Sheetal Jaitly Shares SECRETS to Success and Leadership

In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast, we sit down with Sheetal Jaitly, founder of TribalScale, to explore his entrepreneurial journey and personal definition of success. Sheetal emphasises the importance of health, family, and emotional well-being while reflecting on the lessons learned from early career challenges and the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.

Sheetal shares valuable insights on embracing failure as a path to innovation, the critical role of company culture, and why execution matters more than team size. He also discusses leadership’s impact on business success, the balance between technology and human connection, and the power of networking and relationships in unlocking new opportunities.

This episode is packed with actionable advice for founders, entrepreneurs, and business leaders looking to build a resilient mindset, create strong company culture, and navigate the evolving tech industry with empathy, innovation, and adaptability.

Key Takeaways:

✔ Success is rooted in health, family, and emotional well-being.

✔ Embracing failure fuels innovation and growth.

✔ Execution is more important than the size of your team.

✔ Strong company culture drives long-term business success.

✔ Networking and relationships open doors to new opportunities.

✔ Leadership sets the tone for excellence and accountability.

✔ Technology should enhance human connection, not replace it.

✔ Prioritising health and family leads to sustainable success.

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Transcript

Dylan Pathirana (00:00.12)
Welcome back to the quest for success podcasts. And thank you so much for tuning in once again today. We're really looking forward to our episode because we're joined by Sheetal Jaitley. Yeah. Sheetal and I studied again at Harvard business school. so, we missed last year's, but we're really looking forward to catching up again, after one year.

Dylan Pathirana (00:29.248)
and Sheetal, very much looking forward to talk to you.

Sheetal Jaitly (00:33.454)
Thanks for having me on guys, I appreciate it.

Dylan Pathirana (00:36.706)
So she thought this conversation is all about success, right? The quest for success. And so before we really dig into your story, we need to understand something pretty fundamental, which is what does success mean to you?

Sheetal Jaitly (00:49.814)
Great question. I would have answered very differently, I think. And I think most guests may say the same thing, but I would have answered very differently in my younger age. But I think success for me is definitely rooted in three main fundamentals. And those fundamentals are, you know, health, family, and emotional, like, well-being. And I think like peace almost. And I think those are three things that

drive me every day, why I work so hard, why I do the hard things I do is to make sure those three aspects of my life, are there, which is very different from before, where I probably would have said, it's monetary, it's, you know, job satisfaction. It's all this other stuff. No, the reason I work so hard and do what I do is really for, Hey, how could I be healthy?

How could I be there for my family and how could I have emotional, spiritual type peace?

Dylan Pathirana (01:51.801)
And I suppose to give people a little bit of context about who you are. You, you started tribal scale, which is like a large software company company, I want to hear from you. What is tribal scaling and kind of what are you working on now?

Sheetal Jaitly (01:55.8)
Sure.

Sheetal Jaitly (02:06.52)
Yeah. So Tritle Skill, what we do is we build five-star digital products. We are a software building team of designers, product strategists and product managers, engineers and QA all under one roof. We're not the army. not like, Hey, I got 10,000 employees and we're going to do this big implementation for you. That is not us. We are Seal Team 6. We, we really come in with a small team.

And we execute on building five-star digital applications. My clients over the years have been Disney, the NBA, Carnival Cruise Lines, Emirates Airlines, CBS Sports, ABC News. The list goes on and on. But we really build the apps that sit on the first or second screen of your device. Everything we do, we've built products that have touched over a billion people, individual people. So super...

super high end, right. Digital experiences. We do that. And we also have a part of the business that does transformation. So a lot of my clients, I'll give you like, I'm at centerlines here in Dubai, came to me and was like, Hey, we, our app is not that good. It was actually 2.7 stars in the app store. we could have Jennifer Aniston come out of the shower and the commercial, but we can't give our clients.

Dylan Pathirana (03:29.44)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (03:31.212)
Give our clients that premium experience that only Emirates Airlines, like when you fly Emirates, it's such a premium experience. Why are they having a horrible digital experience? Well, we came in and we brought that app to be 4.7 stars within three months. And we did that with a team of eight and they had used to have a team of 98 working on that mobile app. and so it's not about the numbers, it's about how you execute. But what happens is we have a transformation business. Once we start doing that with the client, go.

Dylan Pathirana (03:42.753)
Nice.

Sheetal Jaitly (03:57.134)
But how come we don't work this way? How could we, transform us to be like tribal scale? And so we do a transfer, a transformation line. And then I also have a third line of the business, is a venture studio where I invest in early, early stage startups, most usually with founders who just have a deck. And so super early stage investing, but I also create company, digital companies from the ground up and.

more been more focused on the last five years on health tech and have created three health tech companies in the past five years. The first one is Netramark AI, which is AI for the pharmaceutical industry doing phase three clinical trials. The second company is Scriptrunner, which is a SaaS platform built for pharmacists. It handles all the logistics and payments and has FinTech in it all for pharmacists.

That company spun off two years ago and is doing very well on its own as well. And my newest creation is Scriber, which is a medical AI transcriptionist. And it helps doctors not only do all their admin work in their EHR, but also handles the billing for them. And so every doctor doesn't like using their EMR EHR system. And we just listen in the background and populate everything for them so they could actually do what's right and do better patient care.

Dylan Pathirana (05:22.614)
that's amazing, Shita. Seems like a lot of things. how do you like, I mean, as an entrepreneur, right? Like you see these opportunities or opportunities come to you? How that works?

Sheetal Jaitly (05:24.248)
So there's a lot happening.

Sheetal Jaitly (05:37.602)
both. think, you know, I like what Nabal Rabikarn said. It's like, you can go be the ultimate networker. And I love networking. I'm not introverted. as Jen, as you know, I love networking, but, your great work builds your network. And that's really what builds your quality network. So sure. I find opportunities as a networking. Sure. My, research team goes and looks out for opportunities we want to go into and where we know we could add a ton of value.

Dylan Pathirana (05:46.824)
We know that very well.

Sheetal Jaitly (06:05.88)
But a lot of times the right opportunities come find us because they know what we're made of and they know what we do.

Dylan Pathirana (06:11.832)
Yeah, that's awesome. And so I'm hearing a bit of an accent there, which doesn't sound like it's from Dubai. And so I want to, I want to get a bit of an insight into kind of your early life and understand, you know, what she told was like as a young boy and kind of how you got to where you are now.

Sheetal Jaitly (06:14.124)
Yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (06:19.49)
hahahaha

Sheetal Jaitly (06:23.822)
G

Sheetal Jaitly (06:28.078)
I was weird enough. say I'm not introverted, but I was a shy kid. was a son of two immigrant parents from India, born and raised in Toronto, Canada, you know, was left with a lot of freedom. I'm the oldest of three and with parents working two jobs each at times and stuff, really had to go figure a lot of stuff out on my own. think nothing was actually given. Everything was like had to be created for. I think

You know, some of those things as we experience as young people shape you for who you are. I think being the oldest and why I'm a CEO and founder now, I'm always the one to be like, Hey little sisters, don't worry. I'll figure it out. We got this like, don't, don't worry about it. I feel like a job as a CEO is a lot of times looking at your team going, don't worry, we're going to figure this out. Let's figure out the right path forward. And you know, a lot, a lot of that stems through. I was, I was always a decent student in school.

