Success Through Entrepreneurism!

Deepak Machado 0:00

Hi friends this is Deepak here, and today I had a conversation with Anwar Juma boy. Anwar is a person who comes out as natural speaker. And I had loads of fun recording this podcast for a simple fact that Anwar came out with anecdotes and examples from his own life. And he's a person who considers very genuine and speaks from the heart. And he spoke about what it takes to be or what it takes to thrive in this new era, or this new times that we are living in this, quote, industrial revolution, as we call it. I had loads of fun recording this conversation. We laughed a lot. We had fun ourselves. And I hope and I'm sure that you will also enjoy this conversation and learn a lot from this episode. So let's get in.

Hello, and welcome to success. 10 X podcast. My name is Deepak Machado. I'm a writer and a risk management professional. I'm also a Bitcoin enthusiast. I truly believe that every kind of growth in your life starts with personal growth. That means chaining yourself, we all come with our own nature and nurture. And for me, whenever I did work on my personal growth, the other areas of my life started growing as well. So I want to share this message with the world on how I did it myself. How did I do my personal growth? How could I grow financially, and other areas of my life and this is the theme of this podcast is to grow and be successful in life. I hope this podcast will create a spark and ignite your desires to achieve higher success. Thank you for spending time with us today and let us start Success 10 X podcast.

In today's episode, we'll be talking about success through entrepreneurism success through entrepreneurism. This is a term coined by My guest today, Mr. Anwar, Juma boy, and we're speaks and he coaches, entrepreneurs and corporate professionals. His articles have appeared in numerous magazines. He's also an author of a beautiful book called 9 Entrepreneurisms. Mr. Anwar, welcome to this podcast episode.

Anwar Jumabhoy 2:52

Thank you, Deepak. I'm delighted to be here and and have this conversation with you,

Deepak Machado 2:57

From whatever I've read about you Anwar, I've seen that you are passionate about something called entrepreneurism. What is entrepreneurism?

Anwar Jumabhoy 3:06

So entrepreneurism, in a nutshell, is a word that we coined to describe what entrepreneurs do, right? So we have this belief, generally in society that you either born an entrepreneur or you're not born an entrepreneur, and you may or may not believe that that really is not what we're talking about. But what we are talking about is what is the practice? What are the things that entrepreneurs do? And what we have said is that we have codified it into basically nine different practices. And these nine different practices are what entrepreneurs do. And like any other practice, you can learn it either as an individual or as a company. So in a nutshell, an entrepreneur ism is a practice, right? We don't say habit, because habit means you're born with it. It's a practice, which means that you can acquire it and you can, you can use it.

Deepak Machado 3:59

So Anwar, what? Why this path? Why did you choose this path? From your background? I read you started your career as a naval architect. So what incident or what event inspired you to make the shift shift from your work to what you're currently doing?

Anwar Jumabhoy 4:17

Okay. So very early in my career, as you quite rightly mentioned, I started working in a shipyard in the UK, which was a what they call a closed shop. In other words, everybody who joined the shipyard had to be part of a union. And so there were rigid unions for everybody, you know, for the for the, for us as engineers and naval architects. There were unions that looked after different trades, etc. And I found it very rigid. And so on a trip to Singapore interviewed and I ended up working in a shipyard in Singapore. And the shipyard was relatively simple, if you look at in terms of sophistication compared to the UK and we did reach reasonably well, the first two, three years and what happened suddenly was that the component of labor became a very large cost. And operating in Singapore and Singapore government then decided that they were not going to allow companies just to hire labor with no limits. And so, the, the, you know, we have we had a national day observance ceremony, and one of our very senior civil servants came to our, our ceremony and basically said to us, you are a sunset industry. If you cannot upgrade, you cannot upskill then we have no issues with you closing down. I mean, I was like, a bit shocked, you know, coming from the UK, if some, somebody in the UK had walked into the shipyard and said this, I mean, I think there would have been riots, right. Whereas, in Singapore, we sort of looked at each other. And then we said, Yeah, okay, makes sense, we we need to upgrade. And so individually, all of us decided that we needed to upskill and upgrade. So we, you know, the management got together, we started buying computers, we automated our processes, we you know, I gave classes to our engineers, I gave classes to the secretaries. So we started to upgrade, and upskill. And in that process of upgrading and upskilling, there was no real KPI, there was no real example to follow, right? We just knew that if we didn't upgrade and upskill and get jobs that were of higher value, and we would have to close down then we would all lose our jobs, right? So it wasn't like, Oh, this is the responsibility of the CFO, this is the responsibility of the marketing guy or the engineering guy, etc. Right. I was in engineering head. And we had been used to designing rigs for American rules. And suddenly we started designing for, for Indian, for Norwegian, for Swedish, etc. So all of us became more energized, we all learned new things, we all started to do new things, the shipyard one more contracts, and it continued to grow. And when I reflect back on it, I find that nobody call came and told us you need to be entrepreneurial. But that's what we were right. We decided to take risk with new contracts, we decided to take risks with new rules, we decided to take risks with new customers new ways of doing things. And we were successful. And you know Deepak, the funny thing is that I left this when I left the shipyard in the UK, I think the shipyard in the UK closed down about eight years after I left. Whereas the shipyard in Singapore I left 40 years ago, it's still there. Right? So when you have this, internalize this entrepreneurial belief, right? The belief that you have to do something, you develop your skills, you experiment, and you allow for some failure. That's how you survive. And there's too much too much emphasis is on, you know, route these different rules, etc. Entrepreneurs just need to do it. If they don't do it, they you know, they die, right? Yes. And we were in we were in the shipyard in the same position, right? If we didn't upgrade, the government has basically said to us carte blanche, you can't make it. It's okay. No worries closed down.

