The BAE HQ 2022 Review w/ Amar & Gurvir | The BAE HQ

Amardeep Parmar: [00:00:00] Like, Oh, I've seen that. Like, that's great. Seeing that is really cool when people who don't know you, but know the brand and like the brand and see what we're doing and they believe in the mission. That's been a real highlight for me of just meeting those people.

Gurvir Riyat: And that's, what's really keeping us going, keeping us excited and motivated.

Gurvir Riyat: We're here to inspire, connect and guide. And it's not about us, it's about next generation.

Amardeep Parmar: We want every single British Asian in this country to have heard of us. And then to hear the stories that we're sharing because these people are incredible that are coming on.

Gurvir Riyat: We've got a lot of passion for this project as well to help people in the community and just grow this as far as we can.

Gurvir Riyat: Thank you to all the viewers out there and everyone along the journey.

Amardeep Parmar: Welcome to the BAE HQ podcast, where you inspire, connect and guide the next generation of British Asians. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit that subscribe button, and if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, leave us a five star review. Today's a special episode for end of year review, so I've got with me.

Amardeep Parmar: My co founder Gurvir. [00:01:00] How are you doing today? 

Gurvir Riyat: Yeah,all good. Thanks. Great to be back on after all the guests we've had. Yep. 

Amardeep Parmar: So if you remember, you go back and watch the very first episode, it was us two together chatting about like the mission and what we're going to do. And what we want to look at today is how far have we got?

Amardeep Parmar: Are we on the right lines? Are we happy with our progress? So in that time as well, so this, the launch was October 16th, a week later, it was his wedding and he went on his honeymoon for three weeks. So he left me all alone to do things by myself. Like give us your life up there. Like how was the Wedding?

Amardeep Parmar: How was the honeymoon? Like, how does it feel to be back again? 

Gurvir Riyat: Yeah.  So great to be back. And during that time, as you mentioned, so much has happened and we spent so much time planning all of this and putting it together. And then we just got busy with so many life events. I think both of us had so many things going on over the last couple of months, as you mentioned, had my wedding end of October.

Gurvir Riyat: And as everyone knows, Asian weddings takes a lot of time and effort to prepare, but it all went amazing. Went on an amazing honeymoon [00:02:00] after. Had a great time throughout the whole wedding. You were there, of course, and a bunch of other friends too. Uh, so we had a fantastic time and it was great just to see even during that time we launched the podcast and whilst I was busy doing my wedding festivities and getting involved with so much stuff, it was great to see on the side how everything was taking off.

Gurvir Riyat: So with this as well, so thanks to you for kicking it all off whilst I was busy getting married. How was it for you during that time? We had a lot going on and we had a lot of planning before that, but how was it to actually kick off all of this whilst I was tied up with a lot of things? 

Amardeep Parmar: Stressful, very stressful.

Amardeep Parmar: If people watch the first episode, they'll know what happened in the sun with me. And I remember saying together, we're trying to figure out when to launch this, right? And we obviously postponed it because of what happened to my dad. And then I was saying, let's do it before your wedding rather than afterwards.

Amardeep Parmar: Because if anybody's ever danced before, right? The worst feeling is it when you're waiting to go on stage and just keep waiting. And so you'd rather just get it started than you start going. And what happens then once we've launched? We've now started to get the feedback. We're getting people noticing us.

Amardeep Parmar: We're getting everything [00:03:00] comes out of that. Whereas when you're in that planning phase, it just feels like you're just waiting for something to ignite. And I dunno, I just, I couldn't take the waiting and was like, let's launch it. Even though I know you're going to go away for a few weeks, even then it's going to be stressful by myself for a bit.

Amardeep Parmar: And in this few weeks, we like leaned on a few people. A few of our friends were able to help out. So shout out to Simran, who's like helping us with the rules and stuff in that time. And she was kind of my little number two while you're away. Obviously this is still phase one, right? So phase one was always going to be.

Amardeep Parmar: Starting off the podcast, getting people to understand what we're doing, get people to understand the vision, get these amazing guests that we've had on to come on and share their stories, which then gives us the attention and people to take us seriously, basically for the next phases and the other things we're going to do in the future.

