Bootstrapping Your Dreams Show

Introduction to Dev Gadhvi 
(0:28) Today, we are going to have a very interesting discussion with Dev Gadhvi. Dev has a very inspirational story — I will request him to introduce himself and share a little bit about his story. But he's one of the leading entrepreneurs, mentors, and coaches, who help 1000s and 1000s of people around the globe, find their passion and build a business around their passion. So welcome. Very excited to have you here. 

Highlights 

(1:29) I was brought up in Adipur Kutch Gujrat. While growing up, the first 20 years were very difficult, didn't have the money or resources to get an English medium education. The next phase of my life was 16 years, which was typically a nine-to-five life. And I started developing my skills in sales, marketing, branding, and book writing, that phase got me to the third phase of life. That's when I met my first mentor Grant Cardone who gave me a new perspective.

(14:02) …90% of businesses fail in the first five years, then the remaining 9% out of 10% fail in the next five years And there’s a common pattern for that — the root cause of businesses failing is a lack of clarity, mission, and vision. Most of them started because they want to copy somebody. Let me just ride the wave you know, everybody is going into crypto, NFT, and so on. You need to be unique in order to win — how can you be you? Most people just focus on demand, what does the market want? Let me just do that. They're not passionate about it. They may or may not have skills, that's why they fail. So knowing who you are, what is your mission, and what is your vision — makes yous unique. Because businesses can be similar but you are unique. 

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After working with hundreds of investors, what I’ve found is savvy investors only invest in businesses that they really understand. And they don't go around looking for all kinds of opportunities out there. They just pick a niche. And they get experts at that. Because they really understand these companies — they can see where the founder is trying to take them. And then they can help provide some direction, connections, and networking opportunities for these founders. And these are the kinds of investors who become insanely successful while playing the venture capitalist game. So if you're looking to raise money and connect with the right investor, but don't know how to go about it, let us know. We'll be happy to help you.

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Well, the key is to share that idea and have a lot of conversations with a lot of people. So whenever I have to test an idea, without even creating a landing page without even creating any kind of prototype — I start talking to my network. I share that idea and say, “Hey, you know, I've been thinking about this idea. What do you think about it? Do you think this is a real problem in the business world, in the B2B community, B2C community…” Whatever the target audience seems to be, I go to my network, and I start sharing that idea and getting honest feedback. And I tell them, hey, just be brutally honest. If you think it's a funny idea, just tell me straight up. If you think it has value, then tell me what kind of value it has.

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The best-kept secret in the startup world is that your network is your net worth. I have noticed the difference between the clients who are really successful, and the clients who just struggle. And the difference is that people who I mentor and coach and who follow my advice — go out there and have conversations, expand their network, and spread their influence.  Those are the people who find success very easily and very quickly. If you are a business owner or a startup founder, you must focus on getting out there building these connections, and networking with other influential people in your industry.

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In order to overcome the imposter syndrome, you should always look back at how far you have already come. Like just draw that trajectory on a graph — I’ve never seen any life journey, which goes up and then all of a sudden crashes down. if you can read the pattern that continues to go up… So when you notice how far you have come, you can only project how far you need to go. But you can appreciate, the winds along the way, and you can appreciate your own success. And you can acknowledge it to get rid of the imposter syndrome and say to yourself that yes, you have arrived. 

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Credibility is so important these days, we are living in an attention economy. Even if they are paying attention but you don't seem credible enough — then they are not going to do any business with you. So how do you build this credibility very rapidly? Well, Showcase the results you're getting for your current clients & customers. Research has shown that 92% of people rely on the results of others who are in the same social & economic status — they look like us & they talk like us, and they are very similar to us. And if they are able to get the results from your product or service, they will be convinced that they can get similar results.