Deepak Machado 8:43

Yes. So, there are 1000s of reasons why a company may fail. Yes, you already laid out several reasons in your short brief, what according to you is the one reason that one reason why companies fail these days?

Anwar Jumabhoy 9:02

You know, there is no there is no magic bullet right. So, there they are, I would say from the start of time up to now. There are only three reasons why companies fail. Reason number one is you cannot find the product market fit. Right. So you have a product it doesn't fit doesn't bring value to customer. The second is you cannot execute. Right? Which means that there is a faith you can get it ready in time you can complete it, whatever it is, you cannot execute right. And the third reason is that you've got the wrong people in charge. And for me, the tragedy is the wrong people in charge. In large companies tends to go on and on and on because there's always somewhere down somebody down there they can blame and so the wrong people stay in charge rate. So that's what I always tell tell people that if your company doesn't listen to you, if your company is not entrepreneurial, then the days are numbered. And sadly, and I have seen this so many times, sadly, it's the rank and file that pays the pain, right? For a mistake of management, it's very rare that, you know, the managing director or somebody says, Oh, I made a mistake, and I'm going to leave, right? I don't see that happening. And it's always somebody down the line that has to pay the price. And, and that's why I always tell people, you know, there are three reasons for failure. But also, there are three simple things that are interrelating with each other, right? So you've got the leaders, and then you've got the people who work the operations, etc, etc. And then you've got the company and these three are interrelated, right? So what companies tend to do is, they send the people who work for them out for training, and they come back, the leader hasn't changed, company hasn't changed. They've got the training, they become more mindful, they become more alert, they become more passionate, and they come back to the organization and either the leader or the organization doesn't support them, and therefore you wasted your money in training, from time to time, you may change the leader, right. But actually, the problem is not just the leader, it's the organization, the organization has a culture, right. And this culture is something that you need to change through changing the rules. And I think that culture can be changed very quickly, by changing the rules. I am not a believer in Oh, you need to culture is difficult to change. I mean, you just saw this in in the whole COVID situation, right? culture change like that. The rules changed. I lived in Singapore, when you know, they tried to get people to be more polite, don't jaywalk, don't chew gum, you can try and try and try. But at the end of the day, you put in a rule, behavior changes. And it's the same in an organization, you put in the right rules, you put in the right, measuring sticks, you put in the right incentives. And you will see the culture change organizations that become too complex, right, they've got their own mind of their own. They've got people who protect the organization, and those people tend to be the legal and finance people. They frustrate the front end people because they keep telling you, you can't do this, you can't do that. We need to protect the company, okay, it's good to protect the company, but a company with no revenue, doesn't need protection.

Anwar Jumabhoy 12:47

And you know, so you find that operational people like myself, you get frustrated. You can't do this, you can't do this, but still deliver the number doesn't happen like that. Yeah, I'm so perfect. If I never make a mistake ever, then you do the job. Or we can switch. And I've had this argument in mind in companies I've worked for, oh, you can't do this, you can't do this. I said, that's fine. I'll do your job, you do my job? What do you have to say to these companies, which hide behind policies and procedures?