Dylan Pathirana (07:09.4)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (07:25.134)
but it wasn't because of effort. just naturally things would come to me. as I got older, got more into sports, got more into out of my eggshell, let's say I, I wasn't the one doing homework every night. Like on time, it was actually my mom coming after me going, go sit down at your desk, get your homework done and do that stuff. I, yeah, it was, it was a very cool.

Cool upbringing, surrounded by a lot of family and friends. I come from my parents, many brothers and sisters, mostly in Toronto also. And so I was raised by almost a community. was our grandparents raised us, my aunts raised us. I've been beaten by all of them. Yes, I got hit. I hope people don't cancel us for this, but I got a lot of beatings growing up and it shaped me to who I am and instilled a lot of discipline in me.

Dylan Pathirana (08:12.257)
You

Dylan Pathirana (08:19.788)
Yeah, and do think there's any...

Sheetal Jaitly (08:20.406)
I deserved every one, I'll say this though, I deserved every single one I got.

Dylan Pathirana (08:23.704)
At least you know that now reflecting on it. Is there any, are there any values that you think you took from either one of your parents?

Sheetal Jaitly (08:27.841)
Yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (08:33.152)
Absolutely. I think the grind and the hustle, having no excuses is definitely something that came from my parents. It doesn't matter what's happening outside in the world and it's very easy to play victim. But what are you really going to do about it yourself? And how are you going to take the realities of a situation, whether you like them or not, and not cry about them, but what are you going to do to actually find that silver lining to

turn it into opportunity. And so in business today, you know, things change really fast and you know, we could talk a little bit like the COVID pandemic, 85 % of my business was overnight shut down. And contracts that were mid flight were shut down. Just CFOs just were like, we aren't doing anything, no way. But being able to find the silver lining in a chaotic moment like that was, what we did. And we were like, Hey, wait a second.

I'll give you an example what we did in that situation is we're like, client, our clients, we're not going to stop. This project is crucial. The reason you brought us in, it's crucial to your bottom line. So we're not going to stop working. You don't have to pay us, but just remember which partner was there for you and got this done for you because it's going to get you over the line. And, know, through the, throughout that chaos, we worked off our own balance sheet and invested back into our clients. And people think I'm crazy. Why would I?

Being a premium price, tribal skills, not cheap. We are premium priced. and for us to go and reinvest back in our clients makes long lasting relationships. They'll never forget. And those are clients of mine for life. So you got to find the silver lining. You've like, the whole world could be burning down, but what are you going to do that to sacrifice and make that happen? It wasn't just sacrifice from our end. Like, you know, our employees understood the situation. We were very transparent about what was going on. Everybody took pay cuts and did whatever it take.

Dylan Pathirana (10:03.106)
Yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (10:28.142)
to ride out the storm together. That's why we're called Tribal Scale. We are a tribe. We stick together and we do this together.

Dylan Pathirana (10:31.908)
Okay, that was one of my questions I wanted to ask why tribal scale so now you answer that question.

Sheetal Jaitly (10:38.688)
Yeah, Jim. was, I, first, I, I really liked Seth Godwin's book tribes. and it really resonated with me. So that was one of the, one of the inspirations behind it. Seth Godwin is an amazing marketer and he was talking about how marketers actually have their own tribes, but being in software development over the past 25 years, I've realized that I am very stuck and

have transformed my way into being regimented into a process of how we go build things and why we build them that way. And it's almost cultish and it is really tribalism of how we go do things. We call it our tribal DNA. It runs in us on how we go do things. so we have, we know we have our people process and tools that are going to create success. And those are three things you can't undervalue.

So if you look at a tribe, actually, if you just take out a tribe, everybody in the tribe is super proficient and really good at what they do. They know their job and they do it really well. A tribe has a process. They all come together and they execute together. A tribe always takes after each other. It's always for the greater good of that tribe. And you take all these concepts together. So tribal became a word. And then scale is because...

Dylan Pathirana (11:38.305)
Mm-hmm.

Sheetal Jaitly (12:00.576)
That's what we do for our clients. We help them scale. We help them scale and hit their business goals, their business objectives. We help them scale their technology. We help them scale talent on their teams. everything we do, every aspect, every conversation I have, skill is an underlying theme. And we put the two words together.

Dylan Pathirana (12:02.818)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (12:17.08)
So Shita, at very young age you got into technology, right? And any reason for you to, any interest, what made you come to technology and focus on working on technology business?

Sheetal Jaitly (12:24.941)
Yes.

Sheetal Jaitly (12:37.742)
Good question. think my natural curiosity was always in technology. I worked, I started working at a very young age. I started working at 13 years old doing part-time jobs. And my parents let me keep a bank account and that bank account, that bank account when I was, as I was getting older was like, Hey, you could like, when you hit 16, you can do whatever you want with it. And so when I was 16, even in school, I was always

interested in like going on the computers and figuring out what like what's, well, what are these computers? What are these machines? Let me play games on them. You know, all sorts of stuff. Um, but when I was 16, I, uh, I went and I, I went and my dad was like, okay, you're 16. Like here's some money in your account. What do you want to do with it? And I went and I bought a computer and I bought a Corvette. So I kind of like did the whole thing.

Dylan Pathirana (13:32.086)
Where was this?

Sheetal Jaitly (13:33.838)
This was in Toronto. This was in Toronto. I bought an older Corvette. I bought a 76 Stingray and it was awesome muscle car. I was 16. It was 1996. Yeah. And so, yeah, I just got my license and I was driving a Corvette, which is very stupid because in Canada it snows so much and you can only drive the car like three, four months out of the year. So really stupid of me to go do that.

Dylan Pathirana (13:39.991)
How old are you then?

Wow.

Sheetal Jaitly (13:59.928)
But the good investment I did was I bought a computer and it opened up a whole new world to me. And I was always fascinated by even just like going on to America online and back in the day and being able to go and research different things or going on in Carta. If you remember the encyclopedia on a CD and just reading about different topics and stuff like that. It really opened a whole new world to me where I don't have to go to a library or, know, my mom.

the young age always took us to the library and I'd always go and read about anything. It could have been anything. It could have been the ancient Romans I would read about or that was just always this guy who read and like, would read. because I, curiosity came out of like what was happening in that particular time. And now I was able to do it in my, in my own home. Um, and so I got into tech and then

I didn't really realize where I'd fall into tech until I graduated from high school a little early. And I finished all my credits a little early. So I had a semester off before I went to university and my father was like, you're going to go work. And I ended up working at a technology company in Canada that was representing U S computer companies in Canada. And one of the companies they were representing was U S robotics and the Palm pilot.

came out and I was fascinated by it. And I was working in the logistics department. I wasn't doing any fancy flashy tech jobs. was packing, doing shipping, receiving, sending out new warranty, taking in all old broken units. Like I was just doing stuff like that. and, they also represented, the modems and stuff like that. And, know, and I was fascinated working in this tech company when I started, there was only 30 of us. And within a year we were a hundred.

two years, we were 300 and we just kept growing. that was, would purposely finish all my shipping and receiving duties between 8 AM and 10 30 AM by like my morning break, which we used to have. and then I'd go bother everybody. What are you working on? What else could I work on? What are you working on? What else can I work on? And I started learning so many other aspects of the business. I've started doing that. And, it really exposed me to what startup growth could be. It really exposed me to what this new.

