Speaker 1: All right, welcome everyone to a brand new episode or startups,
Speaker 1: they'll say, and we have here Moheit Mishra, So welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Why don't you kick it off by
Speaker 1: telling us a bit about yourself?
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 3: My background has been particularly in mobility and transportation, but
Speaker 3: that did not start off as I planned to. I
Speaker 3: graduated with a major in computer science and engineering from
Speaker 3: my DBHU back in twenty fifteen, and then I was
Speaker 3: hired by a US company, but that h one we
Speaker 3: never worked out, and I ended up. Life would take
Speaker 3: me to Europe in a very weird fashion. That would
Speaker 3: be that a friend of mine and I we were
Speaker 3: on a Europe trip. We helped another friend who asked
Speaker 3: for some help, and when we came back and he said, hey,
Speaker 3: I got some corporate funding.
Speaker 2: Would you like to join back? And we said, hey,
Speaker 2: let's join you.
Speaker 3: So that's how I ended up in the Netherlands, which
Speaker 3: was a completely unplanned way to start off in the
Speaker 3: mobility space. And since then I've been working entirely in
Speaker 3: the mobility space, which the career started off as a
Speaker 3: tech lead at this particular Dutch startup building connected connected
Speaker 3: cars applications and then connected fleet maintenance products, then mass.
Speaker 2: Products, which is mobility of service.
Speaker 3: How do you integrate all modes of mobility into one interface.
Speaker 3: And then moving on to being an entrepreneurial residence at
Speaker 3: the inaugural Antler Cohorte.
Speaker 2: In the Netherlands. That was back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: It didn't work out as I had planned, but I
Speaker 3: was just a twenty six year old guide, nothing to
Speaker 3: lose at all, and that kick started another set of journey.
Speaker 2: Moved on to another Dutch.
Speaker 3: Startup as a CTO, which was about organizational behavior change.
Speaker 2: How do you change the behavior of employees to travel.
Speaker 3: To their work by other modes of transportation not by
Speaker 3: the personal car.
Speaker 2: So that was a.
Speaker 3: Great learning combining human behavior, science, human and then together
Speaker 3: with technology and then having multi stakeholder management involved.
Speaker 2: So that was quite an insightful journey in the process.
Speaker 3: By late twenty twenty, I gave up my car to
Speaker 3: completely depend on public mobility, and that meant that I
Speaker 3: had to install a number of applications. The good side
Speaker 3: was my carbon emissions dropped from one to fifty grams
Speaker 3: per kilometer to less than five grams per kilometer, but
Speaker 3: that was not so easy because it came with installing
Speaker 3: multiple apps, juggling between multiple systems, going around different countries
Speaker 3: with different languages.
Speaker 2: So that was a bit of a chaos in my life.
Speaker 3: But that also meant an opportunity in the sense that
Speaker 3: I started to toyron. Okay, why is that these disconnected
Speaker 3: mobilit ecosystems so different? I mean, you could be in Gmail,
Speaker 3: I could be on Yahoo, but we don't have an
Speaker 3: aggregator in between that connects.
Speaker 2: To both of us. We just talk.
Speaker 3: So can this be done to mobility? And that was
Speaker 3: the genesis how we started Atomical. It started off as
Speaker 3: a research problem and then I asked my co founders, hey,
Speaker 3: this is what I've been towing around, and they joined
Speaker 3: joined the venture, and that's how we started off. So
Speaker 3: that's been a bit about me, my background and my journey.
Speaker 3: And if you don't see me working, then you'll find
Speaker 3: me either reading books on philosophy or playing my piano,
Speaker 3: guitar and flute.
Speaker 2: That's that's me.
Speaker 1: Sure you're good at that too, for sure? Right, thank
Speaker 1: you for that intro, Anthony. Do you want to kick
Speaker 1: off the next Yeah?