Deepak Machado 13:17

I don't want to name any companies that I've worked for. But there were certain instances where people find comfort in policies and procedures, and try to try to maybe hinder the growth or don't want to take responsibilities. Yeah.

Anwar Jumabhoy 13:36

Okay. I, I don't have such a. I mean, I don't have a such a sort of view, basically, I think what happens is that these were well intentioned people. Yes. And these well intentioned people got rules put into place. But they did not see the other side. What is the impact of this rule? Right. So I'll give you a simple example. When I was running operations for a budget Hotel Group, and we, you know, when I came in, they were very concerned about the cost of sheets and bed sheets and towels, etc. And so somebody spoke to somebody who spoke to somebody who spoke to the CFO, and suddenly you found that the hotel manager was tasked with with trying to reduce this cost element. And now if you look at the p&l, it's a small amount, right? If you ask him to focus on saving money on these things, the cleaning the towels, the the linen, etc. What's he going to do? It's going to occupy his time B, it's going to adversely affect the customer satisfaction, which is then going to bring down your revenue. Now, the girl or guy in the accounts department or whatever, who set up this whole process. She didn't see the end of the chain right? He just said, Oh, this is a cost. It's $2,000. Maybe we can bring it down to zero. Okay, you can. But is this the best use of time. And what happens when you bring it down to zero is that the guest goes in and the sheet is yellow, and the pillowcases white, they're not gonna come back. Right? So all these people have valid reasons for doing what they do. And unfortunately, CEOs in large companies get worried. So adverse adversity words, I mean, they're just overly worried about risk, right? So finance, risk, legal risk, and so they, they tend to listen to these people. Whereas if you're in an entrepreneurial company, he listens to what makes money what brings revenue, because he knows no money, no life, no job, nobody works for me, right? Whereas the large companies have this luxury of having a balance sheet reserves, etc. And so they can afford to Bumble alone, the entrepreneurs don't. And that's why I say there's a lot you can learn from an entrepreneur. And, and companies are able to adopt entrepreneurial practices, right, I wrote recently about Robert Iger, who was at Walt Disney CEO. And when he was when he was setting up Disney plus, which is a digital channel, he realized that he needed his most senior people to contribute to the effort. But if they contribute to the effort, they may not meet their KPIs, and therefore their bonuses might be impacted. And he actually went to the board, and he got a stock grant, that was solely his discretion to distribute. And the distribution was built on the basis of how much did you help Disney plus, and and look at the success of Disney passes. Right? So. So there's two things that come out of that. One is that the companies typically that do well, in the American companies, they're very flexible in the bonus reward system, and they keep changing it right. So Microsoft is what 40 odd years, they keep changing their their incentive scheme, because they want you to drive to a certain behavior, right? When Satya Nadella came in and he wanted to grow the cloud business, he didn't sit there and say, Hello, guys, we need to grow the cloud business, he sat with his director of people and change the compensation system. So you know, he, they decide the objective they want, and then they design the compensation system to suit it. And if it doesn't work, they'll change it. And they tend to put the best people in the job. They don't look at trying to match the costs of the person with the revenue of the business. And again, that's where some of the Asian companies make a mistake. And I I recently what, you know, was with a young entrepreneur, and he was going to start a new business, and you know, they're assigning people to the new business. And I said to him, why don't you do it? And he said, Why? I said, when you go to war, you want to lead with your strongest General, right? Why do you want to lead with your weakest? You know, the company, you know, the resources? Why do you assign somebody else to do it, you're not going to go to war and say, I'm selling, I'll send my weakest person, if he gets killed, then I'll send my second weakness. And then that's not way the way things work, right. So these are all examples of being entrepreneur, right, recognizing what needs to be done, and not being bound by some rule that says, oh, he can't go there, because he's too expensive, or he can't go there because he has this other thing to do. So entrepreneurs tend to be, you know, they're worried about their life. It's very few corporate executives worry about their life. Yes. The message I'm taking from here is that, you know, companies need to be nimble and agile, to keep up with the changes that are coming in the new economy, the new world or the fourth industrial revolution that is upon us already. From what I'm hearing, our You are a passionate, you're passionate about entrepreneurship. How did you develop this this kind of passion for entrepreneurship? Was it only purely through your work? Or? Yes, it is basically observing, right? So So one, one major, major point was when I worked in the shipyard in Singapore, and then I have done a couple of startups myself as a co founder. And you just, and then I've worked for for very large, successful entrepreneurs as well. And over a period of time, you realize that things are changing, and you see entrepreneurs that seem to feel it and react to it, and use it, whereas the older companies tend to get stuck. And they're not stuck because the people are not smart. They're stuck because some have just given up. Right. Others say it's not their responsibility and others