Amardeep Parmar: So one thing we've been lucky about is like how amazing the guests have been, right? Some of them you were there in the, like, this is a big room to record from, right? So. Over there, there's another sofa and sometimes you'll have, I'm looking at the guest here and behind the guest's shoulder, I can see like Gervier kind of listening, giving 

Gurvir Riyat: little signals to [00:04:00] say this.

Gurvir Riyat: So 

Amardeep Parmar: like from your perspective, like what's been some of the highlights since you've come back? I 

Gurvir Riyat: think we've been very lucky in the sense that we weren't expecting. To get some of these guests when we reached out. So just speaking about that beginning phase, when we were reaching out to a lot of people, it did take a bit of time to get the first bunch of guests booked in.

Gurvir Riyat: And that's what pushed everything a bit later, closer to my wedding. So it was getting into, I think, to the month of our wedding. We're waiting for guests to. To confer with us, but I think we've learned from that. That's just part of the process of getting guests on. Everyone's got busy diaries, when to get them booked in, when to get them to come down to the studio.

Gurvir Riyat: And I think the ball really started rolling. Then once we got the first batch of guests booked, they could sort of see. The studio here, the production, everything we're doing, and we could really clearly define what our mission was to them as well, that we're here to, as you mentioned, inspire, connect and guide, and it's not about us, it's about inspiring the next generation.

Gurvir Riyat: So once we got that message to a couple of guests [00:05:00] and we could say to other guests, check out this. They're working on this great mission here. Phase one has gone really well in terms of getting traction. And now it's all about getting that established and setting off in the new year on the next developments of phase 

Amardeep Parmar: one.

Amardeep Parmar: So a lot of the podcasts beginning, that's a lot to do with inspiration, right? Is showing these people who've done incredible things and it shows. That people listening, you can do that too, right? Because I've interviewed hundreds of people. They're all people. Every single person has come on this, eats, sleeps, whatever, right?

Amardeep Parmar: And sometimes I think we get people on a pedestal sometimes. Whereas a lot of the guests like outside the actual recording, they're all normal people, right? You have a laugh. You can have a joke. They've got stresses. They've got other things going on in their life. And I think it's really important for people to realize that too.

Amardeep Parmar: So a lot of the inspiration side of things is around that. And obviously a big part of that next year. I don't know if we're going to say this yet, but we're going to go into schools and universities and give talks about that because so much of it comes down to that rise. Like we need to go into the younger generations and tell them this is [00:06:00] possible.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's not, we're not going to go into school and be like, don't get a real job, go become an entrepreneur straight away. It's not about that. It's about. Showing people that it's options and showing people that if you wanted to go down that route, then it's possible you can do it. And what's on the inspiration side you think is 

Gurvir Riyat: interesting for you?

Gurvir Riyat: I think as you mentioned there, it's not just about being an entrepreneur. It's not just about starting and running your own business, but it's instilling that mindset of being entrepreneurial, thinking outside the box, challenging the status quo, and just bringing that to the next generation and enforcing that.

Gurvir Riyat: With that mindset, so much can be achieved. So I think that's really key on the inspiring side. I think we've been showcasing stories from a wide variety of people. We've had people from the sort of sports industry to medical industry to venture capital fund managers. We've had a wide variety of people and I think it's just about getting that message out there that you can go to any of this and any of it as possible.

Gurvir Riyat: So I think that's a really key thing and part 

Amardeep Parmar: of [00:07:00] that as well. So if you're listening and you're a teacher or maybe at university and you want us to come and give a talk, you want us to try and share materials that might help you get in touch with us and we'd love to do it and we're also looking for an intern at the moment, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So in particular, we're looking for as a student because we want somebody who's. A student at the moment who's passionate about entrepreneurship, one day will start their own business and then they can work with us, right? And you can look at the episodes, you can see who we're in touch with, you can see the kind of thing that we're trying to build here.

Amardeep Parmar: And we'd love for people who are young and starting out to be part of this too. And if you're a student, then you can grow with us, right? For the next few years, because like we mentioned it multiple times, right? This is a long game for us. This isn't something we're going to do 10 episodes and that's it.

