The BAE HQ Q3 2023 BTS Updates w/ Amardeep Parmar | The BAE HQ

Amardeep Parmar: [00:00:00] This episode is the BAE HQ Q3 2023 update. We're going to keep it super tight and super short to give you all the information you need without all the fluff. I'll start off with a bit of a general update. Then going to some of the events we've run, a bit about the podcast, some of the challenges we've had, and then some of the launches coming, and then finally how you can get more involved, which is what we really want.

Amardeep Parmar: So one of the things you might have noticed is that we're going to change our slogan from Inspire Connecting Guide to Inspire Connecting Scale. And this as we refine things over time, what we're focusing more and more on is those companies that And this doesn't mean that scaling is better than having a sustainable small business.

Amardeep Parmar: It's just that in terms of niching, we can't cover everything. And ideally in the future, we will get back to covering small businesses and what's happening there. But what we're really getting traction at the moment, and we can think we can get at the most value, is when there's people who really want to scale their companies to the millions in revenue.

Amardeep Parmar: So that's a subtle change from what we've been talking about [00:01:00] before. But hopefully that makes sense and hopefully it's aligned with what many of you want. And as we said, we will be supporting small businesses. We haven't forgotten about you. We just can't do everything at once. So let me give you some of the highlights from the last few months since we did the last update in terms of events.

Amardeep Parmar: So if I go in reverse order, so we had, well, two days ago I went to my old high school to give a talk. My high school is full of British Asians. And I was just like them and what I was trying to do is open their minds up to all the incredible things that people from our community have done. And it's a big part of what we want to do more of in the future.

Amardeep Parmar: So for us, it's a really big milestone and really exciting to get into schools and give those kind of talks and to inspire the next generation. Two days before that was a huge flagship event for us. We have HSBC Innovation Banking, massive. Thank you to the team there. So that's Kofi, Alex, Devon, Naeem, Rachel, Avisha, Divya.

Amardeep Parmar: There's so many people have been involved on their side. I'm sure I've missed people out there. I'm [00:02:00] really sorry, who helped make this event come together. So we had a panel with Dimple Patel, Jay Gujral and Jeff Chowdhury, all incredible entrepreneurs. Make sure to check out that episode when it comes out.

Amardeep Parmar: And we had 120 people there with plenty of VCs. Founders and there was so many people in the room who talked about how they'd often felt lonely on their journey And I was like, well now you all know each other and that was an amazing feeling right to see all those people come together And I don't know how many friends have come out of that How many people are maybe going to collaborate?

Amardeep Parmar: How many people are going to get funded? That's the magic crime. We're going to need more and more of that. Our event before that I believe was at Soho Works with Navjot Sawney. If you haven't heard Navjot Sawhney yet, again, go and find the episode. He's an incredible man. He's created the Washing Machine Project, which is transforming lives across the world.

Amardeep Parmar: And what he's talked about with our small audience there, about 50 people who got to interact with him and he could share the story of how he got to where he is and [00:03:00] how people in the audience could also make an impact. So if that's something that interests you, make sure you check that out. If we rewind a bit further, I did the talk at Sky, that's the Sky, so I was on a panel with three other amazing British Asians.

Amardeep Parmar: For South Asian Heritage Month. And it was incredible to be in that kind of environment and see all of those people to show them what we're doing and to get that platform was just amazing. So big thank you to the team out there again. So that was, you had Raj Mali, you had Navmuka, you had Tasha. So, Lots of people involved there who, and even on the other side of the people, there was Bob's up here as well, who was doing the interviewing there.

Amardeep Parmar: All of them were involved in what we're doing and really excited. So really fantastic to have the opportunity. We've also attended so many incredible events that I don't want to start mentioning them because I'll accidentally forget one and get in trouble. If we look towards the future now, we've got next week at SIFTED Summit.

Amardeep Parmar: So SIFTED is the Financial Times is European startup [00:04:00] publication. We're speaking there with our fishbowl and bring along some of our incredible founders to talk about diversification in tech and how we can get more people involved. So that's a huge moment for us as well, right? We're being put on the stage and put on the same page as the founders of Stripe, the founders of some of these

Amardeep Parmar: giant companies and that's all within our first year. So that's a huge, huge milestone for us and something we're really excited about. We've also got the National Franchise Exhibition on Friday and franchising is a really interesting business space that I didn't really consider before but there's many Asians doing incredible in there.

