The Best Strategies for Startup Funding

Gurvir Riyat: 0:00

They're not necessarily looking for a stable business trying to generate some strong cash flows just for a little while, keep paying those dividends back. They're looking for something that they can rapidly expand during that sort of 7 to 12 year cycle and exit possibly or lead to perhaps an IPO later down the line. So that's how a venture capital business works.

‍Tanya Agrawal : 0:29

Today, we're going to be talking about the fundraising landscape and everything from how your personal goals might impact your business's fundraising journey, how venture capitalists define and think about their investments, what it actually means to have a VC on your cap table, the alternatives to VC funding and tips on how to get started on your fundraising journey. To answer all of these questions, we are joined by none other than Gurv Riyad, who is a co-founder here at the Bay HQ and leads on everything investment. He did a short stint as a data analyst before spending several years on both the venture capital and limited partner sides of the table, and so has a ton of experience and insights to share with you all. Today. I'm Tanya, and I am so incredibly excited and honored to be hosting him and this podcast on behalf of the Ba HQ, powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. So thanks, skovir, for joining us today. We're super excited to have you on the media side of Bay HQ. How does it feel?

Gurvir Riyat: 1:21

Yeah, it feels so different being on the other side of things. Normally I'm always watching these back, but it's nice to actually get involved this time.

Tanya Agrawal : 1:27

Awesome. So I think to kickstart our whole conversation around fundraising, maybe just to set the scene. If we imagine I'm a potential founder, I've kind of landed on a business idea that I think might work. What's the first piece of advice you would give someone in my position?

Gurvir Riyat: 1:46

Yeah, I think a lot of founders face this position as well, where they don't really fully understand what their goals are of the business. They have a great idea, they want to build something that they're super passionate about, but they don't quite understand whether this is a lifestyle business or whether this is something that is really super scalable and might attract investment. So I think I always encourage founders basically to spend that time with themselves so they understand what their personal goals are, and I try to break it down in a few different ways. So one of the questions I always ask is with your business, what do you want? Do you want control and autonomy, so are you happy to make every single decision? Or do you want scale, so do you want to build the biggest company possible? You're happy not being a leader, you're happy for other people to make decisions or do you want control and autonomy over everything? So I think that's always like the first question I ask, because that dictates a lot of things, and then it also comes to risk and reward as well. Are you looking for those outsized returns in the market Because to get those outsized returns you have to take outsized risks to get them as well or are you looking for that slow and steady growth as you build your business and focusing on things that you can actually realize and see in your site. So those couple of questions coupled with what is the type of life you want to live at the same time Is it a lifestyle today where you can manage your stress, you can take time off, you can make a nice lifestyle for yourself where you have a balance, or are you happy to sacrifice time now to scale the biggest business possible to get the biggest future exit as well? So I think those three questions dictate whether you want that slow and steady growth or you want to scale at all costs. That sort of dictates what sort of funding strategy you would go down for your business.

Tanya Agrawal : 3:42

Okay, no, that makes a ton of sense and I think you covered a lot there. Let's maybe just start with the one that I've heard of the most, which is obviously venture scale funding Just understanding from an investor's perspective what a venture scale business actually looks like.

Gurvir Riyat: 4:01

Yeah, so in my eyes there's a lot of ways to describe what a venture scale business is, but it's a company designed to grow very rapidly and fast and expanding market in a short space of time where they can make a large impact.

Gurvir Riyat: 4:14

So that could be anything where there's a model for the business that's very scalable over a short space of time and one where that outsized investment at that early stage can have an outsized impact. So back to what I said before with always like a lifestyle business, if an investor was to come on board and put that investment in, you might not get that outsized return. But with a venture scale business, there's types of business models that are involved, the types of industries that they're in, you can really expect those outsized returns. So that's what makes it really attractable for a venture capital investor. And yeah, there's lots of types of venture capital investors that look at everything all the way from pre-seed, at idea stage, all the way to a lot later and, depending on what type of businesses are, they analyze those companies in different ways.

Tanya Agrawal : 5:03

And would you say that there are any kind of key metrics that founders can use as sort of benchmarks or goals that associate themselves with these venture scale businesses?

