The Refugee Who Founded 5 Companies and Supported 1000s more w/ Sam Beni | Platin VC

‍00:00
Same Beni:
Around 40% of entrepreneurs here in UK are actually first generation immigrants came to UK young and I came here asylum seeker alone and unfortunately for four years I couldn't work, study or open a bank. So essentially I didn't exist. I never wanted to be a founder. And fast forward, I've done five of them. I help more than 6, 000 startups to date and it's all down to accidents, right? Being a founder, being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. Running a company, running a startup starter, you're gonna hit the wall of some sort of a challenge on a daily basis.

00:39
Amardeep Parmar:
Today's guest is Same Beni, MD, or Platinum VC and he's also a five times founder now. And I'm not even going to try to explain his story in this introduction. You've got to listen to this episode because the hardships that Sam has been through, the journey he's been through, and the lessons he's learned along that way, something that I can't do justice to right now, and you think about it just from this initial perspective, is that sand came to this country as a refugee where he couldn't work initially and he had to hustle, he had to learn, he had to do so many different things to get to position he is now. And I think this is going to be an episode that you really love and you really enjoy. I'm Amar from The BAE HQ.

01:23
Amardeep Parmar:
So great to have you on today and it's really exciting. You've done so many different companies and that's something which is quite rare in this ecosystem. So if you rewind right back to me and go, growing up as a kid, what did you want to be?

01:35
Same Beni:
Very good question. You know, when I was a kid, I have to give a bit of background about myself and my family. My father is an entrepreneur and I never wanted to follow his footsteps at all, right. Because he was always away. If you combine all of the days I saw him, it's probably like six months, right? Because he was always doing something somewhere and I saw him, how much pressure he was under, right? And I was like, I, when I grow up, I don't want to be him. I don't want to follow my father's footsteps, which is unusual because most kids, they have like, you know, this idol of their father. Although I didn't want to follow the kind of footsteps in terms of the career, I always wanted to be a car designer, believe it or not.

02:16
Same Beni:
And I was good at drawing. And so whenever I was a kid, my father used to take me to his office, to his meetings. And I was on a corner as like, you know, five, six years old, drawing stuff on the paper. And you know, even though I was learning at the same time while he was, you know, conducting business, I didn't know that like now with hindsight, I see that influence massively. Then always wanted to be a car designer. I became really good at it. And when I was a teenager, 14, 15, I was known by that kid that is hanging out with really like good designers. I had one of the best designers mentoring me who worked at Mercedes and another one for BMW. I studied in Germany and I actually achieved to become a car designer.

03:03
Same Beni:
I worked with on a couple of brands like Bentley, Aston Martin, Porsches and so on. But that was actually my first entrance into automotive design. But I hated it when I got in. So imagine like all of your childhood and you want to be something and you get into industry, especially as a, you know, a teenager, and they come and tell you do this very boring thing over and over again and whatever you do might actually become nothing. And if it does, by 1% chance you would see the result in five years time, right? And I was looking into my mentor at the time and I was like, if I work really, really hard, I would be him in 30 years time. Do I really want to be him? And I was like, no, I don't want to be him.

03:54
Same Beni:
And I had this, you know, existential crisis. Then I was like, all right, what should I do?

04:01
Amardeep Parmar:
I think it's so true because you often, you only see the goods on. You see the highlights, right, of so many careers. You think, okay, say for entrepreneurs is classic thing of like, oh, you see the money or the valuation, you don't the hard work that goes into that as well. And it's always really interesting about the existential crisis and how to get out of that. Because if you think in your head, I'm always going to do this, what do you then do? What did you then think after that? Okay, what are my options? What should I do now?

04:25
Same Beni:
I work with thousands of entrepreneurs and one thing in common between all of them yet, I mean, apart from those that's, you know, been having like crazy exits, they're always have that position to say like, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore, right? This is too hard. I hit this wall and they start looking for a job actually like on LinkedIn, just scroll down, see like what's out there. They don't apply for them. But I've Seen this so many times with amazing entrepreneurs out there, entrepreneurs that actually have raised hundreds of millions, right. I saw them in their seed, in their series A really having a tough time and they're like, you know what I'm going to think what's outside of the box? They're not going to do it. But you know, they were thinking about it.

05:07
Same Beni:
So that's really common to see that founders really hit so many walls. I think that's normal with entrepreneurship. If you don't have the resilience, you shouldn't be a founder. Quite frankly, being a founder, being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. Unfortunately in 2024 we have got this halo around being an entrepreneur, right? Because of personalities that people worship, like I mean, to some extent Elon Musk or you know, Steve Jobs and so on and on. Again, these are like 1% of the 1% of the 1% of THE entrepreneurs out there, right? You don't hear about the failures, right? You don't, you're just always looking to the most successful examples out there. And being an entrepreneur running a company, running a startup, you're going to hit the wall of some sort of a challenge on a daily basis a lot on every angle, right?

06:04
Same Beni:
So resiliency is really the key for most founders and being creative to be able to find ways and be resource on overcoming those challenges that other people haven't fought before.

06:16
Amardeep Parmar:
And on that resilience, I think it's one thing is I think some people think you can build resilience through building a company, right? Which you can do. But I also think most of the people who do very well, they built resilience in another way before they even started. Whether that's through grief, loss, trauma, whether it's through elite sport, they've done something beforehand where they've had to show resilience. Because if you've had life easy and then you try to start a company, like you said, it's going to hit you very hard because starting company is not easy. And I always think the so many entrepreneurs I see that when they're successful is because actually they try something else beforehand, whether it's not related business at all, that they worked really hard and had loads of setbacks on.

