August 26, 2024 • 32 mins
The Visionaries Show kicks off with a special first episode featuring the incredible story of none other than Sidd Ahmed.
From Trichy, a small town in India, to leading the global company VDart, Sidd Ahmed’s experience is anything but ordinary. Driven by a fierce passion to excel and a deep commitment to creating opportunities for others, Sidd turned his vision into reality. His business revolves around making a difference, giving back, and leaving a legacy.
If you're looking for inspiration and practical guidance on building something meaningful, Sidd’s journey offers a blueprint for entrepreneurial success.
Sidd shares the highs and lows of his path, revealing how he faced the challenges of raising capital, scaling up, and building a standout brand. He also tackles every entrepreneur's tough choices, like mergers, acquisitions, and the decision to go public—whether through an IPO or a SPAC.
Key Takeaways:- Entrepreneurial Spirit: Success is about lifting others.
- Community First: True impact comes from giving back.
- Raising Capital: Bootstrapping and organic growth can fuel your journey.
- Scaling Smart: Growth takes both organic moves and strategic deals.
- Branding Matters: Your brand is your business’s face to the world.
- Strategic Growth: Mergers and acquisitions can open new doors.
- Public Path: When it’s time to go public, know your options—IPO or SPAC.
Sidd's story is full of lessons for anyone aiming to make their mark. Don't miss it!
Know more about him and his company here: https://www.vdart.com/our-origin-story
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
From Dallas, Texas, this is the visionary show with Mohan Ananda and Jen Crow talkingabout business and entrepreneurship.
Today's guest, Sid Ahmed, technology and CEO guy.
You're going to love this.
Jen Crow, take it away.
Welcome to the visionary show.
My name is Jen Crow.
Mohan Ananda.
(00:21):
for today, for today we have for our first episode, our guest is a technologist.
His name is Sid.
a med heavily followed on Instagram by a lot of people interested to learn about thesebusiness strategies and how to do it in such a way that you're advocating for servant
(00:44):
leadership.
Welcome to the show, see the man.
Thank you so much.
Yes, I mean, I'm on.
Ananda, such a pleasure to meet you both.
Thank you so much for having me here.
Yeah.
Before we start.
(01:05):
Yes, please.
You know, we want to have a conversation.
The whole the theme of the show is entrepreneurship.
And we would love to talk to people like you, successful entrepreneur.
Now, in a kind of in a short sentence, what made you to become an entrepreneur?
(01:28):
the desire to excel in life coming from the background, the background what I came fromand with little or no means having seen my parents be there so there was a burning desire
to succeed in life and I think that is what led to the spirit of entrepreneurship.
(01:49):
Did you tell us a little bit about your background what did you do before you became anentrepreneur?
Yeah, so before I became an entrepreneur, I'll go back a little bit in time.
I'm and brought up in a place called Trichy.
It's a small college town based out of, it's close to Chennai in southern part of India,close to about 140 educational institutions.
(02:14):
That's where I was born and brought up.
A family of six, I was the last in the family.
My mom had gone only to, my mom was a high school teacher, my dad studied only up to 10thgrade.
has never studied in college or anything of that nature, had never had a full -time job,so he'd done all our jobs.
For the family to raise me, to give us a good living, they really made, they tried to makeall ends meet to make it happen.
(02:43):
And the only thing what they gave us is a gift of education.
So I was the only kid who went to an English medium school being raised in Trichy.
As a result of that, I was fortunate to go to good schools and all of that.
but I've never had fantastic credentials, went to great educational institutions oranything of that nature.
That's just because of my academic failures, what I had.
(03:03):
But having said that, what had happened was I'd always worked only for small businessesbecause of the educational credentials.
So got into working for small businesses, but I always had this desire, like, just workingfor small businesses, the entrepreneurs were not able to really get
huge audacious vision of building a large enterprise, having thousands of people andcreating an impact.
(03:26):
And that is what led me to really think about, and I'd always spoken to the entrepreneurswhom I'd worked for stating that, you should go and start something in Trichy because it
has a huge talent pool and that is a talent desert.
And how can you convert it into a talent oasis?
Because people always think about going to a talent oasis and doing something.
(03:47):
creating an economic and social impact and Trichy was right at the heart of it.
So that's when I thought, you know what, hey, nobody's ready to listen to me.
Let me go ahead and do this all by myself.
And that's where I started the entrepreneurial journey.
That was a short story, which I tried to pull it as much as possible, but that's my bit.
I think you're coming from a place of humility because you said that the reason why you'rea successful entrepreneur now is because of the desire to excel.
(04:17):
our audience can agree here that you wanted to do that so that you can give opportunitiesfor other kids, for other people that was so difficult for you to attain when you were
growing up, right?
I totally, I wouldn't, so first of all, when you said I'm a successful entrepreneur, I donot see that in myself yet.
(04:39):
I still see that there's a, I think there are a lot
amazing entrepreneurs who have done amazing things.
I'm just a small speck out there.
Well, I guess next to Mohan, we all are not yet.
Absolutely.
Well said.
Very well said.
No, no, easy, He's a successful entrepreneur.
So I still do not feel that success.
I think there's a lot of other entrepreneurs who have done amazing things.
(05:02):
And it's only a journey.
And I've never arrived.
That's way I think about it.
But having said that, you raised a very interesting point, which is
Entrepreneur, it's about giving back to a community or a society and creating an economicand a social impact.
That had been the heart of it.
I'll tell you why, because when I was raised in Trichy, the challenge what we had was,growing up as a kid, this is a migratory town, right?
(05:30):
And it is because there's no employment opportunities.
There's never been a large employer out there.
It's a migratory town, which means students come and study there
after they pass out, they have to go elsewhere to get a job, like me.
I came to the US.
I went to other cities and got a job.
Because of that, I was always raised by single parent, just by my mom, because my dad hadto go and work in other cities to earn a living.
(05:54):
So that's exactly what happened.