Gurvir Riyat: 5:16

Yeah. So it really depends on the type of industry. So for a b2b sass business, so that's looking at ARR you hear that term bounded about all the time that means annual recurring revenue. So that basically shows to potential investors coming on board that you've got those stable revenues for the business. You've got those stable, strong cash flows which support your business, which can then lead to expansions into different areas, whether that might be team growth in other areas. So that's always a key metric for venture capital investors, especially when they're looking at B2B SaaS businesses. But also that's one type of industry that they look at.

Gurvir Riyat: 5:58

In other areas the metrics are completely different. Sometimes you're looking at just users of the product or beta users, or it could be pilots. Or, for example, in the health tech tech industry it could be related to r&d and how that's performing so far and what the market is relating to that in. So it really depends what type of industry it is, how it's performing so far. It might be that, for example, in health tech you might be getting a lot of grant funding and there's lots of trials going on with your product at the moment and the success of those trials might dictate whether it's a venture scale business or not. If you're getting really high response rate or accuracy rate in your trials, for example for a biotech company, then it makes it really attractive to a venture scale investor. But it might not be. You've got that recurring revenue, so it really depends on the industry in terms of what you're looking for.

Tanya Agrawal : 6:45

Awesome. That makes a ton of sense, and I guess there are a couple of things that you also mentioned during that, which two of which that came up quite a lot were scale and outsized returns. Would be great for everyone listening if we could just chat about that for a second, and what scale actually looks like in a venture context and what those returns or how investors are actually thinking about returns from their perspective?

Gurvir Riyat: 7:13

Yeah, if we think about the overall model of what is venture capital first of all. So VCs are in the capital raising game. First of all, they have to raise money themselves from LPs. LPs are known as limited partners. These could be high net worth individuals, pension funds, and their task is to return their LPs money within, say, 7 to 12 years and aim for anything between as minimum as 3x all the way up to 5x and beyond. So that's what they're trying to do in the market there. So the types of businesses that they look for dictates that, based on what the return profile is looking at. So they're not necessarily looking for a stable business trying to generate some strong cash flows just for a little while, keeping this dividends back. They're looking for something that they can rapidly expand during that sort of 7 to 12-year cycle and exit possibly or lead to perhaps an IPO later down the line. So that's how a venture capital business works. So when they're investing into companies, they are looking for those companies as well that can return that 10x, 20x, 30x for them, because, especially when we're looking at that pre-seed stage so that's when vcs are investing in businesses that are even at ideation stage, so they're just an idea in the founder's head.

Gurvir Riyat: 8:36

There's so much risk involved, right? How can you know that someone's going to build this great company in that time? So a lot of the time VCs are making calculated risks, educated bets on companies to do well. But for a fund that they raise, they have to make quite a few of those bets. But in reality, if one of those pays off and turns into a unicorn, that pays off their entire fund. So everyone, every VC, for their fund they are looking for those outsized returns, a company that can scale to those drastic heights, maybe lead to some M&A opportunities or IPO at a later stage, and that's what they're really looking for. But to find that one that leads to that, there's a lot that fail as well along the way.

Tanya Agrawal : 9:22

Okay, so before we move on and dive into all the other questions that are running through my head, I think there were a couple of terms that you mentioned that would be great to just outline again for anyone who is listening that might not be familiar. I think the two are IPO and unicorn, so it would be great if you could just give us like a couple of sentences on what either of those two things are.

Gurvir Riyat: 9:47

Yeah, so IPO is initial public offering, so that's when the company is listed on a stock market. So for example, in the UK that would be the FTSE and that would be a perfect exit opportunity for a venture capital investor where they're invested in the company at all the different rounds, whether they've come in at pre-seed, seed or series A, all the way up to that point where they IPO. Then that's where they realize their returns, that's where their shares become a tangible value on the stock market which they can cash in, whereas the valuations along all those stages, technically they're just theoretical, they're just what the VC or the market dictates at that point. But it only becomes realizable when either there's an M&A opportunity so when someone's willing to buy that company for X share price or where the market dictates that, where there is an IPO and they're freely listed on the stock market as well.

