How To Surround Yourself With The Right People as a Founder w/ Ash Arora | Local Globe

Ash Arora: [00:00:00] So I've even heard this, like, I want to go for the investor that has the maximum Twitter followers. A web3 founder said that to me.

Amardeep Parmar: Today we're talking all about how to find the right people for your startup. We'll talk through how to find the right people as investors, that founder investor fit, how to find people on your board, when you should get people on your board, how to find the right co founders and managing that relationship, which can be really difficult.

Amardeep Parmar: And then also there's early hires and how to find the right people there. And we have with us an absolute powerhouse in Ash Arora, who is the youngest ever partner at Local Globe. Which is the number one venture capital fund in the European, Middle East and Asia region. She's got a wealth of experience of working so many different portfolio companies.

Amardeep Parmar: So she's seen all the mistakes that have been made and helped many of the people find the right people for their startup. So Ashley, you've worked with so many different companies and so many different startups. And today [00:01:00] you want to talk about people and why it's so important. Why do you think the people element is so important to a startup?

Ash Arora:  Yeah, I think that's a very good question. Um, I think at an overarching level, we can talk all day about the different advancements of technology. We can talk about, I mean, I do blockchain AI and whatnot, right? So that's basically the most complicated advanced technologies that exist in the world today.

Ash Arora: What I have noticed are the very fundamental issues that come between founders. Or within their own teams or within their own boards as the company grows further. So the most advanced companies as well have their own people issues. Um, and not to kind of, um, sort of make too big of a point about the open AI board incident recently.

Ash Arora: But I think that just goes to show that a lot can happen, a 50 billion market cap sort of erasing can happen if you do not have the sort of the right understanding with the people that you work with and you don't surround yourself with the people that you need. To take something forward. So, yeah, I think all the [00:02:00] way from investors board, um, the team that you hire, the team that they hire for the, um, and everyone in your life as well.

Ash Arora: Right. Like it's all about the right kind of people being around you all the time to actually make your success. 

Amardeep Parmar: So obviously at the moment you, you're a master and it's a very important relationship between the founder and investor, right? And also you're going to say you're the right type of investor, but what do you think makes it for a founder when they're looking for getting the right investors on board and the right people in that circle?

Amardeep Parmar: What should they be looking for? 

Ash Arora: So, you know, I'll, I'll actually answer this question by telling you how I decided which fund to work for. Um, so, you know, I'm still in my twenties. I was very clear that I want to work for a team, a fund that, um, truly values the same, um, sort of you know, philosophies that I have in mind, and I created like a 52 parameter framework, which was both on a personal personality kind of side, like EQ side, as well as like the capability, the technical capability and the financial capability side.[00:03:00] 

Ash Arora: Um, so I'm an LPs are generally considered, um, sort of, um, sort of really smart investors because they're looking at funds to invest in and not just businesses. So, um, that's basically the way I actually approached this entire thing. I thought that, hey, if I'm an LP, which fund do I invest in? Because if I'm joining a fund, it's basically me investing my life into the fund, if not capital.

Ash Arora: So, um, I created like a framework which had 52 parameters. All the way from, um, sort of the day to day, the culture of the team, also stuff like how many previous unicorn founders are LPs in the current fund, because that indirectly shows you what kind of value the fund brought to the sort of the business that ended up succeeding very well.

Ash Arora: So it's stuff like that. So basically it was very sort of detailed way of looking at different funds. And that's exactly how I recommend to founders. Before you select the investor that you actually raise capital from, and a lot of the good founders are spoiled for choice. It's a good problem to have, right?

Ash Arora: It's a problem of plenty. That's always good [00:04:00] if you have multiple term sheets. So how do you at that point decide, Hey, which are the investors I want to work with? A lot of founders can say, Hey, I want to go with the biggest font size. I want to go for the biggest brand. I want to go for, so I've even heard this, like I want to go for the investor that has the maximum Twitter followers.

Ash Arora: A Web3 founder said that to me. So I mean, everybody has their own benchmarks and ways of identifying the best investor to work with. What I recommend is speak to the founders that are already there in the portfolio. That shows you the founder NPS of the investor, and then speak to the founders that they passed on.