Amardeep Parmar: Like we, we tried. And inspire connecting guide, right? So if you look at the connection side of things, what we're going to do next year, a lot more of is these kinds of events, right? To get people together, get people in the same room. And we've been attending quite a few ourselves, right? And that's been a lot of fun.

Amardeep Parmar: We've met a lot of great people, but we also wanted to host some too, but we're thinking how can we get people together who maybe wouldn't always be in the same room [00:08:00] together because sometimes events feel quite exclusive or maybe. It's only this type of person goes to it. It's like, how do we spread that a bit?

Amardeep Parmar: So we expect like a variety of events 

Gurvir Riyat: from us, right? Yeah, I think we've been lucky. We've been going to a lot of events. So we've been trying to take the good points from each of them and try to learn from the bad points as well. So I think we're going to set out a lot of events next year, hopefully on a monthly basis.

Gurvir Riyat: Once we get the. Ball rolling and I think to have the variety and events as you spoke about about different topics, different challenges people are facing. So what's really important is the community as well. Everyone out there now as well. If you want to event on a specific topic or if you want the certain things covered, how to scale your business, how to grow it or just a variety of things, how to set up a YouTube channel.

Gurvir Riyat: Just let us know what you're interested in because that can really help us and dictate the event side of things as well. I think the other thing is that we can connect people together on the investment side of things. So bringing together the entrepreneurs we've met to the investment people we've met as well.

Gurvir Riyat: So can you tell us a little bit more about that? 

Amardeep Parmar: Sure. [00:09:00] So this is actually going to be your area of speciality. So for those of you who don't know, Gervaix worked in Kindred Capital and Pantheon Ventures beforehand and in different roles as well, which is quite good because what that means is that he's seen both sides.

Amardeep Parmar: So obviously what happens now is like. Our own network is very strong, so we're constantly entrepreneurs, people looking to raise funding, but they're also also working with VCs. And one of the partners we have is with Sinsan Ventures, for example. So we meet a lot of venture capital funds who are looking for the next big thing.

Amardeep Parmar: We meet a lot of entrepreneurs who hope to be the next big thing. And what's the perfect thing to do? We just smush them together, right? And part of what we're doing as well through that, it's like, it's not just here, go and talk together. What Gove can do is have a look at your deck. He can advise you on that.

Amardeep Parmar: And put you to the right people because we want to get somebody funded, right? You want to help somebody listening right now. Like I want one of you listening right now. If we can get you funded and get you in touch with venture capitalists, or even an angel investor, and that helps you grow the business of your dream.

Amardeep Parmar: That's to me is impact, right? That's what I'd love to 

Gurvir Riyat: do. [00:10:00] Yeah. I think that's what's so rewarding for us. I think we've had A little bit of that already as well, uh, we've been able to put people in touch with each other and just grow the network. So I think people have found that really rewarding as well.

Gurvir Riyat: And even if it doesn't work out, it's still a valuable process that we've connected two people together, even if it doesn't lead to investment. So I think we want to bring more of that next year, connect a lot more people together, whether that's in person or via email and just grow the network that way even further.

Gurvir Riyat: So on the other side of things about guiding, how are we going to do that, Omar? 

Amardeep Parmar: So this is the bit that I'm nerding out for a bit, right? So. I was showing you my plan earlier, and it's going to be a big upgrades to the website basically. And for those of you who don't know my background of why I'm even qualified in a way to do this is that.

Amardeep Parmar: On Medium. com, that's the biggest writing website in the world. I was like the fastest person to grow on there, other than Barack Obama, right? So, this is a bit that's my speciality, that's my bit I really love. And what I've been coming up with a plan, is if you go to the website today, hopefully by the time you actually, this episode comes [00:11:00] out, it might be a bit more there.

Amardeep Parmar: You'll see that it's all coming soon. But what's coming soon with me writing the best guides on every topic to do with entrepreneurship and that's to do with getting funding, marketing, hiring, all of the different things you can think about. How do you set up a company's house? All of that sort of stuff.

Amardeep Parmar: Part of the reason why we didn't just start writing is I wanted to make sure the strategy is airtight. So one big part of the guiding side, it's going to be the actual written guides, but then we're also going to make those into YouTube videos. And those will be helping you in different ways. We can then chop that up and put it across social media.