Sheetal Jaitly (16:21.654)
internet revolution was at the time. And I was fascinated by it and it didn't feel like work. I loved going to the office. I loved being in that environment. It didn't feel like work at all. They could have paid me zero, I still would have been.

Dylan Pathirana (16:33.932)
Yep. And then was that the time when the dot com bubble happened?

Sheetal Jaitly (16:40.206)
Sure. So let me tell you about that. So the bubble burst, so this was in 97, I started working there. two, sorry, 98, I started working there, 97, 98, somewhere around there. Anyways, 2001, the bubble burst. And I see people and friends, you know, all of a sudden you think you're on top of the world and all these people are around you. And we were a tribe in that company. like, you know, friends, we, we would hang out after work together. We

Dylan Pathirana (17:05.983)
Yep.

Sheetal Jaitly (17:09.41)
You know, be there all day, all night. We're young, we're young ones, youngins without any families always hanging out with each other. It felt awesome. but when that bubble burst, I got laid off. and I felt like the rug got ripped from under me. was, I was completely devastated. I did invest in some other businesses at that time. I, know, I.

Was what was a young and who was starting a nightclub. was a young and who helped with my mom. opened a discount retail store and I started doing these other things. and I just did it. felt so out of place when I was in any of those places. I felt home when I was in that tech world. and kudos to, to that management team. They brought me back. and they brought me back and I came back and I was working there again and I could see the rebuild happening.

And it was with a really heavy heart that I had to be let go again. And it devastated me again. it was one of the lowest moments of my career where when I got let go of the second time, at the same time, I had an older cousin who I'm very close to who was with me, hung out with every day, passed away. And it was just a very dark moment in my time. I ended up dropping out of school.

Dylan Pathirana (18:24.226)
Mm.

Sheetal Jaitly (18:28.974)
Um, like out of university, it was a very, very dark moment in my time. And I share this because not, I don't want to project to any of your listeners that everything goes straight up. We all have our demons and, and hell that we go through. Um, and. I didn't know what to do with my life. I was, uh, I remember I was laying down on my sofa at home. Um, and my dad came to me and he's like, what are you doing? And I was growing out a beer.

Dylan Pathirana (18:39.926)
Yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (18:54.708)
and I'm not going out and like, here's the guy who's like, he's been resting in nightclubs and out and you know, and the store with his mom and he's not even moving off the sofa. And he's like, just get up, just get up and even go work at the grocery store down the street and start pushing the buggies around. You're so smart. You're going to figure it out. Next thing you know, you'll be managing that store. Like you just got to get out of this house. You're just, you're, you're in this downward spiral.

Dylan Pathirana (19:17.591)
Mm-hmm.

Sheetal Jaitly (19:21.388)
And he kind of snapped me out of it. You know, my dad really recognized that I wasn't in the right spot there. And I was very out of character for myself. and so I went and I started talking to everybody I knew and it was like, where should I go? And one of my brother-in-laws, my cousin's husband was like, she told me, you got a knack for sales. And I was like, what are you talking about? got a knack for sales. And he's like, you,

You got this aura to use for sales and like in your career, look at the stuff you do. Like people like gravitate towards you and listen to you you got a way of storytelling. Like you should go do sales and you know, I parked it in the back of my head and I like, I don't know if I'm going to be a sales guy. Uh, and I, uh, I started going and talking to others and there were some people at the tech company and we're like, she, you know, we wouldn't have like, you are really got a knack for sales. And one of my.

mentors when I started telling them, Hey, everyone's telling me I got this and that for sales. And he goes, you absolutely do. goes, you walk me through my career and he's like, look how much sales you've done. You don't even realize it. He's like, go to the copier industry. And if you could sell a box that prints paper better than another guy who has a box that prints paper, then you've mastered sales. And the thing about the copier industry is they'll give you the training. And so you'll know what you're doing well, and you know what you're not doing.

And they'll give you a process on how to go do it. And you'll be in a bullpen of 40 to 50 other really high powered sales professionals who you'll be competitive with, but at the same time learn from. And so, and so I started selling photocopiers door to door for Rico. and I started doing that and, very quickly I landed right back in tech. I sold a copier to a company that was named generation five mathematical technologies, Inc.

Dylan Pathirana (20:55.714)
Absolutely

Sheetal Jaitly (21:13.814)
the most geekiest name ever, but what they did was they were AI pioneers. And we used to build custom segmentation systems and do predictive analytics. Even before it was predictive analytics. What everybody calls AI today is what we were doing way back then. And I started working there and the rest became history. Like my career from there, I never updated my resume ever since then. Like after that, my career was always...

Dylan Pathirana (21:15.544)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (21:40.566)
Somebody knew me and would like convincing me to come and join their organization until I finally went and started Tribal Skills.

Dylan Pathirana (21:46.572)
Yeah. So how did you manage to start your own thing? When did you decide or what inspired you to get into your own?

Sheetal Jaitly (21:54.488)
So I've been an entrepreneur or even an intrapreneur, like to say, in every organization I worked with. And what I mean by intrapreneur is when I worked at Rico, I was like, hey, these guys gave me a business card. They gave me a process on how to go sell. And I'm literally Sheetal Inc. and I could go sell as much as I want to go do and make my own destiny here. They gave me the resources. So I'm still working for myself.

So that was one mindset I always had. was like, Hey, these guys have given me the resources. This company has given me the resources for me to go do whatever I need to go do. And I did really well there. Like we crushed at there, I was like, it was so fun being in a bullpen with, with, with all those guys and girls who just like high powered sales and figuring that I felt like the movie boiler room. If you've ever watched that with Vin Diesel, it was, it really related to the way, the way we were there.

But to go back to what you were saying, Jan, it's like, I didn't have to do my resume again. And I always had side hustles and investments I was always doing in an entrepreneurial journey. So like I sit on a cap table of over 50 companies right now. And so I've always been reinvesting. If I had extra dollars, it's reinvested. I'm in private companies, which is crazy, right?

I should have just bought the S &P and just let that go and dollar cost average all the way. But that wasn't the fun in it for me. But what happened was I worked for a company called Extreme Labs and I should mention their names. There's four gentlemen there, Sunny, Amar, Rahul and Farhan. And these four guys started building mobile apps before the iPhone came out and before Android came out. And I was just in Dubai with Sunny last night.