Amardeep Parmar: So I'm interviewing Safwan and Adam who at the age of 25 started his first CEX franchise and off the back of that he's now grown exponentially. He's had a jam doner kebab. He's had care homes amongst many other things, so really exciting. And if you're in Birmingham, make sure you check that out because you don't often travel up there.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's something which we're going to come to in a bit because that's the idea is to expand more out there. We've got a couple of other events in the pipeline for November, but I can't quite announce them just yet. [00:05:00] And then on the sports side We've had Naeem managing that, who's done a great job.

Amardeep Parmar: And we've had a few different games. We unfortunately lost against Latinas in tech, but we're going to avenge that loss with your help, right? So if you want to get involved, you want to play with us, it's a great way to meet people in a more casual environment. Come along. We're going to be doing a variety of different events as well.

Amardeep Parmar: So we've got these panel events, we've got these podcasts, but we're also going to have other events. So. Anything like that where you think it's a bit different, that can get a different audience involved, let us know. In case you hadn't noticed, the podcast is flying. We're getting some incredible guests on.

Amardeep Parmar: We've already had 76 episodes out. We've got everybody booked up until Christmas. And some incredible names coming on. I don't want to jinx them by naming them now. And I wouldn't name any of the previous podcast guests we've had in the last few months. But make sure you check them out. They've spent their time to try and share their story to inspire you.

Amardeep Parmar: So, check it out. It's a, it's a education that's free and it gives you the role models that you need. to show that you can do this and you will do this. Massive, massive thank you to Desi City , who are our first sponsors. That's Tony [00:06:00] Athwal and his brother, Kenny. They've been big supporters of us and they're officially coming on board on October.

Amardeep Parmar: And we've got somebody else lined up as well, but we can't announce it yet. I've made the mistake of announcing things too early in the past. I'm trying to avoid that now. Desi City are a online marketplace for South Asian goods who are expanding. So they focus on the UK at the moment. They've got thousands more businesses signed up, but they're also expanding globally in the future.

Amardeep Parmar: So keep your eyes out across the world. So again, massive, massive thanks to Desi City. And we're in conversation with so many organizations about sponsorship. But it has been one of the challenges. So we will get into challenges now. So when I did the Q2 update, I was a bit over optimistic about what we could achieve over the summer, because it's the first time we run this over the summer months, we kind of didn't realize that everybody just goes on holiday.

Amardeep Parmar: It's almost impossible to get anything done. And we're resource constrained. We didn't have the capital. So no things that I mentioned in the last. Edition actually came to fruition. We've had to adjust and we've had to go through different challenges. So [00:07:00] what I wanted to announce today is the launch here that we're going to do.

Amardeep Parmar: But first let's go into some of the challenges, right? Because That's the reality of this. There are challenges is that what we've been able to do now is grow so quickly in terms of our network, in terms of people backing us and all these people wanting to talk to us and help us. That's actually difficult to manage that, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Like, how do we get all these people involved in a correct way? And it's one which we think about a lot. It's like, we want to encourage people to get in touch with us. We want to talk to people, but we've got limited resources. We can't talk to everybody. And that's the crux of one of the issues we have.

Amardeep Parmar: And one of the other things we thought is that we'd be able to get sponsorship a lot easier than we have. And that's been a challenge. There's different reasons for that, obviously, but the cost of living crisis is always different things going on has meant this a bit more difficult for us to get some of those corporate sponsorships, and we've been working on that with building relationships.

Amardeep Parmar: But it's still taking a bit of time, right? So if you work for a corporate who potentially would work with us and sponsor us, that would be massive. That would make a huge difference. Because no matter what we've been able to do with just a few of us, [00:08:00] imagine what we could do if we actually had somebody huge backing us.

Amardeep Parmar: And especially in terms of the finances, right? If we could have somebody bankrolling us, and you can see the scrappiness have done. We've been able to build something from nothing. Imagine what we could do. If your company was backing us, if your employee was backing us, one of the other challenges worth mentioning too, is that because we're not for profit, we're quite heavily reliant on volunteers and we're reliant on, we were trying to do some all user generated content, but the challenge is in order to maintain standards to a higher level, there needs to be quite a lot of training involved.

Amardeep Parmar: And what's happening through some of the initiatives we've made is that it was difficult because it actually spent us more time to make those things happen than if we just created content ourselves. So obviously I've got the writing background. I can do that stuff quite quickly without seeming longer to train somebody else to get that ready.