Anwar Jumabhoy 20:00

The compensation system doesn't incentivize them to change. So they're in there for a ride. And I think that the worst thing to do in life is to waste somebody else's time. If you don't have a purpose, if you don't give people quality work, if you don't give them the opportunity to learn and to do something useful, I think that's wrong. And in a lot of companies, you see, they're just people, you know, two, three people running around, not sure what they do worrying about whether they're going to be there tomorrow. And it's always because the companies have sort of become lost, right, they don't know the value that they are giving to the customer. They don't know internally who's giving it, the whole system has become so complicated, you know, you separate between your action and the result. And it's just become, you know, a spaghetti mess. It's not good for the soul. Yeah, I believe the company has to work as an organism, yes, to thrive, and then they die in the New World, new era.

Deepak Machado 21:03

So Anwar what two companies need to do to thrive in the 21st century? What are your thoughts on that?

Anwar Jumabhoy 21:11

All companies need to do the same thing, right? Understand what you're good at, understand where the value you're delivering to the customer. And then make sure you continue to deliver that value to the customer. Often, that is from listening to the operational people. So understanding the value delivering that value, and internally, maintaining a balance between the people who are interfacing interacting with the customer, and the back end, if you get an organization that's too driven by the back end, then that's the end.

Deepak Machado 21:46

So you're talking about also fear of failure in your articles in your videos. So tell me why this is detrimental to growth?

Anwar Jumabhoy 21:55

Okay, we all have a natural fear of fear of failure, right? Because of the embarrassment, right? The embarrassment that it causes. But the fear of failure also means that you are afraid to try. So in order to be successful, you need to be able to remove that fear of failure and give people the space to try. And if you look at the really successful companies, yes, they have the luxury of failing. I mean, if you look at Microsoft, or Google, Amazon, etc, the amount of products that they failed with is just insane, insane, right. But they're willing to try and try and try until they find something that works. If you're a smaller company, then you can adopt the same practice. But of course, you have to ring fencing, right. So you have to ring fence it with, I'm going to allocate this amount of money. And I'm going to give some flexibility. So you you do need to try. And you know, when you when you ask the question, you know, give me one reason for success, or one reason for failure, it's a tough one, because it's a whole series of events that come together that allow for the success. And in order to get all these events to come together, you need to be able to try different things at the same time. You know, if you're very scientific, you say, Okay, I'll try one, it doesn't work. I'll try B because it's a scientific process. And I wanted to be, again, entrepreneurs don't have that luxury. They try everything. And sometimes if you ask them, what were what was the one factor that made them successful, they would struggle? Because they tried everything, right. So if you've been an entrepreneur, you know that time is not on your side.

Deepak Machado 23:35

Yes, a lot of companies setting they have their they are already comfort, they found comfort in whatever they're doing, so they don't venture into new things, or they don't innovate soon enough. And they become you know, they get disrupted. Yes. Yeah.

Anwar Jumabhoy 23:54

I mean, there's a you know, the Clay Christensen, very famous Professor talks about this confluence of factors, right. So he has many case examples where he talks about how companies get used to doing something and then they don't want to try something that is lower margin. And so they allow a competitor to come in. And then that competitor goes up and up and up and up and and finally destroys them. Right? So we're seeing that with Tesla and electric cars, right. So, you know, Mercedes, BM, Toyota all had initiatives. Right? They all had initiatives. But I would imagine that in those initiatives, the art of a combustion engine was still so deeply entrenched in those companies that they were not willing to throw away that knowledge. Right. So it's extremely complicated to build a combustion engine car, and Elon Musk discovered how to do it quite easily. But what Elon Musk took a long time. To learn how to manufacture cars in scale, because of manufacturing cars in scale is something that technology couldn't just solve. And so if you look at the delays in Tesla, I mean, they were seriously delayed because it took them the team a long time to get their head around how to make cars in mass, mass numbers. You know, so these are, these are things that sometimes companies get so embedded in processes that they can't step away. And the interesting example, if you if you look at, for example, Alibaba, right. So the coin, Alibaba is a very strong belief in automation, and very strong belief in in automating products and processes. And so just as the way the company was created with a very small hole of people, almost all of his initiatives are also created by a small core of people. So they find a business opportunity, they find a process. They go in, they study, they automate it. And then that same group moves on to the next project, and the next project and the next project, right? So they build that capability as they move through the organization. And so he he doesn't say, Oh, you guys build this, or why don't you just hang around and manage it. So these are agile teams and work through work through the journey, if you look at the investments that the Chinese companies have made in local, local tech companies, the level of automation, the level of sophistication that they've brought to those ecommerce businesses, is phenomenal.