Ash Arora: Or they couldn't win the deal, right? So basically founders that they were in touch with, they have spent some time with, but ended up not investing or vice versa. And, um, try to understand that anti portfolio founder NPS. So that goes to show whether there was any significant shift in before and [00:05:00] after the investment for that one investor.

Ash Arora: Look at, um, you know, parameters for a seasoned investor. You should look at stuff like Um, at what point in a failing company did the investor exit the board? Were they the first person to exit the board? That generally indicates they don't want to be part of a sinking ship. They don't want to help out the investor, the founder at the worst possible time.

Ash Arora: You should also look at, um, sort of other things like how many sort of, if they're an early stage investor, how many early stage to growth stage companies in their portfolio were able to raise growth capital, and whether that's above or below industry standard. That will also, also show how tightly close their relationship is to the growth investors.

Ash Arora: So I mean, I can go on and on, but there are so many different ways of identifying who are the right investors to work with. You should also always look for complementarity. So as a founder, if you're very technical, you should not sort of look for those same specific um, attributes in the people that you sort of hire as a co [00:06:00] founder or your senior management or in your boardroom or investors, there should always be a balance, right?

Ash Arora: As your board grows, you should always strive for that balance. It's not about, Hey, you need to have like brown women in the board, but you also need to have enough diverse voices because, um, in my experience, the more diversity, the better GDM strategies for different avenues and markets, which basically translates into multiple sources of revenue.

Amardeep Parmar: So as you  mentioned, there's some people, sometimes the investors on the board themselves, right? Especially the bigger investors. But as we saw with open AI, you can have other people on the board who have a huge impact on what happens in the business. So I don't know if I've kept up to date with exactly what's happened now because it kept changing.

Amardeep Parmar: The original board of OpenAI, I think there's only one person who's still on it. And that was a huge, that caused a massive amount of chaos. And it seems like everything is more or less the same now afterwards, but it creates huge trauma. Maybe it was just a way to get rid of the board. It was just a hidden way to do [00:07:00] that.

Amardeep Parmar: But as we've now seen is the power of that board. And when a founder is looking for who to get on their board, that isn't an investor. What can they look for that? Like, how can they, is it trying to balance out the investors and the investor specialties or what's good traits in a board member?

Ash Arora: I think that's a phenomenally amazing question.

Ash Arora: I think, um, there are multiple ways to think about it. One is definitely from see open eyes and exception. It's not, it's not the rule. It's the exception to the rule. Um, you generally don't have foundation structures, which are not for profit or nonprofit, and then you're hiring people for the board and then you're paying them a certain amount and it's a whole different dynamic. For majority founders

Ash Arora: you have like a, like a established sort of company where you have to give board rights to your investors. Um, so had that been the case, Microsoft would have been on the board. So Microsoft has now taken a non voting seat on the board and I'm not sure who from Microsoft, but I'm guessing like somebody [00:08:00] who's very close to SATA and Satya himself will be sitting on that board.

Ash Arora: So, um, yeah, you need to basically get the investors because hey, they are involved. They have skin in the game. Your success is their success. Even if you guys don't get along, both of you want the same thing. Um, what I like to tell people is an investor is an employee that you cannot fire. Always keep this in mind.

Ash Arora: Um, they are basically always going to be around if as long as they're on your cap table and you need to pick the right investor because of this reason. So investors, in my opinion, should always be a part of the board because their KPI is aligned to yours. And they are not thinking in multiple different directions.

Ash Arora: A lot of board members, they might have different incentives of, Hey, I want PR or Hey, I want to like get a higher paying NED role, like non executive director role from another business. So their incentives could be misaligned while an investor would always be like, Hey, I want your top line and bottom line to grow as much as possible.

Ash Arora: Right? Like that's all the investor wants. Always have investor on your boards, but also at the same time, do not [00:09:00] give board seats to investors very early on. Do not give, in my opinion, you should never give board seats to an investor pre product. So that is whenever, you know, pre seed, seed, pre series A, at whatever stage you are, you should not be giving board seats to your investors.