So in studying in a school, when I see parents come for PTA meetings, I would see certainchildren have
their mom and dad, because they're doctors, engineers, this, that, architects, becausethey have their jobs, they have their own practices.
But I did not have that kind of an opportunity, because my dad was not that.
So I always had this desire, when will I have my mom and dad come together?
(06:18):
And then, long story short, when I wanted to invest back there, right, the only thingwhich I wanted to do was, how could I create opportunities for people to live and work and
raise their kids in Trichy?
And today, because of
in the last 10 years.
Over 10 ,000 jobs created in that particular city.
(06:39):
Currently about 750 people working in that city.
We are the largest employer in town.
We have created an economic and a social boom.
I'm familiar with that city.
I also come from the same city.
yes.
So after today's show, I want you guys to go over to the lobby and grab some water.
That water is from
(07:01):
There's something about the water in Kerala to produce people like them.
So there's something about the water in Kerala which has produced him and there issomething there is something about the water in Trichy which flows as the form of river
Cauvery where we both are from as well because he has dual origins from Kerala and fromTrichy where he studied.
(07:25):
Exactly.
studied at an amazing institution, St.
Joseph's, right?
A lot of people think I'm St.
Joseph's alumni as well, but St.
Joseph's alumni had created the president of India as well.
I know you're doing a lot at the Ritchie, but you're living here in the United States,right?
Yeah.
How did you do that?
How do I do that?
Up until the time, so starting the business in 2007, right at the peak of recession fromthen, and I used to travel only once back once in a
(07:53):
Mom, my sister, my brothers, everybody lives in Trichy and it used to be a far -fetcheddream.
But once I started the business and started putting up our global capability center whichis based out of Trichy and we have larger teams working out there, I need to spend more
time with the teams out there.
So having said that, what was your question again?
(08:15):
I lost my train are you able to manage that?
How do you?
Being able to make that plan of yours thrive.
in your hometown while living here?
yes.
Okay.
If that comes to the next stage of entrepreneurship, right?
Or initially in my, I was building the organization, I had to do a lot of travels, me,myself being the leader, being there physically present with the teams.
(08:40):
But the moment in the last five years, my entire C -suite, like the CSO, the CFO, thechief operating officer, some of the business leaders,
So we decided that, you know what, that is our global capability center which delivers forall of our Fortune 1000 customers globally in over 14 countries.
We got to be more physically present there.
(09:03):
So as a result of which we started taking turns and they knew that it is not okay to taxjust the organization, just one leader, just the CEO of the organization to go and
physically be present.
So now I have like almost every time, like,
amongst like six leaders, they take turns and they are there almost every other month.
(09:26):
So that's how the teams are well aligned to the overall organization.
Although we are based, we are headquartered out of Atlanta.
Now, would you consider as a Indian company or the US company?
We would consider it as a global company.
But where are you headquartered in?
We are headquartered out of the US.
it is the...
Yeah, it's a US based, it's a US headquartered firm.
(09:48):
but we would always call it as a global firm not attaching to one particular region per sebecause we are delivering in like 14 countries.
So it has to be a multicultural organization.
That's the way.
Yeah.
Let me kind of give you a kind of what the purpose of the show is to help otherentrepreneurs.
And we are kind of interested in five areas.
(10:12):
Capital racing, scaling up, &A,
brand creation and exit.
Now out of these five, what kind of vision you can provide to our audience?
Yeah, I think I can provide a good vision around branding.
(10:35):
So we spoke about &A, scale, branding, exits, and what was the last one?
That is the first one, capital raising.
Capital raising, yeah.
So capital raising, can answer, I can do a rapid fire around all of these.
All right.
Go ahead.
First thing is raising capital.
All right.
(10:56):
Started this business with $500 because services business.
Services business does not need any capital at all.
So professional services.
Professional services.
Right.
And I knew this is the way to build a business.
And I was also interested in products, but I thought, know, what is my sweet spot?
What have I gained in the last 15 years in starting my career?
(11:18):
I knew recruiting, knew staffing, and that's what I wanted to be in my sweet spot.
What can I do really best?
Right?
So that's where I was.
And we built this organization.
First hundred million crossed in 2016 from 2007 to 2016.
The moment we went into 2016, that's when we started thinking about how do we become acentennial?
How can we last for the next hundred years?
So that's when we thought, you know what, we need to put in some good advisory board.
(11:41):
Advisory board started pushing us, hey, don't think only about staffing.
Think about services, products.
Anything can get disrupted.
So as a result of which, we said, OK, now that you have built a services business and youhave a good retained income in the organization, because we knew that one day we are going
to get into services space where it is going to be capital intensive.
(12:03):
Product is going to be capital intensive, and you don't want to go and raise capital fromthe outside.
If you don't want to, Bob Nuddely told me once, and he was there in the organization whenwe were talking about.
building the product idea about vouch and we had this idea and Bob had come in.
Bob was the CEO of Priceler and prior to that he was with GE and Home Depot and Bob said,son if you don't want to buy, if you don't need a dollar, don't borrow a dollar.
(12:27):
It's going to be very hard to repay.
So think about it.
So that was the lesson what I learned till date.
All the five organizations what we built never raised a dollar.
So raising capital is not a topic which I would be in a position to speak about but that'swhat I've been trying to understand all along.
at the visionary round table.
You're bootstrapping all this time.
have to talk to, there's a connection I would want you to speak to.
(12:51):
They're bootstrapping to a billion dollar.
brilliant, brilliant.
So you said bootstrapping to a billion and that's they're bootstrapping or they're notraising capital.
They're growing into a billion dollar without getting outside capital.
This is awesome.
(13:11):
What a story.
And you would talk about our story very soon as well, because that's our journey.
We are heading to the billion dollar journey as a minority firm, the second minority firmto be listed.
We are saying that we will get public after the billion dollar journey, but we wanted toraise no borrow, no debt.
(13:33):
don't borrow any money and get to the billion.
Can you do that?
And that's what we're trying to do as well.
only heard go public and for the, what do call that?