Tanya Agrawal : 10:44

OK, awesome. Thank you so much for clarifying. So now, going back to what you were saying before, I think a really key idea that you mentioned was the fact that these investments are super risky to investors and they're trying to make calculate, they're trying to take calculated risks when actually choosing which companies to invest in. What are some of the key things that venture capitalists are looking at when they're doing the due diligence in a company, either in terms of risk or just general company profile, to try reduce the risk of their investments or help them come to that final decision?

Gurvir Riyat: 11:23

So yeah, just to break that down. So whenever we're taking something, for example, to IC, we're always looking to showcase in our investment memo to the senior partners or wider people at the firm why there are outsized returns for this business. So there's a few reasons why that could be. Obviously there's the business model to show that, say, if the business with ARR like we mentioned before annual recurring revenue, that that can be scaled, we can become have more users on board, for example, and show that there's almost exponential growth that can be had with the business with that business model. If it's a limiting business model you can't really have that. So that's always one thing we showcase and obviously the market size of the opportunity.

Gurvir Riyat: 12:10

What is the market for this business? Is it very niche? How many people are involved in? For example, is it just the UK? Is it the Europe? Is it world? Is it Asia? What are they focusing on?

Gurvir Riyat: 12:22

And so understanding what that total addressable market is, I see lots of people band about this term in their decks all the time and sometimes over inflate what the total addressable market market is.

Gurvir Riyat: 12:34

And obviously it's great to do that to showcase that, but sometimes almost showing that the market might be slightly smaller than the whole world or a whole continent, but has direct application for your product as well as really important as well. So that dives into another point, which is what is the product, what is the uniqueness of it, what is the quality of it as well? So those are some of the few things that I look at. And then the next thing I always look at, in the first sort of three to five slides in the deck, is also the team. Who's involved with this? What are their credentials as well? Have they built a business in the past? What type of people have they got on board? Who's supporting them already as well? What gives them that unique insight to building this company? So, for example, sometimes you might have a founder that's building something within the real estate space, for example, or a prop tech company.

Gurvir Riyat: 13:31

What gives them that unique insight into the industry? Have they been working in that industry for 10 to 15 years? Have they got some unique expertise that they can have value and insight to? Or are they just completely new to this and just thought, hey, here's an opportunity, I'm just going to go for it, which can sometimes be a success, but when we're looking at things as a VC investor, we're trying to we're already taking this many risks like how do we bring that slightly down and try to see what the best business is for us to invest in? So those are some of the, I guess, key three to four things that I'm looking for in those first slides of a deck for a business.

Tanya Agrawal : 14:07

Awesome. That makes a ton of sense and I think that's some great kind of key checkpoints for founders to really consider. Now, let's say, in the business idea that I do have I think my term is pretty sufficient I think it's a scalable business model, like you mentioned is important. How do I really know that?

Tanya Agrawal : 14:45

How do I try validate whether the idea I have itself is good enough?

Gurvir Riyat: 14:47

Yeah. I think that's a really interesting question. And sometimes founders get forced into this let's build quick and fail fast and we always hear sort of term, build, iterate, fail, keep going again and again but I feel like planning is almost missed quite a lot in this whole point. If you have a sufficient time amount of planning, sometimes you might not even build the business in the first place, and I think you have to go in with that mindset that I might not build this. This might not be the biggest market that I think it is at the moment, but I need to do my market research first to validate that. So I always encourage founders, even before you're building a business or actually going to hire people and build the first sort of MVP, spend at least six months in terms of testing the market, so that could be going out to potential customers. This could also be networking with potential investors in this type of business as well and talking about the problem and conducting some form of research where you can put numbers behind your problem. How many people are involved? How many people are struggling with this as well? How many people would actually pay for this service? Because people want to build a business but they might not understand what the current market is and what business model fits into that.

Gurvir Riyat: 15:48

So for some industries, a sort of monthly subscription model works great, whereas in others.