06:53
Amardeep Parmar:
And you've got the classic example, all the people who did door to Dale Sales or they did, they were Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons and they kept getting rejected. And if you can keep getting rejected and still go forwards and whatever it is, if it's not race, it's a business that is going to help you massively or it shows you. Like I said, are you somebody's going to be able to live a founder's lifestyle or not? So you obviously had this, your dream crushed in some ways, right, of becoming a car designer. And actually that's not the life for me. What did you decide to do next?

07:21
Same Beni:
Well, you really point on really interesting areas, right? Especially for entrepreneurs, sales is extremely important, right. I've seen so many technical entrepreneurs that they just want to not deal with any sort of sales or like any sort of presentation or anything like that. They're like, I'm a technical founder, I'm the CEO, but I find people to be able to do this right. And it's never going to work actually. So I agree. I think, you know, having that experience of people going door to door, knock the doors and you know, getting rejected over and over again, build that your resiliency to be able to do the same thing essentially with potential co founders, customers, investors. I mean you're going to hear like thousands of no's to be able to get one. Yes.

08:06
Same Beni:
And you need to have that special power of saying like, I can carry on. And on the other point that was very interesting was saying like about people's background. We know that around 40% of entrepreneurs here in UK are actually first generation immigrants. And the question is why? Why is that? Right? That's, that's a pretty outside number to be able to say 40%. And the main reason is because actually choosing to go to another country, choosing another choice and going through that process which is very lengthy and hard, you go and build up that resiliency, right? And you also find creative ways to be able to, you know, overcome those challenges which are the main kind of like ingredients of being a successful entrepreneur. And that's why we see like so many first time immigrants becoming founders.

08:59
Same Beni:
And to come to your point, myself, I'm an accidental founder, right. I became an entrepreneur, although followed my father's footsteps against. I never wanted to do that out of really no other choice because I came to UK young and I came here asylum seeker alone. And unfortunately for four years I couldn't work, study or open a bank yard even. So essentially I didn't exist. So I had one choice and that choice was to get a handout from the government, which I didn't want to do, right, because that was the last thing I wanted to do. And again, I'm not judging anyone who does, but in my experience I just wanted to find an alternative way, right. Even though it didn't exist for me, right. So I got lucky at that point.

09:45
Same Beni:
A friend who I was connected with over the Internet, I didn't even see him before he called me and said, like, he's thinking about starting a tech company and whether I would be interested to move to his town, which is Birmingham, and start this company with him. He would be custodian on my shares and if you make any money, I would get cash in hand. And I was like, well, I don't have any other choice. I think this sounds like a good plan. Let's do this right? So I was sleeping for a few weeks on his couch and we started the company and it worked. We started hiring engineers and designers and other folks to be able to join us, to be able to work on great clients. And that was my journey into entrepreneurship. For lack of better options, really.

10:31
Same Beni:
I never wanted to be a founder. And fast forward, I've done five of them, will help more than 6,000 startups to date. And it's all down to accidents, right? If you say like, you know, I didn't experience that hardship years ago, would I be here today and speaking with you about entrepreneurship? I think I guarantee you not. It's all about our experiences and the hardship we experienced.

10:57
Amardeep Parmar:
Experiences item seeker as well. That period, like you said, where you're not allowed to do so many different things. How, what did you do at that point? You said, okay, you're able to get this company at this point, but when you're somebody who has that drive and you want to do well for yourself, how did you spend that time? What were you able to do? Or how did you keep yourself and your like, intellect and your, that stimulation going?

11:19
Same Beni:
You know, you don't have any choice than, you know, get some sort of. Unfortunately, many people experience this depression, right? Because you feel depressed, there are not many options for you to be able to move forward, right? You are in a new environment. You don't know many people. You most likely ran away from a very hard situation, war or something that really pushed you to seek refuge somewhere else. And I don't say that like everyone is like that. We do have the, you know, ultimately economic migrants as well. That's, you know, they come in and say, though refugees, we do have that, but many are genuinely running away because of situations, that their life was very in danger. And so they're already coming from that, right?

12:07
Same Beni:
So they're already in that stress position and they come in an environment that to some extent, you know, is hostile towards them and they have to figure things out in that environment. And some people, it's enough is enough for them and they break, right? And they go through that downward spiral of depression. Unfortunately for me, again, it's a matter of age, I think. You know, I came in very young and I was driven to be able to find the alternative route, right. I didn't want to waste my life. One of the things that really stands out for me is the, you know, a term of coming from stoicism says memento mori, right? Remember death. Remember that ultimately if you're on your deathbed and it sounds a bit big, but is the truth, right?

13:02
Same Beni:
If you're on your deathbed and you're looking back, was it worth it? Right. Like, and I asked this question often myself, right? So like, because I'm. I've been procrastinating on many different things throughout my life and sometimes I think back and I say like, was it worth it? Right? And in that position I was like, I want to really find a way forward. And you have to be resourceful, you have to. I mean, not. We all dealt a different set of cards, right? In life, we don't all start in different at the same position, right? You've got people that's on funds that they get money on a monthly basis because their grandfather, great grandfather, have built a business and are still getting that capital in.

