Desmond Lim: What Happens When You Don't Eat For 10 Days

All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. Today I have Desmond Lim with us. He is the CEO and co-founder of Workstream.is, which helps you to hire hourly workers 4 times faster. He's an MIT and Harvard grad, former product manager at WeChat, and investor at Dorm Room Fund. So welcome to the show, man.

Hi there, Tyler. How are you doing? Thanks so much for having me.

I'm doing well, man. How are you? I'm pumped to have you here.

Same here. Yeah, doing very well too. Thank you.

Awesome. So, uh, we like to go deep pretty quick on this show. So the first one that we'll dive into is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Yeah, definitely. Thanks so much for actually asking that. So I love to share this very short story about me. So actually both my parents, they are actually both hourly workers. My dad, he's a driver, and my mom, she's a cleaner. So they both only finished 4th grade. So I'm the first to go to school in my— this family and to come to the US. So I'm from Singapore. So I came to the US where I actually went to Harvard and also MIT for school. So this growing up, I see all this hard work and also struggle that my parents were actually putting through, and that really taught me so much. Not just about this value for this hard work, but also growing up, I just saw like how much almost all these struggles that they were trying to go through, and that really set me very, very well for what I'm doing and everything that I'm doing now in my career, be it in my life or in my work. I always focus on trying to give my best and trying to work very, very hard. So yeah.

Absolutely, man. Um, and so my next one for you is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

Yeah. So trying to lead this back to my own story or sharing that. So I actually grew up seeing my parents both working hourly jobs and saw how it's very tough to work the job, but it's also very hard to find a job in the space, you know, trying this whole hourly sector. So that actually, my whole experiences seeing my parents, it actually led me to do what I'm doing today, which is, it is called Workstream. So basically, it's this end-to-end hiring software that helps these companies to hire hourly workers better. We work with restaurants, cafes, retail companies. Today we work with many of these franchisees anywhere from Jamba Juice, Subway, Dunkin' Donuts, DineX Group. So a wide range of restaurants and cafes help them. We actually help them to hire faster and also better. So what we do is we use texting and also this automation and AI as the way to actually help them to hire better. So that one piece of this information that we know is that it's key to find a better way to try to engage many of these hourly folks, and that is not by email, that is not by calling, because Both of these channels doesn't work well. It's actually by texting. So we found that texting is the best way to reach many of these people.

So yeah, that's— so, so explain a little bit more about, um, about Workstream. Yeah, Workstream. Explain a little bit more about that. Like, so you said AI and texting, like how does it, how does it make it 4 times faster? How does that happen?

Yeah, yeah, thanks so much for asking. So I was saying that we use texting as a way to really reach and to engage many of them. Email and calling doesn't work at all. So throughout, we are this end-to-end hiring software helping you to source, to screen, and to actually onboard faster. So we work with tens of job boards anywhere from Indeed, Craigslist, Glassdoor, Google Jobs, and more. We source for all of them, helping you to screen them via this actually mobile workflow. So everything is all built on the phone. Everything is very quick. It takes you a few seconds to screen and to actually, we even help you to actually schedule them for this meeting and then to actually onboard. So everything is all built on the phone.

Got it. Okay. So yeah, I mean, cause that's big, man. If you're making it 4 times faster, that's, you know, obviously you're solving a problem. Like it's a lot better. So my next one, and you know, from all your experience, I'm excited for your answer on this next one. what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry specific.

Yeah, definitely. I think for every business owner, right, whether you are trying to run your own restaurant, cafe, or trying to run like a tech startup, I think it's very key to build a very strong culture from the start. I think that is definitely my very top advice, you know. So I used to run a this Thai food restaurant for 3 years. So it was very tough having to do operations, trying to clean dishes. I was very hands-on. So that was one of the first businesses that I built. But even back then, I learned that trying to build a very strong team culture, trying to show your teammates what should be done right, it is very, very key. And even after I went through Harvard and was at MIT, I came out to launch several of my own startup, I learned that it's very key to get this culture right from the very, very start. So, and that is, and I would actually recommend every founder and owner to perhaps come up with a list of 6 to 7 pointers that you have, write it on this Google Doc and share it with your team and keep talking about it. You know, people really have to hear it, see it, and really feel it every single day in a team.

Yeah, absolutely, man. It's about the culture.

Culture is so important.

Um, uh, so my next one for you is if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Yeah, that's a good question. Um, I think for me it's really trying to take more risks and trying to travel more. You know, I think like one of the biggest things about being young is you have the chance to take more risks. So my first love when I was younger, prior to all this, it was actually sports. So I played basketball since I was 7, and I actually played for my country. So I was actually on this Singapore team playing sports, and I must have put most of my time into that, into my this early years, you know, trying to take more risks, trying to play more sports. But through that, I learned so much. I was really following my passion and love, and I learned so much through that. And really, that is what I would say to me. If I could go back in time, I would say take more risks, try more new things, and also travel more.