Gurvir Riyat: 15:54

A freemium model works great initially and then you upsell things as you got more hooked on board, but only until you do that market research by understanding what business models are in play, how many people are actually interested in it. And it's also brave to also make that decision and say, look, I've done the research and there's not a market for this. But if you have done the research and there's things to validate what business you're building, then that's really positive. You can take that away. You can say when you approach investors or chat to them in the future as well, that I've surveyed X many people. I found out that they're willing to pay between this and this for the product and this is the potential opportunity. So spending that real hard time on market research is often not as fun or sexy as just building your business straight away. But that is actually really, really valuable for yourself before you scale and grow a product, because some people scale and grow things when the market doesn't even need it.

Gurvir Riyat: 16:54

So it's better to find out before than make those really costly mistakes.

Tanya Agrawal : 16:58

Yeah, and I think the point that you said around actually making sure that customers want to pay for the product is super key, because that sort of ties into what you were saying around ARR Like if customers aren't willing, they might want it, but if they're not willing to pay for it, then you're not going to get that ARR that you actually need to go out, Okay, awesome. So I think let's say that I've done all this market research that you've suggested. I've kind of ticked all the boxes from what I think needs to be ticked and I've decided that I want to go out and get a venture capitalist on my cap table. What does that actually look like and how does that actually play out for me?

Gurvir Riyat: 17:34

Yeah, obviously, if you've done fantastically well to validate your business model and your proposition and a VC is excited to invest in you in the first place as well, that's fantastic. So obviously the direct benefit you're going to get is the money first of all. So that's great to have that on board to scale your business further as well. There will be an element of dilution depending on what round you're in whether that's pre-seed, seed, series A, dilution occurs at all stages. What that means is you inherently lose some ownership of your business and, depending on what stage the VCs are or what their requirements are, they often want potentially a board seat. So when you're making those voting and business critical decisions, you're not just answering to you and your co-founder, you're answering to someone else on board as well. So that comes with inherent disadvantages and also advantages as well. You have to answer to someone else, but also that someone else, hopefully, who's involved in the business has got some great expertise as well.

Gurvir Riyat: 18:34

So, aside from the cash and obviously, the decision making on the board, what VC can also provide is that deep, perhaps technical knowledge on certain areas where you might have gaps in.

Gurvir Riyat: 18:45

They also can facilitate connections as well. With VCs as well. Depending on what stage they're at, they can also help you progress and scale to the next rounds because they'll know investors at later stages. So they will understand what you need to do with your business model, where you need to grow, where you need to hire help, with all of those areas as well which you might be deficient in, and they will have the same interests at heart in the sense of they want this business to do well. But you also have to be careful in that sense that, depending on what sorts of preferences they have in terms of liquidation and other areas, they are also looking out for their investors. So you have lots of expertise and cash with them, but do take that with a pinch of salt and always you have to look what's right for you and also the business as well.

Amardeep Parmar: 19:40

We hope you're enjoying the episode so far.

Amardeep Parmar: 19:42

We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC innovation banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got the deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true. So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbanking. com.

Tanya Agrawal : 20:20

Yeah, and I think that's probably a conversation that isn't had enough, because it will change the trajectory of your business in a way that you might not have anticipated as a founder at all. And for some founders that actually might not sound like what they want to kind of get into, but they've seen initial traction. They still think that they want to go out and fundraise to kind of accelerate the next step of their business. If VC funding isn't the right route for them, what other potential options do they have in terms of raising that initial capital?

Gurvir Riyat: 20:54

Yeah, there's definitely other options out there right now in the market. It's been a tough time. 2023 was really tough in terms of fundraising in the VC space. 2024 has definitely picked up, but it's not quite where it used to be a few years ago as well.

Gurvir Riyat: 21:09

So many founders are going down the route of bootstrapping. So bootstrapping is when the company is self-funded. So the company is being either sustained by the founder's pockets or by the smaller amounts of revenue it's probably generating anyway.