Deepak Machado 26:41

We have a lot to learn from these Chinese companies Anwar, how, how agile they are in moving into new territory and dominating the territory. For you took example, Alibaba, I can take several other examples. They are so nimble and agile and move to a new country...

Anwar Jumabhoy 26:59

are they are they active in India?

Deepak Machado 27:02

Yeah. See, if you see a large Indian companies like Paytm, their main investors are from China. Okay, so they provide capital there. So because there are some rules, I believe in India as to how to set up companies, legalities around them? Sure. I don't see Chinese companies operating there. But if you see the capital structure of top companies, I believe there is a lot of Chinese venture capital in India.

Anwar Jumabhoy 27:34

I think that the they're not very many successful independent Chinese companies outside of China. And that is a question that that has been asked quite often. And the answer that I have been given, which I think makes sense, is that Chinese companies don't tend to go out of China as an entity for three reasons. One is, the opportunity in China is so large, that there is really no reason to go out. And secondly, it's, you know, tied into the fact that the opportunity is so large, it's a homogeneous country to go out means that they have to deal with small markets in a lot, a lot, a lot of different variants. So in China, like the US, you can build one and sell too many.

Anwar Jumabhoy 28:26

In in the other markets, you have to build many to sell too few. Because the regional differences are quite strong, right? And the third reason why I think the Chinese companies that I've been, I've been told that don't go out is because they're so worried about being disrupted in their own market that they are have all their eyes on the old buck.

Deepak Machado 28:44

If you see, these big companies like Tencent and Baidu, I think they have been very active in your Southeast Asia region, if I'm not wrong, sizable investments, not in terms of their technology or their companies, but in terms of capital infusion, or in a VC, private equity firm.

Anwar Jumabhoy 29:03

They've done two things they've invested, they've bought into local companies, yes, partly for the fact that there are restrictions on setting up and I think also because they recognize that they're not good at hand handling regional differences. China's one country one system, everybody behaves the same way. And I think that the opportunity for a lot of the companies in this region is the fact that they are used to dealing with diversity. They are used to dealing with multiple regulations with different you know, I remember in in India, you have you, you know, you have different different products. For example, if you have food products, you know, almost 50 to 100 kilometres, the food tastes change is I think that

Anwar Jumabhoy 30:00

That might be difficult for Chinese to understand. Yes. You know, and then in the same in Southeast Asia, I don't know about the Middle East, but I assume that if you register a product in UAE, it doesn't mean that you can go to Saudi or or Qatar or Bahrain. Right. So these are very, very small markets. So how do you build efficiency in addressing small markets, I think is the big opportunity for local based firms. Yeah, I think that's something that the Chinese companies will struggle to, unlike the Americans the American, same way. And they have struggled to understand this as well.

Deepak Machado 30:39

Yes, it's a good example that you gave like in India, I come from India, so I can speak more about that. Indian companies, they have different strategies to sell, let's say from state to state or district to district. The same thing doesn't sell throughout India. So only with this, even though you and I, I've heard that even Maggie noodles, the flavor is different. In South India, is it's different in North India. people will make people who make wheat flour, they sell different with same brand sells different in South India, different investor. So there's a lot of Indian adapted to that.

So you also spoke about Tesla, which I'm a very big fan of Elon Musk and whatever he is doing. Yes, you will rightly pointed out scale is how to scale something is the ultimate challenge. He acknowledges that correct. That's why I believe he sets this impossible kind of goals. Yeah, Elon Musk is known for setting impossible kind of goals. And there may be delays. But ultimately, they achieve it. Right?