When you ring the bell, you know, I can fly to New York.
So, okay.
So out of the five, the capital raising is not your cup of tea.
Yeah.
Capital raising is not my cup of tea.
(13:54):
Scaling is our cup of tea.
Definitely.
We've built scale across all the five businesses and we've made all the five businessesprofitable but where I would our sweet spot is around branding.
There is a powerful story around our business and this is what I talk about every othertime is that we have this idea I knew how this industry works about talent management
(14:21):
that's where I started from.
built this business or initially up into a hundred million dollars and through thisjourney the only thing like for example when When when you start thinking about hey, where
do I set up my captive center immediately?
What we start thinking about it is I just spoke about talent Oasis and talent desert righta lot of people think about you know what hey as entrepreneurs we think about it With we
(14:44):
want to have we want to go to where the talent pool is available We'll go to the largestmetros and try to set up things right, but never have
the thought to really invest in the community and grow the talent because we don't want toburn cash at that time.
We start thinking, okay, how is that talent pool really going to produce, right?
(15:05):
And we don't have that patience.
So what we did was we invested in a town.
We said for our global customers, for our fortune thousand customers, for the largestautomotive manufacturers, energy and utility companies, it's a talent which is in
a city which nobody ever knew we built the talent ground up.
(15:26):
In this whole journey of building services, products, or talent management, and buildingmany of these organizations, and being featured in various different stories, I'll have to
tell you this as well.
Partnering with educational institutions, premium education institutions like the IAMs andthe
(15:50):
attracting talent because we are delivering for Fortune 1000 customers and then going onto be featured in the Harvard Business Review.
And I am today as a case study, VDOT is a case study of a company which has grown as aresult of its culture and which has created an economic and a social boom from a small
(16:16):
city delivering for Fortune 1000 corporations.
is a case study which is solved by IAM students year on year.
And that is now featured on Harvard Business Review.
So if you just Google on Harvard Business Review and VDART, you will see that story.
Fantastic.
But the real hero of all the story is not Sid, not VDART.
(16:37):
It's the city Trichy.
And that's a powerful story.
That's a great thing to know, because I'm from Trichy.
Yeah.
So the brand is around Trichy.
It's not about me or it's not about VDART.
So when you talk about branding, you should make somebody the hero.
And the CEO is not the hero of the story.
The company is not the hero.
There is some other element.
(16:57):
And the element is truly creating a social and economic impact for the lives of people.
And that's why we say people, people purpose and planet is our not star.
And business happens automatically.
Everything else will be fine.
Okay, so.
That's fantastic.
Before we go, please.
He should write a book.
(17:18):
you're writing a book.
He's writing a book.
There are two other subjects.
Sure, sir.
&A and exit.
But of course, exit is something we have to kind of postpone, depending upon what happens.
&A, have you done anything, or are you looking at it?
Yes.
I'll talk through that a little bit.
think as growing up as a...
(17:41):
Entrepreneur, entrepreneur, that is, there's never been an entrepreneur in our family.
I'm the first entrepreneur ever.
And the whole entrepreneurial journey has been a learning experience for me.
Every day is a learning experience because I'm sitting on the heap of the pile.
We grew from, never knew how to get the first million dollars.
We got it.
I was able to do it individually as the first hundred million, one million dollars.
(18:03):
I was able to get to a $300 million.
Every day is a new day for me in a new journey because I don't have that background at
And it is just surrounding people.
I'll tell you why I'm saying this story.
It's just by getting into conversations with people in visionary roundtable conferenceslike this, where I'm getting insight about mergers and acquisitions, exits.
(18:28):
I still feel, know, when I was sitting at this conference, sitting at the roundtables, Iwas like so inspired by Mr.
Ananda.
All right, and Mr.
James and so many other entrepreneurs who have done this so well.
And I feel, you know what, they are rocket scientists.
how do I learn this trade and get better at it?
(18:50):
So why do I say this?
&A has been on top of our mind because we know that the growth to a billion dollar journeyis going to happen at some point in time.
We've already hit that plateau.
I mean, you have been doing organic growth, which is going.
Absolutely.
This acquisition is inorganic, but it may be a, you can speed it up.
(19:14):
Absolutely.
So we've gotten to a stage where we want to grow further, but the growth is gettingchallenging.
So that's when we thought we will do, we will set up a team which will just do &A for us.
Last two years, we've been evaluating various different assets, but today I had a lot moreinsights in terms of how to look &A better.
Although our internal teams may not.
(19:36):
Our internal teams may be equipped, but it's experts like you and other people where wewould be in a position to gain an insight in terms of how &A has to be done well.
But to grow an organization, I sincerely believe coming from you and coming from James inone of those conversations where you all had mentioned about, it has to be a combination
(19:57):
of organic and inorganic.
I think that gives us a unique set of challenges as well, right?
Because I've never had culture.
integration of those two companies.
It will become a little challenge if you have to bring some other team and put ittogether.
But it may be a learning experience.
Yeah, I'm up for learning.
Exactly.
(20:18):
There are two types of exit.
Yeah.
Exit is one private company, you know, is bought by a public company or another company.
That means you sell it.
Yeah, that's an exit.
Another exit is going public.
Got
Which path do you think you want to go into?
Yeah, so I've been dwelling on this for quite a bit.
(20:40):
Is dwelling, is it an AI term?
Yes, thank you for pointing that out.
it about I've been pondering about it for quite a bit now and so what happens it so goingpublic is like there's something which was which is as an entrepreneur you always think
(21:11):
okay I have to go public all right at least for me because I am I'm like very very focusedon growth the the moment you stagnate you know what there lots of entrepreneurs and this
is what I
in coaching moments as well when I'm talking to small businesses is there's no fun inplaying a sport and saying that, you know what, I'm just happy with a million dollars, a
(21:37):
million dollar business because you're a lifestyle entrepreneur.
I believe in growth, creating opportunities, get to a half a billion, get to a billion,continue to create opportunities for people, continue to impact people.