Amardeep Parmar: Then another core part is to get on this podcast. And it's, it's a difficult thing for us, right? There's people who are listening right now. Some to reach out to us who want to come on. And our key thing is about the audience. We need to make sure that. The key reason we're getting anybody on this podcast is because they've got a story to share where they can help the audience because they've got to a certain place.

Amardeep Parmar: If somebody's early in their journey, or they've just been in business for a little while, or maybe they haven't quite seen the success yet to be able to really give that strong advice to the people listening, [00:12:00] then it's too early for them to come on the podcast. We'd wait a year or so. We'll wait until they've reached the standard or the level that the guests, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Because we want to make sure that it's beneficial to you. But what we can do on the other side is We're going to start allowing people to write for us, right? So we'll give a written interview to people and that way you can get featured on our website. You get your back link. You get that feature when you get Google to come up with the article, you can learn more about you.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's a way which we can help every small business, right? Because it will be set up soon. So we'll make a post about it. We'll explain the details and like what's going on. Make sure to sign up to our newsletter as well, because we'll obviously be putting it all in there. So you can see exactly what's going on.

Amardeep Parmar: And through that, we can then share all these entrepreneurship stories or people that maybe earlier stages with people who've done things in different ways, or maybe. You can't come into the studio because at the moment we're all London based, but next year, part of the plan is we're going to go spend a week in Birmingham and do a bunch of recordings in Birmingham, maybe in Manchester.

Amardeep Parmar: Maybe we'll even venture up to Scotland. That's the plan. Hopefully it was towards the end of the year. [00:13:00] And what we're going to do is by that time, we'd have built such a strong brand. that we're saying, okay, we're going to be in a week in Edinburgh, let's say, and all of the best Scottish entrepreneurs, British, Asian, Scottish entrepreneurs are going to come up and say like, yeah, we want to meet you and we want to do that.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's the goal of this, right? So if we can get the content side of things so strong, because we're actually helping people, we're giving them information they need, then it all is a virtuous circle. And even on the other side, there's with things like mentorship, for example, is another area we can get into.

Amardeep Parmar: So I don't know if you want to. Chat a bit more about that 

Gurvir Riyat: ideas. Yeah. So on the mentorship side, I think we're growing our network so much now we've got so many people on our CRM, which we both put together and add to pretty much every day as well with new and new people coming to it. And I think that's something we're definitely going to develop.

Gurvir Riyat: So connecting people on a mentorship scheme, people who are really interested about helping other people out. And set up like an official scheme, part of the Bay HQ where we can connect people and set up a formal thing where they maybe catch up every fortnight or every month on a regular [00:14:00] basis to just help each other out and pass on that knowledge even more.

Gurvir Riyat: I think one other thing you touched on there whilst you're mentioning the guides is. Throughout that time over the last few months, we've also released a newsletter and that's been a really key milestone in our journey so far. So if you're not signed up already, please sign up on our website and sign up to that newsletter.

Gurvir Riyat: And we've got great content on there is summarizes everything from the recent interviews we've had to even brands that we're working with and people promoting their products as well. So even if you're a small business or a larger business out there, I want to promote your product. We'll do that on the newsletter for you as well.

Gurvir Riyat: So feel free to reach out on that. So I think the newsletter has been a great development in our journey so far as well about how we package all that information together and send you a weekly update. You can see everyone we've interviewed that week and. We have two podcasts a week now as well, which are normally featured on there normally on a Wednesday and Sunday and the newsletter summarizes all of that [00:15:00] information.

Amardeep Parmar: Even with the events as well, right? So if you've got an event, would you think it's going to benefit our listeners? Send it to us, right? And it can't be an event, which is just about promoting yourself, right? We don't really want that. Our core focus is like how we actually helping people. And we can say no to money because we want to make sure we're helping people correctly.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's one of the things we're looking at the moment, right? Sponsors. So. We're going to start really aiming for sponsors then in the new year because now we've got a professional brand, right? We've got key people are very notable who want to come on board. We've got advisors who are incredible. This is something which is going to keep going and we want sponsors to be part of that because At the end of the day, we need the funding in order to keep this going, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Like, it can't be, some could just sell fund forever. And that's where even, for example, if you're listening right now, just you leaving a review, for example, makes such a huge difference, right? If you subscribe to us on YouTube. Because all of these numbers we can then use for sponsors. To help fund us. And we didn't want to make a massive profit at this, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So the whole idea of this is that we're going to be reinvesting a lot of money back into [00:16:00] this again, which means that we can make a bigger impact, which means that we can help more people. And it's that circle that we need to kick off. So if you're listening right now, like just the simple thing of just subscribing and liking or telling a few of your friends about this, it's a small thing for you to do, but it makes such a huge difference to us, which then hopefully enables reach more people.