Speaker 4: So for those who don't know you and I'm what
Speaker 4: three months ago, four months ago in Bangalore, and obviously
Speaker 4: your journey started in India, and you know, your Europe
Speaker 4: trip is probably one of the more unique Europe trips
Speaker 4: where you started a company at the end of the
Speaker 4: day rather than just going and you know, clicking pictures
Speaker 4: and doing other things.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 4: But you also mentioned the whole h one B and
Speaker 4: I mean all this happened by chance or you know,
Speaker 4: life took you in a certain direction, right, So can
Speaker 4: you tell us a little bit about when the whole
Speaker 4: entrepreneurial bug hit you versus because I mean, you had
Speaker 4: other plans, like you said yourself, right, I mean, and
Speaker 4: what's it like to be a CEO? And would you
Speaker 4: do anything different right right now now that you've been
Speaker 4: in a startup, been on this journey, talk to us
Speaker 4: a little bit about just being a CEO of a startup.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a big question.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the entrepreneur bug literally kicked in when
Speaker 3: this antler co Hoed was just pickening up. There was
Speaker 3: I learned about it or I said, well, there's nothing.
Speaker 2: To lose here.
Speaker 3: I was pretty young, I'm still young, but and the
Speaker 3: thought came in, hey, there's nothing to lose here. I'm
Speaker 3: just here to gain everything simply because I did not
Speaker 3: do any startup as such before. I was more of
Speaker 3: a developer. I was coming from a technical background. It
Speaker 3: would be great to be amongst a group of you know,
Speaker 3: you know, in a group of really smart folks, more
Speaker 3: way more experienced than.
Speaker 2: I was, and to learn from them.
Speaker 3: So that's how I applied to Antler, and then we
Speaker 3: had went through some rounds of interviews and it got selected.
Speaker 3: So that was a that was the bug that bit
Speaker 3: me back then. Uh, it meant that it did not
Speaker 3: it did not translate into a startup right away, but
Speaker 3: it did kick me off into a direction that.
Speaker 2: Meant more more focused.
Speaker 3: As I was doing mobility, then it got more focused
Speaker 3: into mobility than as part of that Antler group I
Speaker 3: was already I met a number of people to bounce
Speaker 3: back ideas. So it helped me to grow from a
Speaker 3: developer into more combining technology and business together. So that
Speaker 3: was a quite a good let me put it this way,
Speaker 3: MBA in a crash course. So that and then now
Speaker 3: when I started with this atomical I'm still learning a lot,
Speaker 3: especially from my mentors, from my investors, from my advisors,
Speaker 3: there's much to learn. So the way I look at
Speaker 3: this as a journey, as a CEO, in my journey,
Speaker 3: it looks to me that I am flying a plane
Speaker 3: and there are advices around me who are at flight
Speaker 3: control places who are helping me find that direction go
Speaker 3: so that I don't crash the plane. That's that is
Speaker 3: how I would like to put this journey.
Speaker 4: Right now, that's a great analogy. I was going to
Speaker 4: say it's more like NASA's launch center in Houston, but
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, the flight works as well. So
Speaker 4: so I think for those of people who don't know
Speaker 4: about atomical mohit, let's go back a little bit, right,
Speaker 4: I think it's important to talk about I think the
Speaker 4: problem is clear. I think both Ridy and I would
Speaker 4: agree that instead of opening five different apps, let's say,
Speaker 4: for example, I mean I live in the Bay Area. Yeah,
Speaker 4: if I want to go to say Peer thirty nine
Speaker 4: in downtown San Francisco from where I live, I probably
Speaker 4: have to and have to use public transportation. I have
Speaker 4: to probably change five different times to get to my
Speaker 4: final destination, and five different apps to get to my
Speaker 4: final destination. Right, So you're trying to overcome that by
Speaker 4: making it seamless simply put right, I mean saying one app,
Speaker 4: why can't it all talk to each other. Let's say,
Speaker 4: for example, WhatsApp is my favorite messaging app. You know,
Speaker 4: I could go in, I could quest for something. I mean,
Speaker 4: everything is seamless. I'm probably condensing the whole thing. I mean,
Speaker 4: you're probably going to touch on that. So who is
Speaker 4: Atomical aimed at. Is it the developer ecosystem? Is it businesses?