Absolutely, man. Dude, traveling will open your mind. Like, I think that would help a lot of people. Because when we all— like, wherever you grow up, you think like when you're that young, you think that's like the way the whole world works is like your small little town. And it's like, you know what I mean? Like, then you travel overseas somewhere and you're like, whoa, there's a lot of other stuff going on. Like, it's way different. Um, so I just— I think traveling is like— I think that should be like a part of like the curriculum at colleges. Like, you should have to travel.

I know, right? Yeah, that is very true.

So my next one, kind of going a little bit down a different path: in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?

Wow, that's something very deep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's what we all think about every single day. Yeah, I mean, I think for me it's really about trying to be content with what you have. I think today in this world where you can always consume and buy more stuff, be it online or be it offline, I feel like being contented with what you have and knowing what you have is enough, that is always very helpful. So I was actually in this army for 2.5 years, so I served in an army as this infantry officer for 2.5 years. And there was once I actually was overseas in training in this jungle and I didn't eat for 10 whole days. So in that 10 days, Yeah, in 10 days I lost about 15 pounds. So I didn't shower, I didn't change my clothes, and I didn't eat for 10 whole days. But I learned so much. And I think by the 6th or 7th day, I was like starving. I was so weak and hungry, but it was part of this jungle training that we actually needed to go through when we were in the army because I was this infantry officer. But I really learned that After that training, I lost about 15 pounds, but I also learned that how I was very happy with what I have. Being able to shower, being able to take a warm bath, having fresh change of clothes. I was very happy, so I feel like being happy is really this simple, simple state of mind. If you can be contented with what you have, you can be happy.

Dude, 10 days though. That's a lot, man.

Try it.

I would have been real hungry, dude. Oh my God. That's intense, man. So like, oh wait, I got to ask a little bit more about that. Like 10 days, like, were you, were you like hallucinating or anything? Like, like obviously you were drinking water, obviously, right? Cause I don't think you can. So, so only water for the 10 days.

So I actually, we were trained to eat some grass and some ferns, you know, some kind of plants that we could find from the jungles, but there wasn't really much. I think I must have ate some of them after the 5th day and it didn't taste well. Yeah. So you're right. We drank mostly water. We ate some plants. Um, there wasn't any fruits at all. So pretty much we didn't eat much at all or nothing at all for the whole 10 days. So it was tough and it was very cold and it rained almost every other day. And the sky was dark by 3 or 4 PM every day. So you're right, I thought I, I was thinking a lot about death, about life, you know, and I think through that I learned so much from that. Got it.

Okay, dude, that's the first I've ever heard that before. 10 days, that is just, that's like, that's badass, man. That's, um, all right, so next one. What is the best book that you've read and what's the number one thing you learned from it?

Nice. That's a pretty tough one. I read quite a lot every single week, actually. I love to read stories from this founder and from other owners. So the book I love, one of the books I love the most now, I think it's actually Shoe Dog by this Phil Knight, you know, the founder for this Nike. Yeah, I really love his book. He's such a humble guy. Throughout the book, he keeps putting down himself even though he has done so well in his career. But it really showed us how someone from such humble roots, being able to be focused on his passion— and for him it was actually running— and being able to be focused on that passion and being able to just keep at it, it shows how someone can do very, very well in life. So, yeah, Shoe Dog.

That book is amazing. So anybody listening, highly recommend Shoe Dog. It's a very good book. Next one is, what's your favorite quote and why?

Yeah, I think for me it's actually, what the mind can achieve, what the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. That has always been my own thinking throughout life, even when I was younger. When I first started to play basketball, I wasn't good at all. I was probably the worst player on the team, but I just kept going. When I was doing my current startup, it was very hard from the start, but we just kept going. And today we've been growing very fast and we've been doing very well. So I really think that if you can put your mind to something and really focus on one single thing, I'm sure that you can do it.

Absolutely, dude. I agree. Well, dude, thank you for coming on, sharing your stories. And yeah, last thing, where can our listeners best connect with you online and learn more about you and find more stuff that you're doing?

Yeah, I think if you click on the link below, I believe you will add it afterwards, you can find me on this actually LinkedIn, this, or other than that, or you can search for me Desmond Lim. Or you can send me this, you know, this like email at Desmond@workstream.is. So I'm very open to connect with other folks to trade stories and to learn more about you. So yeah, man.

Awesome, brother. Thank you again.

Thank you so much for your time, Tyler. It was great. Thank you.