Peer Effect
Best way to scale? Your peers have the answers.
This is the podcast for scaleup founders looking for insightful, actionable wisdom from some of the best operators around. Each week we’ll explore one secret that other founders and experts are using right now and how to implement it.
It’s practical wisdom to build the company AND life you want. Hosted by renowned founder coach and advisor James Johnson.
You’ve survived to £1m, now let’s scale to £10m+.
Peer Effect
Overcoming Rejection with Rajeev Mudumba of Collude
Rajeev is the Founder of Collude. He built a 300-person business in 1.5 years, he is the host of the Plan B Success podcast and has helped 4 VC-backed companies through exit. We can safely say, Rajeev has been keeping himself busy.
Today he takes us back to 1994.
He began his career in India, navigating through rejection and self-doubt, only to emerge stronger and more determined than ever.
At the time he found himself wanting to give up on the first day..
Rajeev felt culturally looked down on.
One of the pivotal moments in Rajiv's journey was the profound pep talk from his coach, which served to change his perspective and fueled his determination to succeed.
He climbed the ranks from being a door-to-door salesman in India to becoming a successful business leader with a team of 300 people in just eighteen months.
Rajiv’s journey didn't come without its share of challenges, but his resilience and conviction became his lifeline in the face of adversity.
In this episode we discuss,
- The tight-rope walk between success and uncertainty in business
- The importance of understanding your product's value
- The transformative power of coaching.
Rajis’s journey serves as a reminder that with unshakeable determination we can overcome adversity and reach our goals.
Today, Rajiv shares his story with us and inspires us to persist, believe in ourselves, and embrace the transformative power of resilience and conviction.
Tune in to this episode as Rajiv extends an invitation to listeners interested in exploring coaching, underscoring his belief in its potential to open up new insights and areas for exploration.
More from James:
Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com
So I'm delighted to welcome to show today Rajiv. He's built a 300 person business in one and a half years. He's the Plan B success podcast host and he's helped four VC back companies through exit. Welcome, rajiv.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:So lots of good things happening today, but we're going to jump in my coaching time machine and go back to time they weren't. When are we going back to?
Speaker 2:Sure, you know I went through school, I went to grad school, I did an MBA back in 1994, 93, 94 and back in India actually, and at this time MBA wasn't what it is today or what it's come to be today, so not a lot of people knew about it and the few that did it ended up taking a cushy job with an MNC.
Speaker 2:You know I decided there was more to it and you know I kind of stumbled across a company that came to India dealing in direct marketing which was very new for me, and this was the time when India was opening its doors to foreign companies coming in and this was a Canadian company that dealt with consumer durables, you know, stuff like books, kitchenware, toys, gifts, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:And then they had this very cool two minute pitch that they taught you and then this concept of law of averages, that if you go and meet 300 people a day you're bound to get about 30 S's, and that's what they taught you. And you know I took some training with them. And then one thing led to another and I started doing that and I ended up doing that for about a year and a half, which was very different from what all my other you know colleagues were doing, you know who were finding the next corporate job that they could, and I believe that really helped me. That stood me in good stead. It was very hard training going door to door, lugging a bag eight hours a day or sometimes more. It was very hard training. You know a lot of people would tell you you don't need an MBA to do that, but to date I believe that was the foundation of whatever else I've done in my life and it's helped me in good stead.
Speaker 1:And so how is sorry just set the scene then. So you've done the MBA puts you. It's a very sort of most employable people out there. All of your classmates are going on to work for sort of multinational corporations or sort of blue ship companies and you've made this choice to go and work for yourself. Effectively, it's an overseas company but it's kind of performance only.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. You know, I remember my very first day in training, like there was an American guy who actually trained me and I just followed him, I just watched what he did throughout the day and I think we ended up selling like 12 pieces of we were selling books that time so 12 pieces. And then we came back and the next day I was on my own and I think about two hours in the day, you know, I had some very rude kind of interactions where people you know just slammed doors on my faces and I just said, hey, this is not for me. And I came back, I remember that, and he sat me down, gave me a bottle of water and he said, hey, it's your choice. You gotta make a choice here.
Speaker 2:If you decide to keep being hard on these negatives and then letting them not affect you, then you will continue to do well. Otherwise, your history and then that kind of struck a chord with me like you know, maybe I'm giving up too easily and then I just followed what he said. That day I went back and I worked the entire day. I ended up selling a couple of pieces, not 30, but then it kind of gave me that stickiness to keep going to keep doing it again and again.
Speaker 1:So how did it feel when you were sitting back in his office? You made this choice, which was painful sort of financially and socially, I imagine at the time, and like I'm done like two hours ago.
Speaker 2:I'm done.
Speaker 1:What was going through your head?
Speaker 2:I think, you know, I was very young at the time and then, obviously, from an experience standpoint, there was, you know, didn't have a lot of people shouting in my face, right?