Speaker 4: Maybe touch on that a little bit so that people
Speaker 4: know what to look for through Atomical, and then we'll
Speaker 4: probably double click on that go it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, as such, Atomical offers a platform as a service
Speaker 3: for cities, businesses, and developers so that they can integrate
Speaker 3: with different mobility services and they can offer mobility as
Speaker 3: a feature or mobility as a service, or add ons
Speaker 3: to their own end users well as While that is
Speaker 3: a solution that we provide, the problem is a little
Speaker 3: bit more nuanced if you look at it. It's not
Speaker 3: just different applications that you will have to merge together
Speaker 3: in order to get from point A to point B.
Speaker 3: But think about this way. In the next ten to
Speaker 3: fifty fifteen years, we're going to have two and three
Speaker 3: people living in cities. That means it translates to the
Speaker 3: mobility demand tripling, which effectively means with situation as it is,
Speaker 3: it means more cars on the road. But cities don't
Speaker 3: grow as quick as we are growing in the cities,
Speaker 3: and they're struggling to bring these mobidity services together so
Speaker 3: that they can cater to the needs of their own
Speaker 3: residents as well as tourists coming in and going out.
Speaker 3: Cities naturally struggle with how do we solve this problem
Speaker 3: so that it's easier for people living in the cities
Speaker 3: of people coming in and out of the cities to
Speaker 3: move around. While businesses there are multiple business cases wherein
Speaker 3: businesses would like to offer mobility as a service or feature,
Speaker 3: not necessarily as a mobility application.
Speaker 2: They could be non transport application as well.
Speaker 3: But they do have business cases, but they simply cannot
Speaker 3: do it because there's no easy way to interact with
Speaker 3: different mobility operators. And that's exactly where where Atomical comes in.
Speaker 3: Despite today's despite the consumer spending on mobility today on
Speaker 3: ground transportation today exceeding one trillion dollars, there's literally no
Speaker 3: easy way to integrate mobility services into let's say your WhatsApp,
Speaker 3: or let's say into Airbnb, or let's say into your
Speaker 3: car rental application, or let's say into your.
Speaker 2: Booking dot com.
Speaker 3: They always have to struggle with finding the right solutions
Speaker 3: of you know, there's no off the shelf solution. There's
Speaker 3: no Stripe for mobility available today, and that's exactly what
Speaker 3: what a tonical does. So with that explanion, it is
Speaker 3: really just as Stripe created. There's digital payments infrastructure for
Speaker 3: the Internet. We're creating that digital mobility infrastructure for the Internet.
Speaker 1: That that is good. So hopefully by the time I
Speaker 1: get it, hopefully it's a better path, right, I hope, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And was it like, you know, thanks for giving that
Speaker 1: visual kind of outline of how the solution works for
Speaker 1: somebody coming in. I'm assuming it is right now set
Speaker 1: up for places where there is a wat of infrastructure.
Speaker 1: I'm released out of Los Angeles, our public infrastructure for
Speaker 1: especially public transport doesn't offer as many options. But I'm
Speaker 1: assuming with Europe, right, it's a good round to get
Speaker 1: this going first.
Speaker 2: Yes, for our developer.
Speaker 3: As a business, you can think about typically when you
Speaker 3: go out to integrate with any mobility operator in general,
Speaker 3: you would end up having to spend more than about
Speaker 3: one forty hours simply in getting from the starting point
Speaker 3: of interaction after contract acquisition to actually deploying the solution
Speaker 3: with that integration. And this entire process would include getting
Speaker 3: the contract, and before even contract you need to know
Speaker 3: to knock in the door and say, hey, I'm this
Speaker 3: particular company. Can I talk to you? And who is
Speaker 3: the right person to talk to? And then you acquire
Speaker 3: the contract with all bunch of negotiation calls that you do,
Speaker 3: and then you would be ending up with some additional
Speaker 3: nuances in that contract. The settlement and reconciliation process would
Speaker 3: be involved. Both parties would have to settle on that.
Speaker 3: That's not easy. Every party has some different settlement and
Speaker 3: reconciliation process. Then you would end up most parties would
Speaker 3: ask you operators would ask you for a deposit and
Speaker 3: a credit check. Imagine if there is a small little
Speaker 3: startup starting to build something very innovative that can really
Speaker 3: change the behavior behaviors of people or can improve the
Speaker 3: top line of different applications, they simply cannot integrate with them.
