January 13, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of Braving Business, we sit down with Apurva Desai, a seasoned digital technology and media executive, investor, and mentor whose career spans Silicon Valley, Asia, and the Midwest. From his early days at tech giants like Intel and Yahoo to scaling startups like Vuclip and guiding them through successful exits, Apurva’s story is one of resilience, adaptability, and innovation.
Now leading Sarvian Inc., a CFO and digital transformation consultancy, and serving as a Partner at Interstate Fusion Ventures, Apurva mentors entrepreneurs, drives innovation, and bridges the gap between coastal and Midwest startups. He’s also pursuing global storytelling projects and inspiring the next generation as an instructor at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law and Business.
In this conversation, Apurva opens up about:
- The contrast between working in large corporate environments and growth-stage startups.
- Leading through uncertainty, including navigating two M&A deals that fell apart at the last minute.
- The evolving role of the CFO and the critical skillsets leaders need today.
- Building strong, collaborative team cultures that stand the test of time.
- His journey as a global storyteller and his upcoming media project.
Apurva also shares memorable anecdotes, including how he became a global “expert” on the Indian Head Wiggle, and the surprising connections between storytelling, leadership, and resilience.
Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, an emerging leader, or someone navigating a major pivot in your career, this episode offers actionable insights and inspiration for embracing change, creating impact, and leading with authenticity.
Key Takeaways:
- Resilience is built by embracing adaptability and recognizing when it’s time to pivot.
- Storytelling isn’t just a tool for content creation—it’s essential for leadership and team-building.
- Leaders in today’s world need to blend technical expertise with emotional intelligence to navigate complexity.
Connect with Apurva Desai:
- LinkedIn: Apurva Desai
Contact Us: Questions? Comments? Visit www.bravingbusiness.com for more information, resources, and episodes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This episode of the Braving Business podcast is sponsored by, well, me.
(00:05):
I'm PJ Benoit and I've been in the domestic and international
logistics space for over 30 years.
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(00:26):
For more details, please go to ShipWithPJ.com.
That's ShipWithPJ.com.
Reach out to me there, mention you found me on this podcast for a special surprise.
And one last quick thing.
If you enjoy this episode, please stay on after the show to learn more about the
Braving Business podcast and other great episodes for you to discover.
And now let's get the show started.
(01:02):
Well, hello there.
Hello there.
A little chilly day.
Why are you cold?
You're in Tampa, dude.
I'm in Chicago.
This is cold.
We know cold.
Dude, it is cold in Tampa.
I don't know what's going on, but temperatures here are hovering around zero
Celsius, if you use Celsius, because it sounds better than saying 40 degrees.
(01:25):
But right now it's around 55, but it was, it was like under 40.
No, no, we haven't been over 40 since, I don't know, the 1900s.
No, I don't know.
It's, it's, it's pretty cold here.
I mean, and, and actually our guest today, Mr.
Aperva, he is here in Chicago with me.
He knows it's cold too.
(01:46):
Yes.
It's probably negative five Celsius here in Chicago right now.
But yes, it's cold.
Well, you chose that.
I chose Tampa for a reason.
I am on protest.
I will conduct this interview while on protest, if that's okay.
That's, I don't know who you're protesting, but that's fine.
That's fine.
Actually let's, let's get into Mr.
(02:07):
Mr.
Desai.
He is, he is a fascinating individual.
And I think someone who our audience will love because we love him.
So Aperva Desai is a digital technology and media executive, an investor with
CFO experience with global media and tech companies in the Silicon Valley, in
the Midwest, as well as Asia, including companies such as Yahoo, Intel, video
(02:31):
streaming pioneer, ViewClip and Glue Mobile.
And as CFO, Aperva has grown and scaled companies from funding milestones to
successful mergers and acquisitions, including ViewClip, which sold for over
400 million throughout his career.
Aperva's led finance operations, HR, legal, and customer support functions,
oversaw international expansion throughout Europe and Asia and
(02:54):
mentored team members into strong leaders and contributors.
Like all entrepreneurs who've made it, Aperva's journey wasn't perfect.
We will hear about two major M&A events in his career, each with diligence
lasting almost six months that unfortunately fell apart at the last
minute, and hear how the company recovered and changed focus and mindset.
(03:14):
Aperva currently leads Sarvian Inc, a CFO and digital transformation consulting
company based out of Chicago.
He is also a partner of at the early stage venture fund, Interstate Fusion
Ventures, and an executive in residence for the Commonwealth Club World Affairs
Council of Northern California.
And on a spare time, Aperva also teaches at the University of California
(03:37):
Berkeley School of Law as part of the Center for Law and Business Executive
Education Program.
Last but not least, Aperva is also an expert on the Indian Headwiggle, which
we're going to find out about, and we're going to hear a very amusing story
about how he once wrote an experience, about an experience that he had, and
became a Wikipedia reference on the topic.
(03:59):
Aperva, we are thrilled to have you on the Braving Business podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Happy to spend some time with both of you.
And yes, I am a world renowned expert on the Indian Headwiggle, which I would
love to share as we get a little bit further along.
I can't wait to hear all about that.
That's worth the price of admission right there.
(04:20):
And Aperva was telling us before the episode that he's also a fan of the
podcast, which I'm truly grateful for.
And that he particularly enjoyed the episode with Shelley Arshembaugh, which
was either the first or second episode of the season, I believe season three,
great episode.
She's an incredible entrepreneur and CEO.
(04:43):
So thank you so much for being a fan of the show, Aperva.
We really appreciate that.
Yeah, happy.
And just a quick story about Shelley.
When I first learned about this podcast, I took a look at some of your
episodes and listened to the one with Shelley and my connection to her, and
which made me a big fan of this podcast since you had her on was when I was
(05:06):
asked to give a list of books to people I've mentored in my career a couple of
years ago, my first list were generally all men, all white men.
And I realized I need to get amazing female entrepreneurs and leaders on my
list and the first person I thought of was her.
(05:26):
So now my list that includes some amazing leaders certainly includes her as well.
And I was very much excited to learn more about her when I listened to the
podcast that you had with her.
That's awesome.
If you're looking for great authors in that space, look up Susan Brady.
She's got a couple of wonderful books that I would highly recommend.
(05:47):
Let's start with your roots.
Obviously you have been in technology and media basically your entire career.
We'd love to hear what sparked your interest in technology and media and
how were your early experiences, particularly with Intel and Yahoo, how
did they shape your perspective on what innovation and leadership look like?
(06:08):
Yeah.
So, you know, my roots, I, I, I'm a son of immigrants from Gujarat, India.
I grew up in suburban Dayton, Ohio.
You know, I'm, I'm a sports nut.
I grew up playing baseball and soccer and was on sports teams at the high school
level, which wasn't that common for, you know, Indian guys in, in, in Ohio, but
(06:30):
that made me a little bit different.
But, you know, when I grew up, I didn't know what I really wanted to be.
I knew what I didn't like.
I didn't like sciences.
I didn't, I wasn't very creative.
So somewhat by default or, or just circumstance, I ended up as a business
major, I ended up majoring in accounting and management information systems.
(06:51):
And then that led me onto a path of, you know, different opportunities.
But, you know, my story wasn't one of those where, Hey, I was passionate
about being a, a business entrepreneur.
It just, you know, evolved.
And I think that's fine.
Very cool.
So you've worked in both large corporate environments and
smaller growth stage companies.
(07:11):
Can you share a moment when the contrast between those two worlds became very
clear and how it influenced your career choices?
Yeah.
And I think, you know, for me, there's been a, a natural progression from big
to small and, and learnings from big companies that helped me, you know, be
(07:33):
influential in smaller companies.
So, so I started my career in the business world.
And I'm one of the largest companies in the early 2000s, Intel, which was one
of the top tech companies there.
What I learned there was how large companies, mature companies at scale,
how they operate, how they run processes.
Right.
But that wasn't going to be my, my career.
You know, I ultimately took that learning and then applied it to a more growing,
(07:59):
evolving company and in, in, in a adolescent company, if you will, Intel was an adult.
I went to Yahoo in, in, in the mid 2000s, which was a, you know, very successful
company, but it was an adolescent started to apply some of those learnings of scale
to an adolescent company, you know, had an experience there.
And then even went smaller to startups where, you know, those were more toddler
(08:20):
companies, and then took some of those lessons from an adult to an adolescent,
to a toddler, and had to be adaptable to, to kind of understand how, how you
influence in each environment.
So tell us about it. How do, what is the difference? I mean, I, you know, what,
what did you experience and, and, and what, how did you apply what you experienced?
Well, so, you know, I think depending on what kind of big company you're at, you
(08:45):
know, some, some big companies are like, Hey, you, you know, you get involved and
you stay in your lane, right?
If you're a finance executive, if you work at Apple, you know, they want you to be
the best finance executive or, or, you know, you know, you're the best finance
executive or finance professional as you can be.