Amardeep Parmar: And by reaching more people, we get bigger guests, we get bigger 

Gurvir Riyat: events. Yeah, I think in that side of things, we're really going to push that in the new year. And we've spent so much time talking even in this conversation about connections as well, but we're still growing our connection base as well.

Gurvir Riyat: We've got an established base, but we'd like to be in touch with way more people. So if you know anyone interested on that side of things as well, that would love to get involved or see the vision that we have, please do get in touch because it can really make a difference. What we're trying to do is impact as many people as possible, uh, through this platform that we've created.

Gurvir Riyat: And one of the questions I was going to ask you, Amal, was what are the biggest challenges you face so far? Realistically, I've 

Amardeep Parmar: only been at 30 percent capacity for the last few months, if that, [00:17:00] where I've been very driven, but at the same time, I'm dealing with. The grief and the loss of my father. So for me, like what you see in the podcast, right?

Amardeep Parmar: I do this for a living. I can smile. I can like be happy. Whatever. Obviously under the surface, there's a lot going on and I don't lie about that. If somebody asked me how I'm doing, I say I'm up and down. As next year goes on, that should all start improving and improving, right? It takes time. And as that.

Amardeep Parmar: As my capacity increases again, then that's what I'm excited about because I know we've got this far with you going on a honeymoon, you being busy with other stuff and me being not all with it sometimes. So if we can do all of what we've done so far with both of us not at full capacity, imagine what we can do when we are flying on full cylinders.

Amardeep Parmar: And another challenge has just been, I've intentionally done this podcast, it's two times a week, right? Because then we can get that, like, we want to be inevitable, right? We want every single British Asian in this country. To have heard of us and then to hear the stories that we're sharing because these people are [00:18:00] incredible that are coming on.

Amardeep Parmar: You might not know our last guest, but you might know the guests before. And when we have this constant thing of great people coming on, if you know five of our guests and you don't know the other five, then because you know the other five, those five, you're going to give the other people a chance. And then you're learning about new people.

Amardeep Parmar: And doing that is obviously been an adjustment period, right? Because At the moment, medicine is myself, but in the new year, then we'll be having a bigger team. We'll have the interns on board. We'll have all of that help. So the hardest bit I think in any company, any business is initially you've got to do a lot of the work yourself to really set up the systems before you can pass on.

Amardeep Parmar: And people don't often see that, but it's like I've been working very hard for the last few months. I haven't really given myself a break. And hopefully that week between Christmas and New Year's is going to be my time to just relax a bit. And take things easy. I said this to somebody earlier about how if it was too easy, it wouldn't be fun.

Amardeep Parmar: This challenge is what I thrive on. I love this stuff. Yes, I sometimes push a bit too hard and I do put a lot of pressure on myself and I know I do. But I'm also [00:19:00] self aware enough to know that I do that. And then I can give people, I think I told you even when we started this early on, I'm going to put a ton of pressure on myself now.

Amardeep Parmar: If you see me doing it too much. Control me like, like be my counterbalance and it's where having a co founder for this makes such a huge difference. And obviously a lot of people see me on the podcast and haven't necessarily seen you and they don't realize the impact you're having behind the scenes.

Amardeep Parmar: So a little shout out to get over here for like all the help he's been doing, which doesn't necessarily get seen, but it's so important because if you weren't there, this, like this wouldn't have been able to happen. And then what's been the 

Gurvir Riyat: challenges for you? Yeah. I think some of the challenges overall on the business as well is I think we are reaching to a lot of people now.