Ash Arora: Once you have the product, you have a market, you're, you know, at the precipice of launching it or entering a market, or you're right about to start making money. Get your investors on the board, right? Because then they'll have good contributions to make in the meetings. And then apart from that, you have to basically also have somebody within your own team that should be on the board.

Ash Arora: So the board should be reflective of the business, right? Investors have skin in the game. They're involved in the business. The founder CEO is running the business. He or she is obviously involved in the business that then comes the team, like the senior management or your co founder or whoever. Somebody else from that side should also be on the board.

Ash Arora: If not today, eventually, right? You could have like sort of an ESOP pool and you might end up giving them a lot of equity if they stay around for a while. And then [00:10:00] it makes sense for them to join the board because they own enough of the business. So it's wise. He was at the board should reflect the capital and the capital should reflect the board.

Ash Arora: As simple as that, so that incentives are aligned. Apart from that, as the business matures, at times you need sort of external board members that will add value to the business. This could be, you know, an initial angel investor who's been very close to the business and is in general like a very popular non executive director for business businesses as well.

Ash Arora: And you feel that that person can really truly add value to the business on a day to day basis. They could be a part of the board. Um, you could always say, Hey, I wanna take my company public. And um, this is basically a moment of reckoning that has started happening in a large number of businesses. A decade after building, they realized that, hey, we are an all male board.

Ash Arora: We don't have women, we don't have that voice. And a large number of times, a couple of women, like from internal sort of business, um, verticals, they are promoted to the board or they are from the sort of investors, somebody else from that fund, joint [00:11:00] support or like an external one. And that's when, um, you need to realize that you need to kind of push out your company going public a little bit more because with these diverse voices in the room, your businesses might just open up further.

Ash Arora: And it's not just about, hey, start selling to like women or whatever. It's also to do with having that level of empathy and looking at the business from sort of, you know, from a, like a physiologically different perspective and seeing that, Hey, there's a possibility of doing A, B and C promoting a couple of people, et cetera, et cetera, that could be value add.

Ash Arora: This is just, again, speaking from a lot of historical precedents. So yeah, I think the board needs to be reflective of the cap tables to start with, and then reflective of where the business is headed to ensure that you are meeting the demands of not just the business, but also the customers on the market that you service.

Amardeep Parmar: One thing I think you said was really interesting there about not getting people on the board at the pre seed and seed level as investors. Have you ever seen any conflict there [00:12:00] where let's say the founders thinking like, okay, it's not a good time to get people on the board now, obviously not yourself, but other investors have tried to kind of force themselves onto the board and to get that structure in place.

Amardeep Parmar: And how could a founder deal with that situation? 

Ash Arora: Yeah, see that happens very often. So all of this is generally something that you have to negotiate before you take capital from the investors, right? So there's the long form legal documents that are signed at the end of every investment and the lead investor or investors, they always put these kind of clauses.

Ash Arora: So it's very important that you read these documents before you go ahead and sign them. And if they are signed, then, you know, till the next fundraise, nobody can force you to give a boat seat. My opinion generally is, you know, it's fine if they are taking a boat seat. I feel my, as an investor, I feel it's always better that the founders and the co founders are heads down building, initially.

Ash Arora: Because see, there's got to be a lot of voices in the room already. You'll have to [00:13:00] iterate a lot. It's very rare that the product that you see at that C stage deck is the one that materializes and is still the product at let's say series B, series C. You go through so many pivots in life. So I feel that you need to be doing that in silo.

Ash Arora: You need to do that. You need to figure it out. It was your idea to begin with. You need to sort of discuss it with your own co founders and your team. And the investor should be used as a sounding board, not as a co founder. So what generally happens is, um, if the investor has taken a board seat at that early stage, they become like a co founder.

Ash Arora: They really want to kind of put down their voice because they've done the diligence on the initial product. They feel that works. So then they just want to generally like stick to that as opposed to letting the founder have their freedom in terms of iterating. And maybe three months later, the founder comes back and says, okay, no, that initial idea was the right one.

Ash Arora: Let's build that. Having that freedom is, I think, very important for a builder, which, which is why I would not generally encourage a board seat before Series A. 