When, and, and if you excel there and, and improve your work, you're going to
(09:08):
continue to progress up in the company.
As you move into smaller and more mid-sized companies, you know, you have to
be able to get out of your box, right?
You have to be able to have show business acumen and ask questions around any part
of the business and you need to be wearing multiple hats.
You need to be a utility player at times, you know, as a finance person and a
startup, uh, oftentimes in a startup, the two most important functions are, Hey,
(09:33):
somebody who builds a product and somebody who sells the product, everything
else might fall in the crack, uh, fall through the cracks and a finance person
is generally there.
You have to, you have to be able to report, you have to be able to, to, to,
to count, uh, you know, your progress and make sure you're, you're safeguarding
assets and so forth.
But anything else might fall to that leader.
(09:53):
So I've managed customer service in my career at a startup.
I've managed, uh, printing operations at a company that had printing, uh,
photo books.
Um, so the difference often is that, you know, you have to be able to step
out of the box in, in, in, in some of those mid-sized companies and growing
companies as well as compared to, you know, a large company where you might
(10:14):
become, uh, you know, the best in your lane and you might be, um, you know,
you might be rewarded for being an optimizer and creating five to 10%
optimization improvement in a mid-sized smaller company.
You have to be a builder and you have to tear it down and maybe build it from
scratch and be excited for that.
No, very cool.
What was Yahoo like during the, was that like the heyday of Yahoo?
(10:38):
It was a little bit after the heyday.
Um, now what I also learned, Yahoo was an amazing place, right?
And, and if, if you think of the Silicon Valley, uh, you know, the, the image
of mid 2000 Silicon Valley, where you had the great cafeterias and you had
the coffee shops and you had the, you know, the foosball machines and, and
(11:02):
you had a wifi buses that took you from San Francisco to, to Sunnyvale.
We had all that, right?
You had oil changes on campus.
You had haircuts on campus.
Uh, it was an amazing experience, right?
And at that point, now, what I also learned about Yahoo, what I really
learned about Yahoo was how to manage diverse stakeholders.
There were lots of different people involved and how do you herd cats and
(11:24):
how do you manage diverse stakeholders?
But I also learned about when it was time to leave a company was when you
started to, and this happened to Yahoo a little bit for me, which was you
started to have to justify why I'm working on this project versus somebody else.
Um, and it was all, you know, a lot more political, right?
And in turf wars, and when you started thinking about internal dynamics like
(11:47):
that versus the customer versus the market, you know, it was time for me to
move on, but Yahoo is a great learning experience to learn about the internet.
Learn about internet business models.
Um, learn about how applying scale from big companies, like I learned from
Intel to, to, uh, adolescent companies were all things that were great,
great opportunities there.
(12:07):
Very cool.
Very cool.
So I have a, actually just, just off the, off the cuff, I have a
question for both of you.
Um, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned like Yahoo being a great
example of a startup company and, and, um, you've seen that throughout your
career at all.
Of course you've seen that throughout your careers as well.
But, um, uh, Perva mentioned something that actually I have seen many times in
(12:32):
my career, which is internal politics.
At what point do you feel a company goes from, goes from, you know, hey, everyone,
everyone's wearing different hats.
Everyone is, is, you know, rolling up their sleeves and working towards the
same goal to then, just like you're saying, where things become turf wars,
(12:53):
where things become politics.
What point is that?
And as business owners, how do you, like, what would you do to try to keep that at
bay for as long as possible?
I mean, I can start, you know, I don't think there's a, a definitive answer there.
It's not like in my mind you get to 200 employees, now politics started, or, or
(13:17):
is it a thousand employees, et cetera.
You know, I think there, there, there is a kind of concept that I've heard in
startups where, um, you know, CEOs often, perhaps up to the first hundred employees,
that founder, he or she might have been involved in, in, in their interviewing
process for maybe every one of those employees.
(13:38):
They are very much shaping the culture of that, that company at that point.
And now, you know, as you start to evolve to a point where, you know, the, the, the
founder is not touching, uh, the, the, the recruiting process and the hiring process
and bringing in new people into the company, um, the culture starts to change, right?
(13:59):
And, and, and at that point, can the culture still, you know, it's, it's about
that next level of leaders that you have brought in and keeping it focused around
the values and principles of the company, as opposed to, you know, other people who
don't know the CEO and so forth, trying to say, how do I get in front of him or her?
Um, I don't know if that's at a hundred company, a hundred employees or thousands,
(14:23):
but, uh, you know, once that founder, once that CEO starts to lose his or her touch,
uh, I think you start to see people trying to, to navigate and manipulate their way
in to his or her good graces, right.
And getting in front of them on, I want to work on this project as opposed to that
person. I would largely agree.
I think that there isn't a hard and fast number, nor is there a hard and fast, uh,
(14:45):
environment that is, uh, far likelier to bring about politics and others.
I think just about every environment is going to have politics because you're
dealing with human beings and human beings are, you know, inherently political
and inherently self-interested.
What you want to do is you want to create a culture that rewards collaboration.
And that's easier said than done sometimes.
But if you are able to recognize team accomplishment versus individual
(15:10):
accomplishment consistently and not celebrate a-holes, right.
Cause in every organization, they're high performers.
Uh, and in some organizations, those high performers happen to not be very
nice people.
And what I've found is if you're in a culture where the high performer who's not
very nice is not only tolerated by self, but celebrated politics are going to,
(15:33):
are going to be the likeliest place you wind up.
Uh, and you're going to get a whole bunch, a whole array of other issues, uh,
that are counter to what you're likely to want to accomplish as a founder and CEO.
So I would encourage niceness.
And I know actually, uh, Perva, that's something you agree with.
I think, you know, one of the, the quote you gave us is, uh, you know,
(15:55):
uh, was about kindness.
And ultimately I think that if you're a CEO and a founder, uh,
you may not be able to control, uh, you, you may not be able to stop
politics from occurring, but you can create a more benign version of politics.
Um, that's, that's a long conversation probably that we could have on this
(16:18):
topic, but that's my two cents on it.
Yeah.
And I would add, I mean, I think, um, I think if there's a culture that you can
create that employees feel like this is, this is my company, this is not your
company, meaning the CEO or the CFO or, you know, executive management.
Um, and, and they operate in a way that says, okay, what's the best for, for the
(16:40):
company, as opposed to just what's the best for me, you start to get a culture
that's collaborative, right?
You get a culture that recognizes, uh, that type of behavior and that type of
value system, how do we create that culture?
And I think is a, is a big part of, uh, the leader's responsibility.
So, so let's talk about, you know, another key trade for leaders, which is adaptability.
(17:01):
And, uh, and adaptability is particularly critical when you're facing challenges.
Can you think of a moment in your career where you were facing a significant
challenge and really had to lean into adaptability, uh, and maybe share with
us kind of what you went through your actual, not, not the business outcome.
That's, you know, that's fine, but what was the experience like for you dealing
(17:22):
with it?
Yeah.
And actually I think PJ referenced, uh, earlier, you know, I've had two situations
in my career where, where I was the CFO of the company and we went through M&A
processes, uh, where we were being, uh, you know, target for acquisition and, and,
and months long diligence up to six months.
(17:43):
And basically at the one yard line to, to use a sports analogy, the deals fell
apart, um, and, and in one case, you know, the market environment had changed from
before when that process started to, to when it ended, uh, the final product
was, uh, the fundraising environment was much more difficult at the time it ended.
(18:04):
Uh, and, and, and at the time, you know, companies were able to be negative, uh,
cashflow and, and, and, uh, still raise money.
And now at the end, uh, you know, cash burning companies had a
much harder time raising money.
So, you know, the adaptability that, that had to happen overnight was for several
months to focus for me as the CFO was discipline.
(18:26):
How do we get through the diligence?
How do I, uh, you know, negotiate, how do I identify opportunities for leverage
and so forth with, uh, the, the potential buyer.
Um, and then when that deal fell apart overnight, we went into survival mode
and, and raising funds was difficult and, you know, had to, to, to change the,
(18:47):
the discipline type of mindset because we were trying to get through a step
by step diligence process to a, okay, I got to get into sales mode now.
I got to go get, uh, our resources in, in every function, function from sales
to engineering, to product operations.
I got to get them into margin and, uh, optimization mode, uh, margin
enhancement, because we have to change our profile to be able to raise funds.
(19:10):
Right.
So that level of adaptability hap had to happen overnight.
It was part of a survival dynamic.
Um, but knowing enough about myself, and this is a little bit about also the,
the smaller company and dynamic I mentioned earlier, which is being able
to get your box and, and recognizing that, you know, I might've become the
CFO because I was viewed as, Hey, he keeps things moving.
(19:32):
He keeps the tight ship.
He's, he's organized and disciplined, but now I have to be a salesperson, right?
