I want to be, kind of a way, right? When I say destination, whether it's kind of like fulfilling in multiple dimensions? Is this kind of aiding my growth in a particular way, or am I becoming too complacent and too comfortable in where I am, right? So whenever that question kind of comes, it's like, hey, if I'm interested in something else where I feel there'll be a better avenue for professional growth and for like self-growth, I kind of take it seriously and kind of like pursue that particular kind of an optionality, right? So that's where you see, and if you look at it, it's not completely disjoint. Right. So after my engineering, I was an engineer for a handful of years here in Intel in California. And the same questions, hey, do I want to be an engineer in the next 10 years? I kind of looked at people who have been in the same organization for 10, 15 years, and I felt I'll be much more productive and more kind of fulfilled if I was out in the field thinking about business and strategy rather than kind of sitting and coding. Right. So that was a conscious decision for me to, okay, let me pursue my B-school. Which will give me an avenue to explore all these things which I want to explore. And that's why I made a conscious choice and decision to kind of get into B-school, right? And after B-school, of course, like if you look at investment banking, it's all numbers. If you look at accounting, it's basically numbers. And being an engineer, you relate to numbers in different ways and you become— you're already fluent with numbers, right? So finance is just looking at numbers in a completely different lens than an engineer would, right? So that was kind of the arc there. And I really loved my time, kind of like, um, you know, my time in banking, especially because it helped me understand how corporations think and why they do what they do, right? We kind of listen to, hey, you know, this particular corporation kind of decided to acquire another kind of a company, or they kind of shut down a particular business unit, or they're kind of like, um, you know, buying back their shares and so on and so forth. But to understand the meaning and why they're doing what they're doing was a big high for me. So as a banker, I could kind of like be in the forefront and interact with the Fortune 500 companies, kind of understand and also advise them into what they should be thinking about. That was a very, very fulfilling kind of an experience. And naturally, all of us— you see, I believe this, right? I mean, your audience are all business owners. Naturally, the world gravitates towards being your own owner in a way, right? Having complete control of your life. And when I say life, your career, and so on and so forth. So being an employee is fantastic. It has its own pros, and being an owner has its own cons, I would say, rather than pros. But the pros kind of like compound over time, right? So that is where even my kind of journey took over. Okay, now I've seen all this. How can I start something on my own? How can I be closer to the startup ecosystem? And the best non-risky way to be in the startup but not be a founder is through investments, right? And through venture capital. So you kind of like liaise with all the founders. You kind of like live and breathe startups. You kind of like help the businesses kind of grow and suggest on top of giving capital. So you kind of live vicariously of being a particular founder, right, as from the investments field. And now most recently, like, I've kind of taken a very small step into being a pseudo business owner or an entrepreneur, if you will. I started my own podcast, right? It was just like a recent— a couple of weeks ago. But I'm kind of like dabbling. So if you see, there's an arc across everything I've done, and there's a strong personal rationale, right? So there's one thing which sports taught me: as long as I'm comfortable, as long as I want to do something, I just go after it. End of the day, you live this one life, right? I mean, why constrain yourself with one single hat when you especially you can prudent? I mean, in a very prudent way, you can kind of explore avenues which is allied to you. So that is a philosophy I kind of live with.

So, Kunal, you talked a little bit about working with founders. You've evaluated, you've invested in a lot of founders, right? What separates the founders who actually go out and build great companies from the ones who maybe just look impressive on a pitch?

That is actually a very deep and important question, Jesse. So from my experience, right, I mean, I've been in the world of investments for almost a decade now. Right, both on the venture debt side and venture capital side, equity and debt kind of aspects. I've had the fortune of meeting with so many founders, and one thing which becomes very clear right at even the first pitch stage— forget even technology or tech-oriented kind of businesses, even like kind of services, any kind of business— the founder's passion shines through, right? When you talk to them, when they talk about their baby, that's their baby. Whatever they're building, it's their kind of like It's their identity, right? So the kind of passion they talk about their particular venture kind of like stands out. It is not like, hey, I want to make X million dollars or have an exit. Yes, that might be the monetary kind of the side effect. And I'm not even talking about like glorified things like, hey, this is my mission, I want to save humankind. Not that extreme either. But just the passion and the kind of like excitement when they talk about what they're doing right now, that kind of like shines through. And that is a mark for me for a founder who will stick to it. Because as all your viewers know, and you yourself will know, founding a company and being a business owner is one of the most difficult things and the most rewarding things you can do to yourself as well. So the person or people who stick to it, who kind of like stick on and don't give up during difficult days, are the ones who will eventually succeed. Because it's my strong belief that you can make any business succeed if you stick long enough with that particular business, right? It's that particular endurance which kind of differentiates people who quote-unquote succeed in their venture and otherwise, right? Of course, there are other kind of like tertiary environmental or other out-of-control kind of things which happen, but that's that aside. To answer your specific question, it's the natural excitement which I can sense when I'm talking to a particular founder to see how much this particular endeavor means to them. Right? And the opportunity they see, the clarity of vision they have, and the conviction they have, all that kind of like shines through outside of the usual kind of like financials and projections and so on and so forth.