Gurvir Riyat: And I think we have to be very careful about who we have on and what their intentions are. So we're not saying yes to everyone to come on this podcast. And sometimes it's difficult as well to say no, but we are being strong in our approach that if someone's not aligning with our [00:20:00] values, that they're not on this mission or excited about it.

Gurvir Riyat: Helping others, and they're more interested about their own brand promotion and just coming in for their own self fulfillment. We're not interested in that, and we don't really care about how big of a name of it. So I think that's been a challenge as well, because we might have had exciting people to reach out or we've been in touch with, but we've had to say no, and that's okay as well, because if it's not.

Gurvir Riyat: Aligning with our vision to empower everyone in their communities and, and all rise up together rather than compete with each other. It's okay to say no to that. So I think that's been one of the biggest challenges I've seen as well. And I think the pace that we've grown at, uh, we weren't expecting to see.

Gurvir Riyat: Even though it's been relatively modest, if we've got quite lofty aspirations, we weren't expecting to be interviewing some of the people we're interviewing already. So it's a small part of the journey of growth, but it's also happened very fast whilst, as you mentioned, we've not been at full capacity as well.

Gurvir Riyat: So it's been a welcome [00:21:00] surprise for us. And now we're in that position as well, where we're sort of reaching out to you, the audience and saying, if you want to help out, if you want to get involved. We're here for you as well. And whatever you need as well, just let us know. And we'll try to make the content related to that as well.

Gurvir Riyat: So I think that's been sort of the biggest, some of the biggest challenges or pain points so far as well is just the volume of stuff that we're dealing with. And so many interesting things have come up along the way, which leads me to the question as well. What was been some of the key highlights for you so 

Amardeep Parmar: far, I guess on that point as well, because.

Amardeep Parmar: We're both managing the Instagram, for example, right? But even then, it's quite hard because there's so many messages. The amount of messages I get through WhatsApp, through email, through LinkedIn. It's trying to make sure you don't forget. Because obviously sometimes we want to talk to these people, but it just, message just gets lost sometimes.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's not intentional. And trying to keep on top of that is quite a challenge too. Or you see somebody interesting pop up who follows us, for example, Oh yeah, I'm going to check them out later. And then you just forget. So trying to keep track of all that has been really tough. In terms of key [00:22:00] highlights, obviously I've talked to some incredible people, the podcast side, but the, the one that stands out for me is Ravi Singh.

Amardeep Parmar: So for me, that would have been the one that I know my dad would have been really proud of and being in a room with him and talking to him, which is so surreal. Because the stuff he's done where he was from how he got, he got shot out. He was in Somalia when it was complete anarchy. He's been all these incredible situations.

Amardeep Parmar: And I love the business side. I love learning from that side too. But to see how somebody has taken that just pure trying to help people and then expand it into a global organization that's been in 50 countries. That was just like a pinch me moment for me and then sometimes it's just so a few people have recognized the podcast.

Amardeep Parmar: For example, I've been out like sometimes I don't necessarily recognize me, but when I say I do this debate HQ, like, Oh, I've seen that. Like, that's great. Seeing that is really cool when people who don't know you, but know the brand and like the brand and see what we're [00:23:00] doing and they believe in the mission.

Amardeep Parmar: That's been a real highlight for me of just meeting those people who give that feedback. And it's the same thing. If you see me or go there on the street, come and say hi to us, like, let us know if you have ideas, if you've been like what we're doing, all that kind of stuff, we'd love to hear it. Don't be shy.

Gurvir Riyat: Yeah, definitely. I think that's been the most rewarding part for me as well. Just the interaction with everyone as well. So everyone reaching out with the positive messages as well, just supporting the journey and even people that we haven't. Interview so far, but we've just connected with as well.

Gurvir Riyat: They've been very supportive of the journey and a lot of people have come out and reached to us and said, what you're doing is needed. This hasn't been done before. And as we mentioned already, we're starting this up, but it's not for us. It's for all of you and everyone out there. So we might be the first.

Gurvir Riyat: People doing it one of the first, but it's for everyone and I think sharing that message gets people even more excited as well that we're building this not just for ourselves, but for the whole [00:24:00] community to bring everyone together as well. So I think it's just even just helping one person out has been really rewarding and a key highlight, let alone the countless others we've we've reached out to.