Gurvir Riyat: 21:25

There's benefit to that. You can grow and scale your business over time. There isn't that direct and inherent pressure to scale this or grow it as fast as possible, unless the market is really moving fast and you have to move with it. So that's really one of the advantages for that. So that applies to some types of businesses. But you can't bootstrap every type of business as well. So some areas like health tech, deep tech, others as well they require a lot of R&D. They require lots of technical expertise as well. You can't always bootstrap that because you don't necessarily have those revenues in place to keep the business going during that time. But for certain types of businesses as well, if you get some initial traction, some pilots, other areas as well, you can really bootstrap and grow your business. There's been some massive businesses that have bootstrapped as well. So Shopify, for example, bootstrapped to millions of revenue before they got to VC funding as well. There was MailChimp as well, which bootstrapped to tens of millions as well. So there's definitely proof that it is possible for large scale businesses across all sectors. But it is, I guess, a tough journey to go in terms of the loneliness of not having that expertise and maybe not getting that external advice as well. But you can also counteract that with having the right advisors and other people on board. So bootstrapping is a way.

Gurvir Riyat: 22:50

Angel investing is another way. You're bringing investors on board. They might not have the same return profile as what a VC wants, so a VC might be looking at a 3 to 5x over 7 to 12 years. An angel might be looking for the same, but they might be willing for a 2 to 4x, for example. So they're not looking for those drastic returns. So these are people investing their own personal money as well. So they'll definitely very much be engaged in the business as well. And if you can get angels on board that you have, that provide deep expertise on areas or can help grow your company in specific areas, they can be really really useful. Um, but I guess one thing to consider always as well is that dilution um same with vcs as well.

Gurvir Riyat: 23:37

Angels, if they are eating too much of your pie at that early stage, you might be left with a smaller amount of your business.

Tanya Agrawal : 23:43

Got it and I think some of those examples, um, that you like, some of those names that you mentioned, are super useful for people to kind of go and read about. So I would highly recommend to founders that they actually read some of those stories. If I did want to go down, let's say I don't have the capital to bootstrap my business and I do either need an angel or a VC on board. What's the advice that you would give founders in terms of how to actually approach that? Because they might not have these people in their networks, they might not necessarily know who's out there to actually go to. What are the key things that you would tell a founder to think about in the beginning to actually kickstart this fundraising journey?

Gurvir Riyat: 24:28

Yeah, I think what's interesting is there's lots of similarities with how you approach, for example, an angel and a VC, but there's definite nuances as well that you need to be aware of as well. So with angels, for example, as well, they're very much investing their personal money, so they have to have that personal interest in the business, in the area. And what the great thing is is there's lots of syndicates out there for angels into specific areas. So there might be an angel for founders in the sustainability area or in the deep tech area that will be very focused on specific things. So you can search for these syndicates by geography, by vertical, by identity of the founder and find your niche as well within all of these. So that's the great thing with with angel investors, there's so many syndicates out there as well, and we're seeing the same with funds as well, pop up in all different areas, I think, utilizing your network as well, and we're seeing the same with funds as well, pop up in all different areas, I think, utilizing your network as well. On fellow founders if you know founders within the space as well that have raised from angels, that you know what their rough check size is, what they're looking for, that's always useful, so using your network of founders in that same area. So that's why community is also always important. So BAE HQ is a great place to meet other founders and connect with others.

Gurvir Riyat: 25:52

Obviously for angels, for early stage companies as well, there's network and pitching events where you pitch in front of angels and VCs. There's accelerator programs as well and lots of different areas where you can tap into those individuals. With those individuals that are angels, it's kind of harder to outreach because they're not always easy to find. You don't know who's interested in ed tech or consumer tech unless you're going through a syndicate, whereas with a VC you can specifically search for things and look who's interested in certain things. So that's the difficulty.

Gurvir Riyat: 26:26

But you have to find out where those angels hang out. Are they going to these pitch events? Are they going to certain communities? Are they involved with certain syndicates? And then with VCs the approach is a little bit different. There's lots of overlap with that as well, but it's understanding as well which VCs fit into your criteria in the first place. So a lot of VCs on their website contain what are their requirements, what geography, what industry, what is the minimum ARR and key requirements. If you can actually spend some time evaluating all of those areas and finding out which are the VCs that are really applicable to you. Then you can take that forward, streamline down your list and start building relationships with those VC investors as well.

Tanya Agrawal : 27:17

Okay, just to delve into that a little bit deeper, then let's say we do have this list, but I don't necessarily know someone in my network who knows this person directly. How do I actually get my foot through the door and initiate some of these conversations and build the rapport with them, especially if perhaps I've not founded a business before, like you were saying in terms of de-risking, and you look at the team, how do I really build the confidence in me as a person who could found a potential business with these VCs or angels, etc. .