And Sonny came to my house and told my wife and I that it's time I quit my job and take half the salary I'm making to go work with him at Extreme Labs and start selling mobile software, which he's smart. He's a good salesman too, because he knew he had to go through my wife to get that approval. Like who's going to give up half their salary? However, I'm young in my career and

Dylan Pathirana (23:57.4)
you

Sheetal Jaitly (24:14.274)
the best decision I ever made in my goddamn life. Like the money doesn't matter. The experience of working with a very high powered team and learning is what set me up. The things I learned working with the extreme labs team and then we got acquired in 2013 by Pivotal and then watching Pivotal be acquired by EMC and EMC being acquired by Dell and me going through that journey.

made me realize a couple of things. One is I'm unhireable. I'm a startup guy. you put me in a big, big organization and a machine. And if I'm not making an impact, I'm miserable. So I can't do that. you know, I'm not the guy who's going to clock in at nine and leave at five. I'm just way too passionate of a person to, be able to do that. two is I learned the business so well. Three is I already created a big personal brand where I was known as the

Dylan Pathirana (24:54.87)
Mm-hmm.

Sheetal Jaitly (25:11.498)
Mobile media guy. For is I had the network and the people around me who wanted to support me to say, Hey, if I started off on my own, there's a whole book of business that pivotal is not working on anymore. That is left alone. And there's an opportunity for me to go capture that. And so I,

I ended up resigning. left. We were about to IPO, I should say. I left again. Once again, if you take a look at my career, the best decisions come when I leave a lot of money on the table. I walked away from a huge, know, packing into millions would have made me in millions, would have set, set my wife and I up very comfortably. But I walked away from it and remortgage my house and started my own company.

Dylan Pathirana (25:58.123)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (25:59.508)
And brought some really five other really sharp, smart people with me who we did the same. And we started Tribal Scale and started the journey from there.

Dylan Pathirana (26:08.428)
Wow. Yeah, that's just a perfect example of the founders journey just ups and downs, ups and downs. But then yeah, you know, you've got to where you are today because of that. I want to take

Sheetal Jaitly (26:16.908)
And there's something to be said about that too. If I tried to TribalSkill while still being at Pivotal and doing a side hustle and making the right lift off point, that wouldn't have happened. It took me taking another mortgage on my house knowing that my wife and I won't have a roof over our head and quitting my day job to take the company where it went. And if you take a look at, like I can openly talk about this, take a look at TribalSkill, our first year in business, we did 6 million.

Our second year in business, did 16. Our third year in business, did 29. I said it all imploded and fell on my face and I almost went bankrupt. But those first three years we went poof out the gate because we were all vested in and there was no other option. don't, you know, when, when they say burn the boats, you literally got to burn the boats. So you ain't going back. You got to figure it out. You're here now.

Dylan Pathirana (26:54.53)
Ha ha ha!

Dylan Pathirana (27:10.976)
Yeah. I want to go back to a point you mentioned earlier about, you know, being in your twenties and being a little bit lost. What advice do you have for someone in their twenties, like me, who is kind of early in their journey, has a look like for me, it's, there's a lot of opportunities on the radar and it's kind of almost overwhelming. I don't know which direction to go.

Sheetal Jaitly (27:33.966)
I love, I love what you just said that you got a lot of opportunity and you don't know which way to go. I was in a different mindset and I think, look, I think technology could really help with this. We have podcasts now like this one. Um, we have Ted talks, we have, you know, Twitter blogs, all these things now that kind of show you away, but like you and your, you're looking at myself in 2002, 2003,

Dylan Pathirana (27:48.376)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (28:03.758)
You start looking around and especially for a guy. mean, I still think there's a sense for a guy to be like, I don't have a purpose. What am I going to do? I'm lost. And it's a very, very scary feeling, right? You're like, I'm looking around that people are reigning. They've already all figured it out. The truth is nobody figured it out. Everybody pretends like they figured it out. And, and it gets scary really quick. I'll be like, what am I going to go do? Um, but I really think.

You know, Dylan, if you go and have the right conversations with the right people you respect, who know you, and just be open and honest with them, they'll start guiding you and you will hear that sound in your, that sound in your head, but more important than that fire inside you of which path it seems like you're going to be excited about which path are you going to like want to wake up every morning and go do.

And this is, it sounds so easy with me saying it, but then you just go choose one and go for it and give it all you got. And you'll fail a hundred times. that's, that is a good thing, especially as a young person, go fail a lot, fall on your face, go F up as much as possible. Cause those scars will make you so much stronger later. You got your whole life in front of you. So go experiment with things, go try things, go F up and you'll learn like.

Selling copier door to door, I got told to F off a million, a million times a day. I had to just suck it up and go to the next door because I knew it could change the whole day. change on the next one, right? Like that small lesson learned from that job. Um, you know, I used to pack trucks as a kid and I used to pack gumballs box in a box that were like 80, 80 pounds. And I'd have to hand bomb it and put it on a truck. I used to be ripped doing this by the way, all day.

Dylan Pathirana (30:00.535)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (30:01.894)
was a great workout. but doing that, taught me almost systems thinking, how could I do this without exerting so much energy? Like, what am going to go do in every single one of these hardships and experiences you're in? Again, I go back to what I was saying earlier. There's a silver lining. What are you learning from it? That's going to make you stronger tomorrow. Don't forget those lessons. Those hard lessons are super important.

Dylan Pathirana (30:25.728)
And you speak about failure there. And in my little bit of pre-reading about you, I saw a lot of the word like fail fast. It seems like something that you promote a lot across your organizations.

Sheetal Jaitly (30:36.558)
Here's my iPad, Jam, you'll love it. We've got our HBS stuff. And then there's my sticker that says fail fast. Absolutely. The biggest problem with enterprises today is if they're afraid to fail and their employees and their culture is afraid of failure. In tribal scale, every morning at standup, we all get together as a company. We talk about what's in the news. We give kudos.

Dylan Pathirana (30:39.256)
nice.

Sheetal Jaitly (31:04.472)
who did something exceptional, let's give them credit for it. And we talk about fail fast. Who effed up yesterday? How did you eff up and why? And we all go learn from each other because it's important to call her outside of the line. It's important to push the boundaries. You can't be an innovation firm if you're not ready to go fail. You don't know the formula, you're being innovative. So you gotta go and push the boundaries and let's have a collective group go learn from each other's experiences. So you have to fail.

Dylan Pathirana (31:24.888)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Sheetal Jaitly (31:34.19)
but fail fast. Failing slow is when you try for perfection and you take so long. And then at the end you find out the experiment didn't work. And that's failing slow. You just wasted a lot of time, capital, disgruntled team, bad culture, all this stuff happens. But if you can embrace failure and you call it a learning lesson and you fail fast, very quickly you're going to be on the right path. And again, there's no journey that goes straight, right? So it's going to be the, we're doing good. No, we're not. Yeah. And we'll go like this.

Dylan Pathirana (31:43.18)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (31:58.937)
Mm.

Sheetal Jaitly (32:02.462)
all the way, but we're failing fast. And so we'll just hit this over here.

Dylan Pathirana (32:06.776)
I guess Shijal, it's more of a mindset change as well, right? So I don't know, you remember very first time or maybe young age, someone said no to you, it hurts, right? But it's different now, right?