Speaker 2: They don't have the money. And once this is done,
Speaker 2: let's assume that you.
Speaker 3: Actually get your business, legal and finance team together.
Speaker 2: Then comes to technical integrate, which.
Speaker 3: Means you would be provided with some proprietary information and
Speaker 3: data to integrate with, often with inadequate API documentation, and
Speaker 3: sometimes those documentation don't even exist. And in one I remember,
Speaker 3: in one of such integrations we did, we had to
Speaker 3: relearn ourselves. We are computer science engeneers, but we had
Speaker 3: to relearn ourselves because of technology that was used. We've
Speaker 3: never taught in our bachelor program that was as old
Speaker 3: as that. And then you have an operator testing you
Speaker 3: would have to do, the operator has to sign off,
Speaker 3: and then finally.
Speaker 2: You would deploy your solution. So by the.
Speaker 3: Time you end up selling the first one dollar ticket,
Speaker 3: I think you would end up spending like one hundred
Speaker 3: k to just get one dollar ticket. And so that's
Speaker 3: the problem here in the entire ecosystem. And imagine and
Speaker 3: there are companies already doing that, the big companies, but
Speaker 3: all of them are going through that same So there's
Speaker 3: an integration's pagery. There's multiple bunch of companies and then
Speaker 3: multiple bunch of trans properators they integrate with each other.
Speaker 3: So you can imagine there's an integrations Pagattie in between.
Speaker 3: How do you standardize these interactions? Just like what is
Speaker 3: open banking for the fintech sector, can there be an
Speaker 3: open mobility standards for the mobility.
Speaker 2: So we have we have such standards coming up, but.
Speaker 3: We have a long way towards, you know, the ideal
Speaker 3: state where you could say, hey, now you can integrate
Speaker 3: with any mode of transportation and just let's say in
Speaker 3: thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: Actually I want to ask this then, right, so you
Speaker 1: go to your you come back and you tell your
Speaker 1: friends and family, actually, I'm going to try and fix
Speaker 1: some of the problems I saw with the public transport,
Speaker 1: which right now is supposed to be the best out there.
Speaker 1: What was the reaction, what was there lines like and
Speaker 1: how how did you find that support?
Speaker 3: Well, I thought that there would be some people saying no, no,
Speaker 3: don't do that, you can be in a stable job.
Speaker 3: But my parents will saying go for it. They did
Speaker 3: not at all had any question. They said, go for it.
Speaker 3: This is your thing. So it was a bit of
Speaker 3: a surprise for me that my parents were like the
Speaker 3: first champions before any other champion came in to support us.
Speaker 3: I think that was I'm humble to have such parents
Speaker 3: and lucky to have such parents, I would say. And
Speaker 3: then friends came in and said, yeah, this is your thing,
Speaker 3: go for it. They knew in a way, they already
Speaker 3: knew that I've been toying with some mobility.
Speaker 2: I had been in mobid.
Speaker 3: They saw my enthusiasm over the past few years, how
Speaker 3: I talk about mobility and all, and how I see
Speaker 3: simple little changes, but also building up on those changes,
Speaker 3: visualizing how the end world could look like that kind
Speaker 3: that also inspired them, And in a way I did
Speaker 3: not have to fight them to say, hey, can I
Speaker 3: do this?
Speaker 2: They said, well, do this, don't ask.
Speaker 4: Us some of it them in terms of atomical I mean,
Speaker 4: obviously both Ruthy and I agree it's much much needed
Speaker 4: sort of a solution or the next step forward in
Speaker 4: our goals for say a cleaner world, you know, like
Speaker 4: you said, with carbon emissions and whatnot. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 4: the urban mobility in general is becoming a big problem,
Speaker 4: you know, like we were talking about Bangalore earlier. Bangalore
Speaker 4: is encouraging everyone to take the metro, you know, to
Speaker 4: help avoid some of the bigger transportation traffic issues and whatnot.