Speaker 2:So I'm here knocking doors and some people are, you know, respectfully saying no, some people not so respectfully, and some people just slam the door on your face and some people scream at you. That's what you face in sales all day long, depending on what the other person is going through. And if you carry, you know, everybody has a self concept, image of themselves and there's a probability of a certain amount of ego mixed in. And you know, if you tell yourself, hey, you know, I'm the smart kid with an MBA, and then this somebody just shut the door on my face, then you're bound to feel the way I felt. And I think that's exactly what happened. Having never faced it and then having faced rude rejection one after the other while I was just still struggling to get my pitch right, was very overwhelming and I told myself, do I really need to do this? I can go and get that cushy job out there. And then I came back.
Speaker 2:But I think that pep talk that my coach gave me and sat me down, the matter of fact kind of talk and not trying to comfort me, and that kind of stuff. That was an awakening too. My expectation was my coach was going to be on my side and tell me kind of side with me, kind of comfort me, and all which he did. He basically gave me a bottle of water and he put the matter of fact straight to my face, which kind of you know, kind of it felt like a wake up call where he's telling you are you going to give up so easily? You haven't even tried it out.
Speaker 1:But I think it's kind of amazing that in many ways you came into this first day with a clear idea of what you wanted to achieve from it. You brought into it sort of a life of success up to that point, like you said sort of doing an MBA top of your class.
Speaker 1:Choice of roles and actually you came to like to degree. Lack of family support around this choice, lack of social support around this choice, and every and plenty of plenty of really great other opportunities on the table. I could be so easy to go okay, I can go and work for anybody. It's kind of amazing that you managed, in the space of that conversation, to break through all that conditioning and go. No, I am going to stay on this path.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Like you said, right, you're right, there were social norms and you know a lot of my classmates and friends kind of looked at me with horror, saying why would you lug a bag and go door to door? You know, why did you come and do an MBA? If that's what you wanted to do? But there was more to it than that right.
Speaker 2:And then the appeal of kind of being able to run your own business, to be able to learn how to build a team, you know, through the company that I was working with, and then have the opportunity to run your own business the way you see fit, you know those were all factors that kind of helped make that right decision, you know, and obviously my parents didn't think very highly of my choice of an occupation at that point in time, you know, if I kind of crossed paths with a friend or a relative out there, while on the field I've had people walking away, kind of playing ignorant, you know. So you have all of that and I think all of that kind of helps you just build a more resilient you.
Speaker 1:Would you say that resilience is now your superpower.
Speaker 2:I would say so absolutely. You know, I think I've been a pretty resilient guy throughout my career. I've had my share of ups and downs but you know, I don't let anything affect me that much. I take it in stride, based on the moment, and then try to be rational about the decision to take and move on. I don't let things affect me personally as far as possible, and I think all of these are learned skills and I attributed to back to that a year and a half out on the field. You know, I've had days when I've gone hungry and I've had days when I've done really well and a lot of those stories keep coming back to me no matter where I am in my career.
Speaker 2:Like you know, let's say right now, like Inceptio is the company. Inceptio Ventures is the company that we have founded and we are running and we are in the process of raising funds for one of the ventures under it. And I go through the same thing. I go through sending my pitch deck out. I go through talking to people. I go through, but not every pitch that we do not. Every investor that we talk to is going to say yes and just prepares me that much more. You know I just go through the pitches, take my learnings from it and then try to improve the next one that I do.
Speaker 1:Hopefully fewer people slamming the door in your face with the reed words.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, obviously you get good at it. Right, you're in control, like when you do the. Enough of this, then you know how to control and how to make sure that the doors don't get slammed in your face?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it sounds very comparable in terms of do you think you can break it down to like, as your mentor at times said, do 300 pitches to get 30? Do you think it's even similar when it comes to getting investment?
Speaker 2:I believe. So there are a couple of things right. So one is obviously you kind of the company or the product that you're out to launch. You know you do a lot of work on understanding why you believe it will be successful. Then you also play the devil's advocate in trying to say that. What are the reservations that I could come across? And you got to be very pragmatic about it and I think I learn a lot more from the questions that investors have, from the reasons that they look to find in order to say no, because that kind of helps me get better and better at the solution that I put forward and the reasons I give them as to why they should invest. It just makes it that much more.
Speaker 2:Same thing, like the two-minute pitch that I told you out there. Right, you get so good at it after a while that you just get it done in two minutes and you take a yes or a no and then you move on. You don't worry about whether it's a yes or a no. If it's a yes, great, you made a sale. If it's a no, thank you very much. And then you move on.