13:49
Same Beni:
That's a very different trajectory to someone who's, let's say, that's coming from a poor country and has got nothing, right? So we all dealt different cults in life, but it's a matter of how much ambition you have and who do you want to be sometimes the environments you're in and we are lucky, right? We live in UK and we do have open country that we can really, based on the positions we are in and based on the network we have and based on our ambition to move forward and become that person over time, right? But in certain environments you don't even have that option because your future being determined by people in power, right? So we are lucky in a sense.

14:39
Same Beni:
We are really 1% of the world that have got that lock of choosing our own destination and it's a privilege for all of us.

14:50
Amardeep Parmar:
Yeah. And like you said there, so you're forced into a situation because of what happened, be under control, right? And you're able to start this company. The person who met the Internet and even just saying that out loud, right? The fact that I worked out Seems quite surprising. You wouldn't expect, okay, met some random guy on the Internet, I moved to Birmingham, was sleeping his couch and the company has now worked. What made it work? How is that able to work and grow?

15:14
Same Beni:
That was my first venture, right? And there's a limit of luck for sure. I work with, as mentioned, like thousands of startups. I think one area that really make or break a venture is the network that they're in. Really honestly, I've seen so many amazing founders, amazing products. I saw like the demo, I was like, this would change the world if it's commercialised, right? And it died after like a year or two, right? And a crappier version of their product suddenly by someone who doesn't have any clue what they're doing succeeded in the market. And you look at this too and say like how this is possible, right? And if you dive a bit deeper, you see that crappier version of that solution with a founder who has no clue what they're doing. That founder had a great network, right?

16:12
Same Beni:
He could go and sell, he could go and build, he could actually go and actually build that supporting system for him to be able to expand, right? And whereas you know, the other founder could. So in my case, especially in the first venture, were lucky because we built that network for the first venture fast. So we put ourselves into various different events from the get go to build that network, to build that supporting community and ultimately find clients. And that worked because were driving that, you know, we can actually deliver those sort of projects with our clientage and that supporting system. Because as soon as you say like, hey, I'm building this new startup, I'm working on this set of areas, these are the problems that we have identified. And you're quite vocal about it.

17:04
Same Beni:
You go to your network, the people you know and say like, this is what I'm doing, you know what happens? Those people really care about you or even are nice. They give you suddenly a message and say like, I just met xyz, they can help you in this and that continues, right? And you see that suddenly you have many people knocking your door without any sort of marketing. So it's extremely important to build your network early.

17:33
Amardeep Parmar:
Hello, hello. Quick introduction to let you know about BAE HQ with a community for high growth British Asian entrepreneurs, operators and investors. And you can join completely free at thebaehq.com/join. There, you get our CEO pillars. So that's content, events and opportunities direct to your inbox every week so you can get involved and it can help you to further your business and your career. We also have a free startup course called BAE Startup Foundations, where if you think about starting a business someday or at the early stages, it gives you all that information to help you hit the ground running and survive in this new world. Back to the show. And so obviously you're an asylum seeker at this point, right?

18:15
Same Beni:
Yeah.

18:16
Amardeep Parmar:
So building the network at that point, I'm guessing in lots of rooms where maybe there weren't other people like you. How is that experience? Because some people might not go into those rooms because be too intimidated to do that. What is how you're able to build that network when often there's people you're talking to in a very different position to you?

18:33
Same Beni:
You know, I've been very proud of not talking about it up until recently. Two years ago I got my British citizenship after many years. Thank you very much. I'm. I'm one of the Brits. It took many years to get it, but then I actually came out on LinkedIn. I said like, hey, this is my story. And I just became British and gone crazy, I think got like half a million views. And I was like, now everyone knows about it. So at the time when I was asylum seeker and later on as a refugee, many people didn't know that. Only the closest people to me, like my early co founders, even later co founders with other ventures, they didn't know about that. I didn't want to talk about it. Right.

19:14
Same Beni:
Because you're right, I felt like excluded if I wanted to talk about my immigration status in the country. Yes, you're right. I mean, maybe I found myself in scenarios that I felt excluded, but that didn't stop me on moving forward. I think this is the pain points of 2024 with many people we see ourselves even founders, right. It's not about just like everyone but you know, aspiring entrepreneurs. We put ourselves into this narrative and in these categories and that define us. And I think we are not complex beings. Right. We shouldn't really put ourselves into one narrative. Narrative change, right? Personalities change, understandings change, beliefs change. If we say like, oh, I'm excluded, this is who I am, this is what defines me, I don't think that's wrong. And unfortunately many people do that.

20:19
Amardeep Parmar:
But I'm also hoping by some people listening to your story today who maybe didn't know that about you before then, if, then the situation themselves, they think, okay, actually no, maybe I can do it. And I think it's the whole part of changing the narrative is showcasing people like you who did come from those more difficult situations to show other people in that situation. Actually no, and not just people in that situation, but the people who maybe are judging or stigmatising people in that situation to perhaps rethink that judgement or bias I have against people. And as we share more of these stories, I think that's really important. Part of it is it's both, like you said, two ways. One is not limiting yourself, but also other people saying actually no.

20:58
Amardeep Parmar:
People who come to this country as an asylum seek or a refugee, they can contribute so much to the wider society as well.