Speaker 4: And then I think, just thinking about what you're saying,
Speaker 4: I mean this just doesn't apply to public sector. It
Speaker 4: applies to the private sector as well. I mean something
Speaker 4: maybe you and I were speaking about, you know, the
Speaker 4: number of buses you see in the Bay Area transporting
Speaker 4: you know, employees from all nooks and corners of the
Speaker 4: Bay Area into the offices in the tech sector. But
Speaker 4: still people choose to take their cars into work. You know,
Speaker 4: that could be another one. And then just beyond you know,
Speaker 4: urban transportation. I mean, nowadays there are electric mobikes and
Speaker 4: this and that and everything. I mean, there's so much
Speaker 4: more to connect. And then besides that, I think there's
Speaker 4: parking solutions as well, which people could use potentially. Right, so,
Speaker 4: I think you're barely scratching the surface, right, And speaking
Speaker 4: of barely scratching the surface, where are you with the
Speaker 4: company right now? Right? I mean, you know, in your journey,
Speaker 4: what do you see coming up in the next twelve
Speaker 4: to eighteen months, What help would you like from the community.
Speaker 3: Yes, so at the moment, what we have been doing
Speaker 3: is that our solution currently covers the whole of Netherlands,
Speaker 3: so that it was a way to prove the hypothesis
Speaker 3: that it works. They're having some pilots that we have
Speaker 3: done and then recently we won a tender for the
Speaker 3: Utherrek province and that is about two to four year
Speaker 3: project to work with the province itself, with the municipalities
Speaker 3: itself to create a better solution, better open mobility ecosystem.
Speaker 2: And then we are.
Speaker 3: Also heading into India for what we have learned in
Speaker 3: the Netherlands specifically the Dutch playbook shows us some opportunities
Speaker 3: elsewhere in the emerging economies as well as well as
Speaker 3: parts of developed world as well.
Speaker 2: Specifically with parking.
Speaker 3: If you think about parking, parking is the bridge between
Speaker 3: the car economy and other modes of transportation.
Speaker 2: If you're crack.
Speaker 3: Parking effectively, you can create that behavior change and that's
Speaker 3: exactly what we have been working on in India.
Speaker 2: We it's quite public now.
Speaker 3: We have an MU signed with our cardi Ists that's
Speaker 3: a Dutch company, but a global consultancy firm. We are
Speaker 3: working together with them with the Making India initiative to
Speaker 3: create the mobility infrastructure in India. At the same time,
Speaker 3: you well, I wasn't the States and you know part
Speaker 3: of it what's happening there.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: We we were at the United Nations Conference last week
Speaker 3: and Debbie and I we were at there and you
Speaker 3: know Debbie, so we made a bold statement. And next
Speaker 3: year we will be there again to present the project
Speaker 3: where there's an interoperable mobile ecosystem between Netherlands, Bangalore and
Speaker 3: the Bay Area, to show that this is quite possible
Speaker 3: to actually connect different ecosystems together and it's not.
Speaker 2: So difficult as it looks like to put that all
Speaker 2: stack up.
Speaker 3: It is quite possible to do so, and that's what
Speaker 3: we have been able to showcase back.
Speaker 2: In the Netherlands.
Speaker 3: As far as our own traction goes, we have some
Speaker 3: already customers PIPE customers in the pipeline. We are now
Speaker 3: moving towards raising raising a fund round and at the
Speaker 3: same time we are doing a number of pilots that
Speaker 3: are about to close in some time and that would
Speaker 3: open up a whole b of news sales pipeline and
Speaker 3: unlock a new pretty long sales pipeline.
Speaker 2: I would say more details.
Speaker 4: So speaking of funding, just to be clear for anyone listening, Moheit,
Speaker 4: I mean, are you looking to raise funds from individuals
Speaker 4: or vcs or who can approach you with any any
Speaker 4: investment ideas that they might have for atomical.
Speaker 3: I think at the moment we are very much focused
Speaker 3: on angels and syndicates and operators to get to a
Speaker 3: point where we would be VC packable. The reason that
Speaker 3: we do that is simply because, of course, with various
Speaker 3: other milestones that we want to achieve and have a
Speaker 3: very disciplined way of growing. We don't want to bled
Speaker 3: scale right away, but rather have a very disciplined approach
Speaker 3: to raising as well as getting revenue getting customers on board.