That's the way I think about it.
anyways, in this journey, at the moment we hit
the 100 and 200 million people were asking, hey, when are you going public?
(21:57):
And that got to me.
know what?
I have to go public.
And then I started researching a little bit about going public and not going public andhow much control do you have going public and how much control you would have just staying
private?
And then what is the actual reason why you would want to go public?
Are you trying to raise funds?
that's one of the things which comes across going public is what I presume.
(22:20):
Yeah, let me kind of, I've talked to
number of companies owned by Indians in India, they have the same question because theydon't like to lose control.
They want to be in charge.
Going public, I mean, you there are some companies with more than 50 % owned by theoriginal founder or owner, but most of the time, especially in the US, you don't own that
(22:48):
much.
Public owns quite a bit, a large percentage.
But still you can maintain the control.
The reason being the public shareholders, you bring independent directors, they representthe public shareholders.
So you, the CEO, or who runs the company, still manage.
(23:10):
But of course the shareholders can kick the CEO out if needed to be.
I mean, if things don't work out.
If you remember recently what happened to Sam Altman.
Those things can happen, but of course they brought it back because they made a mistake.
I wouldn't worry about the losing control part.
(23:32):
But it's a good thing to have a liquidity event.
having that gets much more relationship.
once you have another reason, the valuation, you probably know this.
If you're a private company, the multiplier to the EBITDA is smaller.
(23:53):
five to six times maybe or even close to that.
Whereas if you're a public company, the value would become 12 to 15.
So you have a natural three to four times value adding because the reason, it makes sense.
But private companies don't have that many disclosure requirement.
(24:13):
There is no SEC coming into play.
But whereas a public company, it's like an open book.
Everything has to be so people are ready to pay.
higher prices.
So that's the rational behind going public.
Thank you so Is it something you're really much more interested in?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So here's what we were thinking.
(24:34):
So I wanted to complete that story.
Everybody was saying, you should go public.
And I had this thought process.
But thank you so much for clarifying.
The way I'm looking at it, Jen, is I want to experience it all.
If I just had one firm, I could not take it to public.
Then even if I take it public,
what happens to the real impact, the hero of our story, which is Trichy.
(24:58):
After I take it public, is, when it's a publicly traded firm, the decisions what they aregoing to make to whether still Trichy continues to deliver for the company, I don't know.
I mean, it depends.
For example, if your leadership really has to be kind of educated, the whole purpose is tohelp
(25:22):
Trichy as a base.
And if we can continue that, there would be no change.
So we could do that even while we are publicly traded, isn't Certainly.
fabulous.
No, no, no.
I mean, of course, if the board decides we don't care about Trichy, we want to dosomething else, then you can't do anything about it.
But you bring the right people to the team.
(25:44):
Got it.
Got it.
I mean, you can pick an independent board who is interested in Trichy.
Thank you for me as an example.
Somebody who is, you know, then it becomes very natural to, to, I mean, it's a function ofhow you plan to things together.
you know what?
This is one interesting insights.
(26:05):
Imagine this, this entire journey.
I never knew about this insight.
How, and this is where all these learning moments happen.
You never know, you know, it is definitely a possibility because the way I think about itis well,
The way I was thinking about it is I want to experience it all.
I want to have public, privately held firms, all right?
And when we are doing these carve outs in services and products, take one of those firmsbecause a product firm, when you take it to public, it has a much bigger valuation rather
(26:34):
than a staffing firm or a services firm.
That is true.
However, sometimes, mean, you may, if you're really aggressive and ambitious, you can havemultiple companies going public, but that may be, may take too much time, but you can have
a subsidiary or an integrated company, one company which has certain product division, isa professional service division or other type of together one company and go public and
(27:03):
then at the right time you may be able to take a highly valuable part of it, sell it to aPE, a private equity firm and then you will get a higher multiplier.
So because you're a public company to begin with.
So people, that doesn't mean that once you're a public company it has to be all togetheron a regular basis.
(27:28):
No, you can carve out.
You can spin.
mean, lot of big companies spin out.
So what is the easiest way, Dr.
Ananda, to ask this question?
So we talk a lot about SPACs nowadays in terms of getting to public the easiest possibleroute.
So if you can talk a little bit about SPAC and how do we quickly get to is one vehicle.
(27:49):
SPAC is, the difference between a regular IPO and SPAC, the regular IPO you go through ainvestment banker.
Investment banker kind of values the company, the company's performance and everything.
That's how the path to go, which is a normal IPO process.
(28:13):
SPAC, SPAC already is public company.
It's a demerger if you, that SPAC is acquiring another company.
So then the SPAC goes public, they have no record, no business.
It's more of a fictional kind of a company with good, hopefully, talent in the management.
(28:38):
Now they go and review the companies and then they bring it, they acquire.
and merge the company and becomes, this company becomes public.
So either path is the right thing to do.
Whichever is easier, it's a function of you should explore both opportunities.
(28:59):
Like you talk to, mean, of course you can go to Goldman Sachs or UBS, or Merrill Lynch orBank America to go take your company public.
Or there is a second tier part like Roth Capital.
good investment banking, they may take you to the same destination.
(29:23):
Review that.
In the meantime, also look at SPAC opportunities.
Talk to them and see which makes sense, which is better for you, how soon you can go.
So everything has to be explored.
That's the way I would recommend.
If I may ask one last question, Jen.
So in a way, should we think as entrepreneurs
(29:47):
a form of exit, right?
Taking the IPO route is a form of an exit.
Is that?
It's not really an exit.
It's a liquidity event.
It's a liquidity event.
True exit is when you sell the company to somebody else, some other private company,private firm, or to a public company.
(30:07):
Then there is a, if you sell it to a private company, you may get cash or you may, likeprivate equity people generally pays cash.
They don't give any equity.
Whereas another private company, they may give equity in that company.
Whereas public company, there is a potential for cash.
They also give shares, meaning their equity or a combination of it, depending upon theparticular transaction.