Speaker 1:Because that's something that comes up with founders time and time again which is just that you are constantly punched in the face by events happening to you, and sometimes that and sometimes it's actually like over success can also kind of throw you as well. What you seem to be saying is just this kind of take the yes or the no and move on constantly, treat them both the same.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And then to your point. Founders face it all day, and I think founders actually have to be much more better prepared than they generally are. Think about it you don't know how long your runway is going to last. You don't know where that next round of funding is going to come from, so you got to be as prepared as possible in order to make sure that you have the longest runway possible. As you look to grow on the one side, keep your business stable or balance your business, and then bring in investments on the other side Goes back to the same thing on the days on the field. There were some days that I did phenomenally well, and those are the days where you put a little bit of money away for a rainy day. But at the same time, there were some days where I didn't do well at all. There were days when I had to look under my mattress to find a couple of coins so I could go out and grab something for dinner. So same thing with the founder.
Speaker 1:We had a box episode about a year ago now. It's actually talking about dealing with uncertainty. I think this is a message that comes up time and time again, which is absolutely it's not what you do in the moment. It's what you've done to prepare for that moment.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And then, like I say that, I always like to say that one thing's for certain and that uncertainty that's going to come. So know for a fact that it's there and prepare your best and that's the best you can do. And then everything flows with time. You never know. You might be out there pitching your company out to several investors and before you know there I've had instances where support comes from totally unwarranted areas. You would have thought that somebody just brushed you away and walked away and then six months later or a year later they come looking for you. So that does tend to happen. So never burn your bridges. Make sure that you're doing the most sincere effort that you can put forth and then keep going.
Speaker 1:So, perhaps we should just follow this journey of resilience through your career because it feels like you've done some really cool stuff. So step one building this 300 person business in a year and a half straight out of grad school. It's pretty cool. And then you decided to go to the US. What happened then? I got married.
Speaker 2:So what happened was I was running my business. It was running very successfully. Then I got married and my hours were crazy during the time that I ran and grew this business. So I would be out there till about 12, one ish at night and then six o'clock in the morning I would be back running the business and obviously my wife didn't like it. So I decided I would make her a part of it, which we did, and then for almost about a year or so we worked on it together.
Speaker 2:But, like I said, this was the time where technology was taking off in India and it was very evident to me that the next big thing out there has to be related to technology.
Speaker 2:So, having gone to school, having graduated, before technology hit the schools in India, I started going out for some private classes, took my classes in learning C, c++ at the point in time, html, these kinds of things, very basic things at that point in time, and very quickly figured out that my interest was not in programming I was not made out to be a programmer. But then the other aspects of technology, such as business analysis, project management, these things started Attracting my attention. Then I was definitely attracted towards the business development aspect of it. I ended up Working with a company just to gain, gain exposure and opening up their exports division for Pan Asia Middle East. And then it became evident to me that I really needed to get some grounded education in the tech space, and which meant going back to school. And then I asked myself what better Way to do it. Then, you know, go to grad school all over again In the US.
Speaker 1:I'm curious after sort of MBA one, you decide to go very left field and go Door-to-door at the time, I'm guess. I'm guessing might have gone left field again after MBA two. Is that, is that for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, I sold the company by the way, the one that I was running there for a direct marketing once I made the decision to come to the US, and then I had to go through my exams, like I said, and then, very you know, obviously you know even my one of my interview questions was hey, you already have an MBA, why do you want to go back and get an MBA? That was a visa question that I was asked and I told them hey, the MBA that I have back in India is in Marketing and finance and this is a totally different specialization and that's why I'm going there to get it.
Speaker 1:And and so what did you post MBA? What was? What was your next move?
Speaker 2:Well, post MBA, you know, I really didn't know where to start, but I knew I had to start, start with a job in the US. And this time this is the time that 9-11 happened, you know, it was very clear. You know, I kind of felt, okay, this is it. You know, nobody's going to start give jobs anymore. My experience from India, all the stuff that I did on the entrepreneur, it's I didn't matter and any Didn't had, didn't hold any water at all in the US. But and I'm talking back in 2000, 2001, that kind of a time frame Nobody cared about what you did outside of the US shores. So it became very evident to me that I had to take a pretty much, you know, get the lowest job that I can find. And I started as a business analyst and then I kind of, over the years, I've built a career in that space.
Speaker 1:Hmm, and what? Where do you think this resilience has paid the biggest dividend along that journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I Think, throughout the journey, right like I mean, I came to the US, for instance, I came with a hundred dollar bill, that's what I had in my hand and I had a check for my first semester fees. That's all I came with and two backs. I had no idea where I was gonna live, I had no idea how I would pay for housing, I had no idea where my next semester fees was going to come from nothing I just came and that was, I think. Yeah, I think generally I have a pretty positive bent of mind and I know that if things do go negative then I'll work them through. That's the resilience piece. That's how I came.