21:05
Same Beni:
I totally agree with you. And you know, there are two angles from it. One is the micro, the individual and the narrative they believe. And we can change that for sure. We can empower them. And to everyone who's in similar situation, I have to tell you're empowered, you know, and you might say like I'm in this and that situation. Who are you to tell me that I'm empowered? But trust me, you're empowered, right? Because we really underestimate like what's possible. And there are a lot of possibilities, you know, you have to really think outside of the box. And there is that second angle, which is the macro environment. That one is societal, right? I've got a set of beliefs that define me, right?

21:47
Same Beni:
And I don't want to impose it on anyone, but I do not believe in long term financial support for people who are able. It doesn't make any sense to me, right? Because we've got an economy and economy needs to work for people to work. And if you've got a huge chunk of that population on long term financial support for no reason because they're able. And I don't say that the set of population are disabled and there's a very specific reason that are on financial support, but a very big number are very able. But what we've done, we conditioned them for decades to be in that environment and they don't know any better than what we've done to them.

22:36
Same Beni:
And I was talking about this in, in the Parliament just last Friday saying that what we've done essentially to a big percentage of our population, including you know, refugees and asylum seekers and local British is to condition them to be poor. Essentially. We have done that and we build communities in different towns. They don't have any proximity to different mindset. And you essentially do that over generations and generations. And quite frankly the system is not that different from what we've done 150, 200 years ago with British aristocracy. We just evolved it into this environment that, you know, certain population have got access to education and information and opportunities and the sets. Others, because of their proximity, they don't have. And that's not fair,  right.

23:28
Same Beni:
Because if you were born in that environment, you didn't have any sort of person to be able to look up to other than those people you probably see on the social media that's far away from where you are. You say like this is not achievable. I can't really be that person that I see on TikTok, on Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever. Right. But I have to say it's definitely possible. It's just a mindset. Unfortunately, we built from a macro environment because we conditioned them for decades, if not centuries.

24:00
Amardeep Parmar:
So I know you started five companies and I want to try and get through each of those because I know that there's so much wealth in that information you've had there. So you've got this first company, it's working well. And obviously once they've given you confidence now. Okay, I've got something here, especially coming from the situation we're in where you said many people being depressed in that situation to then turn that around and build a company that's working well. What's the pathway from there? Could you talk about, I guess, that journey up until technation and we'll pause at technation again.

24:27
Same Beni:
The opportunities. Right. So you have to seize the opportunity when you see it and sometimes you miscalculate and that's fine. You learn from your mistakes. I think the mistakes you do are the greatest teachers in your life. Right. With hindsight. So one of our clients, especially for the first venture we built, which was the kind of a web infrastructure platform, that was before AWS was really going after SME. So we built. We were building the servers and the infrastructure for them, applications and so on, run it on our own hostings and servers. We were providing that kind of sort of infrastructure. One of our clients were keen on for us to be able to get into renewable energy with them on a kind of vim farm. It was like a wind turbine in offshore environment and we had no idea what was that.

25:18
Same Beni:
And they told us about the size of the investment as part of the consortium and whether would be interested to join that consortium. And that was like few millions. And you imagine that you're saying few millions and I don't give the exact number pounds to a bunch of young entrepreneurs. Right. And suddenly you Know, we got really excited. It was like, well, what if this works? What if you can do this, you can do that. So without knowing much about the industry, we decided to, you know what, let's jump in, let's park this venture, put it on autonomous operation, you know, put on few people we hired so they can run it going forward. And we focus on this huge opportunity we've got on our hands. And we.

26:06
Same Beni:
Hindsight, that was a huge mistake because you can imagine you don't have any sort of founder problem fit. That's one of the challenges I've seen many founders, right, people think about, oh, product, market fit. What about like, I can do this and put it out there and gather feedback and it works and I've got product market fit. Well, that's later, my friend. You have to look into the problems, you know, about the networks you have. If you don't have any sort of understanding about a market and you want to go and solve it, good luck and that's what I am gonna tell you good luck.

26:37
Amardeep Parmar:
I think I see this so much where somebody's like, oh, I'm going to build this. But I'm like, but there's nothing in your background or experience to showcase why you're the best person for that problem. And I think it's tough because sometimes people take it as an insult personally.

26:50
Same Beni:
Absolutely.

26:50
Amardeep Parmar:
But it's more just. It's a good piece of advice that you said, because you're trying to stop somebody spending time with something where they don't have the passion or the obsession. I think I always say obsession rather than passion, because passion, everybody says passion. It's like, are you obsessed with solving this or not?

27:02
Same Beni:
I totally agree with you. It's about the end goal. Right. So that obsession is extremely important. For us, the angle was the money. So we don't have much of obsession about, you know, reintegration energy or wind turbines, although that was very early. So that was like over a decade ago before the green revolution started. So were a tiny little player with lots of big players in the market. And with hindsight, that was a mistake. We got into that and we've been really squeezed out of the market. And that took three years. At one point, I had a choice to either run the company, pay for the bills, or close down the company.

27:41
Same Beni:
You know, keep up, keep out my room in flat where I was staying, or move into my office maybe for a few months, you know, sleep on the couch of the office so I can pay the bills and push the company, push the people, so we can actually keep the Company alive. And that few months in my head turned out to be three years. Yeah, so I was sleeping on the couch of the office for three years, working during the day, you know, when everyone was gone, turning the couch into a bed and sleep on it. And the next day again the same thing. It was a very tough environment because we wanted to really make it succeed and you know, we couldn't. After three years, I couldn't keep the company going afterwards.