Really, you're looking at the passion and the dedication of the founder just as much as some of the financials, right? Because in some ways, that's— it's that grit, right? That perseverance that says, hey, when things get hard, which they will because entrepreneurship is hard, right? Will they be able to persevere and will they continue to going or will they just give up, right?

Absolutely, absolutely. And I would kind of, kind of like underline the word passion here, right? So passion is one angle to it. What I mean by the more important thing is what you just mentioned right now, whether the founder will persevere through hard times. That's what actually differentiates, right?

Right?

Passion is, of course, like you really kind of like you're ingrained in what you're solving, whatever the problem is, and how kind of attached you are to it emotionally and kind of like professionally in a way. But the actual differentiating factor is, can this founder endure the bad days? Because there will be bad days. And that's what really kind of like, um, you know, sparks my interest. And that clearly comes out when I talk to a founder. See, they can have all the passion in the world, they can have all the kind of like other, um, you know, positives in the world kind of a thing, right? But if they don't have that gene to endure to bad days, then it's the end of the startup or whatever business you're kind of like looking at. As an investor, it's very important for you to know whether the founder will stick on. So that is what really kind of like the key differentiating factor. Passion is an override on that. Kind of shines through easily. You can kind of like see it.

Let's talk about funding for a minute, right? You've worked across venture capital, M&A, private credit, corporate finance. There's lots of different ways entrepreneurs can kind of fund their business. How should an entrepreneur think about funding and when is raising equity or using equity versus, you know, lending or, you know, like what, what should they be considering? How should they be thinking about funding?

Right, see, this is what I strongly feel, right? Equity should be the last resort for an entrepreneur. And this is a very broad statement, I understand that, because it depends upon the kind of company they're building. Some companies are just capital intensive. You have to kind of raise equity. There is no way— there are no other avenues are kind of like shut for you, right? For example, if you're a deep tech founder right? You absolutely have to raise millions of dollars, and nobody is going to kind of like give that capital in any other form other than equity to begin with. So I'm leaving those kind of like outliers for now. I am kind of talking to more like business owners or to your specific audience where we kind of like, um, not just tech but any kind of like, you know, services business or any manufacturing, anything of that sort, right? It'll be the most effective Unless the business itself is capital intensive, unless you're putting up a factory floor, unless you're doing something which needs a lot of capital, you should kind of park equity for a later time, right? The first and foremost, if it's possible— I know like many of us do not have that particular luxury, but depending upon your financial capacity, if you can bootstrap it for a bit, if you can— in technical parlance, if you can get an MVP or kind of a working product, a working service or if you're a consulting arm, any kind of like a working kind of a framework in a bootstrap method and establish clients— even 1 or 2 clients would do, right? That will give a strong signal even to the debt funding part of the world. Forget equity. As I told you, I'm not even talking about equity right now, right? It's more about like, hey, can my customers fund me? Interestingly, one of the very successful CEOs I was talking to in my own podcast that was one of the key learnings, he said, hey, customer should be your first funder because that is revenue. A, that shows your product-market fit, shows that there are people willing to pay for your product. And 3, most importantly, it doesn't come with any cost, right? The revenue does not demand a board seat, revenue doesn't demand a piece of equity, right? So that is your first, first and foremost. And not all businesses will have that particular luxury. So the second rung of thing is like once you kind of bootstrap and bring it a certain kind of level, you can always explore the debt capital markets. What I mean by capital markets is not going to— I mean, raising a bond or whatnot, because we're talking about like very, um, you know, services business kind of a way, right? So there will be banks which might be open to kind of like fund the endeavor, provided you show a couple of quarters of like, you know, meaningful growth and cash flow positive kind of metrics. Banks become difficult, of course, there are like venture debt funds which typically kind of like, again, even though the cash flow is negative and so on and so forth, they can kind of look at the promise of the business and they can kind of like probably open up their wallets. And there are private funders altogether, completely different, uh, segment. So that is an avenue you can kind of like see. And once you exhaust all this kind of like debt and debt-oriented products, only then you can kind of like start thinking about equity. Should your company be in that particular VC kind of a path, right? What I mean by VC path is like usually venture capitalists— not all companies are built for venture capital, right? Because as VCs, they look for like, hey, can this company give me a 50x return or 20x? Can it really kind of like zoom over? Not very— a fraction of businesses, Jesse, I'll tell you, they are venture capital material, right? Just a fraction. All the headlines we read, this tech company raised a billion dollars or whatever it is, It's a fraction of the holistic kind of SMB world and even the world. I'm here talking to SMBs, right? Venture capital may not even or need not even be part of your program. There are so many avenues in terms of debt is what I would first exhaust. And previously, as I told you, just coming order of priority, can I sell and make my own? Can I bootstrap and make my own money through customers? If so, can I grow with that? If not, next up is debt.