(30:35):
But my thinking is, you may not want to get all cash at the same time.
The reason is it's a major taxable event.
So you get in equity, but of course there is a risk what happens if equity falls down.
there is a, can postpone the, but depending upon the company, sometimes equity is muchbetter.
(31:01):
I was telling this story to people, the waste management, how they rolled up various trashcollections.
Yeah, they all did very well.
I instead of getting cash, they get the equity and the value goes up.
So something to look into, all options are available, but going public is a liquidityevent.
(31:27):
Awesome.
Thank you.
Based on what I heard for the last 10 minutes, now I understand why Mohan's last bookabout business is this thick.
Anyway.
I'm so grateful to be among some of the most successful people in business here on thisstage.
And I thank you so much.
From Dallas, Texas, this is the visionary show with Mohan Ananda and Jen Crow talkingabout business and entrepreneurship.
Today's guest, Sid Ahmed, technology and CEO guy.
You're going to love this.
Jen Crow, take it away.
Welcome to the visionary show.
My name is Jen Crow.
Mohan Ananda.
(00:21):
for today, for today we have for our first episode, our guest is a technologist.
His name is Sid.
a med heavily followed on Instagram by a lot of people interested to learn about thesebusiness strategies and how to do it in such a way that you're advocating for servant
(00:44):
leadership.
Welcome to the show, see the man.
Thank you so much.
Yes, I mean, I'm on.
Ananda, such a pleasure to meet you both.
Thank you so much for having me here.
Yeah.
Before we start.
(01:05):
Yes, please.
You know, we want to have a conversation.
The whole the theme of the show is entrepreneurship.
And we would love to talk to people like you, successful entrepreneur.
Now, in a kind of in a short sentence, what made you to become an entrepreneur?
(01:28):
the desire to excel in life coming from the background, the background what I came fromand with little or no means having seen my parents be there so there was a burning desire
to succeed in life and I think that is what led to the spirit of entrepreneurship.
(01:49):
Did you tell us a little bit about your background what did you do before you became anentrepreneur?
Yeah, so before I became an entrepreneur, I'll go back a little bit in time.
I'm and brought up in a place called Trichy.
It's a small college town based out of, it's close to Chennai in southern part of India,close to about 140 educational institutions.
(02:14):
That's where I was born and brought up.
A family of six, I was the last in the family.
My mom had gone only to, my mom was a high school teacher, my dad studied only up to 10thgrade.
has never studied in college or anything of that nature, had never had a full -time job,so he'd done all our jobs.
For the family to raise me, to give us a good living, they really made, they tried to makeall ends meet to make it happen.
(02:43):
And the only thing what they gave us is a gift of education.
So I was the only kid who went to an English medium school being raised in Trichy.
As a result of that, I was fortunate to go to good schools and all of that.
but I've never had fantastic credentials, went to great educational institutions oranything of that nature.
That's just because of my academic failures, what I had.
(03:03):
But having said that, what had happened was I'd always worked only for small businessesbecause of the educational credentials.
So got into working for small businesses, but I always had this desire, like, just workingfor small businesses, the entrepreneurs were not able to really get
huge audacious vision of building a large enterprise, having thousands of people andcreating an impact.
(03:26):
And that is what led me to really think about, and I'd always spoken to the entrepreneurswhom I'd worked for stating that, you should go and start something in Trichy because it
has a huge talent pool and that is a talent desert.
And how can you convert it into a talent oasis?
Because people always think about going to a talent oasis and doing something.
(03:47):
creating an economic and social impact and Trichy was right at the heart of it.
So that's when I thought, you know what, hey, nobody's ready to listen to me.
Let me go ahead and do this all by myself.
And that's where I started the entrepreneurial journey.
That was a short story, which I tried to pull it as much as possible, but that's my bit.
I think you're coming from a place of humility because you said that the reason why you'rea successful entrepreneur now is because of the desire to excel.
(04:17):
our audience can agree here that you wanted to do that so that you can give opportunitiesfor other kids, for other people that was so difficult for you to attain when you were
growing up, right?
I totally, I wouldn't, so first of all, when you said I'm a successful entrepreneur, I donot see that in myself yet.
(04:39):
I still see that there's a, I think there are a lot
amazing entrepreneurs who have done amazing things.
I'm just a small speck out there.
Well, I guess next to Mohan, we all are not yet.
Absolutely.
Well said.
Very well said.
No, no, easy, He's a successful entrepreneur.
So I still do not feel that success.
I think there's a lot of other entrepreneurs who have done amazing things.
(05:02):
And it's only a journey.
And I've never arrived.
That's way I think about it.
But having said that, you raised a very interesting point, which is
Entrepreneur, it's about giving back to a community or a society and creating an economicand a social impact.
That had been the heart of it.
I'll tell you why, because when I was raised in Trichy, the challenge what we had was,growing up as a kid, this is a migratory town, right?
(05:30):
And it is because there's no employment opportunities.
There's never been a large employer out there.
It's a migratory town, which means students come and study there
after they pass out, they have to go elsewhere to get a job, like me.
I came to the US.
I went to other cities and got a job.
Because of that, I was always raised by single parent, just by my mom, because my dad hadto go and work in other cities to earn a living.
(05:54):
So that's exactly what happened.
So in studying in a school, when I see parents come for PTA meetings, I would see certainchildren have
their mom and dad, because they're doctors, engineers, this, that, architects, becausethey have their jobs, they have their own practices.
But I did not have that kind of an opportunity, because my dad was not that.
So I always had this desire, when will I have my mom and dad come together?
(06:18):
And then, long story short, when I wanted to invest back there, right, the only thingwhich I wanted to do was, how could I create opportunities for people to live and work and
raise their kids in Trichy?
And today, because of
in the last 10 years.
Over 10 ,000 jobs created in that particular city.
(06:39):
Currently about 750 people working in that city.
We are the largest employer in town.
We have created an economic and a social boom.
I'm familiar with that city.
I also come from the same city.
yes.