28:25
Same Beni:
We've been really squeezed out of the market from the big guys. And I learned so many lessons from that. Fortunately, I didn't become bankrupt, but very close and we had to shut the company down. And that was a great learning for me. So any other cash I learned from the previous venture was gone with it. And it was a good, good experience quite frankly, because that experience teach you that, you know, you have to know your market, you have to be obsessed around the problem you want to solve. You have to network for it. You know, we thought that okay, we can really jump into this opportunity and hire people for it.

29:03
Same Beni:
It's like, oh, I can go and hire, you know, I'm told by an engineer and a consultant here and here that and we can just jump on it and make it happen. But we didn't have a fit. We didn't have a fit. And that was the problem.

29:17
Amardeep Parmar:
I guess, with that as well.

29:19
Amardeep Parmar:
When people talk about hiring a team, for example, I'd say at your stage now, having done multiple companies that could potentially work, you have so much experience in running a company. But when you're in this early stages, like when you see people like start a company, like fifth time founder, then maybe they might be able to hire the right team because they've done it so much. But when people are trying to get for the first company or maybe even the second company, they're just fighting at such incredible odds to make that work. Like you said, and you said you slept on the couch for three years. In hindsight, do you think that you clung on too long or do you think you're proud of how long you kept going there? Do you think because one of the biggest challenges is knowing when to quit?

30:00
Same Beni:
You're absolutely right. You know, that comes down into personality. I'm a, I'm a proud person. Right. I want to go as far as I can on a possibility. I don't want to say like, you know, I gave up on something because what if I was so close to make it happen and I didn't? I don't Want to have the regret of saying that I didn't give my 200% on this and it didn't succeed, right. I don't want to say like, hey, if I did this and did that, it could work, right? Because that's, that's going to eat you from inside, right. I'm sure many of you listening and watching this, I've got this regret of saying like, oh, we could buying into Bitcoin when it was £10 or we could, you know, do this, do that.

30:47
Same Beni:
We all have got regrets when it comes to financial situation or even entrepreneurship. So when you're in it, right, you don't want to lose, you know, opportunities. And also when you've got a team and when you got obligations towards your team, it's a different story, right? So having the time to say, you know what, this is it, I have to quit. It's very important. And there is a book actually I recently read which is, I think it's called how to Quit is, it's amazing. It's, it is written by an amazing mathematician and she won three times, I think Worker Poker championship and she was one of the advisors of Google as well. And she goes to basically mathematically tell you like when you should quit and. Which is pretty cool. You're right.

31:41
Same Beni:
Maybe I should have quit earlier, but I was in a situation, you know, I was in a song called Fallacy. So I was already in it and I didn't want to lose how much I put in it. And that was, you know, the situation I was in.

31:54
Amardeep Parmar:
And coming out of that, like you said. So you said you're a proud person, right? So having done all that work and it hasn't worked out in the end, how do you rebuild yourself afterwards?

32:03
Same Beni:
Very good question. So at that point I had to go and look for a job I could, I didn't have. I mean one of the things that I see with many entrepreneurs, you know, the iron of financial hardship and they want to build a multi billionaire operation out of nothing, right. But it's not gonna work. I just tell you, like running any sort of a startup costs money, right? So you need to have a bit of saving. I don't say too much. Yeah, to be able to experiment, right. But when you don't have anything, then it's a bit hard unless you go and knock other people's door and say like, hey, can you give me a bit of money so I can experiment and see where this goes? And you would have shares and so on.

32:48
Same Beni:
So maybe you can do well if you want to do it with nothing being like, I mean being frugal, it's extremely important to be an entrepreneur but with nothing you can't do anything right. So you have to have that minimum fund in your bank account depending on what you want to do. So I didn't have that. So I mean if I had that I would have jump on something else. I would actually I was at the time I was working on a feasibility study on augmented reality and this is before actually the companies such as Snapchat build their AI filters and so on.

33:23
Same Beni:
We wanted to kind of build those augmented reality filters and you know, it was really interesting, it was very early but I didn't have any cash to throw at it so couldn't do anything about it and others did it, so that's fine. So I had to go and look for a job and I got into industry and sort of working in autonomous vehicle sector build a consortium and through that we built brought on amazing companies such as like Microsoft, Tesla, intel, you name it. And with that I ended up working at intel to co build their first AI accelerator which was a lot of fun and used to run their innovation lab which was a lot of fun and started working on kind of like scale up startups, bringing on, helping them on, you know, expansion.

34:20
Same Beni:
As I said, many things in life is about luck but you build your luck, right? You have to be in an environment that luck, you know, suddenly finds the way to be able to reach you, right? And that's the format of proximity. I'm actually, I mean that's a separate thing. We'll probably talk about this later. I've been writing a book about this specific key point success proximity as of like what makes you success. You have to build that luck for yourself. So in this case I was lucky because I was doing a course in university on business school and you know, I couldn't study before that so I decided to do a degree as a mature student, right? And I got lucky. One of my classmates turned out to be a prince of a country, right? He happened out to be a.