I have to get people who are not thinking about margin enhancement to change.
Um, and, and if we didn't do that, you know, we wouldn't have raised money
and we wouldn't have been able to continue the journey that the company was on.
So I've also been on, uh, as CEO on, on the side of deals that didn't happen.
(19:56):
Right.
You're, you're, you're going through M and a, uh, sometime, uh, once or twice,
uh, I was on the buyer side and I think, uh, at least once on the seller side.
And deals fall through.
And I remember feeling just inside.
I felt exhausted.
I felt a little, uh, embarrassed.
Uh, I felt anxious.
(20:17):
There are a lot of emotions that I went through and I also felt that I couldn't
expose those feelings to my team.
Now, you know, it's interesting because I went through these moments in my
career much earlier when I was in my thirties and very early forties.
And I think I would be handling those moments differently.
Now I think I actually would expose my emotions a little bit more to my team.
(20:39):
How did you, you know, I'm sure that financially speaking for you individually,
it was not great news that these deals, these deals fell apart for the companies
and the employees, not great news, a sense of maybe failure as an individual.
What did you feel like and, and, and, and how did you manage the, the, the
(21:04):
distance between what you really felt like inside and what you presented?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I would say that, um, you know, when you're an executive, you have to
learn how to compartmentalize, uh, if you're a CEO or, or CFO or, or, you
know, in any of the, the leader roles.
You know, you, you have to compartmentalize things made sound like,
(21:27):
uh, you, everything's going wrong in one area, but you can't convey that
when you're inspiring and guiding and leading and motivating a team.
Right.
Now you also have to decide what's the level of, you know, balance and transparency.
Now, of course, during the M&A process, you know, you have to
know that, not the entire company was, is aware of that process.
(21:47):
Uh, you know, there's a, a set of core individuals that are involved.
Um, but it, when it drags for six months, it starts to become kind
of, uh, apparent to, to the company.
Um, but, but I think, you know, in that case, because it took that long,
uh, we had known that this is now becoming much, this is known to
(22:09):
people who aren't even in the process.
Um, so we had to be transparent, right.
And the market was, uh, known, uh, in terms of how difficult the
funding environment was going to be.
Um, so kind of factoring those types of things, we were transparent on,
Hey, things are going to be a little bit tougher now.
Um, we're, we're focused on, on raising money, uh, and it's going to make
(22:33):
a mind shift from you all and here's how we're going to get there.
So, uh, Purva, I'm going to challenge you because there's nothing wrong with
what your answer, but your answer is in the we, you talk about the leadership team.
I'm talking about you as an individual.
What did you feel like?
How did you deal with it?
And what did you feel was the distance where you as an individual, not as a
representative, not as a CFO, as a man, as a person, how did you experience that
(22:58):
moment and what, what could you share with our audience that perhaps haven't
been in that moment yet?
And again, in all these moments, we are parts of teams, but we're also individuals.
And so one of my goals with this podcast is to give tools to individuals to
deal with moments like that in their lives and in their careers, share
(23:18):
what it was like to be you.
You were the CFO.
It didn't work.
How did you feel?
How did you behave?
What was the distance where you were on the inside and what you
conveyed to the outside?
Yeah.
So, so as an individual, as, as me, there's a, there's a sense of, hey, I,
I've let the company down, right?
(23:38):
We, we've got hundreds of people who are, you know, as a CFO, I feel responsible for,
um, we were trying to drive some, some financial outcome for them and it didn't
happen and, and, you know, I'm an integral part of that process.
I feel like I let them down.
Right now there's a variety of reasons why something happened.
(24:00):
I don't think it was necessarily because I did something, but you have that sense
that we let them down, we, and in my case, I let them down, but the reality was,
um, no, I didn't convey that to them as, Hey, I'm sorry.
I let you down.
This didn't go through, you know, that was something that, you know, wasn't
(24:20):
really going to be helpful if, if that's the way I was communicating to them.
What, what we communicated was, you know, these things happen.
Uh, we, we have an opportunity to, uh, you know, to, to, to, to, to
change your financial profile.
We're going to make our company even in a better state and we're going
to have another opportunity and it's going to be a better buyer and it's
(24:41):
going to be a better outcome right now.
How do we get there?
Let's focus on that conversation.
Um, but there was no time to lament that this didn't happen and blame myself,
uh, more than I would probably already be saying, Hey, we let us, I let them down.
Um, that's just something, you know, it's, it's a feeling that you have.
(25:03):
I don't know if I, if this happened again next week, I would again,
probably feel I let them down.
Right.
But, uh, the learning is you got to get past that quickly and, and how do we,
you know, how do we focus on the future is, is the goal.
Actually, that's a, that's a great point.
Um, side note, you guys have both been involved with M and A's.
I'm more involved with M and M's, but that's a whole other issue.
(25:25):
Um, what is, uh, but, but going on that, Aparva, you really touched
on something awesome there.
What is a piece of advice?
So if you were talking to someone that you just met at a dinner party
or, or, you know, at the bar, whatever, and they're facing a major professional
or personal setback, what, what advice would you give them?
I mean, I, I think, you know, if you're prepared, uh, my, my advice would be,
(25:48):
hey, keep preparing, uh, for whatever's next in front of you.
And if you prepare and do the best you can, um, that the outcome is probably
worse in your head than, than it will be, uh, that, you know, we generally kind
of think of the worst case scenario.
Um, and we kind of have anxiety around that and we're conditioned to that in
(26:11):
many cases and then how do we get ourselves to think it's, it's, it's not
as bad as the worst case scenario is going to be, right.
And, um, and, and that if you're prepared and you prepare to the best of your
ability, your preparation is going to end up creating an outcome that's not nearly
as bad as you're thinking it could be in your head.
(26:32):
Tell what about you?
You've, you've been in a bar.
What's a, what's so if someone is, uh, if some, if you're just met someone
in there and they're, you know, about to go through something, uh, pretty scary.
What, what's, what's your advice?
Uh, about to, or going through it, you know, it's a, it's a, it's an awesome
question. I think recently, as you know, I fell off my bike and I cut myself
(26:55):
pretty badly and I was embarrassed by that.
And I was talking to a friend of mine who's been biking a lot longer than I.
And he said, listen, people who bike break into two groups, those who have
fallen and those who will fall.
So, uh, what I would say to someone who is, uh, in the midst of a professional
or personal setback is congratulations.
I would say congratulations because this is a moment of growth.
(27:18):
If you embrace this moment, if you look at this moment as an opportunity to
learn, as an opportunity to grow, as an opportunity to become a better version
of yourself, you're going to come out of this ahead.
No one who's ever accomplished anything in life has done that without setbacks.
So the fact that you're at a setback, you're experiencing one is a great
indicator, particularly if you emerge on the other side, which is up to you.
(27:42):
That you're on the right path.
So look at this as a great opportunity, not as a, uh, woe is me.
And I can always tell when I sit down with entrepreneurs and particularly
startup CEOs, which I advise, uh, I can almost always tell to what extent
they're likely to be able to persevere.
(28:03):
I'll ask about setbacks and the people that tell those stories and they are the
victims of their stories are not likely to make it when those moments, when they
face those moments, it's people who are able to look at those moments as great
moments in their careers.
And while you're in it, it doesn't feel that way, but if you're able to recognize
(28:23):
it, it will become that.
If you allow it to become that, uh, you're on the right path.
That would be my answer.
Look at you guys.
I'll see.
And both of you would have gotten your beer spot for you just by thinks.
Yeah.
Well, you know, uh, but I have to do it sometime.
Uh, let's talk about scaling teams across the globe.
So, you know, one of the great opportunities that you've had and some of, uh,
(28:46):
our listeners may also be either in the midst of doing that or, uh, aspiring to
do that is to build international businesses.
And you've had the opportunity to work with businesses in Asia, in Europe, in
Silicon Valley.
Tell me how leading diverse teams or being involved in diverse environments
change your leadership style.
Yeah.
So I've been following the same thing for a while.
(29:07):
So I've been fortunate to manage global teams, uh, when I was at view, which was
the meat, the media company, the OTT video streaming company, we had operations
across Asia and I managed people in, in, in several countries.
You know, some of the things that I've learned, uh, about, about managing global
teams is one is be curious about their life.
(29:28):
You know, the head, in this case, the headquarters within the U S we get a
certain stature just by being part of the executive team, sitting in the U S
um, and, and people, you know, want to know about our lives, uh, who are on my
team, but, you know, I think it's important to build that trust by asking
about, Hey, what's, what's it like to go to school and, uh, your children going
(29:50):
to school in Singapore and what's it like, uh, when the local elections happen
and what kind of food are you eating and what's what, what, you know, what, what
are kind of the customs of your life, right?
Demonstrating, I want to know about you.
I want to know about your life.
I think it's important.