I mean, I've been a fractional CMO for the last 8 years, right? And I've worked with a lot of companies as well. And I just completely agree with you on the, the revenue side of this, what you're talking about.

Right.

I think, I think business owners should go as fast as they can to get their first customer and their second customer and get a few customers in the door, even if they don't have it all figured out. Right. Because what it's going to do is it forces them to do the things that the business needs done.

Right.

It's like, oh crap, I just got my first customer. I can't accept payment. You know, right? Like, I've got to go set up a merchant account. I got to go get the bank account. I've got to, you know, so it like forces the behavior of— it also helps you clarify your position in the market, right? If you're actually talking to people and saying, hey, do you have a real problem? Are you willing to pay to solve this problem?

Right?

Because it's one thing to say there's a problem out in the market. It's a different thing to say, hey, I just got 100 people to pay me $1,000.

Right.

And, and those signals are really what's going to be driving the, the growth of the company, right? And it's going to allow you to go out and get investors in, whether it's, you know, a loan or angel investors or VC or whatever you're going to go do, right? Because now you've got some data behind you, right? Now it's not just—

Absolutely.

You know, Jesse's opinion anymore, right? It's like, hey, you know what, there's a market here. And what I want to go do now as an owner, I want to go tackle that market, right?

Absolutely. No, you raised a very, very important point. You see, I mean, in the, in the, um, in your kind of observation, you made one very critical point, like, hey, just go to the market and test it out, or get the first few customers ASAP, right? So just to give more context to it from my own experience, I still remember back in my MBA days, I'm talking about like 2010, 2011, We made this like, you know, tech visit to Silicon Valley, and I still remember making a tech visit to Google at that particular point. We got to meet with the senior management just as a, you know, a student's interaction. So one of the things they said is Google's, uh, kind of policy back then, just to kind of get you to know, they were very strict about not making a perfect product. They didn't care about it. You make a minimum viable product, ship it to the people. And people will tell you what works, what doesn't work, what they need. And we iterate based on the feedback, right? So that shows even a company like Google doesn't really wait for that particular magic bullet to release. They release a beta version or whatnot, right? And they feed on the public's feedback, opinion. On the other extreme— I mean, I wouldn't say other extreme— another example, very recently again, I met with one of the, one of the successful CEOs. And he started his company in a completely different direction. It was an AI company focused on financial services, right, to make financial services kind of like more intelligent. But the market quickly gave him feedback because he got— he started getting many kind of requests for making healthcare systems more, you know, efficient. So the market was talking to him, and he, being a prudent founder, he was like, okay, this is where the market wants me to go. Yes, my kind of, uh, experience and expertise is in finance, but doesn't matter. Market wants this. And they completely pivoted towards healthcare and they're doing fantastically well. So there's this magic of listening to the market which you'll get only when you reach the market, right? Even, even business owners, right, they might have one particular kind of solution or a problem sort of framework or whatever it is they kind of give to the market. Go give it to the market ASAP and your clients will tell you what they need. That might give you a completely different pivot. That's okay. End of the day, it's about like what customers need at that particular point, what the market dictates at that particular point. The best case scenario is when you're out in the market and learning real time what they need and pivoting your particular kind of, um, you know, your solutions towards that. So that is a win-win.

You talked about MVP for a minute, and, and today we live in an incredible world right now with AI, right? Where It's no longer like, hey, I gotta go and get a development team to go and build this product for me now, right? It's now a, hey, I can go build this product over a weekend and get customers on Monday kind of a, a world that we live in, right? And so I think that, that need for validation becomes even more important now. And I'm sure you see this in your— in the VC side or on the investment side. People come with all these ideas And ideas are cool, but, you know, it's like, well, show me the market, show me the traction, right?

Right.

But what the— what AI has allowed us to do as entrepreneurs, it's allowed us to take our product and our ideas to market so much faster than we could have ever done. And so anybody today can become an entrepreneur, build a product, and really, you know, that sales and marketing then becomes kind of that can you actually go sell it, right? Can you support it? Absolutely. Grow it, you know?