Sheetal Jaitly (32:20.088)
Yeah.

You know, it's, I look, think certain times, certain times it does hurt. starts. Someone says no to me. Um, I am the five question. Why, why, why, why, why? I want to learn from the experience. I want to learn why, why is it a no? If I, especially if my expectation was a yes, right? It's like, why, why, why, why, why? And I just, and it's okay to be transparent. I just want to learn from this. So next time I, I don't hear the no, I know what I need to do.

I know the hard things I have to do so that I could be ready for the next time and the next opportunity. but hearing no is, is, is, is definitely a fail fast moment. If you hear a no and your expectations, yes, then you should find out. You should know where you failed and what you need to do.

Dylan Pathirana (33:11.414)
And you mentioned there as well, culture. I know like obviously for building an organization, especially as it scales, culture is such an important piece. What are the core things that you're trying to build within your culture?

Sheetal Jaitly (33:27.19)
Look, there's so many lessons on culture. think when,

It sounds a little controversial. I don't really care. I got the scars that prove it. when we grew from zero to 375 people, seven different countries, we grew too big, too fast. Culture and excellence starts to fail because you're growing so fast. And if your management doesn't get on the same page with you, your management may not even know what page to go on. And I'm a firm believer that the less layers you have between yourself

And your employee, better, the more flatter the organization, the better people better hear from my mouth and not have broken telephone all the way down. And I think that really, the CEO and the leader really sets a tone for culture. and you could see this in sports, right? Like you could see this right away. If you take a look at bill Parcells from the Patriots, Bill Walsh from the 40 Niners, Phil Jackson, in the NBA, like all of these coaches and these leaders.

there's a great HBS case study from Manchester United.

the coach's name. just

Dylan Pathirana (34:44.76)
Yeah, yeah. What's his name? Manchester United.

Sheetal Jaitly (34:49.326)
So anyways, it'll come back to me. I'm all the listeners are laughing at us right now. You idiots. Anyways, all these guys had a culture of excellence and it came straight from them and.

Dylan Pathirana (34:51.16)
Yeah.

Anyway.

Dylan Pathirana (35:10.904)
All good?

Sheetal Jaitly (35:12.512)
I know what you're saying.

Dylan Pathirana (35:15.714)
We can still hear you. can hear you. good.

Sheetal Jaitly (35:17.738)
One sec, guys.

Sheetal Jaitly (35:25.898)
I just had a...

Sheetal Jaitly (35:30.51)
Okay. Okay. I can see you guys now. Sorry about that. We can edit that part out for sure. I had a notification come up and it like locked my screen.

Dylan Pathirana (35:33.994)
good.

Dylan Pathirana (35:39.276)
Maybe from Manchester United.

Sheetal Jaitly (35:41.934)
Okay, let's go back to us. What's his name? Alex Ferguson, Sir Alex Ferguson. Yeah, dude. Yeah. So look, if you take a look at any of these coaches, the new leaders, they, they had unfiltered way of communicating with every single person, you know, I'm reading Bill Walsh's book right now, the score figures out itself.

Dylan Pathirana (35:45.181)
Ferguson right? Ferguson yeah that's it

Sheetal Jaitly (36:10.614)
and Bill Walsh down to the receptionist who answers the phone for the San Francisco 49ers answered the phone a specific way because the professionalism of every person in the organization matters. The bar is here and it's unacceptable for you to give that much effort. You have to be here and you got to set that tone. And if it starts getting watered down with middle management and stuff like that, it starts breaking your culture.

And if your culture starts breaking, your clients are going to start feeling that and nobody likes to blame themselves. Everybody points the finger at one person and that is a founder. And I fall on the sword for that. When my culture started breaking, I fall on the sword for that. It's because I allowed it to happen. need to, you know, all these business books say, I are great people. Trust them. They'll do great things. Leave them alone. Throw that advice in the garbage. You're the founder. You know, what's right.

hire great people, let them do great things, hold them accountable to those great things, but never compromise on your excellence and your work ethic for anyone. If they're not giving you what's expected of them, call it out right away.

Dylan Pathirana (37:17.388)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (37:22.008)
Is that one reason that you're keeping your team very small and tight?

Sheetal Jaitly (37:28.622)
I think it's also a talent thing to work with us. You have to, you can't, I can't just onboard 50 people overnight. You have to learn how to do it our way. You have to get injected with the tribal DNA. And so I have to really pick and choose my battles as to where I go. And I'm very cognizant. I'm not growing too big, too fast.

because excellence matters and we have a brand promise that we go deliver to clients and we have to maintain that level of excellence.

Dylan Pathirana (37:59.897)
So the tech industry that you are in is very dynamic. It's changing like unbelievable, right? So how do you stay ahead in this industry?

Sheetal Jaitly (38:11.63)
A lot of collaboration, um, for sure. Don't be afraid, especially for services companies. think, why would I go spend on R and D? We charge a fee for service. That's the wrong type of thinking. You have to create that culture for fail fast new technology. Let's go play with it. What can we build? What are the pros cons teach everybody else? We're doing a lunch and learn. Right? Like have these hacker type mentalities where people can.

Feel free and have budget and time to go experiment and do these things because we are always ahead of the curve. You know, we have a very popular blog on our site that, you know, we're publishing two, three, papers a week on the stuff we're doing and what we're seeing in the market. And it's because we are the thought leaders. We are the ones who are so far of everybody's just, well, where should I start in AI? Well, we've already implemented like 10 projects in AI over the past five years, you know,

they're gonna have been super successful. We've created it three AI companies, in the past five years. Like we, we get this stuff because we experiment and we try these things. And so going back to our clients, our job is to hold their hands and take them on the journey and say, it's not scary. Do you know what? Watch out over here. Cause you're gonna, you're gonna get in that accident. If you make a right turn here, it's doomsday. Here's what happened to us when we tried it. We're going to go left. Here's why.

and so like we, we ended up taking our clients on a journey because we invest that time into R and D that time into culture, that time into training and showing everybody in the organization, what that bar of excellence really means. It kind of just jammed. It's the, it's the bugs case. It's definitely the bugs case. did a case where everybody is in the pest control business and we had a, there was a gentleman who was in the.

Dylan Pathirana (39:51.736)
She told I wanna

Dylan Pathirana (39:57.335)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (40:08.102)
pest extermination business.

Dylan Pathirana (40:09.864)
brand promise and deliver everything.

Sheetal Jaitly (40:11.852)
The brand promise and you got to work with Mr. Bug and know how to do it the right way. Doesn't matter if you've been doing it 20 years a different way. You got to learn Bugs way because his way matters. They're similar.

Dylan Pathirana (40:23.274)
Excellent. Hey, Ashita, I want to go back to fail fast theory that you're talking about. It's quite interesting. So when you say fail fast, when you start a business venture and then when you kind of draw the line, OK, I need to stop this. Because, mean, can easily because obviously you start something because you

you feel there's opportunity, right? And then you start going and it's not happening, but where do you draw the line?