Speaker 3: So at the moment we are really focused on angels,
Speaker 3: angel syndicates, operators running. And it could be pre seed
Speaker 3: or see v ses, but I think that we might
Speaker 3: have some chances, but Europe doesn't work that way, so
Speaker 3: we have we have talked about it, so we are
Speaker 3: really focused on first revenue and angels.
Speaker 4: Great. Who do you read?
Speaker 1: I know, So with all of this in the long past,
Speaker 1: how do you find the inspiration to keep going? I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are ups and downs every day, right and
Speaker 1: the like you said, right to sign the first ticket,
Speaker 1: it's still you know, it's a little ahead. How do
Speaker 1: you keep it going?
Speaker 3: I think it's the motivation being in this industry. I
Speaker 3: definitely see how how the world has to move on
Speaker 3: to and for a better world to have a better livable,
Speaker 3: smart city. What needs to be, what needs to change,
Speaker 3: and somebody.
Speaker 2: Has to solve this problem for sure.
Speaker 3: Besides that, as I mentioned that, I do have my
Speaker 3: own hobbies as well as some friends and family that
Speaker 3: keep me on track. Sometimes when there are tough difficult times,
Speaker 3: I think my founders.
Speaker 2: They have been my best friends, my best support all day,
Speaker 2: all time.
Speaker 3: So I'm really really lucky to also have them as founders.
Speaker 3: And as founders, we have grown very fond of each other,
Speaker 3: very very much deeply attached to each other. We would
Speaker 3: say Jeff has that how do you say? Jeff has
Speaker 3: that coolness effect? He is very calm, one of the
Speaker 3: most I would say, the most humble people that I've
Speaker 3: met in my life, as well as the most inspiring
Speaker 3: person that I would have seen, you know, in terms
Speaker 3: when it comes to mobility. And Ahmed and I go
Speaker 3: back about like thirteen forteen years. He was my senior
Speaker 3: at my university, so we do have that relationship, but
Speaker 3: we also have that senior.
Speaker 2: Junior relationship working as well.
Speaker 3: So it's a very good dynamics that way, and it
Speaker 3: just comes together to make that work. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of respect for each other and friends and family and
Speaker 3: other things. I do have a little bit of a
Speaker 3: spiritual background as well, so that that also is a
Speaker 3: big time help and pushing me forward towards this journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, Ani, one of the questions can we do?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean so, I think the whole senior junior thing
Speaker 4: brings about a question in me because I as a senior.
Speaker 4: I mean, how is it from it to work with
Speaker 4: a junior as a CEO? And does he reject a
Speaker 4: lot of your ideas?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: I want to know how that dynamics goes. I mean, again,
Speaker 4: you already mentioned that you've become best friends, but I
Speaker 4: think kidding aside. I mean, it's more about decision making, right.
Speaker 4: I mean a lot of founders that I speak to.
Speaker 4: There's obviously your heart telling you certain things. You know,
Speaker 4: trust your gut. Go with what your heart tells you,
Speaker 4: versus your numbers might say something different, you know. I
Speaker 4: mean early on, your numbers might be saying, oh, we're
Speaker 4: not doing very well, you know, don't invest more time
Speaker 4: and money there that sort of thing. So how do
Speaker 4: you make decisions? Mohit? I mean do you have you
Speaker 4: come up with some sort of mechanism that you go
Speaker 4: through to make key decisions for the company, anything you
Speaker 4: can share.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as a decision making within our own team,
Speaker 3: we have come to the degreement that the final decision
Speaker 3: comes through me, which means, of course naturally it would
Speaker 3: mean okay, there are some big boys in the play
Speaker 3: in the in the team, so do they agree to it.
Speaker 3: I think as professionals, we don't look at each other
Speaker 3: being younger or elder to each other, but rather really
Speaker 3: respecting each other's opinions.
Speaker 2: So when there is when there are.
Speaker 3: Somechallenging opinions, we really respect because it's coming from a partner.