Um, you know, I was a CFO, which, which in my role, I always said that
when I was the chief food officer, because I got to go to, you know, in
(30:14):
these countries and we would go out to have local cuisine in Malaysia and India
and, and, and, and Dubai.
And, and I certainly enjoyed the food, but, um, you know, building that, that,
that trust and then, and sharing stories about, uh, you know, my career and my
life and some of the, the, you know, adversity types of things, um, you know,
the, the, the, the challenges and the, the challenges that I've faced as well.
(30:39):
Just to say, look, you know, we're, you know, we're not that different, right.
Like, uh, you might be, uh, a junior accountant in India and I might be an
executive in the U S but I came from similar type of dynamic and here's how I
got to, to where I might've gotten to and, and, you know, here's opportunities
for you to learn, right.
But, um, so I think for me, and then also like when you, when you have some
(31:02):
not to say, okay, let's have an India team Slack channel for the finance team and a US team. Let's
have one team, right? So when I'm sharing updates, it's not that I have to share a different story to
the US headquarter team versus the India team or the Indonesia team. Let's make one team, right?
And demonstrate that trust and then also give them opportunities not to just be doing maintenance
(31:28):
projects, which it might've been 10, 15 years ago. Let's put them on mission critical projects as
well because we trust them. That's awesome. So you mentioned that storytelling has been a recurring
theme in your work from creating these global productions at Vue to mentoring entrepreneurs.
(31:48):
How do you approach storytelling as a leadership tool? And why do you think that's so important?
Well, I think every executive needs to be good at storytelling, right? Because particularly in
startups, and if you're the CEO of a startup or an executive at a startup, you're going to tell the
origin of the company. You're going to tell the time when we almost ran out of money. And we're
(32:11):
going to tell the time when we didn't get through this SMA. And we're going to tell the time when
the board beat us up about this. We're going to tell a lot of those horror stories. And at the same
time, we're going to tell some of the success stories. When we got our first big customer,
when we got our first big award at some conference, and that's how you tell the history of the company,
(32:34):
and that's how you build culture, right? So you have to be good at telling those stories. You have
to be not annoyed that you're telling the same stories over and over, but you are going to tell
those stories over and over. And like I said, for me, as I built trust with team members around the
world, I told a lot of personal stories, right? I told stories. I told my Indian head wiggle story.
(32:54):
They've all heard it. I've told my story about, I could go on about certain stories, right? About
airline stories and free doughnut stories, but they've heard personal stories that get them to
relate to me more. And it gets to a level of trust that then later, they'll go that extra mile for
me, even though I'm in the US and they're sitting somewhere in Asia. So I think storytelling is
(33:19):
critical for startups. And I think it's critical for building trust in relationships with people
around the world. I couldn't agree with you, Mubor. I think that I've had the good fortune of working
with international teams for most of my career. And the more personal the relationship, the more
human the relationship, the better the professional collaboration. I would strongly encourage anyone
(33:44):
that's in an environment where you're working with people that are from different cultures, and
even more so if they're literally overseas, to take the time to personalize their relationship.
It is not a waste of time. It is going to return dividends I cannot even describe. And I don't just
mean professionally, personally as well. I actually just this weekend received the most kind and
(34:10):
generous handwritten note from a gentleman that worked for me on a team in India, who just left
for another position and wrote the... I mean, he made me cry. His note was so generous about the
impact my approach had on him. And I felt so gratified and made so much worthwhile. So take
the time to personalize things. I think that you're getting some very valuable advice.
(34:34):
And I think like in an example, I've had team members in Indonesia, we're talking about Chicago
in the weather at the beginning, they've never seen snow, right? I send them pictures of snow
storms. And it's one of the most exciting things because they're like, I will never see snow in my
life. I want you for the next... Every winter, I want you to send photos to me. Whether we're
working together, they've asked me to send snowstorm photos to them, right? It's part of that
(35:00):
personal relationship. That is a very fulfilling part of the experiences I've had.
I think that's awesome. Let's talk about Interstate Fusion Ventures. So you're also in the
ecosystem of finding and funding startups. And it's a very interesting era for startups.
I'd love to understand or I'd love to hear if you're noticing anything new about founders that are
(35:25):
getting funded now versus say five or 10 years ago. And is there any one key piece of advice
you'd give someone that's out there trying to raise money right now? Well, I think if we're
talking about today versus several years ago, four or five years ago, we did have an environment
where they call it the ZERP era, the low interest rate era, zero interest rate.
(35:49):
So the dynamic was capital was more available. Growth was at any cost was somewhat the dynamic
and mantra and profitability and unit economics were not as important several years ago, right?
I think the reality now is founders know that that is not the environment they're in. They have to be
(36:13):
able to have much more disciplined growth. The growth rates may not be as high as they were
before, but the interest level and the focus level on how are you managing your cash burn,
has changed. And I think founders today are much more aware of that and cognizant of what is our
(36:37):
path to profitability can't just be that I'm going to have crazy volume in 10 years. And that's how
we get there, right? It's what is our mix of products? Do we have new service lines or product
lines and that mix changes over time? And we have an understandable story of how we get to profitability
(37:01):
is a dynamic that is different today than four or five years ago with the founders that you often
interact with today. But at the end of the day, VC still want to see growth. Growth is a paramount,
but there's a bit more of discipline growth around the conversation. Very cool. All right. So
(37:22):
let's get to the Indian head wiggle story, which I'm very interested in. So how did a simple blog
post turn into you becoming an expert on the topic, land you on Canadian national radio,
and what is your favorite takeaway from that whole experience? Well, so the background is,
(37:43):
I don't know if you're familiar, some of you mentioned you worked with Indians before,
but there's this Indian head wiggle or bobble where Indians might shake their head where most
parts of the world might think that means no. In some of the Indian culture, it might mean yes,
or it means I understand or I affirm. And my experience was I was on a vacation in Kerala,
(38:06):
India, and there was this older gentleman, a laborer on the grounds decked out in native attire and
looked very worn out. And there were some European tourists who walked by him and said hello,
and he didn't respond. Indian tourists walked by him and waved and he didn't respond. And I walked
by him and I did the Indian head wiggle. And then he smiled at me with the biggest gap tooth smile
(38:30):
that you could ever imagine. So I wrote in my blog at that time, which I was a proficient blogger
at the time, just writing stories about life. I wrote about that experience. I also wrote about
the head wiggle experience in a book called Shantaram that was an amazing book and compared
those two experiences. And somehow somebody put my blog post on Wikipedia as the reference for
(38:57):
Indian head bobble, Indian head wiggle, unbeknownst to me. So a few months later,
the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, the NPR of Canada reaches out to me and says,
hey, we're going to do a show about gestures. And we'd like you to, we've seen your article,
we'd look at your post and we assume you're kind of a world expert on the Indian head wiggle now.
(39:22):
Can you come and talk about that gesture? And others were talking about the Italian hands and
maybe other gestures around the world. So I was living in San Francisco at the time. They set me
up at a radio station. I got to be interviewed on this kind of national Canadian broadcast program
on gestures. And I was introduced as a world expert on the Indian head wiggle. And I, in fact,
(39:47):
bought the domain name Indian head wiggle.com. I think I own head bobble.com. So I still haven't
made that a thriving enterprise, but that's in the plans with my domain names.
I love that. So real quick, what is it? The Indian head bobble, is it like you're saying?
(40:11):
You don't know if it's- I mean, I think it's more of a, I understand. I acknowledge, right? That's
the typical use. But when someone who doesn't understand it, it seems like they're saying no,
right? So there can be confusion, right? But to me, it's generally, I understand.
Now, what I've learned about storytelling from an experience like that and other experiences is the
(40:32):
best stories are not planned, right? The best stories are just things happen and just observe.
And maybe that's why I was a fan of Seinfeld. But you can't plan for certain stories. There's
no way I was going to plan that story to happen, right? But the things that have happened to me,
(40:52):
that are my best stories that I've told to employees are things that were crazy travel stories
in India or in Ireland that I would have never planned or head wiggle stories that got me on the
radio. So just be ready for things to happen. If you're trying to create a story, it's not likely
to be your best story, but things start to happen in just your everyday life and be observant and be
(41:16):
ready to share those life experiences. And I think it's lovely and very good advice.
And I would add to that, the self-deprecation and just being able to not take yourself too seriously
is a great way to come across these moments, these nuggets that will turn into great stories.
(41:39):
And these great stories bring people together, particularly when you're a leader. If you're
willing to share a story where you're not the hero of the story, in fact, you're the butt of a joke,
or you ended up somehow some way embarrassing yourself even a little bit, right? There's
something exceptionally humanizing about that, that I think leads to better business outcomes.
(42:00):
I don't know exactly, I don't have the math formula that connects that to better outcomes.
I just know it's true. Yeah, I would wholeheartedly agree.