35:08
Same Beni:
You know, if you're watching, I don't think you're watching this but shout out to you Shekhar Mala. And he turned out to be prince of UAE and he had this crazy idea of building the first centralised government backed stablecoin and I had no idea anything about cryptocurrencies and blockchain or anything like that but I said like dude, if you want to do A plumbing company. I'm in. I don't mind to have a shake as a co founder. So we started Promonio together as two co founders. We brought other people in and expanded the team were working on. It was very promising. It was very promising. And were hedging against Bitcoin crash because there weren't many proper, established, kind of like stable currencies out there in the market back then.

36:02
Same Beni:
And we wanted to bring kind of that centralization into a decentralised environment which the crypto bros hate me because of that. So bringing centralization to decentralised environment. Are you mad? But that made sense because ultimately is a financial instrument. Right. You want safety, you want, you know, investors to feel safe, not like a chaos with many of these projects that were out there. So we worked on that. It was a great experience and interesting. I was still in the, in the situation that, you know, was not great in terms of financial situation. I was still in hardship. But one of them, I was always travelling with him, building teams in various different continents, expanding the team quite fast and then coming back and going to a. A shoebox. Yeah. So you have to be frugal as an entrepreneur. Right.

36:57
Same Beni:
So even though I had a co founder that essentially many people dream because some people think it's kind of like unlimited money, you still have to ensure that, you know, you're going forward and you're solving a challenge and you're solving your problem. That experience was really eye opening because as I mentioned, it's about access. Many networks exist that you don't have access to. Right. So it's, you know, this is a kind of a. Unfortunately a pyramid structure that society around the world is in a premise structure. So we mentioned like, no, that's that kid in a, in a, in a rough environment, in a rough neighbourhood doesn't have access to, you know, doesn't have access to opportunities or the network or mentorship to succeed in a specific key environment. Right.

37:49
Same Beni:
And if they do, and I've seen really amazing kids getting out of that warm and then actually going and asking people in kind of Canary Wharf. Yeah, right. I'm saying like, hey, can you help me on this? I want to do that, I want to do this and I really respect that. That's hustle.

38:02
Amardeep Parmar:
Yeah. One of the things we're doing ourselves next year. So we're going to do a pilot of a few different schools from some of these areas where like high economic deprivation and getting them to go people like you for in the, you Know the weak work experience in year 10 and 12 in this country. Can we get people who normally don't have any connections through their family to go and shadow you for a week, or go and shadow other founders in a network for a week? Because if you're 15, you get the opportunity then you now realise, I belong in these places. There's these people, I can talk to them. And if you do that, 15, you're at 17 when you go to university, if you decide to go to university. But it's like I said, it's got to break that structure.

38:40
Amardeep Parmar:
It's got to. If they can't get there themselves because of. I said they didn't anybody how they meant to do that, right? Like, it's difficult for some people have hustled their way into that, but it's like some people get it so easy. How do we make that easier for those people to get into situations? Because that's where the real impact is going to be made. And with all the stuff we're doing, that's something I'm really excited about. We can actually make a change there.

39:04
Same Beni:
That's phenomenal and I really respect that because you're essentially changing trajectories of individuals lives, right? And I really respect that. One of the things I really wanted to do and pass one day in the future, or some of your audience, maybe, if you get inspired to do this, please do this. I was looking to two different problems, right, in this sense was those individuals coming from, you know, this underrepresented backgrounds, you know, tough situations, these kids like in high schools, right? And they don't have that opportunity, as you mentioned, on. On proximity to opportunities and mentorship and those sort of things. And on the other side of the angle, you've got people who retire, right? And because in especially Western societies, we see our value, our worth through the work we do, right?

40:01
Same Beni:
And you suddenly say that you're 68 and you retire and you suddenly have like, all right, what's my reason? Yeah, you always think like, oh, when I retire, I will go and travel the whole world. Good luck to you if you do that. Not many people, you know, end up doing this. And it's very sad. Number one reason for death, for Eldri, for people who actually, you know, retire, is. Is that. Is. Is the loneliness, is, you know, not having the reason for living. I'm not sure if you know about the concept of ikigai. Yeah, you know, that's, you know, the. Of perhaps a bit of backstory about that in the island of Okinawa in. In Japan, they have the highest numbers of people, over 100. And they wanted to understand why is there genetic? Is the food? What is it?

40:55
Same Beni:
And they figured out it's actually the concept that they start from childhood called, you know, ekigai, means reason for being. So they start saying, like, why am I alive? What I'm doing? What am I doing? Right. And that really drives them forward and essentially they live a very long and happy life. But in Western societies, we see our vote on work through the work we do. What if we connect those sort of people that they don't have access, right. With this sort of people who just got retired, they don't have much to do. Right. They've got a lot of free time and they want to, you know, go for the climb, the third mountain and give back. Right. They've got a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of experience, a wealth of connections in the industry.

41:48
Same Beni:
If they want to get a kid an internship, they can do it with a snap. Just a phone call saying, like, I've got this kid, he's going to get an internship in this company. Say like, yes, boss, thank you very much. Yeah. What if you connect this two set of people that have got two very different problems together to solve each other's problems? Yeah. That's amazing.

42:12
Amardeep Parmar:
Yeah. I'm just conscious that we haven't got too much time to go. So we're on. We've done three companies so far.

42:17
Same Beni:
Let's get into it. So the fourth one, I started AI company in 2019. Yeah. Nine Q. We were one of the fastest growing AI companies pre investment day. One of the company. We had around a minute and a half in the bank account, I think, and, you know, 18K MRR, day one. Right. So it was a phenomenal growth. We were working on a key section that was very different from other algorithms back then. And this is before, like, you know, the LLMs, before ChatGPT, before what we know as AI. One of the things.