Gurvir Riyat: And I think just. Seeing that grow further, hopefully over the next year and beyond, I think that's just going to be one of the most exciting parts as well. And yeah, looking forward to more and more. 

Amardeep Parmar: So what's the thing you're most excited about 

Gurvir Riyat: next year? Yeah. So we've mentioned now this phase one, as we've talked about before, was about initially just establishing the brand, putting our content out there on various platforms.

Gurvir Riyat: So, uh, on. Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, you name it across all the social platforms, putting that content out there, getting some sort of following and traction to the point now, I think all our videos have amassed over a hundred thousand views, uh, combined together. So phase one is sort of complete establishing a brand phase two is going to be a variety of other things.

Gurvir Riyat: So as we touched on getting the sponsorship side, which is going to accelerate. Everything I mentioned in phase one, [00:25:00] but there's also all the new stuff coming up as well. Hopefully getting in touch with the schools, the universities, just having some talks there. And I think what I'm probably most excited about is the in person events.

Gurvir Riyat: We've had a couple of years of our lives where COVID has just taken it away from us. And this has been the first sort of year, half a year where people have sort of got back to normal. So I'm really excited about bringing people together in person as well as so many events. Where we can have panel discussions and different speakers, some people we've had on the show as well, and just have that energy in the room because I'm sure across the podcast, you've seen some of the great guests and felt that energy through the video.

Gurvir Riyat: But when you're in person as well, that's another level. So I'm really excited about the in person events. What about yourself? What are you excited for next year? So 

Amardeep Parmar: obviously the in person events can be a big part, but I think. I think it's also a transition from this phase one to the greater organization side of when we've got all of these different things running that [00:26:00] I mentioned the content side is particularly interesting for me, for my background, having these different pillars.

Amardeep Parmar: And then we've got pretty much one core pillar, which is the podcast, right? And the other things we're dabbling in, we're starting to set up, but I think by the end of next year. We're going to have five or six very strong pillars and I think that growth journey is particularly excited like how we're going to do that, how we're going to reach out to people.

Amardeep Parmar: And I think I say it to people, right? It's not about just the end destination where we get to. It's I enjoy the process of getting there and finding the interns and seeing the interns grow with us, for example. And all of that side of things, I think it's going to be really exciting for me and seeing. Us go from me and you having these meetings and working things out to us having a team around us who are all moving in the same direction or swimming together.

Amardeep Parmar: And then I think what's going to happen as well as, as this team gets bigger and now as we get more and more podcast guests, as we get more and more guides, we're just going to see the community coming together. And that's what's really exciting to see that it just turned more into a movement. Right. And we're running out of time now, I think.[00:27:00] 

Amardeep Parmar: Yeah. 

Gurvir Riyat: So I think you've asked this to guess a lot, a lot of the time, but who are the top three people you want to shout out right now that have.

Gurvir Riyat: So I thought 

Amardeep Parmar: about this in advance and I didn't want to do any of the podcast guests or anybody who's booked in at the moment. And what I was going to do is shout out some of the people who've been helping behind the scenes. First, I'm going to go for Jay Radia. So Jay is the founder of like three companies.

Amardeep Parmar: He does the podcast, the happy millionaire podcast with Rupi Ujla and he's just been such a supportive guy behind the scenes. And we've met in person a couple of times. We've had a couple of calls, but he just really instills that belief in me when I chat to him. And you can see that he's just got that good heart.

Amardeep Parmar: There's a lot of people who are very successful in business. And the way they think about things is all about that business, business, business. Where you can see he's got the business he's done very well in it. But it's all about like, how can I lead a meaningful life? How can I help others lead a meaningful life too?

Amardeep Parmar: So he inspires me. Another guy who's been a huge [00:28:00] help is Pranav Banar, MBE. As soon as he heard about this, I met him at an event. We chatted about it. He's like, yeah, I want to help you. Straight away. He straight away. I didn't really know his background. I just met him in person. I didn't know what I think he did.