It creates just more... The way I might want to find that in a company is I would think I have
(42:21):
better retention of my employees. I have created more trust and they're not just leaving for
another opportunity. They have to decide, hey, do I want to leave that leader? And so I would
think my attrition rate is a little bit lower if I've created that type of culture in a particular
environment. I would completely concur. Our guest today, Aparva Desai, digital technology
(42:45):
and media executive. He's done some huge things for big companies and also helped some smaller
companies achieve great things. He's currently running Sarvian Inc and is a partner at Interstate
Fusion Ventures, as well as being an executive in residence for Commonwealth Club and an instructor
(43:06):
at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. We are so grateful for your time today,
sir. It's been a great privilege having you on. Continued success to you and hopefully we'll see
you again before too long. Yeah. Thanks so much. It was my pleasure to be on the program and look
forward to having those beers with you at some point down the road. Oh, thank you. We'd love that.
(43:28):
And that's a wrap, folks. Like what you heard? Want to support the show? Please follow our page
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(43:52):
Thanks for being a part of our production and we'll see you next time on the Braving Business Podcast.
This episode of the Braving Business podcast is sponsored by, well, me.
(00:05):
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Braving Business podcast and other great episodes for you to discover.
And now let's get the show started.
(01:02):
Well, hello there.
Hello there.
A little chilly day.
Why are you cold?
You're in Tampa, dude.
I'm in Chicago.
This is cold.
We know cold.
Dude, it is cold in Tampa.
I don't know what's going on, but temperatures here are hovering around zero
Celsius, if you use Celsius, because it sounds better than saying 40 degrees.
(01:25):
But right now it's around 55, but it was, it was like under 40.
No, no, we haven't been over 40 since, I don't know, the 1900s.
No, I don't know.
It's, it's, it's pretty cold here.
I mean, and, and actually our guest today, Mr.
Aperva, he is here in Chicago with me.
He knows it's cold too.
(01:46):
Yes.
It's probably negative five Celsius here in Chicago right now.
But yes, it's cold.
Well, you chose that.
I chose Tampa for a reason.
I am on protest.
I will conduct this interview while on protest, if that's okay.
That's, I don't know who you're protesting, but that's fine.
That's fine.
Actually let's, let's get into Mr.
(02:07):
Mr.
Desai.
He is, he is a fascinating individual.
And I think someone who our audience will love because we love him.
So Aperva Desai is a digital technology and media executive, an investor with
CFO experience with global media and tech companies in the Silicon Valley, in
the Midwest, as well as Asia, including companies such as Yahoo, Intel, video
(02:31):
streaming pioneer, ViewClip and Glue Mobile.
And as CFO, Aperva has grown and scaled companies from funding milestones to
successful mergers and acquisitions, including ViewClip, which sold for over
400 million throughout his career.
Aperva's led finance operations, HR, legal, and customer support functions,
oversaw international expansion throughout Europe and Asia and
(02:54):
mentored team members into strong leaders and contributors.
Like all entrepreneurs who've made it, Aperva's journey wasn't perfect.
We will hear about two major M&A events in his career, each with diligence
lasting almost six months that unfortunately fell apart at the last
minute, and hear how the company recovered and changed focus and mindset.
(03:14):
Aperva currently leads Sarvian Inc, a CFO and digital transformation consulting
company based out of Chicago.
He is also a partner of at the early stage venture fund, Interstate Fusion
Ventures, and an executive in residence for the Commonwealth Club World Affairs
Council of Northern California.
And on a spare time, Aperva also teaches at the University of California
(03:37):
Berkeley School of Law as part of the Center for Law and Business Executive
Education Program.
Last but not least, Aperva is also an expert on the Indian Headwiggle, which
we're going to find out about, and we're going to hear a very amusing story
about how he once wrote an experience, about an experience that he had, and
became a Wikipedia reference on the topic.
(03:59):
Aperva, we are thrilled to have you on the Braving Business podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Happy to spend some time with both of you.
And yes, I am a world renowned expert on the Indian Headwiggle, which I would
love to share as we get a little bit further along.
I can't wait to hear all about that.
That's worth the price of admission right there.
(04:20):
And Aperva was telling us before the episode that he's also a fan of the
podcast, which I'm truly grateful for.
And that he particularly enjoyed the episode with Shelley Arshembaugh, which
was either the first or second episode of the season, I believe season three,
great episode.
She's an incredible entrepreneur and CEO.
(04:43):
So thank you so much for being a fan of the show, Aperva.
We really appreciate that.
Yeah, happy.
And just a quick story about Shelley.
When I first learned about this podcast, I took a look at some of your
episodes and listened to the one with Shelley and my connection to her, and
which made me a big fan of this podcast since you had her on was when I was
(05:06):
asked to give a list of books to people I've mentored in my career a couple of
years ago, my first list were generally all men, all white men.
And I realized I need to get amazing female entrepreneurs and leaders on my
list and the first person I thought of was her.
(05:26):
So now my list that includes some amazing leaders certainly includes her as well.
And I was very much excited to learn more about her when I listened to the
podcast that you had with her.
That's awesome.
If you're looking for great authors in that space, look up Susan Brady.
She's got a couple of wonderful books that I would highly recommend.
(05:47):
Let's start with your roots.
Obviously you have been in technology and media basically your entire career.
We'd love to hear what sparked your interest in technology and media and
how were your early experiences, particularly with Intel and Yahoo, how
did they shape your perspective on what innovation and leadership look like?
(06:08):
Yeah.
So, you know, my roots, I, I, I'm a son of immigrants from Gujarat, India.
I grew up in suburban Dayton, Ohio.
You know, I'm, I'm a sports nut.
I grew up playing baseball and soccer and was on sports teams at the high school
level, which wasn't that common for, you know, Indian guys in, in, in Ohio, but
(06:30):
that made me a little bit different.
But, you know, when I grew up, I didn't know what I really wanted to be.
I knew what I didn't like.
I didn't like sciences.
I didn't, I wasn't very creative.
So somewhat by default or, or just circumstance, I ended up as a business
major, I ended up majoring in accounting and management information systems.
(06:51):
And then that led me onto a path of, you know, different opportunities.
But, you know, my story wasn't one of those where, Hey, I was passionate
about being a, a business entrepreneur.
It just, you know, evolved.
And I think that's fine.
Very cool.
So you've worked in both large corporate environments and
smaller growth stage companies.
(07:11):
Can you share a moment when the contrast between those two worlds became very
clear and how it influenced your career choices?
Yeah.
And I think, you know, for me, there's been a, a natural progression from big
to small and, and learnings from big companies that helped me, you know, be
(07:33):
influential in smaller companies.
So, so I started my career in the business world.
And I'm one of the largest companies in the early 2000s, Intel, which was one
of the top tech companies there.
What I learned there was how large companies, mature companies at scale,
how they operate, how they run processes.
Right.
But that wasn't going to be my, my career.
You know, I ultimately took that learning and then applied it to a more growing,
(07:59):
evolving company and in, in, in a adolescent company, if you will, Intel was an adult.
I went to Yahoo in, in, in the mid 2000s, which was a, you know, very successful
company, but it was an adolescent started to apply some of those learnings of scale
to an adolescent company, you know, had an experience there.
And then even went smaller to startups where, you know, those were more toddler
(08:20):
companies, and then took some of those lessons from an adult to an adolescent,
to a toddler, and had to be adaptable to, to kind of understand how, how you
influence in each environment.
So tell us about it. How do, what is the difference? I mean, I, you know, what,
what did you experience and, and, and what, how did you apply what you experienced?
Well, so, you know, I think depending on what kind of big company you're at, you
(08:45):
know, some, some big companies are like, Hey, you, you know, you get involved and
you stay in your lane, right?
If you're a finance executive, if you work at Apple, you know, they want you to be
the best finance executive or, or, you know, you know, you're the best finance
executive or finance professional as you can be.
When, and, and if you excel there and, and improve your work, you're going to
(09:08):
continue to progress up in the company.
As you move into smaller and more mid-sized companies, you know, you have to
be able to get out of your box, right?
You have to be able to have show business acumen and ask questions around any part
of the business and you need to be wearing multiple hats.
You need to be a utility player at times, you know, as a finance person and a
startup, uh, oftentimes in a startup, the two most important functions are, Hey,
(09:33):
somebody who builds a product and somebody who sells the product, everything
else might fall in the crack, uh, fall through the cracks and a finance person
is generally there.
You have to, you have to be able to report, you have to be able to, to, to,
to count, uh, you know, your progress and make sure you're, you're safeguarding
assets and so forth.
But anything else might fall to that leader.
(09:53):
So I've managed customer service in my career at a startup.
I've managed, uh, printing operations at a company that had printing, uh,
photo books.