Speaker 2:You know, the first thing that I did is I got into the university, I found a friend and then, through him, access to a printer, printed about 50 different 50 copies of my resume and then went door-to-door in the university, department to department, dropping my resume, saying, hey, if you've got a job, I'm the guy. You know, any kind of internships, research or teaching internships, I'm happy to do that. And then you know there were other guys, right, I was doing an MBA. They were computer science guys and all mechanical engineering guys, civil engineering guys and I for about a month, really nothing much happened. I was still trying to contact professors and all that. And I had housing With another guy who actually had a bed empty because the guy who occupied that bed had gone to India. He said, hey, he's coming back in 15 days. You got to make arrangements for yourself in 15 days. So I had 15 days, and so you know, all I would do is go to the university and try to meet professors or departments and try to find something. And I was the last guy to get a scholarship, by the way, because everybody else got it before me.
Speaker 2:And what happened was the Department of Human Resources, I think they invited me over and they said, hey, can you tutor people? And I said, yeah, I can. You know, I have an MBA. What kind of tutoring do you need? They asked what subjects can you tutor? I said what kind of subjects do they need tutored in? And then they would talk about math, physics, chemistry, organizational behavior, economics, all of these things, and I said anything. Then they said can you teach anything? I said, absolutely. So that's where I started.
Speaker 2:I started with a tutoring scholarship they gave me, which meant that part of my fees was paid, and then I was making enough to pay the next semester fees, and then I just barely had enough to survive. And then the next thing, like you said, was OK, now I had my wife back in India and then the next important thing for me was to get her over here. So once I found a job, I then needed to do my H1. And then I went with a startup out in New Jersey. Some guy who was basically doing body shopping worked with him for three months, very quickly realized I'm not going to go anywhere there. He didn't pay me for those three months, and then I started applying for jobs.
Speaker 2:And then I had another opportunity where they interviewed me, which was this BPO company, and they said, hey, we'll give you a business analyst job, starting level. And I'm like, ok, great, I'll take it. Will you sponsor my visa? They said, yeah, we'll do that. And then that was it. That was more important for me. So that's how I you know something's going to happen. You know you're going to make it happen. You believe in yourself, and then you have this positive notion about yourself that, no matter how hard it gets, you will crack it through, and that's all. That's resilience and that's, that's a conviction in yourself, and that's all you need in order to continue down the journey that you take.
Speaker 1:Conviction was the word actually, just as you just said, it was just kind of mine because it sounds like it's not just resilience, because resilience is kind of being ready for stuff to go wrong and for doing what it does Right, but there's a really strong sense of conviction that's come out here in terms of taking the road less traveled and really backing yourself. So going door to door against the social pressure, going to the US with basically one semester's fees and not knowing where you're going to live is quite a high, high vulnerability situation and leaving your wife behind. It seems to be the marriage of conviction and resilience. That seems to be superpower Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Where do you think this really strong conviction came from?
Speaker 2:Knowing that, if things go wrong, and you still have yourself to believe in. I think that that's very, very, very important. I believe that's a crucial skill that anybody needs to develop, because, at the end of the day, you have just you yourself, and every door that you open is because of you. And that's where conviction that's what I believe is conviction and having a high sense of that will see you through the most troubling of times.
Speaker 1:And if we highlight this, day one of door to door, is the moment of just way resilience journey really kicked in. Where would you identify day one of your conviction journey kicking in? Do you remember a shift or do you think science always been there with you?
Speaker 2:I think it's always been there. So, for instance, let's take a look at the journey that I took during my MBA. I've kind of been a guy who didn't want to take money from my parents for my education. The same thing happened there. So my MBA, back in India, the first semester fees what my parents sent me with, and by semester two I didn't want to take their money. I had to find something to do myself. And then, while studying and I was doing an MBA in the mornings, I was doing another master's degree in the evenings and then between those times I really wanted to find something where I could make money. And then when I heard about this company coming and doing that, I was pretty curious, Because that was never heard of in India. But to be self-dependent I was was something that was always there within me and I think that's where the beginning of that conviction came from.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for sharing and congrats on the journey. It's been awesome, thank you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know one thing, that one other thing that comes to mind is you know, I've heard this a lot about myself, where a lot of people think I'm a very calm, tranquil guy above with a strong presence, and I heard it yesterday too when I was thinking about it. You know what do they mean by that. Now it kind of you know when we talk about conviction, and you know resilience and kind of being positive, you know, now it makes sense that you know, when you know that when odds are against you and you're ready to fight through the odds and you know that on the other side of the odds is what you want, then why worry or why get anxious than focus your energies on fighting the fight and getting there? I think that's what the calmness is about.
Speaker 1:Your story really resonates with what I believe in too. As you heard today, coaching opens up a whole range of insights and areas to explore. If you have a potential moment to revisit and the podcast, or just want to learn more about coaching, look in for a 30 minute chat with me at peer-effectcom.