Yes, they do. But if you look at the if you look at the recent, if you look at the recent example of the Gigafactory. So if you look at the Giga Giga factory that Elon Musk built in, in California, and he will look at the Gigafactory that the Chinese have built in, in China. I don't know the numbers, but you can you can look it up. I mean, I think whatever they build, they build in record time, what might take one or two years in the US, the rest of the world is probably done in you know, 60 or 90 days in China. Yeah, the next one is in Germany. So that is also coming up in record time. So according to him, the factory itself is a product. So a product that builds products, you know, that is what it is all about. So, I mean, very few, I don't think many have cracked Tesla's secret on building factories.

So I've watched few videos. Yeah, it is true. So I'm very happy that it is happening, changes happening in the world. And he's an inspiration for many.

So coming back to you, I've read about your framework for unlocking the potentials in companies. Yes, tell us something about that.

Anwar Jumabhoy 33:07

So I think that if you look at entrepreneurs, and if you look at, you know, basic, basic things that that one takes and holds dear, right. The most important thing is respect. So I have what you call a three step respect, recognize and reward. Right? Now a lot of people talk about trust. And you need trust in organization. But you know, trust doesn't come in, if there's no respect. So the first thing that happens is you need to respect in the early example, that I earlier example that I gave you about the hotel manager, if you respected him, you would ask him, Hey, john, is this the best use of your time? And he would say no, but you didn't respect him, so you never asked him? Right. So respect is quite is critically important. The second is recognize who's going to do the job recognize your ability, recognize what you can, cannot do, and recognize that you don't have to be constrained by what you cannot do. You know, stop complaining as an executive, I can't do this. Think about what you can do.

Anwar Jumabhoy 34:21

Right? So Respect, Recognize and then Reward, the reward comes externally also comes internally, you want to feel self worth, and you get that self worth. It's a reward. And as I said, you, you know, the worst thing anybody can do is to commit you to work, which is inconsequential. We all want to do something that's important. We all want to do something that's relevant. You know, we don't want to sit, dig a trench, fill it up and dig a trench and fill it up again. A lot of people in a lot of organizations, that's what they do. Produces report, nobody reads it, but my job is to to produce it. And you don't want that so if there's anything that I can sort of ask your listeners to take away is always remember these three things respect, recognize and reward and have these three things in mind whenever you do something, that will take you a long way.

Deepak Machado 35:20

Yes and I believe in going beyond the job profile. This is what I perfectly believe in you know job profile is there for everyone but what different or what innovations are getting to your, your team, your company or organization? So I believe people have to look into that. And we're we are in the roaring 20s I love to call this decade the roaring 20s disruptions are happening around us. I mean, one year back we were not not comfortable talking over video or video conferencing, then we had to do it. Correct company like Zoom came in companies like you know, so many companies came in disrupted the industry. Tesla, I mean, that disrupted the ICE, internal combustion. Amazon is disrupting retail. What are you most excited about for the coming decade?

Anwar Jumabhoy 36:09

You know, Deepak, I've stopped forecasting on technology. And then we talked a little bit in the break about how computers, machine learning etc is making such advances that you really worry and if you want to get frightened then we talked about Michio Kaku, you know, you just have to read his listen to his videos and you say, Oh, hell is that the world that's going to happen? So technology, I think is not really the issue. The heart of the problem is that I think we need to find back humanity in the world. And I think we need to find back fairness, we need to find respect. And I think those are those are the critical things. No, there has to be a balancing in society, this globalization, this, you know, long tail because of technology, etc. fundamentally wrong. Right? So why is a farmer paid so little, whereas a programmer is paid so much? You can't eat programs? Right? So we, for me, I really think that I worry more about basic humanity, we need to find fairness, we need to find purpose in jobs, etc. And the good thing is that young people are increasingly looking for that, you know, they're willing to join companies with purpose. And the older companies who are struggling with their purpose are also struggling to recruit. And many of these companies middling companies, they can't explain the relevance. No, I work for budget Hotel Group, very small rooms, you know, no room service, you know, etc. You're very, very completely budget, right.

Anwar Jumabhoy 38:02

But the people I worked for, and the people that I hired, we were proud to work there. Because for us, why waste the environment? Why build rooms that are so big? nobody uses why build pools that only one person uses, right? Why does every guest have to pay for the common space when they don't, they will walk into it. Now, just because you don't go to the pool or the gym, you're still paying for it. Because their upkeep has to be distributed across the room, right? through all the room times, right? So. So we tell people, and we find people who say, yeah, this is a good thing. And companies can find purpose, they just need to sit down, think about it, they will have a purpose, they will be able to find it. And if you want to recruit, and you want to stay relevant, then finding that purpose is quite important. And when that's why, you know why why was Tesla so successful as a stock, you know, who bought Tesla stock, all the younger generation, who didn't look at the balance sheet didn't look at the financial plan didn't look at whether they were going to make money, didn't look at where Tesla how fast and how many delays. They didn't look at all of them. They saw a man who wanted to change the world, and they were willing to buy shares to go with him.