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Introduction to Arun Patnaik

(00:30 )Arun has an amazing story — right now he's a vice president in Oracle. And he's working on some really exciting projects, which we will talk about. But he also has a very interesting story similar to mine, he came from India, from a remote village, and now he's managing a team of about 250. So let's talk to him. Let's understand his journey, what he has learned and what lessons he can share with us

Highlights

(5:19) So it seems like the innate talent you had was showing up early… getting that scholarship. And I think, as you said, the foundational learnings that we get from our parents, and in early childhood, really shape our life. And the last thing I take away from this is, as you said — Sybase approach you twice — if something is meant to be, it generally happens. 

(33:53) Mentoring for me has been… asking hard questions to myself. The key is to seek out mentors, depending on wherever you are, find somebody who has been through that or who has some idea about it. And hopefully, they can point you to look at things in a certain manner. Mentoring is an enriching experience. Because you have only one life — and if you wanted to learn everything you could learn only from your experience… that would be limited. Arun continues to talk about mentoring — so mentoring also gives you exposure to problems others are facing, and how they're overcoming them…

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What I used to do as a kid was I used to break things apart and put them together, or at least try to put them together as best as I can. And I was really good at creating art and new craft projects out of recycled material. That was a lot of fun for me. Slowly, this passion developed into more technical fields like computer science, physics, and chemistry. Ultimately I found my true passion, which was to write programs on computers and do some meaningful work to help humanity and businesses to optimize their operations — live a better life and just enjoy this beautiful existence on planet earth. What about you? What did you want to do while you were growing up?

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Well, it's an Industry known fact that 90% of startups fail in the first year, and then the rest who survive — fail in the next five years. This means only about one to 2% of the startups actually become successful businesses. Why is that? because of one reason: cash flow. Because the strength & health of a business depend on cash flow — how much cash are you bringing in, how much revenue are you bringing in? It doesn't matter how much money you’ve been able to raise, how many investors you have, how many brands you have as your partners, how many logos you have on your pitch deck, what kind of rockstars you have on your advisory team or your executive team? What matters is how much revenue are you bringing in?

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Introduction to Dr. Yogesh Malhotra 

(00:45) Dr. Yogesh Malhotra is the Founding Chairman & CEO of the New York, USA, based global venture capital and private equity firm, Global Risk Management Network. 

He’s the founder of AIML Exchange, BRINTTM Future of Finance, and C4I-Cyber and has a worldwide impact on global digital transformation practices. 

Malhotra is an MIT-Princeton industry expert, silicon valley-wall street-pentagon digital pioneer, and a leader in the future of finance-technology risk for 3 decades. This earned him a place among the R&D impact recognized AI-Finance Nobel laureates.

His pioneering work in various fields of technology has impacted some of the biggest companies in the world — alongside NSF-UN-US & world governments. 

Dr. Yogesh Malhotra is an industry pioneer in Human-Centered and Meaning-Driven Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Uncertainty Time-Space Complexity practices and has served as CEO, CIO, CTO, and CISO of global digital ventures with global client patrons.

His biographical profile has been selected for listing in the most prestigious global biographical references of the world's top leaders and achievers for over 20 years by Marquis Who's Who such as in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in Finance & Industry, and, Who's Who in Science & Engineering.

Highlights 

(21:39) All of AI doesn't matter what AI you have, does not have common sense. It cannot make sense. Therefore, it can't have any meaning. Unless you solve these problems — unless you can have any big hi-fi things like possible Explainable AI. I think what I'm saying is not very different. It matches a lot with people in computer science. But they don't have the frameworks or templates coming from the diverse psychological backgrounds, which are blended with computer science.

(35:20) If we were working on adversarial uncertainty, that means you might have a Tesla, but as a hacker, I can take your car and spirit. If your AI controls you more than you can control based on that… I have challenged just for fun both Elon Musk of Tesla and one of the Nobel Prize winners at Princeton that self-driving have a long way to go. So stop dumping humans to make them softer machines, and stop overlaying on technology by blindly relying on them.

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