Amardeep Parmar: And this guy has been such a good help. So supportive. When people do that, because obviously sometimes you see people who have this idea of like, I'm going to scratch your back, you scratch mine. He said, I don't want anything from you, I just want to help you because I believe in your mission. And that's just been incredible, like to have, it's really heartwarming to know there's people like that out there in the world.

Amardeep Parmar: And then the third person. I'm going to go for Brianna. So both Brianna and Vaishali from Simpsons have been great help. So we're working with Simpsons and their adventure scouting firm. But Brianna has been a big help behind the scenes in terms of connecting, in terms of make, helping me meet more people in this space.

Amardeep Parmar: So shout out to her for being very kind and open. And it's been really helpful. And I'd also shout out my family, of course. And my brother in law Venus helped out a lot in terms of the podcast production with the Ravi Singh episode, for example. So clip [00:29:00] size as well. If you want anything to do a production, make sure you check them out.

Amardeep Parmar: And then I'm going to flip the question back on you again. 

Gurvir Riyat: So yeah, it's so hard not to say family members because they've not only supported me with this, but just throughout my whole childhood and everything to get me to this point, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my mum, dad, my sisters, my brother in law and all of them.

Gurvir Riyat: But yeah, there's one person. that I'll start off with, which is my wife, Ravika as well. So she's helped me up so much along the journey, always been there to listen to me, support me. And even with the editing side of things as well, I'm not too familiar with TikTok and things like that, but she's really been helpful on that side as well.

Gurvir Riyat: And she's made great content in the past on so many things from Inspiring other actress to get involved in the field as well on youtube. So she's been a great help Second of all, we've already shouted out briefly before but simran jeet kore She is a person who works within the legal field as well and makes great educational videos and content online Inspiring people to get into the legal field and she's helped us [00:30:00] out tremendously as well, especially whilst I was getting married uh with sort of the editing of the reels and just being Another person there as an advisor to lean on in terms of the social content and various other things that we've been involved with.

Gurvir Riyat: And the third person is someone that I'd probably like to get on a podcast soon. So his name is Sook and he owns, franchised a company called Barofia and he works in the active communities team at the moment. So it's a project where they're. Working with the government on various projects to get people fitter, more active, to cover everything from nutrition to get people cycling more.

Gurvir Riyat: So I want to shout out Suk as well because he's a project leader there, but also in general, the active communities team as well, because they're doing great work across so many deprived London boroughs as well to help educate people and get people involved and more active. Yeah, I would say I'm just to finish as well.

Gurvir Riyat: Thank you to all the viewers out there and everyone [00:31:00] along the journey. I think we would have been here now even a couple of months into this if it wasn't everyone's support. And that's what's really keeping us going, keeping us excited and motivated. We've got a lot of passion for this project as well to help people in the community and just grow this as far as we can.

Gurvir Riyat: So just thank you all for supporting us as well. And we look forward to engaging with you even more as well. Yeah, I should 

Amardeep Parmar: have thought about thanking The viewers as my free, but whoops, thank you for doing that. Otherwise, I've been really bad if you forgot that. And yeah, like, as we said, like, it's been so great.

Amardeep Parmar: And hearing people's stories, keeping people reach out, they keep reaching out, reach out on DMs, reach out on emails. We'd love to hear more from you. We want to hear what you want to know. We want to hear which guests you've loved, what you're going to learn more about. Maybe there's an area which you're struggling with.

Amardeep Parmar: Like if you've got business questions, you're like, Oh, I want to start a business, but I don't know about this. Let us know. We might not be able to give you an answer straight away, but we can at least think, okay, people need to know about this and we can go ahead, research it for you and come up with content to try and help you out.

Amardeep Parmar: So, [00:32:00] as we said before, this isn't about us, it's about the community, right? So. The only way we can serve you properly is by you connecting with us, you chatting to us. So finally, thank you so much again for listening. Thank you so much for being part of this and the movement and make sure you share it with your friends.

Amardeep Parmar: Give us that follow on YouTube, give us that subscribe, give us that five star rating because then we can make 23 bigger and better. Thank you so much.

Amardeep Parmar: Thank you for listening to the BHQ podcast today. In our mission to inspire, connect, and guide the next generation of British Asian entrepreneurs. It would mean so much to us if you could subscribe to our channel, leave a review and share this with your friends.

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