42:51
Amardeep Parmar:
AI was cool.

42:52
Same Beni:
Yeah. Before AI was cool.

42:54
Amardeep Parmar:
Yeah.

42:55
Same Beni:
AI is very interesting because when we talk about AI is probably the only technology that changes, meaning every two, three years. When we talk about AI, maybe I mean, AI is, by the way, AI is nothing new. The F. The father of AI is the same person as the father of modern computing, Alan Turing. That's why it's a turing test for AI. Right. And so the AI been gone through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and each of the decades, we meant it differently. So if we talked about AI in 2015, 16, were working on it, we meant really machine learning, deep learning algos, really algorithms. And now when we talk about AI, you're essentially saying generative AI models, LLMs and so on.

43:39
Same Beni:
So we started this, it was very interesting because the problem with narrow AI models, like narrow AI models are like, you know, models that you built them for a specific problem, you want to solve them, right? And you cannot lift and shift and change it, we said. But the problem is we live in a complex world, right, with complex beings, with complex decision making. And what that means is that you've got many inter linked individuals, nodes like Internet is complex, society is complex, companies are complex. But this very deterministic models of machine learning algorithms, they don't work on this set of areas. You can't just solve one problem. What if you bring on the core of machine learning and connect it with complexity science? And that was a concept, right?

44:26
Same Beni:
So like, all right, let's marry complexity science with machine learning, complexity AI, complex AI, right? And that was the kind of mentality and we started working on it and it was very interesting. We started deploying kind of multi objective optimization into it, which drived the complexity and ended up doing a kind of like I think TedX talk about kind of complex AI and the future of decision making back then. And we started building a company around that, right, because you essentially could deploy these models, lift and shift them, put them in really complex environments such as mobility. So we deployed this in railway because then let's say, unfortunately if you know, one of the trains goes over a person, the operator, what they should do, the whole system suddenly is in stress, this sort of split second decisions.

45:22
Same Beni:
We are not really good at it as humans, right? So we have to utilise some sort of a machine algorithm to be able to help us. But those are also not good. So how we can solve that challenge? So that was really the core of what were working on and we understood that, wow, we can actually deploy this in many different environments. What if we deploy this to be able to reduce the carbon emission of data centres? Because one the things about data centres and you know, cloud that people don't know is most of the computers are actually idle. 97, 98% of this, you know, computers always on waiting for a surge and you end up basically wasting a lot of energy for something that has no return.

46:01
Same Beni:
So we say, what if we can actually deploy it and would it work if we turn off the computers and reschedule them in this really smart way for our models? And yes, it did work. I mean so what if you can deploy in a financial market and you know, go for this and that. It was, it was an interesting time to work on this really complex problems. But Covid happened and that was a very hard time. Right. I had the ponytail before that. Look at me now, I'm bald, right? So you understand how much stress, that's why I'm wearing this hat, how much stress that was. I lost all of my hair in a matter of six months during COVID because it was very, very stressful to run a company that is scaling.

46:45
Same Beni:
One of your key clients who's actually deploying a big project suddenly comes and tells you that hey, we don't have any money. It's very hard. It was very tough. And mid pandemic I was running very kind of like looking for creative ways to be able to move forward. I was given an option to exit. And even though I didn't want to, right, quite frankly to exit, I was like, I can turn this company into a multi billion operation. Of course you do as entrepreneur, right? You know, every entrepreneur thinks so. You know, I thought about, you know, my well being and I said probably I need to do it. You know, as I took the exit route, sold, exited and joined few boards. Amazing companies, help few founders here and there.

47:34
Same Beni:
And technician came in and said like, hey, would you like to come in and support us on expansion of our AI programme? And I said yes, absolutely, I would love to work with founders. And I came in as a consultant for a few months and we had a phenomenal few cohorts that had 100% success rate in terms of funding. You know, the team at Technation that kind of gave me the key to go forward with all the programmes. I took on the innovation department, investments, content, you know, we had actually similar to you, we had a full content team and those sort of areas to be able to expand. And technician team have gone phenomenally over the past 10 years. You can just look at the numbers, right?

48:17
Same Beni:
So when Technation was born out of UK government, UK only had six unicorns, six companies valued over $1 billion. And I remember that time, you know, being a founder was a very different story. You know, you didn't have that halo around you. You became a founder because you couldn't find a job like me. And you know, Fast forward into 2024. We've got over 156 unicorns in the UK. There's, there are only three nations in the world that go of, go over 100 unicorns is United States, China and UK. You've got a country with 400 million population in US. You've got 1.56 billion in China and almost 70 million in UK. We are really doing phenomenally well for such a small nation. We are when it comes to innovation and entrepreneurship and startups.

49:11
Same Beni:
So if you're actually starting a business here in the uk, you're in the right place to do so. You know, Technician supported many amazing entrepreneurs. One third of all unicorns in the UK actually graduated from Technician. Technician was the third most successful actuary in the world. So for a government backed organisation, not too bad. Right. And suddenly government decided to defund those can give them money to Barclays, which was quite an interesting decision. I'd never forget that, you know, because most founders saw us as like the YC of the UK. Right, I'm free. When you go to YC, you have to give away 7% of your venture. You're free. The founders loved it. They get all the connections, everything that they need, like similar to yc but for free.