Amardeep Parmar: And it was about the co [00:14:00] founder relationship there as well. And it's one of the most difficult things and as you obviously know, there's going to be so many companies that end up not working out because of arguments between the co founders or they go in different directions.

Amardeep Parmar: What advice can you give on that front where you've seen some of those relationships and which ones are high performing and work well? 

Ash Arora: So, you know, a lot of founders actually go through that journey. Um, I've now seen several, um, equations and relationships where the initial co founder said did not last even until series A sometimes.

Ash Arora: Or let's say they split after series B, series C, it just, it depends. So, you know, there are lots of these, there are two aspects to it, or maybe three aspects to it. So one is like the personal consideration. Maybe the one of the co founders went through something personally, which is what is preventing them to kind of give their all and, you know, justify the equity and sort of captable ownership that they have understandable happens life, you know, like basically things happen.

Ash Arora: So that's why it's fine if they want to move out. [00:15:00] So that is generally a very complication free way of exiting. Then the other two situations are generally where one is the vision of the founders is conflicting. They are very good friends. They love working together, but they are having in and out day and night fights and arguments where they are just sort of, um, unable to align on the same sort of path forward.

Ash Arora: Now there's, um, what advice I generally give to founders in that situation is focus on the war, not the battle. You know, it's fine if there's like one deck, one slide or like one higher that you completely disagree with. That's, that's not defining for the business. What is defining for the business is runway, right?

Ash Arora: Like how much salary, let's say you're giving out to like, not just one, but like multiple employees. Um, you know, what exactly is your product roadmap looking like? What exactly is the market you want to sell? It's like basically think of the bigger picture instead of just fighting over like the sort of the smaller things.

Ash Arora: So lose the battle, but try to win [00:16:00] the war together. So that's something that basically I generally kind of see, um, sort of, and we have to advise on, but again, a good investor, which is something I'm still trying to learn, spots that early. It's basically prevention is better than cure, right? So basically, if the sort of too many battles have been won by one or the other, then it's very difficult to get the other person to be still aligned for winning the war.

Ash Arora: Um, and by then I think an investor intervention is just too late. So it's better to see, it's better to not be on the board, but individually speak to the co founders and the founder in the businesses that you've invested in, as opposed to just being on the board and everybody's smiling and happy. And then six months later, you're like, Oh shit, this fight has been going on for two years.

Ash Arora: So let's not be blindsided. Right. So that is definitely something that you see in the second situation. And then the third is generally like an ego issue, which is more common than you would expect. And this is also why investors look at how long you've known each other as founders and co-founders, [00:17:00] um, before you actually start, um, sort of working together or you start a business together.

Ash Arora: Um, a lot of them are also sort of to start demanding more or less equity depending upon their value add to the business. Like who's spending more time that results in ego issues because hey if I'm not spending time does that mean my value is lesser? You know it's it's basically those kind of issues come up and there's no cure for that.

Ash Arora: There's literally like the earlier you split the two people up the better um because the later it gets, it's messier because then the vesting question comes in and ownership of equity and generally at early stage, like they own significant amount of equity in the business. And if that business grows up, then there's like a royalty thing as well.

Ash Arora: Like we've seen so many different types of structures. So the earlier you split the better try to work it out, but then just sort of the minute you spot this and things immediately. So I think that's basically the three situations that we see and the solutions to address those. 

Amardeep Parmar: Hey everyone. I hope you're enjoying this [00:18:00] episode so far.

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Amardeep Parmar: And I guess it must be really tough from your perspective, where you've got the two, or you've got multiple co founders and as an investor, you're trying to work out in a way, like how do you, because you care about the company and the mission, right?

Amardeep Parmar: As well. So it's like, how do you get the company to function? But you've also got like dynamics between different people going on there as well. So you mentioned there about people arguing over hiring, right? The co founders, how to find the right people. What advice do you give there? Let's say you've got somebody in your portfolio.

Amardeep Parmar: [00:19:00] One co founder wants to hire in a certain way. The other one wants to hire in a different way. What advice would you give? 