Amardeep Parmar: So in terms of our growing phase, as we get more funding and board, as we are able to get more sponsors, then we can expand the team in that way. Whereas what probably happened now is I focus on like. Get them to a high quality that serves [00:09:00] you well. And then we expand the team later on in terms of those regards.

Amardeep Parmar: And we can expand the team in other directions by the services, but the content are meant to maintain that higher standard. The stories on the website, for example, will be less. And the book club as well, which I mentioned in the last podcast. It's going to be rolled down for the moment, but hopefully I should be able to smash out some of those lessons for you pretty quickly.

Amardeep Parmar: Once there's a longer backlog, we can hope to get more people involved. So that's a little bit on the challenges side and that time management piece, which has always been a challenge, right? So we're learning. We're adapting, we're evolving, we're pivoting when we need to. And we're also taking the advice for our board in dim,

Amardeep Parmar: where we can. And there's so many people who more than we can mention who are also getting involved. So on that note, let's go into the launches that we have coming up, right? Which is really exciting. So first one we have is, oh, let's go for this one first. The ambassador program. So obviously we've been through so many [00:10:00] incredible entrepreneurs and It's one thing to manage that when it's like 10 podcast.

Amardeep Parmar: Now there's 75 people who've been on the podcast. That's massive. And I can't talk to everybody one on one very easily. I can't give them the information that they need to make a bigger impact through us. So what we're launching is this ambassador program, and it's aimed at people who want to publicly back us, put us on their LinkedIn profile, and what they're getting in return, What is a free t shirt?

Amardeep Parmar: Everybody loves a free t shirt and they also get a regular updates from us, which is like an investor update. So anybody who's ever done investing before as an angel investor, you get investor updates, which gives you the behind the scenes information, which is a bit more complicated, which don't necessarily put publicly because there's so much explaining to go on, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So we can make the concise, we give the ask, we show people where we're struggling with the ambassadors and they can offer to help us. And we can also show them the opportunities of where they can make a bigger impact through us and some initiatives we have coming. Because if that's something that they care about and they believe in, we want to get them involved.

Amardeep Parmar: So that ambassador program is [00:11:00] being launched at the moment. There'll be a link in the show notes, most likely, about how you can get involved in that. And we're going to onboard people that we already know well first before expanding it because one of the big things of any organization, especially at this early stage, we get the wrong people on board that can really poison the company and create that toxic atmosphere, which we really want to avoid.

Amardeep Parmar: We want to bring, we want to bring those people on who are really going to make a difference, who really believe in us and really believe in what we're doing. Next is the lab podcast. So you might notice the episode didn't come up when it was meant to, right? And part of it is just to stay busy. Not gonna lie, but it's also because we're now shifting the episodes.

Amardeep Parmar: So the lab podcast is coming out on Mondays and the founder podcast is coming out on Fridays. Reason is a lot of people are working from home on those two days, which we should hopefully see more people being able to watch the episode on the day it comes out and not get in trouble with their boss. So what is the lab podcast?

Amardeep Parmar: The founder podcast, the one which you're used to, is with founders, people who tell their story. How do they get to where they are? Now there's also so many [00:12:00] people who didn't start their own companies. But also have valuable information, or they run consultancies where they run other things that are tangential as opposed to product based businesses.

Amardeep Parmar: So what we're doing there is we're getting people on the lab podcast, so people who've created, who are running massive companies and have really great leadership skills or domain expertise. People who are head of product, head of people, CPOs, CMOs, those kinds of people and get them to dive really deep at Tactical Insight Lab.

Amardeep Parmar: Because as we've mentioned, it's inspire, connect, and scale. And that scaling part needs that information. The main podcast, the Founders Podcast, gives you the inspiration. And some of the tips, but that lab one will really dive into the tactical information to be able to make you, once you've been inspired to make your dream a reality.

Amardeep Parmar: So I'm really excited about that because I'm incredible, I guess, coming on. We've also got that booked out until the end of the year. We're very, very privileged to be, have the people that want to help us and get involved to want to help us and get involved. Like [00:13:00] we're counting our blessings every day, but that's really exciting.

Amardeep Parmar: And it also enables us to create content, which is easily searchable. from a CA perspective and create smaller chunks. So in an episode of say 30 minutes, there could be, if somebody wants to answer this one burning question, we have a five minute video on that. And that'd be one of the questions from the episode.

Amardeep Parmar: Another long chat that's coming soon is BAEwatch. So BAEwatch, very proud of the pun, is us highlighting people who aren't quite at the podcast level yet. Podcast level for the Founder podcast is 1 million fundraise or 5 million revenue. Let's say somebody's a little bit below that, but they're a rising star.