50:02
Same Beni:
That was an interesting experience, right, because I was told on the same day that we are about to shut down because of the funding situation and what has happened with the UK government and we've gone through that process. Fortunately, the brand was bought by Brent Hoberman from Founders Forum and he's doing a phenomenal job for the UK ecosystem and he started rebuilding technation from scratch under the Founders Forum band. I'm helping the team on kind of rebuilding those programmes, but that the experience, it was the experience of lifetime to work with so many amazing founders and help them to be able to change their trajectory to success.

50:46
Same Beni:
Luckily, technicians still exist, but it's no longer, you know, that's kind of a government backed organisation, but the team, you know, Johnny, Sammy and so on from the team are doing a phenomenal job to be able to help entrepreneurs.

51:01
Amardeep Parmar:
And then looking at today, what's Sam doing today?

51:05
Same Beni:
Good question. Right. Because what happened was after Technician had so many amazing companies, funds knocking my door, I had like a dream. Often coming my way from a Tier one fund, I said like, Sam, do you want to be one of our partners running our European fund? I was like, wow, this is a dream. I said no. Crazy. I said no. I said no to every opportunity that came my way. I wanted to take just few months off, go to Portugal, Spain somewhere and you know, finish off my book. That's what I wanted to do. But again, I'm, you know, I'm opportunistic and I jump on opportunity right away. A few days after I was like, I'm not gonna take any days off, I'm gonna work on this opportunity.

51:51
Same Beni:
So I started Platinum with which we support amazing entrepreneurs on their growth journeys, a growth advisory and also VC community. So we support both funds as well as high growth founders and their scale ups on the trajectory to success.

52:11
Amardeep Parmar:
Awesome. So we're running out of time now, so you'll have to go to five questions. But I feel like there's so many talking too much. We've got one minute to go.

52:19
Same Beni:
All right, we can do it. Let's do it.

52:21
Amardeep Parmar:
So first question is, who are three British Asians you think are doing incredible work and you'd love to shout them out.

52:27
Same Beni:
I would really. I was recently with him. So that's why I say this Lord Ranger, he's very active in the tech ecosystem. I think we do need more, you know, people like him in government that can actually, you know, bridge the gap. Right. Because we have got the entrepreneurs and a bunch of people in the government that have no clue what's going on. Right. So those people who are in it to be able to bridge the gap are very important. So big shout out to him. Another load lot. You know, I, I've got a huge respect for him as it's throughout the years it's been phenomenal for the especially Asian entrepreneurs. You know, first time I saw him in a speech and I was like, wow, so powerful. I wanna, I wanna like learn how to give a speech like that.

53:16
Same Beni:
And lastly, I want to be cheeky. I want to give it to you guys because both of you have really put energy into this ecosystem. Right. I think it's important to give credit where it's due to say that you've done a great job in terms of showcasing the successes of Asian entrepreneurs and helping the next generation. And what we talked about, right, let's say like you're in a situation that, you know, you think that you don't have any other option but with the work you're doing you giving inspiration to the next generation and you know, my hat off to you guys. So the, I would be the cheeky and say the third people or two people.

54:02
Amardeep Parmar:
So thank you for that. I think our lordship is still pending. We're waiting for the letter in the post.

54:06
Same Beni:
Give it 10, 20 years. Yeah, probably I'll see you in house of laws.

54:10
Amardeep Parmar:
And then if people want to find out more about you and what you're currently up to, where should they go.

54:14
Same Beni:
To, well, very easy to find me, can go to sambani.com, straight goes to my LinkedIn, you know, connect with me or you can email me@somebeny.com if you've got any questions. More than happy to support you.

54:27
Amardeep Parmar:
Is there anything that you need help with right now, yourself that somebody listening right now would be able to reach out to you and help you with?

54:32
Same Beni:
Well, that's a hard one that came out of nowhere. Something that you can help me with? Well, I'm working on few really great opportunities and one of the great companies I work with right now, I'm on the board as an executive director is a company called Helix. And what really draw me to them was their approach to electric vehicles. Because when we build electric vehicles, they build them in these gigafactories in China, in us, elsewhere, and we ship them around the world. The problem is that shipping of these vehicles have got a higher carbon emission than the lifetime of the vehicle itself. So it doesn't make any sense. People buy these EVs and say like they want to save the planet, but they end up actually emitting more carbon emission because of the shipping.

55:16
Same Beni:
And these guys that have redesigned the modelling of halo vehicles built and they build it in a local ecosystem where they're supplied so you don't have that problem of carbon emission anymore. And they have reduced the price of these vehicles so much so that the areas of the world that actually emit the most amount of carbon emission will reduce their carbon emission. And I said like, wow, this is such an amazing opportunity for those folks who are keen on learning more. And my, you know, question towards the audience is that if this is something of interest, please let me know because we are working on expansion and we are working on our next round. So it would be of interest to see how people are keen on getting involved.

56:02
Amardeep Parmar:
So thanks so much for coming on. Any final words?

56:05
Same Beni:
I want to say to the audience that again, is about empowerment, right? You know, everyone experience hardship. All of us, we are human, right? We doesn't matter whether you're coming from a privileged background or not. We all experience some sort of hardship in life. But know that you're empowered, know that you've got options, know that, you know, with the right mindset, you can achieve what you deserve and push forward. You can do it.

56:31
Amardeep Parmar:
Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time. 

‍