So after today's show, I want you guys to go over to the lobby and grab some water.
That water is from
(07:01):
There's something about the water in Kerala to produce people like them.
So there's something about the water in Kerala which has produced him and there issomething there is something about the water in Trichy which flows as the form of river
Cauvery where we both are from as well because he has dual origins from Kerala and fromTrichy where he studied.
(07:25):
Exactly.
studied at an amazing institution, St.
Joseph's, right?
A lot of people think I'm St.
Joseph's alumni as well, but St.
Joseph's alumni had created the president of India as well.
I know you're doing a lot at the Ritchie, but you're living here in the United States,right?
Yeah.
How did you do that?
How do I do that?
Up until the time, so starting the business in 2007, right at the peak of recession fromthen, and I used to travel only once back once in a
(07:53):
Mom, my sister, my brothers, everybody lives in Trichy and it used to be a far -fetcheddream.
But once I started the business and started putting up our global capability center whichis based out of Trichy and we have larger teams working out there, I need to spend more
time with the teams out there.
So having said that, what was your question again?
(08:15):
I lost my train are you able to manage that?
How do you?
Being able to make that plan of yours thrive.
in your hometown while living here?
yes.
Okay.
If that comes to the next stage of entrepreneurship, right?
Or initially in my, I was building the organization, I had to do a lot of travels, me,myself being the leader, being there physically present with the teams.
(08:40):
But the moment in the last five years, my entire C -suite, like the CSO, the CFO, thechief operating officer, some of the business leaders,
So we decided that, you know what, that is our global capability center which delivers forall of our Fortune 1000 customers globally in over 14 countries.
We got to be more physically present there.
(09:03):
So as a result of which we started taking turns and they knew that it is not okay to taxjust the organization, just one leader, just the CEO of the organization to go and
physically be present.
So now I have like almost every time, like,
amongst like six leaders, they take turns and they are there almost every other month.
(09:26):
So that's how the teams are well aligned to the overall organization.
Although we are based, we are headquartered out of Atlanta.
Now, would you consider as a Indian company or the US company?
We would consider it as a global company.
But where are you headquartered in?
We are headquartered out of the US.
it is the...
Yeah, it's a US based, it's a US headquartered firm.
(09:48):
but we would always call it as a global firm not attaching to one particular region per sebecause we are delivering in like 14 countries.
So it has to be a multicultural organization.
That's the way.
Yeah.
Let me kind of give you a kind of what the purpose of the show is to help otherentrepreneurs.
And we are kind of interested in five areas.
(10:12):
Capital racing, scaling up, &A,
brand creation and exit.
Now out of these five, what kind of vision you can provide to our audience?
Yeah, I think I can provide a good vision around branding.
(10:35):
So we spoke about &A, scale, branding, exits, and what was the last one?
That is the first one, capital raising.
Capital raising, yeah.
So capital raising, can answer, I can do a rapid fire around all of these.
All right.
Go ahead.
First thing is raising capital.
All right.
(10:56):
Started this business with $500 because services business.
Services business does not need any capital at all.
So professional services.
Professional services.
Right.
And I knew this is the way to build a business.
And I was also interested in products, but I thought, know, what is my sweet spot?
What have I gained in the last 15 years in starting my career?
(11:18):
I knew recruiting, knew staffing, and that's what I wanted to be in my sweet spot.
What can I do really best?
Right?
So that's where I was.
And we built this organization.
First hundred million crossed in 2016 from 2007 to 2016.
The moment we went into 2016, that's when we started thinking about how do we become acentennial?
How can we last for the next hundred years?
So that's when we thought, you know what, we need to put in some good advisory board.
(11:41):
Advisory board started pushing us, hey, don't think only about staffing.
Think about services, products.
Anything can get disrupted.
So as a result of which, we said, OK, now that you have built a services business and youhave a good retained income in the organization, because we knew that one day we are going
to get into services space where it is going to be capital intensive.
(12:03):
Product is going to be capital intensive, and you don't want to go and raise capital fromthe outside.
If you don't want to, Bob Nuddely told me once, and he was there in the organization whenwe were talking about.
building the product idea about vouch and we had this idea and Bob had come in.
Bob was the CEO of Priceler and prior to that he was with GE and Home Depot and Bob said,son if you don't want to buy, if you don't need a dollar, don't borrow a dollar.
(12:27):
It's going to be very hard to repay.
So think about it.
So that was the lesson what I learned till date.
All the five organizations what we built never raised a dollar.
So raising capital is not a topic which I would be in a position to speak about but that'swhat I've been trying to understand all along.
at the visionary round table.
You're bootstrapping all this time.
have to talk to, there's a connection I would want you to speak to.
(12:51):
They're bootstrapping to a billion dollar.
brilliant, brilliant.
So you said bootstrapping to a billion and that's they're bootstrapping or they're notraising capital.
They're growing into a billion dollar without getting outside capital.
This is awesome.
(13:11):
What a story.
And you would talk about our story very soon as well, because that's our journey.
We are heading to the billion dollar journey as a minority firm, the second minority firmto be listed.
We are saying that we will get public after the billion dollar journey, but we wanted toraise no borrow, no debt.
(13:33):
don't borrow any money and get to the billion.
Can you do that?
And that's what we're trying to do as well.
only heard go public and for the, what do call that?
When you ring the bell, you know, I can fly to New York.
So, okay.
So out of the five, the capital raising is not your cup of tea.
Yeah.
Capital raising is not my cup of tea.
(13:54):
Scaling is our cup of tea.
Definitely.
We've built scale across all the five businesses and we've made all the five businessesprofitable but where I would our sweet spot is around branding.
There is a powerful story around our business and this is what I talk about every othertime is that we have this idea I knew how this industry works about talent management
(14:21):
that's where I started from.
built this business or initially up into a hundred million dollars and through thisjourney the only thing like for example when When when you start thinking about hey, where
do I set up my captive center immediately?