Amardeep Parmar: We want to showcase them so other people know who they are and potentially they can get investors. We can help them out in that way. So it's gonna be a format that's going to come up for that. We'll be featuring somebody every week. If it's going well, we're getting the traction. We might do it more than once a week, but it's all to be experimented with, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So if you're in the earlier stage and you want to get featured, let us know, reach out to us. through the form. So you've got a contact form in [00:14:00] the BAE HQ website. Make sure you fill up that. And when we say somebody rising, what about somebody creating a company that eventually will do millions in revenue?

Amardeep Parmar: That's our kind of idea because at the moment we're focusing on that startups scene as opposed to small business. Another exciting thing coming up is our angel network, which Gover is leading. And this will be all about getting people who've got a bit of extra cash. They're looking to invest in startups.

Amardeep Parmar: To help them along that journey, pull their money together so they don't need to invest as much, so we can help Shreya make a difference for some of the British Asian founders who are struggling to raise capital, despite having great ideas. So, there's one thing that's often said, which is that underrepresented founders are over mentored and underfunded.

Amardeep Parmar: We can't just be doing the mentorship, we also need to be doing that funding side, and that's what we're trying to aim for. So, expect that to ramp up over the next six months, up to a year. It's not something we can rush into, because we've got to be very careful about the financial side of things, and making sure that we're giving the people involved all of the right information, so they're making accurate [00:15:00] decisions for themselves.

Amardeep Parmar: and also make sure that legally we're doing everything by the book because we don't want to go to jail. Before we head off, let's jump into one of the more nitty gritty parts, right? So the BAE HQ has been not for profit so far, right? And the legal side of this is really complicated and it's something which we were learning about, we didn't know about.

Amardeep Parmar: And how it works now, so what we're planning to do is we're going to have The BAE HQ impact and the BAE HQ limited. So the BAE HQ impact is all the not for profit stuff. Everything you've been seeing so far, everything in the public domain. And the idea from that is that we're making that so it doesn't make profit.

Amardeep Parmar: It's all going back into the business or going back out into inspiring, connecting and scaling the audience, right? So we want to actually make a difference to that. But at the same time, this has been one year of us bootstrapping this. That's us paying for it ourselves. And now we're just getting partners on board and it's helping out, but at the same time, that's covering the cost.

Amardeep Parmar: It's not making us a living that we can then make sure that our bank balance [00:16:00] doesn't get a massive hole in it. So what we're doing on that side is we're working with larger organizations, venture capital funds, big startups, big scale ups. and we're offering them bespoke services on the private side that they pay for.

Amardeep Parmar: And the idea of that with the Robin Hood model is that those guys pay us so that we don't need to take money out of the BAEHQ and the BAE HQ impact is what majority of the public facing stuff is going to be. So that naming culture might be a bit confusing, but basic idea is BAE HQ impact, not for profit, majority of what we're doing, all about making it accessible, all about inspiring the next generation.

Amardeep Parmar: The BAE HQ Limited. Is where we're going to do advisory work and work and helping people get investments. We're just going to be where we're going to get paid from ourselves. And that enables us to keep going and not have to get day jobs and not have to get income from other sources. So I hope that makes sense and feel free to drop us a question if you need to, but we've got so much exciting things going on and we want you to get [00:17:00] involved.

Amardeep Parmar: If you're not already, make sure you sign up to us show notes. You can also join our WhatsApp group. And that helps you to see announcements to get involved in Amarama, where you can see, well, it's me on 8am to 9am every Monday morning on our YouTube channel. You can ask us anything and you can also meet a bunch of like minded people who are also trying to grow and scale their businesses.

Amardeep Parmar: So there's a few different ways to get involved there. And amongst the other things we've mentioned earlier in the podcast. So we really want you to get involved. This is the whole idea of a community. And we're excited to meet you guys, see you at future events, hear from you. So make sure you get in touch and thank you so much for listening.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello, hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening. It means a huge amount to us and we don't think you realize how important you are because if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you leave us a five star review, it makes a world of difference. And if you believe in what we're trying to do here.

Amardeep Parmar: To [00:18:00] inspire, connect and guide the next generation British Asians. If you do those things, you can help us achieve that mission and you can help us make a bigger impact. And by doing that, it means we can get bigger guests. We can host more events. We can do more for the community. So you can play a huge part.

Amardeep Parmar: So thank you so much for supporting us.

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