Sheetal Jaitly (41:03.682)
Look, I think it's a very tough one because being an entrepreneur, when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, you're like, this is genius. Well, like we have to, this has to work. If I have unlimited capital, I'm going to put unlimited capital and do this for the rest of my life. This is this, the world needs this. And it's great to have that conviction and you have to have that conviction in doing it. however, there has to be a sobering moment. And for us, it is, I will only fund things.

Dylan Pathirana (41:13.292)
Yep.

Sheetal Jaitly (41:33.056)
to a certain amount and a certain runway. If we can't get outside capital to come in and formulate the company in a seed round, let's say, then I haven't spoken, the market has spoken. And so, you know, it's happened to us. had a couple of ventures that when push comes to shove,

the market wasn't acceptable to them. And you have to learn to cut your losses and say, look, this didn't work, but we're going to live to fight another day. it's nothing, do know what team you are actually even more. Investable now because you've gone through this experience and you have all this experience and I want to invest in you even more now because the next thing you do, you're going to do it way better. and so again, those scars that you get going through, wear them as a badge of honor.

It's okay. You F'ed up. Maybe it's not even you. the market conditions are right. Maybe you're too early. Generation five mathematical technology. we should have just called it AI. I would have been a billionaire. was way too early for its time. You know, like sometimes you're just too early. So it's, take those lessons and you, and you move on and that's the only way. But for us, if we can't raise outside capital for our ventures, then something's wrong. And.

Dylan Pathirana (42:37.696)
Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah.

Ha ha.

Dylan Pathirana (42:46.049)
Yep, yep.

Sheetal Jaitly (43:00.31)
If other smart money doesn't want to be behind us, then that's okay. I'll call you for Scriber though. For Scriber, our medical AI assistant that we just launched, we just did a friends and family round. We went out to only go do 500K with friends and family. We are so oversubscribed. I have 1.2 million of interest trying to get it. So there's the opposite effect too. When you know you're hitting the market and you're just...

Dylan Pathirana (43:23.052)
Congratulations!

Sheetal Jaitly (43:28.61)
Brushing all your metrics really right? Yeah, so I could, I could say that you guys do the round is closing and I'm so confident that it's going to close with a big smile. We'll have some PR around it, but yeah, so I could show you guys are the first to know that that's happening.

Dylan Pathirana (43:44.179)
Congratulations. I want to take a very big left turn, but how important is empathy?

Sheetal Jaitly (43:51.31)
Oh my God, I got blogs on this. Um, you can't be a salesperson or a business person if you don't have empathy. You have to have, I don't do a business deal if I wasn't on the other end of the table, signing the documents. So like, would never say, here's a solution and be like, this guy's a sucker. Now I got to have complete empathy because I know my solution is the best solution for that person. And I did that because I was empathetic throughout the whole process.

Dylan Pathirana (44:06.197)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (44:10.656)
Mm-hmm, yep.

Sheetal Jaitly (44:19.574)
I understood the pain points of my customer. I know what solution is going to help them. know the proven cons. I know the various outside factors that are going to make this project or this person even successful or not successful. And then I'm going to go and work with them on designing a solution together because I'm empathetic towards it. And this goes down to everything. I've been like a cold call, you know, if you cold call somebody, if I cold call somebody, I'm calling them.

Not without doing my homework. I will never just read a stupid script. I will be like, Hey, Jam, it's super important that I talk to you. saw you are really interested in ABCD. Here is what I'm doing in ABCD. I know this is not a good time for you. However, give me half an hour. I promise you it's going to be mutually beneficial. You're going to learn something from me. I'm going to learn something from you. That's Saying, but knowing the hard work is knowing what.

Dylan Pathirana (45:13.368)
Mm.

Sheetal Jaitly (45:16.802)
I just gave you guys a script. The hard work is actually doing the homework on what ABCD is. Right? And that's the hard part. Like, Jem would never say no to a meeting like that. He'd be like, absolutely. Okay, let me learn something from you. I'll make some time for you. You did your homework and you sound knowledgeable in this area. So yeah, I'm excited to learn something from

Dylan Pathirana (45:36.376)
Provide value upfront.

Sheetal Jaitly (45:38.85)
Right away. And again, and-

It's burned me many times, but I'm also a handshake deal guy. My legal department is going to hit me saying this, but I'm a, I'm very much so a handshake deal guy. am a, I'm a people person and I want to look people in the eye and I'll shake their hands and commit to what I'm doing and fall through. and so I loved, I love adding value first and figuring out monetization after it. We'll figure it out. If I take care of you and I'm doing right by you, you will take care of me and.

Dylan Pathirana (45:47.099)
You

Dylan Pathirana (45:57.368)
Mm.

Sheetal Jaitly (46:11.062)
the monetization aspect after. if you don't, then I feel faster. My relationship with you, I had you wrong, my losses and move on. You're in it for yourself. You're not in this for a long, for, for a long term. And that's okay. Just, I won't be the guy with you anymore.

Dylan Pathirana (46:22.807)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (46:26.104)
So, Shita, this is a really good conversation because we are talking about empathy to a tech guy, right? And how do you see, I mean, technology is evolving. Technology, I mean, even now when we talk to, if we want to get help, we talk, we talk with technology, right? We talk, we don't talk to a real human. So how do you see this as the technology grow, this intersection between human

and technology is going to evolve, you know, having that human connection with technology.

Sheetal Jaitly (47:01.484)
Well, I'll tell you the empathy goes to the user. So here's an example. I was on a, I was on a flight and it was leaving for Miami, on American airlines and a storm hit Washington, DC and the flight got canceled. And while everybody else was scrambling to go wait in line, I was like, let me see if there's anything in the app that can be done. Right. At that moment, American airlines will win your heart over from empathy.

This is a unforeseen circumstance. What could I do for you? I went in the app and with like three or four clicks, I was rebooked on another flight and I knew it would be tomorrow morning. And so I avoided the whole thing. I jumped in the cab and went back home. My problem solved. I don't have to wait in line. I don't have to do this. Technology became very empathetic to my situation in that moment. Right. you have to do it the right way. There is always going to be a part for human empathy.

But if you can make technology in a way that becomes empathetic and solves your issues at that moment, it really works. You know, I know we're getting to a stage where almost you don't want to even talk to humans. Like, I got to wait on hold for 45 minutes. Isn't there a chatbot I can just talk to and solve this problem? We're all getting trained that way, right? Cause we just want to get our one issue solved and move on, know, Uber.

The driver's taking too long. He's not showing up. You cancel your ride. It charges you five bucks or whatever it charges you for a canceled ride. What do you do? You click on help driver took too long. $5 refunded them automatically problem solved. Right. So there's, there's the right moments for technology to really enhance and bring that customer experience. now with the, now with AI, like we should be able to predict what your problem is and solve it right away. We should come to you even before the problem is happening.

Dylan Pathirana (48:57.442)
Yeah. Can you even predict how do you feel?

Sheetal Jaitly (48:57.454)
because we know the problem's coming.