Um, so the difference often is that, you know, you have to be able to step
out of the box in, in, in, in some of those mid-sized companies and growing
companies as well as compared to, you know, a large company where you might
(10:14):
become, uh, you know, the best in your lane and you might be, um, you know,
you might be rewarded for being an optimizer and creating five to 10%
optimization improvement in a mid-sized smaller company.
You have to be a builder and you have to tear it down and maybe build it from
scratch and be excited for that.
No, very cool.
What was Yahoo like during the, was that like the heyday of Yahoo?
(10:38):
It was a little bit after the heyday.
Um, now what I also learned, Yahoo was an amazing place, right?
And, and if, if you think of the Silicon Valley, uh, you know, the, the image
of mid 2000 Silicon Valley, where you had the great cafeterias and you had
the coffee shops and you had the, you know, the foosball machines and, and
(11:02):
you had a wifi buses that took you from San Francisco to, to Sunnyvale.
We had all that, right?
You had oil changes on campus.
You had haircuts on campus.
Uh, it was an amazing experience, right?
And at that point, now, what I also learned about Yahoo, what I really
learned about Yahoo was how to manage diverse stakeholders.
There were lots of different people involved and how do you herd cats and
(11:24):
how do you manage diverse stakeholders?
But I also learned about when it was time to leave a company was when you
started to, and this happened to Yahoo a little bit for me, which was you
started to have to justify why I'm working on this project versus somebody else.
Um, and it was all, you know, a lot more political, right?
And in turf wars, and when you started thinking about internal dynamics like
(11:47):
that versus the customer versus the market, you know, it was time for me to
move on, but Yahoo is a great learning experience to learn about the internet.
Learn about internet business models.
Um, learn about how applying scale from big companies, like I learned from
Intel to, to, uh, adolescent companies were all things that were great,
great opportunities there.
(12:07):
Very cool.
Very cool.
So I have a, actually just, just off the, off the cuff, I have a
question for both of you.
Um, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned like Yahoo being a great
example of a startup company and, and, um, you've seen that throughout your
career at all.
Of course you've seen that throughout your careers as well.
But, um, uh, Perva mentioned something that actually I have seen many times in
(12:32):
my career, which is internal politics.
At what point do you feel a company goes from, goes from, you know, hey, everyone,
everyone's wearing different hats.
Everyone is, is, you know, rolling up their sleeves and working towards the
same goal to then, just like you're saying, where things become turf wars,
(12:53):
where things become politics.
What point is that?
And as business owners, how do you, like, what would you do to try to keep that at
bay for as long as possible?
I mean, I can start, you know, I don't think there's a, a definitive answer there.
It's not like in my mind you get to 200 employees, now politics started, or, or
(13:17):
is it a thousand employees, et cetera.
You know, I think there, there, there is a kind of concept that I've heard in
startups where, um, you know, CEOs often, perhaps up to the first hundred employees,
that founder, he or she might have been involved in, in, in their interviewing
process for maybe every one of those employees.
(13:38):
They are very much shaping the culture of that, that company at that point.
And now, you know, as you start to evolve to a point where, you know, the, the, the
founder is not touching, uh, the, the, the recruiting process and the hiring process
and bringing in new people into the company, um, the culture starts to change, right?
(13:59):
And, and, and at that point, can the culture still, you know, it's, it's about
that next level of leaders that you have brought in and keeping it focused around
the values and principles of the company, as opposed to, you know, other people who
don't know the CEO and so forth, trying to say, how do I get in front of him or her?
Um, I don't know if that's at a hundred company, a hundred employees or thousands,
(14:23):
but, uh, you know, once that founder, once that CEO starts to lose his or her touch,
uh, I think you start to see people trying to, to navigate and manipulate their way
in to his or her good graces, right.
And getting in front of them on, I want to work on this project as opposed to that
person. I would largely agree.
I think that there isn't a hard and fast number, nor is there a hard and fast, uh,
(14:45):
environment that is, uh, far likelier to bring about politics and others.
I think just about every environment is going to have politics because you're
dealing with human beings and human beings are, you know, inherently political
and inherently self-interested.
What you want to do is you want to create a culture that rewards collaboration.
And that's easier said than done sometimes.
But if you are able to recognize team accomplishment versus individual
(15:10):
accomplishment consistently and not celebrate a-holes, right.
Cause in every organization, they're high performers.
Uh, and in some organizations, those high performers happen to not be very
nice people.
And what I've found is if you're in a culture where the high performer who's not
very nice is not only tolerated by self, but celebrated politics are going to,
(15:33):
are going to be the likeliest place you wind up.
Uh, and you're going to get a whole bunch, a whole array of other issues, uh,
that are counter to what you're likely to want to accomplish as a founder and CEO.
So I would encourage niceness.
And I know actually, uh, Perva, that's something you agree with.
I think, you know, one of the, the quote you gave us is, uh, you know,
(15:55):
uh, was about kindness.
And ultimately I think that if you're a CEO and a founder, uh,
you may not be able to control, uh, you, you may not be able to stop
politics from occurring, but you can create a more benign version of politics.
Um, that's, that's a long conversation probably that we could have on this
(16:18):
topic, but that's my two cents on it.
Yeah.
And I would add, I mean, I think, um, I think if there's a culture that you can
create that employees feel like this is, this is my company, this is not your
company, meaning the CEO or the CFO or, you know, executive management.
Um, and, and they operate in a way that says, okay, what's the best for, for the
(16:40):
company, as opposed to just what's the best for me, you start to get a culture
that's collaborative, right?
You get a culture that recognizes, uh, that type of behavior and that type of
value system, how do we create that culture?
And I think is a, is a big part of, uh, the leader's responsibility.
So, so let's talk about, you know, another key trade for leaders, which is adaptability.
(17:01):
And, uh, and adaptability is particularly critical when you're facing challenges.
Can you think of a moment in your career where you were facing a significant
challenge and really had to lean into adaptability, uh, and maybe share with
us kind of what you went through your actual, not, not the business outcome.
That's, you know, that's fine, but what was the experience like for you dealing
(17:22):
with it?
Yeah.
And actually I think PJ referenced, uh, earlier, you know, I've had two situations
in my career where, where I was the CFO of the company and we went through M&A
processes, uh, where we were being, uh, you know, target for acquisition and, and,
and months long diligence up to six months.
(17:43):
And basically at the one yard line to, to use a sports analogy, the deals fell
apart, um, and, and in one case, you know, the market environment had changed from
before when that process started to, to when it ended, uh, the final product
was, uh, the fundraising environment was much more difficult at the time it ended.
(18:04):
Uh, and, and, and at the time, you know, companies were able to be negative, uh,
cashflow and, and, and, uh, still raise money.
And now at the end, uh, you know, cash burning companies had a
much harder time raising money.
So, you know, the adaptability that, that had to happen overnight was for several
months to focus for me as the CFO was discipline.
(18:26):
How do we get through the diligence?
How do I, uh, you know, negotiate, how do I identify opportunities for leverage
and so forth with, uh, the, the potential buyer.
Um, and then when that deal fell apart overnight, we went into survival mode
and, and raising funds was difficult and, you know, had to, to, to change the,
(18:47):
the discipline type of mindset because we were trying to get through a step
by step diligence process to a, okay, I got to get into sales mode now.
I got to go get, uh, our resources in, in every function, function from sales
to engineering, to product operations.
I got to get them into margin and, uh, optimization mode, uh, margin
enhancement, because we have to change our profile to be able to raise funds.
(19:10):
Right.
So that level of adaptability hap had to happen overnight.
It was part of a survival dynamic.
Um, but knowing enough about myself, and this is a little bit about also the,
the smaller company and dynamic I mentioned earlier, which is being able
to get your box and, and recognizing that, you know, I might've become the
CFO because I was viewed as, Hey, he keeps things moving.
(19:32):
He keeps the tight ship.
He's, he's organized and disciplined, but now I have to be a salesperson, right?
I have to get people who are not thinking about margin enhancement to change.
Um, and, and if we didn't do that, you know, we wouldn't have raised money
and we wouldn't have been able to continue the journey that the company was on.
So I've also been on, uh, as CEO on, on the side of deals that didn't happen.
(19:56):
Right.
You're, you're, you're going through M and a, uh, sometime, uh, once or twice,
uh, I was on the buyer side and I think, uh, at least once on the seller side.
And deals fall through.
And I remember feeling just inside.
I felt exhausted.
I felt a little, uh, embarrassed.
Uh, I felt anxious.
(20:17):
There are a lot of emotions that I went through and I also felt that I couldn't
expose those feelings to my team.
Now, you know, it's interesting because I went through these moments in my
career much earlier when I was in my thirties and very early forties.
And I think I would be handling those moments differently.
Now I think I actually would expose my emotions a little bit more to my team.
(20:39):
How did you, you know, I'm sure that financially speaking for you individually,
it was not great news that these deals, these deals fell apart for the companies
and the employees, not great news, a sense of maybe failure as an individual.