Ash Arora: So I think that that is again, very common. And what we actually advise right after, let's say a seed fundraise, the, all the co founders in the room need to split up verticals. That's basically the way it should work.

Ash Arora: Somebody should look after all tech verticals, all tech hiring. They are the last veto. On the business side, somebody should do that. There could be somebody who is kind of managing like the business vertical, there are so many, so like that could be split into two. Um, and then there could be somebody who is only, only doing fundraising.

Ash Arora: So they don't really get a say of, you know, sort of like hiring. So yeah, basically as long as you have like two, three, four co founders. And anything more than four becomes very difficult to manage. Um, so you just basically need to split responsibilities early on and just have an end, like an end designated veto power given to one co founder who will decide.

Ash Arora: And then the others need to [00:20:00] respect the decision. Now there's a situation where after a couple of years, this sort of does not work out because you can clearly see inefficiencies and one co-founder's judgment. For example, that's when you basically take guidance from investors and investors in that case, I'm an Uber being one of the biggest examples.

Ash Arora: Um, I think it was the COO or like head of BD or whatever, who was hired by benchmark, um, and pleased within like under the CEO. Right. That is when investors can step in and say, Hey, let's try to get you somebody who can manage this. Um, and instead of giving one of the co founders, the widow power, you basically give this person as well as that one single co founder, the widow power, so that then the, the two of them can sort of discuss it out.

Ash Arora: And everyone is a first principle thinker, I think when they're building. So that new employee can wrap like rationally have a discussion with that co founder and say, Hey, these are the five reasons why I think this is the right goal. So it's stuff like that, that you basically have to kind of manage or [00:21:00] bringing that one employee could also be like a good buffer because instead of the co founder managing all those people, this one person can manage all of them.

Ash Arora: And this is the one person that reports into that co founder. So then it becomes like a very easy to manage kind of a kind of a structure instead of saying, Hey, the co founder should leave because I'm sure that they're bringing in other value add to the. So, yeah, that's, that's way, that's the way again, we've seen a large number of sort of, um, hiding issues get resolved.

Amardeep Parmar: And bringing in leaders to your company as well.

Amardeep Parmar: When it's, as I found, it's your baby. It's really hard to let up that control. How do you, it's a strange stuff. The right people you're bringing in. The leaders who were one aligned with the mission, but also push you forwards, right? Because if you just hire people that you can control, then you're not really pushing the business forwards. 

Ash Arora: Yeah, no, that's a very, very valid point. Um, you know, that that is a situation where it does become tricky. Um, you don't want yes men and yes women around you. You want, you [00:22:00] know, sort of different schools of thoughts and to feel like you're being challenged and looking at the market in a disruptive, innovative way.

Ash Arora: But at the same time, you also need to, um, sort of respect the people who started it early on, you know, there needs to be a certain level of. understanding that without them, this business would not exist. Um, so yeah, I think it's, it's, like I said, it's all about hiring the right people. You could go through a churn, but if you're going to through too much of a churn, either your hiring capabilities are really wrong or your culture is really pathetic that the right people are not able to thrive.

Ash Arora: So generally it's important to sort of streamline both of these processes at the same time. And that's where investors are very valuable because we keep track of these kind of things. We give the founder a heads up. Hey, your churn is above average, right? Take a look in your business because when you're building, you can miss these kinds of things.

Ash Arora: So it's, it's, it's critical that you sort of [00:23:00] know how to actually run a business. Um, that's why you see, you know, like a lot of these new founders, while I generally younger, they say, Oh, VCs don't like us. We don't have enough experience. But the thing is, this is what experience teaches you. Um, if you've run a business off, let's say, managing 500 people in the past, no VC would have to ever intervene.

Ash Arora: You already know the shit like, like the back of your hand. So again, it's very important to work with the right people. As well as, um, have the right critical sort of aspects of your business top of mind.

Amardeep Parmar: So we've covered quite a wide range of people here, but I know you've, there's so many areas that we could cover too, but before we go on to quickfire questions, is there any other lessons about people that you really like to cover before we go into that?