Anwar Jumabhoy 39:21

And that's why if you look at Tesla's investors, all the big funds and all said no, no, we can't invest in this company, you know, they're not going to go anywhere. They haven't cracked. But there was a whole bunch of other people who said, I believe in the man I believe in the purpose and I'm willing to put some money behind his company. And those are the people who bought his stock, the millennials, the younger people. And so, you know, it's it's to me that that's the big success is that there are enough people who are willing to, to put their money during their purpose. That's a good thing.

Deepak Machado 39:55

Very profound thoughts on where I really appreciate you sharing. You know, your heart, everything in your on your mind. You've written out your you've co authored a book, nine, entrepreneur isms. Tell us more about it. And why did you write this book first of all?

Anwar Jumabhoy 40:12

We wrote the book because we were fed up of middle managers getting blamed for mistakes made by senior managers. And, and we that was one reason. The second reason was, it became pretty obvious to us why entrepreneurs were more successful, they had read less rules, they focus on what they knew, they took risks. They didn't blame people, you know, they were passionate, they learn, they experimented. And so really, we wrote the book by saying and to say that don't look at all these new fancy concepts of blue ocean and in this matrix and, and you know, every few years, the Americans come up with a new management system. And then, you know, it gets rolled out through all the MBAs and all that. And we say, forget about all that entrepreneurs have existed since the beginning of time. Why do you want to get sucked into all these, you know, new concepts that change every four or five years? Go back to the basics.

Anwar Jumabhoy 41:14

And we are all born entrepreneurs, right? So I, I heard, I was fortunate to hear the founder of Grameen Bank, Mohammad Yunus speak a couple of times in person and he said something which I thought was quite remarkable it tongue in cheek, he said that, look, we are all born entrepreneurs. When we were living in the cave, we didn't sit down, write a resume, post it to the cave next door and say, please hire me.

Anwar Jumabhoy 41:44

Right few entrepreneurs. And and, and we, that's the way we are. And he said that the world will be a better place with more smaller companies, then with a few large companies, and that's where you get a kewpie equitable distribution of wealth. And the good thing about the pandemic that were going through is that people are naturally supporting local businesses. And that's a very, very good thing. So we need a lot more small businesses, and not go the direction of a few large businesses. That way you get more owners, and therefore more more owners can take more rational decisions. And the wealth pool gets expanded so Yunus, you know completely right?

Deepak Machado 42:31

Absolutely agree with you your thoughts and we're not going to share with us your morning routine, do you have any specific practices,

Anwar Jumabhoy 42:39

I'm a, I'm a very disciplined person. Because I don't have a nine to five job by, I have really no discipline. So you know, I try and make I try and do certain things through the week, but they all get done in a very, very, very muddled order. And I've taken to trying to learn to play a guitar, which is tremendously difficult. And I don't know whether ever be able to play it but it's quite satisfying to see that the the ear and the fingers, recognize what's right and wrong. So that you know, this concept of muscle muscle memory, which was a concept I now understand it from trying to play a guitar. But you know, I do the usual things I you know, I pray I exercise so I'm but I'm very disciplined, my wife will always say I'm extremely, I like to say that those those moments between waking up and getting up are wonderful moments where the mind is just thinking, you know, some people say you go into a shower, and and those are your mind. My, my thoughts typically, between that waking and getting up. And there is some there is a school of thought that says that your creativity, creativity comes in that interface between alertness and dreaminess. And there are some people who say that you know, it is that interface where you are most creative because your subconscious is trying to tell your conscious something. And it's only in that period when your consciousness not is not in full control. That it It allows to be fed by the subconscious, so I don't know but I mean.

Deepak Machado 44:30

thank you for being honest. Okay, so what is your message or advice to someone who is actually challenged or struggling with entrepreneurism

Anwar Jumabhoy 44:42

In a company or in it as an individual?