Absolutely. So now the differentiating factor really becomes distribution, as you rightly said, right? You know, AI has democratized the product building phase. Whatever you are into, it kind of like amplifies your productivity, right? So you can literally— unless you're in manufacturing, so on and so forth, there are industries which are not really impacted by the AI kind of thing. We're talking about software and software-oriented kind of businesses where the solution is there. Of course, AI kind of like really accelerates the product angle to it. And differentiation is distribution, right? So because there are 2 aspects, the way I look at businesses is like, yes, the idea can be fantastic, the market might need it, and so on and so forth. And what about the distribution angle to it? What are your kind of modes in distribution where you can take the product to as many people as possible in the fastest and the quickest and most enduring way. That's what I think your experience also as CMO, kind of like you would have reflected on many times, it's about like, how do I get this to the people? What distribution channels I have access to kind of a thing, right? So those 2 kind of like, uh, go hand in hand. But your point, absolutely. So now is a fantastic time for entrepreneurs and people who with enterprising thoughts, if they're in a place where AI can really kind of like accelerate their product or service or whatever they're into, they should totally experiment with it because they're not losing much. It's not like you have to hire a bunch of engineers, put together a team, and then invest a lot and then see. As you rightly said, some of these software solutions can be developed over a weekend, and people can learn right from scratch. Because AI is one beautiful thing, Jesse, which I tell my network as well. When people think like, hey, I'm not— I don't have this background or whatnot, I cannot build products. AI is new for everyone, right?

It is actually new for everyone together, right?

Yeah, exactly. So anybody can learn. And today YouTube literally is teeming with so many kind of tutorials and so on and so forth. Whatever it is you want to learn, you can pick it up, you can learn it yourself at your own pace, irrespective of what your background is. That is the beauty. The learning ability is the beauty. So anybody can become an expert, or at least in a very proficient level of how they want to leverage this AI into whatever it is they want to do. You don't have to go to a college for 4 years, you don't have to do so many things just to kind of like, you know, become proficient in a particular place. It's just democratized. That, I feel, is a very beautiful thing for business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs because that opportunity is massive. Anybody can literally do anything. So that is pretty much the bottom line.

Yeah, I, I love, I love the world we're in today. I sit down with clients and And I just say everything is possible, right? Can you do that? Yes. Can you do that?

Yes.

Now how and what does it look like are different, but the fact that you can kind of say yes to almost anything is, is a really cool, uh, world to be in. Um, absolutely.

So that's where your perseverance comes in, right? Like if you take up something, will you stick on to it? So that, that's the loop I'm talking about. You take it up, You kind of like go wherever it is. Life is in your hands, man. Today, today is like a completely different thing. I'm very excited to see what 10 years from now will even look like.

I know as well.

Yeah.

So, last question for you. As you think kind of back on your journey, what advice or thoughts would you give to those business owners who are kind of in the grind and they're trying to grow their company?

See, I would say advice is a very strong word. And I always think of myself as a learner because the more people I talk to, I learn a lot from them as well. So some of the key aspects which I feel, right, so I'll circle back to— I'll park the perseverance for a bit because that is a common trait which is non-negotiable from my eyes. Like, whatever you take, whatever field you're in, unless you persevere, because success will not happen overnight, right? Maybe this is a kind of a learning which I took from my sporting days. People see the success, which is the peak, but the whole iceberg submerged, which is your hard work, which is perseverance, which is discipline, which is your kind of tenacity, right? So that should be a strong foundation for any business owner, for even any professional for that matter, so that they kind of like peep out of the water with their success metric, whichever shows to the outside world, right? So that for me is a non-negotiable. And the other thing which I would definitely say is point to is like, as we just discussed, it's highly democratized world right now, especially when it comes to learning and learning opportunities and what you can do with it, right? It is your ideas which is pretty much your limiting factor. We have heard the term sky's the limit, which is literally becoming true right now, right? So once you have an idea, once you kind of get some kind of like traction around it— today the world moves so fast, even the geographical boundaries have disappeared. You can work with people across the continents. Right? Things have become remote. There is so much going on right now. So that is where I would definitely kind of like, uh, without using the word advice, I would strongly kind of suggest and request people to reflect on it, what the possibilities are. Things have drastically changed the last 5 years and it's only going to change further, right? So that is pretty much where I would kind of put a full stop and kind of like encourage people to explore their own kind of potential. There is literally no limiting factor today.

Well, Khatral, thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing your story, your insights. For those listening, if you want to learn more about Khatral, he's, he started his own podcast, The Second Whistle. Visit thesecondwhistle.com, learn more about that. And that'll wrap up today's episode of the Achieve podcast. Big thank you to our sponsor, Achieve Fractional, which provides And if you enjoyed today's conversation, invite you to follow our show, share with another entrepreneur who also finds value in it. And again, thanks for listening. Kutral, thanks for again for being a guest on our show today.

Absolutely, Jesse. Thanks again for having me. It was a pleasure.

Okay, and for everybody else, we'll see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.