What did you feel like and, and, and, and how did you manage the, the, the
(21:04):
distance between what you really felt like inside and what you presented?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I would say that, um, you know, when you're an executive, you have to
learn how to compartmentalize, uh, if you're a CEO or, or CFO or, or, you
know, in any of the, the leader roles.
You know, you, you have to compartmentalize things made sound like,
(21:27):
uh, you, everything's going wrong in one area, but you can't convey that
when you're inspiring and guiding and leading and motivating a team.
Right.
Now you also have to decide what's the level of, you know, balance and transparency.
Now, of course, during the M&A process, you know, you have to
know that, not the entire company was, is aware of that process.
(21:47):
Uh, you know, there's a, a set of core individuals that are involved.
Um, but it, when it drags for six months, it starts to become kind
of, uh, apparent to, to the company.
Um, but, but I think, you know, in that case, because it took that long,
uh, we had known that this is now becoming much, this is known to
(22:09):
people who aren't even in the process.
Um, so we had to be transparent, right.
And the market was, uh, known, uh, in terms of how difficult the
funding environment was going to be.
Um, so kind of factoring those types of things, we were transparent on,
Hey, things are going to be a little bit tougher now.
Um, we're, we're focused on, on raising money, uh, and it's going to make
(22:33):
a mind shift from you all and here's how we're going to get there.
So, uh, Purva, I'm going to challenge you because there's nothing wrong with
what your answer, but your answer is in the we, you talk about the leadership team.
I'm talking about you as an individual.
What did you feel like?
How did you deal with it?
And what did you feel was the distance where you as an individual, not as a
representative, not as a CFO, as a man, as a person, how did you experience that
(22:58):
moment and what, what could you share with our audience that perhaps haven't
been in that moment yet?
And again, in all these moments, we are parts of teams, but we're also individuals.
And so one of my goals with this podcast is to give tools to individuals to
deal with moments like that in their lives and in their careers, share
(23:18):
what it was like to be you.
You were the CFO.
It didn't work.
How did you feel?
How did you behave?
What was the distance where you were on the inside and what you
conveyed to the outside?
Yeah.
So, so as an individual, as, as me, there's a, there's a sense of, hey, I,
I've let the company down, right?
(23:38):
We, we've got hundreds of people who are, you know, as a CFO, I feel responsible for,
um, we were trying to drive some, some financial outcome for them and it didn't
happen and, and, you know, I'm an integral part of that process.
I feel like I let them down.
Right now there's a variety of reasons why something happened.
(24:00):
I don't think it was necessarily because I did something, but you have that sense
that we let them down, we, and in my case, I let them down, but the reality was,
um, no, I didn't convey that to them as, Hey, I'm sorry.
I let you down.
This didn't go through, you know, that was something that, you know, wasn't
(24:20):
really going to be helpful if, if that's the way I was communicating to them.
What, what we communicated was, you know, these things happen.
Uh, we, we have an opportunity to, uh, you know, to, to, to, to, to
change your financial profile.
We're going to make our company even in a better state and we're going
to have another opportunity and it's going to be a better buyer and it's
(24:41):
going to be a better outcome right now.
How do we get there?
Let's focus on that conversation.
Um, but there was no time to lament that this didn't happen and blame myself,
uh, more than I would probably already be saying, Hey, we let us, I let them down.
Um, that's just something, you know, it's, it's a feeling that you have.
(25:03):
I don't know if I, if this happened again next week, I would again,
probably feel I let them down.
Right.
But, uh, the learning is you got to get past that quickly and, and how do we,
you know, how do we focus on the future is, is the goal.
Actually, that's a, that's a great point.
Um, side note, you guys have both been involved with M and A's.
I'm more involved with M and M's, but that's a whole other issue.
(25:25):
Um, what is, uh, but, but going on that, Aparva, you really touched
on something awesome there.
What is a piece of advice?
So if you were talking to someone that you just met at a dinner party
or, or, you know, at the bar, whatever, and they're facing a major professional
or personal setback, what, what advice would you give them?
I mean, I, I think, you know, if you're prepared, uh, my, my advice would be,
(25:48):
hey, keep preparing, uh, for whatever's next in front of you.
And if you prepare and do the best you can, um, that the outcome is probably
worse in your head than, than it will be, uh, that, you know, we generally kind
of think of the worst case scenario.
Um, and we kind of have anxiety around that and we're conditioned to that in
(26:11):
many cases and then how do we get ourselves to think it's, it's, it's not
as bad as the worst case scenario is going to be, right.
And, um, and, and that if you're prepared and you prepare to the best of your
ability, your preparation is going to end up creating an outcome that's not nearly
as bad as you're thinking it could be in your head.
(26:32):
Tell what about you?
You've, you've been in a bar.
What's a, what's so if someone is, uh, if some, if you're just met someone
in there and they're, you know, about to go through something, uh, pretty scary.
What, what's, what's your advice?
Uh, about to, or going through it, you know, it's a, it's a, it's an awesome
question. I think recently, as you know, I fell off my bike and I cut myself
(26:55):
pretty badly and I was embarrassed by that.
And I was talking to a friend of mine who's been biking a lot longer than I.
And he said, listen, people who bike break into two groups, those who have
fallen and those who will fall.
So, uh, what I would say to someone who is, uh, in the midst of a professional
or personal setback is congratulations.
I would say congratulations because this is a moment of growth.
(27:18):
If you embrace this moment, if you look at this moment as an opportunity to
learn, as an opportunity to grow, as an opportunity to become a better version
of yourself, you're going to come out of this ahead.
No one who's ever accomplished anything in life has done that without setbacks.
So the fact that you're at a setback, you're experiencing one is a great
indicator, particularly if you emerge on the other side, which is up to you.
(27:42):
That you're on the right path.
So look at this as a great opportunity, not as a, uh, woe is me.
And I can always tell when I sit down with entrepreneurs and particularly
startup CEOs, which I advise, uh, I can almost always tell to what extent
they're likely to be able to persevere.
(28:03):
I'll ask about setbacks and the people that tell those stories and they are the
victims of their stories are not likely to make it when those moments, when they
face those moments, it's people who are able to look at those moments as great
moments in their careers.
And while you're in it, it doesn't feel that way, but if you're able to recognize
(28:23):
it, it will become that.
If you allow it to become that, uh, you're on the right path.
That would be my answer.
Look at you guys.
I'll see.
And both of you would have gotten your beer spot for you just by thinks.
Yeah.
Well, you know, uh, but I have to do it sometime.
Uh, let's talk about scaling teams across the globe.
So, you know, one of the great opportunities that you've had and some of, uh,
(28:46):
our listeners may also be either in the midst of doing that or, uh, aspiring to
do that is to build international businesses.
And you've had the opportunity to work with businesses in Asia, in Europe, in
Silicon Valley.
Tell me how leading diverse teams or being involved in diverse environments
change your leadership style.
Yeah.
So I've been following the same thing for a while.
(29:07):
So I've been fortunate to manage global teams, uh, when I was at view, which was
the meat, the media company, the OTT video streaming company, we had operations
across Asia and I managed people in, in, in several countries.
You know, some of the things that I've learned, uh, about, about managing global
teams is one is be curious about their life.
(29:28):
You know, the head, in this case, the headquarters within the U S we get a
certain stature just by being part of the executive team, sitting in the U S
um, and, and people, you know, want to know about our lives, uh, who are on my
team, but, you know, I think it's important to build that trust by asking
about, Hey, what's, what's it like to go to school and, uh, your children going
(29:50):
to school in Singapore and what's it like, uh, when the local elections happen
and what kind of food are you eating and what's what, what, you know, what, what
are kind of the customs of your life, right?
Demonstrating, I want to know about you.
I want to know about your life.
I think it's important.
Um, you know, I was a CFO, which, which in my role, I always said that
when I was the chief food officer, because I got to go to, you know, in
(30:14):
these countries and we would go out to have local cuisine in Malaysia and India
and, and, and, and Dubai.
And, and I certainly enjoyed the food, but, um, you know, building that, that,
that trust and then, and sharing stories about, uh, you know, my career and my
life and some of the, the, you know, adversity types of things, um, you know,
the, the, the, the challenges and the, the challenges that I've faced as well.
(30:39):
Just to say, look, you know, we're, you know, we're not that different, right.
Like, uh, you might be, uh, a junior accountant in India and I might be an
executive in the U S but I came from similar type of dynamic and here's how I
got to, to where I might've gotten to and, and, you know, here's opportunities
for you to learn, right.
But, um, so I think for me, and then also like when you, when you have some
(31:02):
not to say, okay, let's have an India team Slack channel for the finance team and a US team. Let's
have one team, right? So when I'm sharing updates, it's not that I have to share a different story to
the US headquarter team versus the India team or the Indonesia team. Let's make one team, right?
