How My Childhood Shaped Me To Become An Entrepreneur

Recently a friend of mine asked me to reflect on my origin story, and how parts of my personal history impacted my professional path.

Looking back, I embraced the spirit of entrepreneurship from an early age. 

But first, my origin story begins as an immigrant. Born in India, I was just 9 months old when my parents came to the U.S and eventually settled in Connecticut. I believe a lot of how we’re defined is from our early experiences, learning from our mistakes and the people who help teach us. It’s what you do with what defines you that creates the path for your future. 

Growing up in CT in a middle class family was wonderful. I played tons of sports and learned to drive in my backyard without my dad knowing. 

At the same time, wonderful had its moments.  I remember one of my friends asking me what color my blood was. I said, ‘The same as yours, jackass.’  Belonging didn’t always come naturally to me, which is why curiosity did. 

My parents taught me empathy, how giving back produces forward returns, and that it’s not the destination but the journey that matters. We all end up at the same place; it’s the memories and the people you affect which matters. 

My parents also instilled the entrepreneurial bug in me at a young age, such as buying me two books when I was 9 years old because they saw my interest in business … the story about Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and this history of IBM. That sparked my passion for building companies.

As a kid, I would look for ways to start something. My mom used to fry these Indian chips that my friends in middle school loved and so I’d sell them to my friends at lunch. I also worked as a paperboy. The newspaper company would pay you more for larger routes, so I recruited my friends to expand the route and gave them a cut. 

My senior year in highschool, I started a newspaper column in the local newspaper that had about 15,000 subscribers called the “teen beat,” where I would interview rock stars when they came to perform at concerts. It was my way to get free tickets to music, but it ended up sparking my passion about communicating ideas. 

I debated whether to study journalism or computer science in college. As an Indian, Engineering and Medicine were the only two majors parents wanted you to do. I would pass out at the sight of blood, so that narrowed my options. The community convinced me to go the computer science route, so I did. I guess journalism and media never left me, which is why I started podcasts and writing about various topics. 

Then in college I took this class called “Inequality in America,” about the migration patterns of homeless people. I always thought to myself if I could one day teach someone how to fish (learn a skill to be self-sufficient financially) the only thing I would want in return is that they commit to paying it forward and maybe make a positive mark on humanity. That is the origin of where Consciously Unbiased came about, probably because it was always in my subconscious.

Also during college, I interned at an insurance company and was working on the second largest database in the country at the time. Three weeks in, my boss said, ‘I have 8 weeks vacation–do you think you can help me find a short term contract?’ I said let’s try, so I placed him on an assignment while I interned for him. I thought I would make a good amount of money off that move, but the agency rewarded me with lunch at McDonalds. That was my first foray into staffing. 

After graduation, I worked at a Fortune 500 management consulting firm. As my side hustle, I tried to start an integrated Voice over IP network company with two 40-year old rockstar electrical engineers. They kept talking about the idea, but weren’t moving forward. So I became the catalyst to get them on the path. They raised 30M in funding. 

This came with a hard lesson: Once the funding came through, they questioned my role given I was so young relative to them. It taught me timing is important and that I shouldn’t just expect things but that I had to earn them. Yes, I was the catalyst to get them moving, but I didn’t take the big risks the way they did. They put up the money, they left their salaries to start this and had a lot more experience than me. As much as that was a gut punch, I took the positives from it, and we are still friends to this day. 

Self reflecting on that experience  helped me anticipate issues businesses would have when scaling, and how to build teams that work well together. I realized my own accountability and what it takes to build a lasting, viable financial business model. I saw it has to be about ‘we’ and not about ‘me’ to have any longevity. The building blocks of any startup is having a strong team, to put the customer first, to actively listen and anticipate markets and adjust accordingly to be ahead of competition. Lessons learned.

I left the consulting firm after this when my boss / mentor joined an internet incubator. We had a 50M fund to invest in internet companies in the late 90s, and took management roles in those companies we funded. I learned even more about funding, scalability and the importance of team. I would take on either tech leadership roles or HR roles for the companies we invested in. We would use recruiting agencies to help grow the organization. 

I really enjoyed working there, however, from my last experience I saw the .com bubble bursting and knew this was not going to last. Learning from my previous failures, I staged my layoff, and booked a 6-week trip to Europe with no set itinerary.  

Looking back, the importance of resetting your mind is critical when starting a new venture. I always tell my team, sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. It lets you see what you didn’t see and helps you become more productive. When I returned from my trip, I started HireTalent - Diversity Staffing & Recruiting Firm and many years later, Consciously Unbiased. 

We focused on building the organization with diversity of thought from the get-go by hiring people from different socioeconomic, cultural, religious, sexual orientation backgrounds and to staff diverse candidates with our clients. It was a culmination of all the different life experiences I went through that helped me build a team that I am proud to be part of. We learn from each other, get better together, and do our best to inspire and solve business problems for our amazing customers. That is what makes it fun.

I think sharing our stories is a way for us to find commonalities with each other, even though our individual paths differ.

I’d love to hear from you: How did your early experiences impact how you show up at work or your professional path? Feel free to drop a comment to get the conversation started.