Deepak Machado 44:45

let's say in a company first, then we can move on to as an individual

Anwar Jumabhoy 44:48

so so in a company, you need to have the guts to ask the question, why? Why am I doing this? Why are we doing this? Where are we? Where are we actually producing value. So if you don't ask those questions that I think you will have a problem and early on in the pandemic, when people were working at home, and I was talking to some groups, you know what I said to them and say, if you're at home and you don't know what to do, then you need to worry. Because it means you're not relevant. So from an in a company, from an individual perspective, you need to make sure you're relevant. And from a company perspective, you need to make sure that you are serving the customer, as an individual, as an entrepreneur, it's pretty much the same thing, right, you need to make sure that you're serving the customer, and that you're providing value and that you are evolving. And today, the advantage is that customers voice is very strong. And they're not afraid to tell you, very few companies start out with a product that is finished, you know, when when you talk to what Musk. So when Musk first started and wanted to do the electric car, he wanted to get a, you know, following the Lean Startup concept, he wanted to get a prototype out quickly. And so actually, he built the prototype on the back of a Lotus car, just so he took the Lotus chassis, put batteries on it. And that's why he didn't need to hire Automotive Engineers, etc. And once he proved that the concept worked, but it wasn't efficient. And then he realized that he had to re completely re re re engineer the chassis, and that using a traditional chassis wouldn't work. You know, and so, in so musk must follow that principle of lean startup, which Eric Reese talks about. So entrepreneurs have to continue to evolve. And if you look at the it's taken Microsoft for a very long time, right? So Microsoft grew up in a make it perfect, then ship it. Because if you remember Microsoft, you know, used to produce CD ROMs, or discs, etc. Right? And so you you you couldn't ship it if it didn't work, because you couldn't fix it. Right? So the whole kind of mindset of Microsoft was make it perfect, and then ship it. And it must have caused tremendous pain in Microsoft when they realized that other companies were shipping products that were not perfect. You know, and so it took them a long period of time. And I think they only really went completely digital probably two or three years ago. Because the whole mindset was, it has to be perfect, then we ship it. And then suddenly you get all these companies that were producing stuff, Google Amazon, Salesforce success factor, they were shipping stuff that wasn't completely working. And I would love to have been a fly on the wall in Microsoft because you see people carrying the hair on how can you do it? How can you do this?

Anwar Jumabhoy 47:51

Can you imagine you come from the banking industry and you send out a product and and it doesn't fully work and it's not risk compliant. And you'd be tearing your hair Oh, my God, how we can release this. But then Alibaba and they do it all the time. But they do such scale in the fixing the problem with such scale. It's just a complete way a completely different way of working. But I can imagine that it Microsoft, they must have been banging their head on the wall saying can't be happening to me.

Anwar Jumabhoy 48:23

These guys ship How can I first ship up a phone now that doesn't work? Or you know, I mean, there was me like banging the head on the wall. Erickson wasn't even banging their head on the wall saying what can they ship this product doesn't work.

Deepak Machado 48:36

I believe in that period, they were a value trap. Microsoft I when I was following these companies in terms of the share price and what changed and why it is now up. So if you see in 2010 to 15, Microsoft didn't grow in terms of share value. Correct. But the moment they started, whatever you said, We changed, you know, from shipping physical to over the internet updates. So that's when Satya Nadella came and you know, it changed the trajectory towards you know, more of cloud computing that kind of so I think they grew from that.

Anwar what this has been a fascinating conversation with you and I look forward to having more conversation with you. Do you have any parting words to our listeners?

Anwar Jumabhoy 49:22

My only parting word is be entrepreneur focus on what you can do, not what you cannot do. And remember that entrepreneurs are not different people. They just do things differently. And you can too.

Deepak Machado 49:35

Thank you Anwar. I wish you all the best in your endeavours and where can we find you? Where can we reach you?

Anwar Jumabhoy 49:42

I'm on LinkedIn. You know, basically I'm only on LinkedIn.

Deepak Machado 49:45

Okay, great. So I will put a link to your LinkedIn profile. And thank you for your time and for your knowledge that you've shared. I am sure that most of us will gain a lot out of it.

Anwar Jumabhoy 50:02

it's been great sharing Thanks, Deepak for hosting the show and I look forward to chatting sometime soon.

Deepak Machado 50:07

Thank you.

Anwar Jumabhoy 50:07

All right, take care.

Deepak Machado 50:10

Thank you for listening to this episode of success 10X podcast, where we learn about entrepreneurism in your success.

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Anwar has been a great sport, sharing his knowledge with us today.

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