What we start thinking about it is I just spoke about talent Oasis and talent desert righta lot of people think about you know what hey as entrepreneurs we think about it With we
(14:44):
want to have we want to go to where the talent pool is available We'll go to the largestmetros and try to set up things right, but never have
the thought to really invest in the community and grow the talent because we don't want toburn cash at that time.
We start thinking, okay, how is that talent pool really going to produce, right?
(15:05):
And we don't have that patience.
So what we did was we invested in a town.
We said for our global customers, for our fortune thousand customers, for the largestautomotive manufacturers, energy and utility companies, it's a talent which is in
a city which nobody ever knew we built the talent ground up.
(15:26):
In this whole journey of building services, products, or talent management, and buildingmany of these organizations, and being featured in various different stories, I'll have to
tell you this as well.
Partnering with educational institutions, premium education institutions like the IAMs andthe
(15:50):
attracting talent because we are delivering for Fortune 1000 customers and then going onto be featured in the Harvard Business Review.
And I am today as a case study, VDOT is a case study of a company which has grown as aresult of its culture and which has created an economic and a social boom from a small
(16:16):
city delivering for Fortune 1000 corporations.
is a case study which is solved by IAM students year on year.
And that is now featured on Harvard Business Review.
So if you just Google on Harvard Business Review and VDART, you will see that story.
Fantastic.
But the real hero of all the story is not Sid, not VDART.
(16:37):
It's the city Trichy.
And that's a powerful story.
That's a great thing to know, because I'm from Trichy.
Yeah.
So the brand is around Trichy.
It's not about me or it's not about VDART.
So when you talk about branding, you should make somebody the hero.
And the CEO is not the hero of the story.
The company is not the hero.
There is some other element.
(16:57):
And the element is truly creating a social and economic impact for the lives of people.
And that's why we say people, people purpose and planet is our not star.
And business happens automatically.
Everything else will be fine.
Okay, so.
That's fantastic.
Before we go, please.
He should write a book.
(17:18):
you're writing a book.
He's writing a book.
There are two other subjects.
Sure, sir.
&A and exit.
But of course, exit is something we have to kind of postpone, depending upon what happens.
&A, have you done anything, or are you looking at it?
Yes.
I'll talk through that a little bit.
think as growing up as a...
(17:41):
Entrepreneur, entrepreneur, that is, there's never been an entrepreneur in our family.
I'm the first entrepreneur ever.
And the whole entrepreneurial journey has been a learning experience for me.
Every day is a learning experience because I'm sitting on the heap of the pile.
We grew from, never knew how to get the first million dollars.
We got it.
I was able to do it individually as the first hundred million, one million dollars.
(18:03):
I was able to get to a $300 million.
Every day is a new day for me in a new journey because I don't have that background at
And it is just surrounding people.
I'll tell you why I'm saying this story.
It's just by getting into conversations with people in visionary roundtable conferenceslike this, where I'm getting insight about mergers and acquisitions, exits.
(18:28):
I still feel, know, when I was sitting at this conference, sitting at the roundtables, Iwas like so inspired by Mr.
Ananda.
All right, and Mr.
James and so many other entrepreneurs who have done this so well.
And I feel, you know what, they are rocket scientists.
how do I learn this trade and get better at it?
(18:50):
So why do I say this?
&A has been on top of our mind because we know that the growth to a billion dollar journeyis going to happen at some point in time.
We've already hit that plateau.
I mean, you have been doing organic growth, which is going.
Absolutely.
This acquisition is inorganic, but it may be a, you can speed it up.
(19:14):
Absolutely.
So we've gotten to a stage where we want to grow further, but the growth is gettingchallenging.
So that's when we thought we will do, we will set up a team which will just do &A for us.
Last two years, we've been evaluating various different assets, but today I had a lot moreinsights in terms of how to look &A better.
Although our internal teams may not.
(19:36):
Our internal teams may be equipped, but it's experts like you and other people where wewould be in a position to gain an insight in terms of how &A has to be done well.
But to grow an organization, I sincerely believe coming from you and coming from James inone of those conversations where you all had mentioned about, it has to be a combination
(19:57):
of organic and inorganic.
I think that gives us a unique set of challenges as well, right?
Because I've never had culture.
integration of those two companies.
It will become a little challenge if you have to bring some other team and put ittogether.
But it may be a learning experience.
Yeah, I'm up for learning.
Exactly.
(20:18):
There are two types of exit.
Yeah.
Exit is one private company, you know, is bought by a public company or another company.
That means you sell it.
Yeah, that's an exit.
Another exit is going public.
Got
Which path do you think you want to go into?
Yeah, so I've been dwelling on this for quite a bit.
(20:40):
Is dwelling, is it an AI term?
Yes, thank you for pointing that out.
it about I've been pondering about it for quite a bit now and so what happens it so goingpublic is like there's something which was which is as an entrepreneur you always think
(21:11):
okay I have to go public all right at least for me because I am I'm like very very focusedon growth the the moment you stagnate you know what there lots of entrepreneurs and this
is what I
in coaching moments as well when I'm talking to small businesses is there's no fun inplaying a sport and saying that, you know what, I'm just happy with a million dollars, a
(21:37):
million dollar business because you're a lifestyle entrepreneur.
I believe in growth, creating opportunities, get to a half a billion, get to a billion,continue to create opportunities for people, continue to impact people.
That's the way I think about it.
anyways, in this journey, at the moment we hit
the 100 and 200 million people were asking, hey, when are you going public?
(21:57):
And that got to me.
know what?
I have to go public.
And then I started researching a little bit about going public and not going public andhow much control do you have going public and how much control you would have just staying
private?
And then what is the actual reason why you would want to go public?
Are you trying to raise funds?
that's one of the things which comes across going public is what I presume.
(22:20):
Yeah, let me kind of, I've talked to
number of companies owned by Indians in India, they have the same question because theydon't like to lose control.
They want to be in charge.
Going public, I mean, you there are some companies with more than 50 % owned by theoriginal founder or owner, but most of the time, especially in the US, you don't own that
(22:48):
much.