And demonstrate that trust and then also give them opportunities not to just be doing maintenance
(31:28):
projects, which it might've been 10, 15 years ago. Let's put them on mission critical projects as
well because we trust them. That's awesome. So you mentioned that storytelling has been a recurring
theme in your work from creating these global productions at Vue to mentoring entrepreneurs.
(31:48):
How do you approach storytelling as a leadership tool? And why do you think that's so important?
Well, I think every executive needs to be good at storytelling, right? Because particularly in
startups, and if you're the CEO of a startup or an executive at a startup, you're going to tell the
origin of the company. You're going to tell the time when we almost ran out of money. And we're
(32:11):
going to tell the time when we didn't get through this SMA. And we're going to tell the time when
the board beat us up about this. We're going to tell a lot of those horror stories. And at the same
time, we're going to tell some of the success stories. When we got our first big customer,
when we got our first big award at some conference, and that's how you tell the history of the company,
(32:34):
and that's how you build culture, right? So you have to be good at telling those stories. You have
to be not annoyed that you're telling the same stories over and over, but you are going to tell
those stories over and over. And like I said, for me, as I built trust with team members around the
world, I told a lot of personal stories, right? I told stories. I told my Indian head wiggle story.
(32:54):
They've all heard it. I've told my story about, I could go on about certain stories, right? About
airline stories and free doughnut stories, but they've heard personal stories that get them to
relate to me more. And it gets to a level of trust that then later, they'll go that extra mile for
me, even though I'm in the US and they're sitting somewhere in Asia. So I think storytelling is
(33:19):
critical for startups. And I think it's critical for building trust in relationships with people
around the world. I couldn't agree with you, Mubor. I think that I've had the good fortune of working
with international teams for most of my career. And the more personal the relationship, the more
human the relationship, the better the professional collaboration. I would strongly encourage anyone
(33:44):
that's in an environment where you're working with people that are from different cultures, and
even more so if they're literally overseas, to take the time to personalize their relationship.
It is not a waste of time. It is going to return dividends I cannot even describe. And I don't just
mean professionally, personally as well. I actually just this weekend received the most kind and
(34:10):
generous handwritten note from a gentleman that worked for me on a team in India, who just left
for another position and wrote the... I mean, he made me cry. His note was so generous about the
impact my approach had on him. And I felt so gratified and made so much worthwhile. So take
the time to personalize things. I think that you're getting some very valuable advice.
(34:34):
And I think like in an example, I've had team members in Indonesia, we're talking about Chicago
in the weather at the beginning, they've never seen snow, right? I send them pictures of snow
storms. And it's one of the most exciting things because they're like, I will never see snow in my
life. I want you for the next... Every winter, I want you to send photos to me. Whether we're
working together, they've asked me to send snowstorm photos to them, right? It's part of that
(35:00):
personal relationship. That is a very fulfilling part of the experiences I've had.
I think that's awesome. Let's talk about Interstate Fusion Ventures. So you're also in the
ecosystem of finding and funding startups. And it's a very interesting era for startups.
I'd love to understand or I'd love to hear if you're noticing anything new about founders that are
(35:25):
getting funded now versus say five or 10 years ago. And is there any one key piece of advice
you'd give someone that's out there trying to raise money right now? Well, I think if we're
talking about today versus several years ago, four or five years ago, we did have an environment
where they call it the ZERP era, the low interest rate era, zero interest rate.
(35:49):
So the dynamic was capital was more available. Growth was at any cost was somewhat the dynamic
and mantra and profitability and unit economics were not as important several years ago, right?
I think the reality now is founders know that that is not the environment they're in. They have to be
(36:13):
able to have much more disciplined growth. The growth rates may not be as high as they were
before, but the interest level and the focus level on how are you managing your cash burn,
has changed. And I think founders today are much more aware of that and cognizant of what is our
(36:37):
path to profitability can't just be that I'm going to have crazy volume in 10 years. And that's how
we get there, right? It's what is our mix of products? Do we have new service lines or product
lines and that mix changes over time? And we have an understandable story of how we get to profitability
(37:01):
is a dynamic that is different today than four or five years ago with the founders that you often
interact with today. But at the end of the day, VC still want to see growth. Growth is a paramount,
but there's a bit more of discipline growth around the conversation. Very cool. All right. So
(37:22):
let's get to the Indian head wiggle story, which I'm very interested in. So how did a simple blog
post turn into you becoming an expert on the topic, land you on Canadian national radio,
and what is your favorite takeaway from that whole experience? Well, so the background is,
(37:43):
I don't know if you're familiar, some of you mentioned you worked with Indians before,
but there's this Indian head wiggle or bobble where Indians might shake their head where most
parts of the world might think that means no. In some of the Indian culture, it might mean yes,
or it means I understand or I affirm. And my experience was I was on a vacation in Kerala,
(38:06):
India, and there was this older gentleman, a laborer on the grounds decked out in native attire and
looked very worn out. And there were some European tourists who walked by him and said hello,
and he didn't respond. Indian tourists walked by him and waved and he didn't respond. And I walked
by him and I did the Indian head wiggle. And then he smiled at me with the biggest gap tooth smile
(38:30):
that you could ever imagine. So I wrote in my blog at that time, which I was a proficient blogger
at the time, just writing stories about life. I wrote about that experience. I also wrote about
the head wiggle experience in a book called Shantaram that was an amazing book and compared
those two experiences. And somehow somebody put my blog post on Wikipedia as the reference for
(38:57):
Indian head bobble, Indian head wiggle, unbeknownst to me. So a few months later,
the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, the NPR of Canada reaches out to me and says,
hey, we're going to do a show about gestures. And we'd like you to, we've seen your article,
we'd look at your post and we assume you're kind of a world expert on the Indian head wiggle now.
(39:22):
Can you come and talk about that gesture? And others were talking about the Italian hands and
maybe other gestures around the world. So I was living in San Francisco at the time. They set me
up at a radio station. I got to be interviewed on this kind of national Canadian broadcast program
on gestures. And I was introduced as a world expert on the Indian head wiggle. And I, in fact,
(39:47):
bought the domain name Indian head wiggle.com. I think I own head bobble.com. So I still haven't
made that a thriving enterprise, but that's in the plans with my domain names.
I love that. So real quick, what is it? The Indian head bobble, is it like you're saying?
(40:11):
You don't know if it's- I mean, I think it's more of a, I understand. I acknowledge, right? That's
the typical use. But when someone who doesn't understand it, it seems like they're saying no,
right? So there can be confusion, right? But to me, it's generally, I understand.
Now, what I've learned about storytelling from an experience like that and other experiences is the
(40:32):
best stories are not planned, right? The best stories are just things happen and just observe.
And maybe that's why I was a fan of Seinfeld. But you can't plan for certain stories. There's
no way I was going to plan that story to happen, right? But the things that have happened to me,
(40:52):
that are my best stories that I've told to employees are things that were crazy travel stories
in India or in Ireland that I would have never planned or head wiggle stories that got me on the
radio. So just be ready for things to happen. If you're trying to create a story, it's not likely
to be your best story, but things start to happen in just your everyday life and be observant and be
(41:16):
ready to share those life experiences. And I think it's lovely and very good advice.
And I would add to that, the self-deprecation and just being able to not take yourself too seriously
is a great way to come across these moments, these nuggets that will turn into great stories.
(41:39):
And these great stories bring people together, particularly when you're a leader. If you're
willing to share a story where you're not the hero of the story, in fact, you're the butt of a joke,
or you ended up somehow some way embarrassing yourself even a little bit, right? There's
something exceptionally humanizing about that, that I think leads to better business outcomes.
(42:00):
I don't know exactly, I don't have the math formula that connects that to better outcomes.
I just know it's true. Yeah, I would wholeheartedly agree.
It creates just more... The way I might want to find that in a company is I would think I have
(42:21):
better retention of my employees. I have created more trust and they're not just leaving for
another opportunity. They have to decide, hey, do I want to leave that leader? And so I would
think my attrition rate is a little bit lower if I've created that type of culture in a particular
environment. I would completely concur. Our guest today, Aparva Desai, digital technology
(42:45):
and media executive. He's done some huge things for big companies and also helped some smaller
companies achieve great things. He's currently running Sarvian Inc and is a partner at Interstate
Fusion Ventures, as well as being an executive in residence for Commonwealth Club and an instructor
(43:06):
at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. We are so grateful for your time today,
sir. It's been a great privilege having you on. Continued success to you and hopefully we'll see
you again before too long. Yeah. Thanks so much. It was my pleasure to be on the program and look
forward to having those beers with you at some point down the road. Oh, thank you. We'd love that.
(43:28):
And that's a wrap, folks. Like what you heard? Want to support the show? Please follow our page
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(43:52):
Thanks for being a part of our production and we'll see you next time on the Braving Business Podcast.
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Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com