Gurvir Riyat: 27:54

Yeah. So, first of all, doing that work, like you said, you've got the list ready, you're ready to target them, you're ready to seek investment for them, your business is at the right stage, it fits all of that right criteria, and then it's like what is the next step? How do you actually get close to them? So I just want to flip that and let, I guess, everyone know what it's like on the other side. So us as vcs, we see tons of decks coming through all the time every day, hundreds of decks, and a lot of them are generic. So, first of all, they're not looking at the criteria of what we're looking for. So if you can demonstrate to me why you fit into our criteria, what are the key reasons in a few clear, simple sentences at the top, as, like the first thing in the message, for example, you're building a business in this sector, you've got this much traction so far and your target focus is this. And if all of those translate to what I'm looking for as a vc, I'll be engaged with those first couple of lines. So I think that's really important to understand that as well what we're looking for and how many things we're seeing each day. So that will dictate of like how you might phrase a message and how you might stand out. I always encourage as well targeting the right member of the VC fund. Different people in different funds have different criterias working in different areas.

Gurvir Riyat: 29:14

Sometimes that's actually vague from their website as well. You can't always tell who's working where, but that's where I feel like you can utilize your community, utilize other founders, utilize other people you know and try to find who's covering what at that fund, so that can really give you that unique person as well to directly approach. And then, like I said, when you do approach them, you can do that. And then it's also being personable as well If you've got to know that person slightly. So, for example, there's tons of events going on in London and the VC ecosystem. If you know a certain VC is going to be at an event or is hosting an event, you can maybe have multiple touch points with them, soft touch points which let them know who you are. So then when you do send them your deck, I'm more willing to think about it. But oh yeah, I met that person at that event. They mentioned me to their business, so I'm much more willing to learn about it. And there's also speaking to VCs when you don't need the money.

Gurvir Riyat: 30:14

I feel like a lot of founders come to investors when they're desperate and that's fine and we totally understand that as well.

Gurvir Riyat: 30:22

But to build that rapport one round earlier, so even building rapport with a VC when you're just receiving angel investment or when you're bootstrapping can lead to greater relationships down the line as well.

Gurvir Riyat: 30:33

And you can have, perhaps if you've got a really interesting business or maybe you're very personable and just get along with them, you can have lots of smaller meetings with them that make you VC ready.

Gurvir Riyat: 30:45

So when the time comes, they know who you are. You know that they're the right person as well. You've built up that rapport with them, so you're much more likely to get through that initial screening of just evaluating the debt and then hopefully so then you progress to the later stages in that sort of process as well. So I think understanding how that all works and just having that empathy as well for VCs and what they're going through and how much they evaluate and how they understand and how they work as well, will put you in the top 1% of founders as well, because 99% of other founders are not thinking about that. They're thinking about their business. So if you can take out that little time and brain space to think about what does this VC want, how do I stand out to them, how do I be that one percent of founder that stands out to them in their inbox.

Gurvir Riyat: 31:37

I think that's really, really important.

Tanya Agrawal : 31:40

What's one of one or two key pieces of advice that you would give founders who are going into that first round? Beyond everything you've mentioned so far, is there anything that you would tell them to potentially focus on or think about, or a different angle through which they should be approaching their fundraising journey?

Gurvir Riyat: 32:02

Yeah, I think the first point always to say is it's going to be difficult, so you need to go into that thinking this is going to be hard, but I'm really passionate, I'm really excited about the business. Go into it with that positive mentality and even if you receive rejections, that's okay. Be determined to prove them wrong. Sometimes I've had founders as well email me. I've been really not interested in the business, but they've emailed me each month, shown that month-on-month traction with the business, the growth in users. 12 to 18 months later I've changed my mind on the business. I think, oh yeah, maybe they are doing well. Maybe I do need to look into this deeper as well.