Ash Arora:  Oh, wow. That's a good one. I think some of the best leaders generally are very people driven. Um, and, um, what I've seen, like some of the best founders that I have worked with, um, they are very technical, [00:24:00] they may or may not have a computer science degree themselves. They may be like the handling the non tech side of their business and their CTO is like their co founder.

Ash Arora: But they themselves are very technical, they understand the tech inside out. They make it a point to sort of be there for their tech team if let's say the co founder is out sick. You know, um, what, what do you do then? And especially during the pandemic, this was like a big deal because people were falling sick or their loved ones were falling sick.

Ash Arora: And that results in like mental health sickness in a way, right? So you basically know how to be there for all different aspects of your business. That is very important. That's number one. Um, number two would be recognizing the true talent, um, and appreciating it. So generally what happens is, you know, there are hierarchies in all businesses, um, beyond a certain point when like the team is let's say larger than 1015, the founder is not really doing one on one catch ups with all of them.

Ash Arora: So what happens is there are hierarchies and it's very important to pick the layer that's managing the next layer because they [00:25:00] will hire people like them. So if they are, let's say, pretending to be someone and you are believing that, they would hire people again who will be similar and then the amount of output that will come will not be compounded.

Ash Arora: It'll actually be really simplified. So again, it's very important to sort of identify what are the capabilities that you need in the people that are working directly with you and ensuring that they're the right ones. Now, a lot of founders, what we've seen as early on, they feel the people that started working with them initially should always

Ash Arora: benefit from the success of the business, not necessarily true because what it takes for a business to go from zero to one is different from what it, what it takes to go from one to 10. Some of the best leaders are able to make this hard decision, which is that, Hey, this person is no longer fit for the business.

Ash Arora: You have given them a salary. You, they I'm assuming that if you value them so much, they would have some sort of equity. If they've lasted in the business, a lot of it would have invested. It's time for them to [00:26:00] move on. The right founders are able to make these hard decisions. So that's again a very, very important thing as a leader that you have to identify.

Ash Arora: And, um, lastly, you have to also be very, very cognizant of what's happening at the lowest level of people. Um, there are founders that are sometimes shocked when they read their glass door reviews or whatever reviews online. They're like, Hey, this is not my business. Like, what are they saying? Like culture is this.

Ash Arora: And like, we were doing this to them or we didn't listen to this and we are not supporting innovative ideas. Uh, kind of goes back to like the layer of managers that you hire, but at the same time, it's very important to be sort of open, like just when you're in your office. And I'm very pro, by the way, I hate companies that are a hundred percent remote.

Ash Arora: Now, honestly, I love people who basically founders who are like, even if they are remote, they make it a point once a month, once in a couple of months, trying to get the team together at least once a year. And spending time with everybody. And you see dynamics, you [00:27:00] see how people behave with each other.

Ash Arora: And if you can see it from the corner of your eye and you spot it and then you address it, those are some of the best leaders that we've seen. Even in crypto, I've seen like 100 percent of more businesses meeting like twice a year for like one to two weeks. And then the founders being able to spot stuff like this, um, very quickly and then addressing them immediately as well.

Ash Arora: So those would be some of the best qualities that I've seen in leaders. Absolutely. 

Amardeep Parmar: Because it's one of the things where when companies are remote, it's very hard to tell how good a leader somebody is because sometimes the people underneath them wouldn't give back the feedback because they'd be worried about it playing back on them.

Amardeep Parmar: Right. So then you just never find out there's an office environment. You can see, Oh, they seem to be shouting at me. So it's much more official. So we're going to move on to the quick fire questions now. Thank you so much for everything you've said so far. So the first one is who are free British Asians 

Amardeep Parmar: that you think you're doing incredible work that you'd love to spotlight?

Ash Arora: Oh, that's a, that's a very good question. I would, I mean, I mean, this is now going to be, um, sort of like a very predictable [00:28:00] answer from me because you already know them. So one would be Nikita, who is running Included VC. I think she's doing God's work.

Ash Arora: Um, she is incredible. Um, she, um, sort of is truly vested in the success of everyone that she is trying to convert into an investor and her fellows just speak very highly. Like I said, founder NPS, right. For investors, for her, it's her fellow NPS. So it's, it's. Off the charts. Um, whenever I spoke to anyone I've come across from included, it's, it's just been really incredible.