Public owns quite a bit, a large percentage.
But still you can maintain the control.
The reason being the public shareholders, you bring independent directors, they representthe public shareholders.
So you, the CEO, or who runs the company, still manage.
(23:10):
But of course the shareholders can kick the CEO out if needed to be.
I mean, if things don't work out.
If you remember recently what happened to Sam Altman.
Those things can happen, but of course they brought it back because they made a mistake.
I wouldn't worry about the losing control part.
(23:32):
But it's a good thing to have a liquidity event.
having that gets much more relationship.
once you have another reason, the valuation, you probably know this.
If you're a private company, the multiplier to the EBITDA is smaller.
(23:53):
five to six times maybe or even close to that.
Whereas if you're a public company, the value would become 12 to 15.
So you have a natural three to four times value adding because the reason, it makes sense.
But private companies don't have that many disclosure requirement.
(24:13):
There is no SEC coming into play.
But whereas a public company, it's like an open book.
Everything has to be so people are ready to pay.
higher prices.
So that's the rational behind going public.
Thank you so Is it something you're really much more interested in?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So here's what we were thinking.
(24:34):
So I wanted to complete that story.
Everybody was saying, you should go public.
And I had this thought process.
But thank you so much for clarifying.
The way I'm looking at it, Jen, is I want to experience it all.
If I just had one firm, I could not take it to public.
Then even if I take it public,
what happens to the real impact, the hero of our story, which is Trichy.
(24:58):
After I take it public, is, when it's a publicly traded firm, the decisions what they aregoing to make to whether still Trichy continues to deliver for the company, I don't know.
I mean, it depends.
For example, if your leadership really has to be kind of educated, the whole purpose is tohelp
(25:22):
Trichy as a base.
And if we can continue that, there would be no change.
So we could do that even while we are publicly traded, isn't Certainly.
fabulous.
No, no, no.
I mean, of course, if the board decides we don't care about Trichy, we want to dosomething else, then you can't do anything about it.
But you bring the right people to the team.
(25:44):
Got it.
Got it.
I mean, you can pick an independent board who is interested in Trichy.
Thank you for me as an example.
Somebody who is, you know, then it becomes very natural to, to, I mean, it's a function ofhow you plan to things together.
you know what?
This is one interesting insights.
(26:05):
Imagine this, this entire journey.
I never knew about this insight.
How, and this is where all these learning moments happen.
You never know, you know, it is definitely a possibility because the way I think about itis well,
The way I was thinking about it is I want to experience it all.
I want to have public, privately held firms, all right?
And when we are doing these carve outs in services and products, take one of those firmsbecause a product firm, when you take it to public, it has a much bigger valuation rather
(26:34):
than a staffing firm or a services firm.
That is true.
However, sometimes, mean, you may, if you're really aggressive and ambitious, you can havemultiple companies going public, but that may be, may take too much time, but you can have
a subsidiary or an integrated company, one company which has certain product division, isa professional service division or other type of together one company and go public and
(27:03):
then at the right time you may be able to take a highly valuable part of it, sell it to aPE, a private equity firm and then you will get a higher multiplier.
So because you're a public company to begin with.
So people, that doesn't mean that once you're a public company it has to be all togetheron a regular basis.
(27:28):
No, you can carve out.
You can spin.
mean, lot of big companies spin out.
So what is the easiest way, Dr.
Ananda, to ask this question?
So we talk a lot about SPACs nowadays in terms of getting to public the easiest possibleroute.
So if you can talk a little bit about SPAC and how do we quickly get to is one vehicle.
(27:49):
SPAC is, the difference between a regular IPO and SPAC, the regular IPO you go through ainvestment banker.
Investment banker kind of values the company, the company's performance and everything.
That's how the path to go, which is a normal IPO process.
(28:13):
SPAC, SPAC already is public company.
It's a demerger if you, that SPAC is acquiring another company.
So then the SPAC goes public, they have no record, no business.
It's more of a fictional kind of a company with good, hopefully, talent in the management.
(28:38):
Now they go and review the companies and then they bring it, they acquire.
and merge the company and becomes, this company becomes public.
So either path is the right thing to do.
Whichever is easier, it's a function of you should explore both opportunities.
(28:59):
Like you talk to, mean, of course you can go to Goldman Sachs or UBS, or Merrill Lynch orBank America to go take your company public.
Or there is a second tier part like Roth Capital.
good investment banking, they may take you to the same destination.
(29:23):
Review that.
In the meantime, also look at SPAC opportunities.
Talk to them and see which makes sense, which is better for you, how soon you can go.
So everything has to be explored.
That's the way I would recommend.
If I may ask one last question, Jen.
So in a way, should we think as entrepreneurs
(29:47):
a form of exit, right?
Taking the IPO route is a form of an exit.
Is that?
It's not really an exit.
It's a liquidity event.
It's a liquidity event.
True exit is when you sell the company to somebody else, some other private company,private firm, or to a public company.
(30:07):
Then there is a, if you sell it to a private company, you may get cash or you may, likeprivate equity people generally pays cash.
They don't give any equity.
Whereas another private company, they may give equity in that company.
Whereas public company, there is a potential for cash.
They also give shares, meaning their equity or a combination of it, depending upon theparticular transaction.
(30:35):
But my thinking is, you may not want to get all cash at the same time.
The reason is it's a major taxable event.
So you get in equity, but of course there is a risk what happens if equity falls down.
there is a, can postpone the, but depending upon the company, sometimes equity is muchbetter.
(31:01):
I was telling this story to people, the waste management, how they rolled up various trashcollections.
Yeah, they all did very well.
I instead of getting cash, they get the equity and the value goes up.
So something to look into, all options are available, but going public is a liquidityevent.
(31:27):
Awesome.
Thank you.
Based on what I heard for the last 10 minutes, now I understand why Mohan's last bookabout business is this thick.
Anyway.
I'm so grateful to be among some of the most successful people in business here on thisstage.
And I thank you so much.
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