Gurvir Riyat: 32:38

So don't take no as a hard no all the time. I think that's always really important to consider as well. And that also just builds up grit. I think grit is a really really important trait to have as a founder to keep plugging away and keep going there, trying things. Going through different types of approaches, whether that might be through LinkedIn, call messaging, meeting through people and just be really determined. Have that soul within you in terms of your passion for your business. And understanding what you wanna create for it and let that drive you with every invested interaction you're making. And let that drive you with every investor interaction you're making and not let it be transactional with them as well. Say, if it's a no now just keep that friendly rapport. People will remember you sometimes not by what your business is, but also by the energy and like feel you put out there, and you'll actually be a lot more memorable to those people when you're a lot more personable as well. So I think those personal skills, backed by obviously you need those strong fundamentals there with your business, because if you don't have those fundamentals of the business, and for it to be a venture scale business, none of that matters, even if you put everything in, you try all these different ways you have to have a solid fundamentals to your business, whether that's backed by financials or the right type of business model for that industry, but that, coupled with the personal side of things, of growth and that grit and other areas, it's the perfect match to have. But it's never going to be easy.

Gurvir Riyat: 34:09

But once you get there it will always be worthwhile.

Tanya Agrawal : 34:11

Yeah, and I completely agree, and I think the message around building rapport and resilience in general is a great place for us to end on. There are tons more things that we can think, think about and talk about, but thank you so much, Gurvir, for sharing your insights with us today. Before we let you go, we usually ask our guests three questions. The first is who are three asians in britain doing incredible work that you want to shout out?

Gurvir Riyat: 34:40

First of all, I have to always shout out my co-founder, Amardeep. Yeah, we built the BAE HQ together just out of pure frustration of providing that infrastructure layer to support Asian entrepreneurs within the technology space investors as well all the way from the classroom to the boardroom. So got to shout him out and all the effort and passion he's put into the business. The second person I want to shout out is Nav Sawhney as well of the Washing Machine Project. Fantastic business went down the engineering route and saw that he could use those skills to provide value to the world.

Gurvir Riyat: 35:13

And I think that mindset of always thinking about how can I use my skills to actually make the world a better place, I think it's been amazing and truly inspirational to see how he's taken that project globally and impacted so many people's lives. And third of all, Dhruvin Patel from Ocushield as well. He went to the same university as me, so very relatable as well. It was amazing to see that support he got from university at that early stage when he won that competition, and how he's grown Ocushield now into a suite of products, even as a software as well, for employers to evaluate their employees' eye care as well. So he's doing great work with Ocushield.

Tanya Agrawal : 35:53

Awesome, and I think the next question is pretty self-explanatory. But how can people find out more about you and your company?

Gurvir Riyat: 36:00

Yeah, so best way to find out is thebaehq. com/ join, where you can sign up to our newsletter. You can hear about all the latest news in the community fundraising rounds, all the events that we're hosting, but also just wider public events as well.

Gurvir Riyat: 36:17

You can hear about all of our schemes, from mentorship schemes to internship schemes and just so much more. Also about all the latest podcasts being released, exciting updates from the business, discount codes for various things as well. So definitely our website and newsletter. We're also on LinkedIn, instagram, tiktok, with the BAE HQ as the handle, so feel free to check it out.

Tanya Agrawal : 36:39

Amazing, and is there anything that everyone else can do to help you?

Gurvir Riyat: 36:43

Oh good question, I guess just keep spreading the word that everyone else can do to help you. I think everything me and Amar have done with the business we've ignited this, but it's what the community has done by spreading the word. Coming together is what has made it a success. Me and Amardeep are just two guys from East London, west London, but BAE HQ has only thrived to where it was is because everyone has come together and made it all happen, because they see this unique opportunity, this unique market of how we can all support each other in this industry. So keep spreading the word, keep shouting about the BAE HQ, check out our merch on our website and keep spreading the word.

Tanya Agrawal : 37:21

Absolutely. I mean, I think what you guys have done is incredible and I'm so honoured again to be here and thank you so much for taking out the time and sharing these incredible, incredible insights with us.

Gurvir Riyat: 37:31

No, honestly. Thank you so much for being involved and part of this.

Tanya Agrawal : 37:34

Absolutely. Hope everyone enjoyed the episode and catch the next one.

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