Speaker 2: It's not just someone else, it's really coming from an
Speaker 2: equal partner.
Speaker 3: At the same time, when there are when they're really
Speaker 3: heavy conversations, when we have we do have a psychological
Speaker 3: safety net within the team because of our own bonding.
Speaker 3: So there have been a couple of challenges where we
Speaker 3: I would not say argue, but rather debate very strongly,
Speaker 3: but at the same time completely being respectful of each other,
Speaker 3: making sure that we play that a good cop bad
Speaker 3: cop quite often, and that helps to create that sort
Speaker 3: of a team bonding within our So it's as a
Speaker 3: profession it has never as professionals, it has never come
Speaker 3: across whether you are young or elder. To me, it's
Speaker 3: just that we respect each other and move forward with it.
Speaker 2: Outside the work, there are tons of.
Speaker 4: Things you don't know, so I mean what you said
Speaker 4: it reminds me of a conversation and a couple of
Speaker 4: my co founders in the startup I used to work
Speaker 4: in used to say they would be unhappy if everybody
Speaker 4: agreed with them. You know, they want opposition or opposing
Speaker 4: thoughts to anything that they propose, because that always, you know,
Speaker 4: nurtures a very healthy environment. Because I mean, you know
Speaker 4: you would have thought of three things. I mean somebody
Speaker 4: else might say, oh there's two more things to consider
Speaker 4: and oppose a decision that you made, which makes for
Speaker 4: a healthy relationship. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 4: it's also important to take in all those inputs and
Speaker 4: makeing a final decision what you think is best for
Speaker 4: the company. Right, So it's a very neat the way
Speaker 4: you guys do it.
Speaker 3: I think one point that we have all decide from
Speaker 3: day one. It's not about the personal decision that we
Speaker 3: have to make it's really thinking from an atomical perspective,
Speaker 3: whether you're a CEO or not. Whether you're CEO or
Speaker 3: not doesn't really matter. Does this help atomical If yes, okay,
Speaker 3: we go for it, it doesn't, no change course. So
Speaker 3: that kind of mentality has really kept us going. So
Speaker 3: it's really and within the team, there's no senior junior relationship.
Speaker 3: It does help to bring more personal bonding, but as
Speaker 3: professionals that that thing is not there.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 1: I'm actually glad you said that because a lot of times,
Speaker 1: especially right not in the startup, but people find an
Speaker 1: excuse for collaboration, not to challenge ideas, and then you
Speaker 1: just go with it, right, and that that's what stands
Speaker 1: it apart, right, those decisions, making those solutions. So I
Speaker 1: think I that's brilliant.
Speaker 4: The other thing I wanted to ask you, mo Hit
Speaker 4: is I mean you you started your startup journey pretty
Speaker 4: early on. I mean, you know, in a certain way,
Speaker 4: like you said, by chance. You know, you you had
Speaker 4: your good support from your parents and all of that.
Speaker 4: Your friends were supported. But you know, compared to let's say,
Speaker 4: I mean I would consider me the oldest here. I
Speaker 4: mean I'm pretty old compared to you, I guess, but
Speaker 4: being the older Statesmaniam back in the day, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, at least where we come from in India,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, going and doing your own thing
Speaker 4: was kind of frowned upon. You know, things have changed
Speaker 4: quite a bit in India. I mean, I would say
Speaker 4: around the world as well. I mean, you know, kids
Speaker 4: in general are much more open to trying out their
Speaker 4: own thing right out of college.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I know a few kids whom I work with, they
Speaker 4: actually don't even want to complete school. They want to
Speaker 4: be doing their startup second year of school because they're
Speaker 4: itching to get out there and prove themselves. So, which
Speaker 4: is a lot of fun to see. Is obviously there's
Speaker 4: risk and reward to it. But I think you will
Speaker 4: have a unique perspective on any advice you want to
Speaker 4: give want to be entrepreneurs so to speak, you know, Sony,
Speaker 4: any words of wisdom from you, having been through what
Speaker 4: you've been through, to say when to do a startup,
Speaker 4: you know, what to consider, what to watch out for,
Speaker 4: any of those inputs.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm still learning along my way, but based on
Speaker 3: my own learnings and the mistakes that I've made, the
Speaker 3: biggest the key point I would say, is to stay
Speaker 3: away from the wanna be thingy, but rather focus on
Speaker 3: the problem itself, falling in love with the problem and
Speaker 3: not with the solution, because we often our human mind
Speaker 3: often gets into that solution. Well, not the solution would work,
Speaker 3: This solution must work, and things like that, And it's quite
Speaker 3: natural to also pivot and change strategy along the course
Speaker 3: because the problem we are trying to solve is that problem,
Speaker 3: that root problem that we want to solve. Maybe that
Speaker 3: solution doesn't work, but maybe some other solution works. So
Speaker 3: falling in love with the problem would go a long way,
Speaker 3: and then really being open to being challenged in a
Speaker 3: big way, because well, yeah, arrogance can take over very quickly.