Sheetal Jaitly (49:02.56)
Yeah. mean, totally like sentiment analysis and call centers now is a big thing, right? and it's so cool. You should like, there's so many cool AIs now that are learning from the best. we were able to see the sentiment analysis of a call center representative and the customer experience. The person who's doing it right by the book is keeping their, their, their consumers were calling them happy.

AI is starting to learn from that now and now you might get a voice AI that is going to be able to do it better than a human. So that's empathy still because I'm making keeping you happy. I'm getting your problem solved and the humans going to work and the AI is going to work 24 seven day seven days a week and I can have 1000 of

Dylan Pathirana (49:35.96)
Yeah, yeah

Dylan Pathirana (49:48.121)
Yep. And I want to go back to what you mentioned at the beginning about success being health, family and peace. We've talked a lot about work. How do you prioritize time for those things?

Sheetal Jaitly (50:01.422)
You know, it's a more recent in my journey. I'm maybe I can't take everybody who gets older. I just turned 45. and so, well, you start to feel it. but just more recently I've been like, Hey, you know, I got to start focusing more on my health. you know, it's working 18 hours a day is not an excuse for not taking care of yourself. If there's no me, then what happens? So you got to start taking care of your health and figuring that piece out. And so,

Dylan Pathirana (50:08.703)
still young.

Sheetal Jaitly (50:30.026)
More recently, I've started to do that family. What do we do this for? We do this for the loved ones. Their family could be friends. It could be your children family or the one you're given. But like, what do we do this for? It's to see those smiles on their faces and spend those moments with them, which bring you the utmost happiness. And then peace and spirituality is how do you keep your mind calm? Being an entrepreneur is going to a war every day. It's like being in

car accident after car accident three times in a day and then coming home and telling your brain shut off, you need to sleep, which, which is very hard to do. so how are you going to be spiritual and peaceful and keep, keep that harmonization all around you is, something you gotta be more cognizant of. You know, I will, I've, I used to put myself in situations cause I thought I had to like,

let me be in a certain spot and I'm not really enjoying myself and I really don't know why I'm here, but I'm doing it because the others want me here.

trying to do less of that. And you'd be surprised. Well, there's only be care. You should play. You know what? Nice. it's 11. And I know you guys want to go till two in the morning today, but I'm going to call it quits. I'm going to go sleep because it's, it's just what I feel like doing right now. I don't feel like sitting here. and we said, we get a lot of times we give into these social norms and stuff that don't follow those three things. And I, I've, and this is very recent for me, you know, just the last couple of months where I've.

started to pay more attention to those three.

Dylan Pathirana (52:04.768)
And is there anything in particular that you're doing for like the peace side of things? Cause as you said, there's so much going on, especially even just in the world around us. Like it's nice to have some mental peace every now and

Sheetal Jaitly (52:16.674)
You know, I try and I don't think I'm doing it right. But I've recently tried to like start meditating. It's not for me. Meditating is just lined out. They like all technology away from you. And my brain starts rushing and I'm starting to remember things I need to do for work. And I want to grab my phone and say, I won't even say the Apple person's name. Set a reminder for blah, blah. Because I do that all day. You'll see me if you're around me. You'll see me.

Dylan Pathirana (52:25.42)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (52:40.952)
you

Sheetal Jaitly (52:45.422)
saying that S name set a reminder for it. And so I want to do that, but I'm like, forget it. And I just sit there and let my mind race and just try to do things happen. One is I let my mind race until it stops. And all of a sudden I hit peace or I fall asleep. Both are good. I'll take you there. So I started to do that. Um, I also, you know, I got cues that make me go well. I love music. And so I got to track.

Dylan Pathirana (52:46.967)
Yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (53:12.768)
I got a playlist on my Spotify that's called feel good tracks. Anytime I want to be in a good mood, shuffle that playlist puts me in an instant good mood. So I start doing these like small little things that are rocket science that are, that are going to help me put me the right way. And I, you know, I start to read a little bit more and I started reading a little bit more Hindi scriptures and stuff like that. Stuff that my mom was teaching me when I was in, my dad was teaching me, my grandparents, when I was a kid and I started doing that again. and.

Dylan Pathirana (53:21.28)
Yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (53:41.408)
And maybe it comes with age, you when I was a kid, I was like, I don't want to do any of this. And now I wish I paid more attention back then because now I want to relearn it all.

Dylan Pathirana (53:49.304)
It's part of the human condition. think everyone goes through that journey. Yeah. Sheetal, I was thinking, why didn't you start the nightclub that you initially thinking of?

Sheetal Jaitly (53:51.114)
Yeah

Sheetal Jaitly (53:59.158)
We did, we did, we did, we did. we started it. I was a part of the original team that put it together. And then I very quickly, wasn't aligning with what I wanted to do. So I got out. however, if you fast forward to today, I'm still an investor in hospitality. we, we have, thank God we have a very, very cool, a restaurant called a plug it. It's called silent H in Toronto.

Dylan Pathirana (54:01.037)
you did? Wow.

Dylan Pathirana (54:28.322)
Alright.

Sheetal Jaitly (54:28.462)
And so it's right in the heart of the entertainment district. It serves high in Mexican food upstairs, has a really cool, speakeasy nightclub downstairs. I'm an investor in another one in Soho in New York City, that's called Ketchy Shuby. Also awesome restaurant upstairs, cool lounge with awesome deep house music downstairs. So I'm still involved in it, man.

But from afar, I'm not the operator. I'm an investor and I love going there and like going to these places and being involved with these operators and helping these operators grow their business, but I'm not in the data.

Dylan Pathirana (55:08.224)
Yeah, because I don't know why, maybe that's not the right way to say, but I always see you more entertainment guy than the IT guy. You have that charisma, you have that fun nature. Yeah.

Sheetal Jaitly (55:17.614)
It's a, you know, didn't, why not invest in stuff you like doing? You know, somebody asked me, why would you do this business? These businesses are so hard, like profit margins are slim, right? Like they're so hard. Why would you do these businesses? And I'm like, why did you buy a Ferrari and three motorcycles?

Dylan Pathirana (55:28.295)
Absolutely.

Dylan Pathirana (55:33.368)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (55:41.238)
Yeah, yeah. It's the same.

Sheetal Jaitly (55:43.042)
Like I did that. I enjoy going there and doing that. You enjoy your cars. It's the same thing.

Dylan Pathirana (55:49.721)
So Sheetal, if you go back in time to young Sheetal, do you give any advice or you ask that young Sheetal to do something differently to what you've done?

Sheetal Jaitly (56:04.834)
My God, I don't like to live in regret. So I'll say that again, I'll wear those scars. They'll almost flip them down probably because it made me who I am. I don't like to live in regret. What I would like to say to myself is, almost that it was okay to make mistakes and there was no, not to be hard on myself as much as I was. I let myself get down when failure happened.

Dylan Pathirana (56:14.754)
Yep.

Sheetal Jaitly (56:34.634)
As opposed to embracing it like I do now. And I would be a big piece of advice to my younger self is like, go try bigger things next time. That's what I would have told myself earlier. Stop taking those small little experiments and then judging yourself so harshly based on some stupid irrelevant failure that I don't even remember now. Cause it didn't matter. you know, go take bigger, go f up even bigger and learn from those mistakes at an earlier age.