Ash Arora: So it goes without saying, I think Niki, um, the second would be Saloni. Um, Saloni, she's running Pink Salt Ventures. Um, I think the grit and determination that this girl has raising a fund. The very first one in the UK, which is going to be focused on female founders in this kind of a market and the day to day trials and tribulations that she's put through and she goes through is very inspiring the way she actually answers, you [00:29:00] know, these, these concerns and

Ash Arora: the shit she's gone through because of being like a woman and that to like a brown woman in, in, um, the world of VC is very, very inspiring. So definitely her. And then the third one is, yeah, I'd say Mahadi. Um, because of his idea behind what he's trying to build, as well as, um, the, the kind of leader he already is, you know, he is somebody who's like, You know, he was 40 and a 30 and he got like so many different accolades, but he is somebody who's not complacent.

Ash Arora: Um, and being that way at, you know, in your, in your late twenties, early thirties, and still going at it being like, Hey, I've still not done anything. That kind of an attitude. That's rare because a lot of people get complacent. They get a little bit of success and they're like, Hey, I've made it. So, um, yeah, I think I'm just very impressed by that DNA and honestly trying to imbibe some of that in me.

Ash Arora: As well. So, um, yeah, these would be the three. 

Amardeep Parmar:Yeah.  So [00:30:00] as you know, I know all of those three in there, like I said, they're all amazing. The next question is if people want to find out more about you, find out more about Local Globe, where should they go to?

Ash Arora: My Twitter, my LinkedIn, my random Twitter spaces that I host, even my Instagram, honestly, I just post a lot of shit there.

Ash Arora: Um, yeah, I think, um, yeah, just in general, I think as a fund, we're very active on LinkedIn. So there's a lot of thought pieces and sort of, um, sort of leadership, um, quotes, et cetera, that we, um, keep on posting that our latest updates are also there. 

Amardeep Parmar: And if people listen to that, it could help you in any way.

Amardeep Parmar: What do you need help with? What could they reach out to help you with?

Ash Arora: Oh my God, I need so much help. So I would say if you're building something, you have a creative idea. If you have experienced something, let's say on the people's side, maybe you've experienced like, this is not a platform to pitch about people.

Ash Arora: It's more about lessons and life learnings that you've taken away from incidents that you've gone through. Again, very [00:31:00] interesting, very thought provoking. Um, and yeah, if you're building in AI, Web3, health, any of the cool innovative spaces, feel free to just reach out. My DMs are always open. 

Amardeep Parmar: So thank you so much for coming in today and feel very lucky to have had you on.

Amardeep Parmar: Have you got any final words to the audience? 

Ash Arora: Yeah, um, keep building. It's a, it's a difficult market. Cash is king or cash is queen, whatever, whatever you want to call it. Um, it's, it's a, it's a difficult market to hire. It's a difficult market to sell. It's difficult to raise, but, um, you just have to kind of weather the storm, right?

Ash Arora: That's how, that's how best builders come out like Airbnb, Uber. Um, and a bunch of others, they were started in like one of the worst recessions in the US. So let's, let's kind of keep that top of mind. When, when capital is easily accessible, see everyone gets it. If you're getting capital today or any kind of support or hiring capabilities or good team members today, You're already at the top of the pyramid, so recognize that relative to everyone else and not just relative to different years and different [00:32:00] markets, um, and just keep building, you know, it's, it takes a lot.

Ash Arora: It's a, it's a sort of like a mental health thing. It's like, you know, at the gym when you start, you cannot even lift like five kilos. And then within a couple of months, you're literally warming up yourself with five kilos. That's basically where you need to kind of get to. So just keep that in mind. And if you decide in your, like your mental health is strong enough and you decide you want to do something, you will do it.

Ash Arora: So that's basically what I would, um, strongly recommend.

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 to 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.

Amardeep Parmar: And by doing that, it means we can get bigger guests. [00:33:00] We can host more events. We can do more for the community so you can play a huge part. So thank you so much for supporting us.

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