Speaker 3: So my biggest In many ways, I do have a
Speaker 3: different way of looking things, but in many ways I
Speaker 3: would say humility goes a big a long way in
Speaker 3: terms of looking at the problem as it is and
Speaker 3: respecting other people's opinion at the same time knowing when
Speaker 3: to say no.
Speaker 2: I think as Indians.
Speaker 3: Specifically, I would say, we have a hard time to
Speaker 3: say no. And thank goodness, I came to Netherlands because
Speaker 3: they are so direct and I love them. They will
Speaker 3: write on your face say no, and there's nothing rude
Speaker 3: about them.
Speaker 2: So I kind of learned from them to say no.
Speaker 3: And that's totally fine because we got only what twenty
Speaker 3: four hours in a day. I hope we had thirty
Speaker 3: six hours, but that's not going to happen in a
Speaker 3: million years. So I think that focus in many parts,
Speaker 3: my mistake has been the lack of focus in some
Speaker 3: in some ways in the past, and then really drilling
Speaker 3: down to okay, this is where I want to focus
Speaker 3: a lot more. I would so falling in love with
Speaker 3: the problem, focus, humility. I think that that alone will
Speaker 3: be the biggest criteria taking taking the person forward.
Speaker 4: That is incredible, mohit. I mean that's the court for
Speaker 4: the day for me, fall in love with the problem,
Speaker 4: because I mean I've been there a few times where
Speaker 4: you know, you develop something or you put together a solution,
Speaker 4: and the solution or the product is always looking for
Speaker 4: a problem to solve, which is the other way around,
Speaker 4: you know, which is exactly what you said right now,
Speaker 4: which is so you got to look at it the
Speaker 4: other way based on what you said saying, I mean,
Speaker 4: what's the pain point?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: How can I look at that pain point deep and
Speaker 4: say why is it happening? What are the different ways
Speaker 4: to attack it? And then go about it, versus saying, oh,
Speaker 4: here's something that's going to work amazing. So you're missing
Speaker 4: the whole problems, so just love it mode. So thanks
Speaker 4: for that than anything else we missed.
Speaker 1: Ready, No, I was going to say at this point,
Speaker 1: this is parenting advice. I'm like, God, we always keep
Speaker 1: telling our kids, right, like, go find a solution, but
Speaker 1: we forget can you amplify the problem you're having? What
Speaker 1: can you even articulate the problem you're having?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Because it's like so much don't don't tell us what
Speaker 1: the problem is. So that was a beautiful closure. No,
Speaker 1: I think we got a lot. I think we can
Speaker 1: wrap up with this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so thanks so much for taking the time on
Speaker 4: a Sunday for those who probably don't know when we're
Speaker 4: recording this, right, so on a Sunday afternoon in the Netherlands.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm a big fan of Atomical and I
Speaker 4: wish you the very best, and I wish you and
Speaker 4: the team the very best, and I'm sure we'll have
Speaker 4: you here once again once you solve for some of
Speaker 4: these problems. Either an attract or somewhere else. We'll have
Speaker 4: you on the show again. Moheat, thanks, thanks so much
Speaker 4: for being with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you both of you. Thanks for having me on
Speaker 2: the show.