Dylan Pathirana (56:43.992)
Mm-hmm.

Sheetal Jaitly (57:02.988)
That's one thing I definitely would take. And the second thing I'll say is that the voice inside me has always been right. And I'm stupid not to listen to it. It's always been right. Even when our company was like growing like gangbusters guys in that third year, I felt it inside me. That's not right. Things are to go, that things are going the wrong way. I felt it. And I was just like,

everything looks like it's going so well, so you kind of like just have to go with the flow. But that voice inside me was telling me, there's a problem here, you gotta go solve it. And so it's really important to listen to that voice. And those are key things I think we don't do enough. Your intuition is probably right most of the time.

Dylan Pathirana (57:42.168)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (57:51.094)
You know, one question that I have, how do you want to be remembered?

Sheetal Jaitly (57:58.034)
God. I don't know. I haven't given that one much thought. Jen, you threw me a curve ball. I mean, I just want to be remembered for someone who wanted to always be there for everyone and be helpful. someone who truly cared about the people around me and, put the effort in.

Dylan Pathirana (58:06.283)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (58:27.778)
to show them that and show people around me that I actually care for them and they're special to me and that's it. think whether that be people who work with me at TribalSkill, I hope I make a lasting impression on their careers and their families and put them on a path to success. To friends who, know, just checking in on them and being like, hey, I can be a shoulder to cry on. It's not only about the good times when we're in the pub.

Cheers of each other, we could be here to support each other. I just wanna be that truthful guy who's been truthful along his journey and then and there to support everyone around them.

Dylan Pathirana (59:08.28)
And Sheetal, what's next for you?

Sheetal Jaitly (59:12.044)
God. I think, I think there's a couple of things. think, I'm super excited on going on this journey with Scriber right now. and having Scriber take off it's, I've all my years of creating startups and working with startups. I've never seen growth like this. so there is a lightning bolt that is that this company has captured and to harness that energy and, and watch it, watch it blossom.

Dylan Pathirana (59:13.624)
You

Sheetal Jaitly (59:41.142)
I am super excited about the work we're doing at Tribal Scale and how we lead this AI revolution for our clients. Those things are super, super exciting for me. And most of all, I think I'm super excited to just be able to take the time off when I need to take the time off and spend it with my family. that's it. Things that I think weren't the things that excite me are the things that excite me now.

Those are the things I want.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:13.834)
And looking back on your journey and the definition of success that you had being health, family and peace and kind of prioritizing those. Do you feel successful?

Sheetal Jaitly (01:00:23.926)
I don't. That's crazy. I don't at all. I think ambition is, does anybody answer yes? I don't know, like if the successful thing, if I want to do those three things, I'm still on a journey to go do them. So.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:29.304)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:48.204)
Mm-hmm.

Sheetal Jaitly (01:00:49.142)
I'll always be on a journey to go to them. don't know if I'll ever achieve success. I think when you say success, you've like, you've hit a completion point. I don't think I'm anywhere near that. It's still a journey. I'm still on the journey. So success will happen, you know, when, when it's time to cremate me.

Dylan Pathirana (01:00:56.748)
Yeah. It's a journey, right? Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:04.44)
Well, she thought this has been incredibly insightful conversation and there's I mean, there's so much more we could speak about, but I want to wrap up there. And throughout our discussion, I've been jotting down a few key traits, which I think you display and have been kind of critical to what I would say is quite a successful life. And I want to share them with you. The first one is positivity.

I don't think you've stopped smiling this entire conversation. And I think even throughout the tough periods that you've had, you've still managed to maintain some sort of positive outlook. As you said, there's always a silver lining in everything. I think that's been really important to you bouncing back and getting back on the horse and finding the next opportunity. The next one is, I don't know if this is the right word, but almost responsibility. You feel a responsibility to do right by others.

Sheetal Jaitly (01:01:57.966)
Okay.

Dylan Pathirana (01:02:01.228)
whether that's your customers and empathizing with them to make sure you're delivering a product that meets their needs or whether it's your own internal team or family, making sure that you go in, put in a hundred percent so that you know that you're looking after them. You wear that kind of weight on your shoulders. The next one is the love of learning. And like we mentioned it so many times, whether it was from, you your computers can go into the library in the early days.

or learning from people in the industry as you kind of progressed. I think that constant love of learning, even going to Harvard, that's another thing you did to kind of develop your knowledge and skillset. And I think that always.

Sheetal Jaitly (01:02:39.497)
End of the

Sheetal Jaitly (01:02:43.214)
It's funny, always hashtag a lot on X, Twitter. Always be learning. That is, you're hitting that bank, huh?

Dylan Pathirana (01:02:51.212)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's something we're seeing across a lot of our conversations. And then the next one is you put good things into the world and then it's, it's been returned to you. Like you go in with no expectations. You, whether it's you deliver great products, you, even though your customers can't pay you, go and fulfill what they, what needs to be done. You just do good things and then don't really think about what's in it for you.

And I think that's something unique that we haven't really heard from so far. And I think it's potentially one of the big things that has led to your personal successes. You go out and do the things for the right reason.

Sheetal Jaitly (01:03:35.991)
Absolutely. That's a, you summarized, Dylan, I'm super impressed. You summarized me better than I know myself, But I can't disagree with anything you said. those are, that is the fabric of sheep legit. That's me, which is the stuff you just said. That is me.

Dylan Pathirana (01:03:38.08)
Yeah, I mean, that's the...

Dylan Pathirana (01:03:55.8)
Yeah. So she told add to that list, you know, someone I know for the last two years had the privilege to know you for the last two years. Your energy, your your post. Again, it's aligned with the positivity and the energy is so infectious. You know, you you connect with people genuinely, you know, you have that genuine connection. No wonder you are a gun super sales sales guy, because you're going there.

Not just to give something you need to understand other person, understand, you know, what value that you can create for other person that that is genuine, like knowing you. That's, that's definitely a part of your success. You know, that that's one of the key ingredient for your success. So Jital, thank you so much. Sheetal, thank you so much for this conversation. It's been incredible.

Sheetal Jaitly (01:04:49.122)
That was awesome talking to you guys. I will give you guys a big kudos, I said, in tribal scale, let go. I'll give you guys a big kudos. You have an amazing way of getting stories out of me and sharing my story. I really enjoyed talking to you guys today.

Dylan Pathirana (01:05:05.02)
No, thank you so much Sheetal giving us time. I know you're very busy. You're doing some business in Dubai. Thanks for giving us time.

Sheetal Jaitly (01:05:13.568)
No, appreciate it. Thank you.

Dylan Pathirana (01:05:15.245)
And if you guys have taken something out of today's conversation, it would be incredible if you could go and follow us or subscribe to us on whichever platform you're listening to this on right now. We're actually trying to grow our YouTube channel. So head over to YouTube and subscribe to us there. And with that, we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Hey, thanks.

Sheetal Jaitly (01:05:33.644)
That was awesome guys. That was awesome.