Rahul Garg Reveals the Secrets to HAPPINESS

Join Rahul Garg as he reveals the secrets to happiness, personal growth, and resilience. Discover how to cultivate a positive mindset and navigate life's challenges with grace.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast, we sit down with Rahul Garg, the visionary founder of Moglix, to explore his journey from humble beginnings to leading one of India’s most innovative B2B e-commerce platforms. Rahul opens up about the early life experiences that shaped his character, his time at Google, and what it really takes to transition from a technologist to an impactful entrepreneur.

He shares the challenges of disrupting traditional industries, the resilience needed to overcome skepticism, and the mindset shifts required to build a people-centric business. With wisdom drawn from leaders like Ratan Tata, Rahul also talks about work-life balance, the role of philanthropy, and why happiness is the starting point of true success.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a startup founder, or someone curious about the future of technology, leadership, and impact, this conversation is packed with insights and inspiration.
 
Key Takeaways
- Success starts with happiness, which leads to fulfilment
- Transitioning from a technologist to a leader requires people skills
-  Entrepreneurship is about calculated risk and long-term vision
-  Capital is a tool, not the goal- it’s about what you do with it
-  Moglix is redefining B2B e-commerce in India
-  Resilience is crucial in overcoming early industry skepticism
-  Work-life balance is a continuum, not a series of extremes
-  Job creation is a meaningful form of philanthropy
-  Follow your passion - it leads to both happiness and impact
 
If you're building something from the ground up, or dreaming of transforming an industry—this one’s for you.

Follow us on all your favourite platforms:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuestforSuccessPod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Quest-For-Success-Podcast/61560418629272/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequestforsuccesspod/
Twitter: https://x.com/quest4success_
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-quest-for-success
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thequestforsuccesspod
Website: www.thequestforsuccesspodcast.com

Please share this around to anyone you think will get value from it : )

Transcript

Dylan Pathirana (00:07.244)
All right, let's kick things off. All right, welcome back to the quest for success podcast. And thanks so much for tuning in once again today. We're incredibly excited because as you know, we've had on a few millionaires, a few billionaires on the podcast, but today is a milestone for us because we have on our first ever unicorn. And for those of you who don't know what a unicorn is, it's someone who founds a company and takes it all the way through to a billion dollar plus valuation. So it's an incredible milestone.

And today on the show, we're joined by Rahul Garg. Yeah. Rahul could be a unicorn, but he's one of my good friends at, I met Rahul at a Harvard Business School. He's someone I look up to. It's always, you know, someone that I can ask question and always willing to help you with anything. So thank you, Rahul, joining us on our cost for success.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (00:59.438)
No, no, my pleasure. think for all the weeks and evenings we spend together, mean like anything that you need. So happy to be on the show and excited to have this conversation.

Dylan Pathirana (01:12.728)
So Rahul, this conversation is all about success. And so we really need to start with something fundamental. And that is, what does success mean to you?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (01:23.396)
Yeah, so I think it's a very interesting question and many times we don't kind of ask ourselves as much what does success mean to us.

But I think for me, success actually starts with happiness. mean, what makes you happy, right? Because eventually, if you're happy, you will do what you need to do, what you want to do, and then it will lead to success in whatever definition you want to have, right? Success can be financial, success can be intellectual, success can be spending time with family. mean, so therefore, for me, the index is more happiness.

Dylan Pathirana (01:57.4)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (02:02.428)
Therefore when I think about success, mean like my son just got into like USC. I mean like that's like much much more exciting form of sort of like seeing your kid go to a good school and things like that. So I mean like those are moments of happiness and how you're juggling through in multiple things. But I also think the second aspect for me is at least personally has been about impact. And the impact to me comes in two three different shapes or forms because people think of typical

Dylan Pathirana (02:07.97)
Amazing.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (02:32.498)
impact only in is the philanthropy you doing. But I think in the context of India in particular, which I am very passionate about building from India, it is about job creation, economic development. I feel the best form of philanthropy in a country like India is job creation.

If you are able to contribute towards that, that has a much more significant impact on the society. Versus saying like I gave you food for one day or food for like few days or things like that, right? Because there's a linearity to it. Like after three days, mean like the guy maybe again not having food, right? So now you're providing food, it fundamentally means like we have 2000 direct employees and there's probably several thousands of people that we touch in different shapes or forms as suppliers, customers, things like

that right now I start to think about like these are the families that you have impacted and then their economic development has impacted probably their next generation as well right I mean like they probably go to better schools they think of better colleges all of those right and I'm not saying we are the only one but like anybody who is able to create impact in their own shape or form about like is all about job creation and the third obviously there is a dimension of what can you do beyond job creation for the society

Dylan Pathirana (03:24.056)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (03:48.77)
I mean like those are the places you want to think about there are so many sort of like challenges in a developing country like India like how do you think about solving for healthcare? How do you solve for environment related stuff? I mean like so for me the success there is about happiness which to me is about personal family near and dear ones followed by economic impact and followed by the societal impact in the various shapes of forms that we

kind of talk about it.

Dylan Pathirana (04:21.058)
I like that very holistic definition of success. And I suppose for us to understand the man who's sitting in front of us, we need to kind of take a step back and go to your early childhood. Can you walk us through your early life and how you think it's shaped who you've become today?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (04:37.614)
Yeah, so I come from a very humble family. I think my dad's generation, which is like kind of seven siblings, they all sort of during the entire uproot of...

the landowners system and all. mean, pretty much my grandfather started from ground zero again in Delhi. And but he had that one mission that like I want to educate my kids. And even though he was not as well educated because he was all into the agrarian economy, I mean, he made sure that my dad and all the siblings either became engineers or doctors. mean, like, so my dad graduated in 69 from bits, one of the again renowned. So and then he basically was professionally sort of literally

growing up and I grew up in a city called Faridabad and therefore I think my entire and as a kid you don't sort of probably analyze it you just go through life and then you reflect back and say like okay like what did I get out of it and what were those sort of like small conversations here and there and the various choices that you were making how are they shaping you like so I think few of them kind of stand out like I think it was a very strong sense of like

Dylan Pathirana (05:35.662)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (05:56.476)
We are a family which likes to live together, stay together because we think again it's like a fundamental definition of happiness. Like you don't want to be staying away and saying like if something happens then you have the economic means to provide for because we think that's not the key thing. mean like that togetherness is a more important feeling that is there versus the fact that you may be working remotely and you may send thousands of dollars or whatever.

Dylan Pathirana (06:07.534)
Mm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (06:26.29)
that's not the same thing that's that's not life that is not happiness right so I think that that very strong came out in subtle ways I think growing up as a family that the family therefore becomes supreme and staying together is kind of a cool thing to do even if you stay like maybe like a couple of kilometers away or they would like staying together in such a form the second thing I realized that

As a kid, was a very sports kid, I used to play and I think sports is extreme form of building character and building

some kind of I would say it gives both highs and lows because you win some you lose some I mean like you kind of every time you win some you then you meet someone who like literally crushes you right so so it is a humbling moment that you go through right like somebody is better and like you need to work hard and then again it's like very individual thing so you can sort of like have a shortcut to it I mean like you have to really work hard to win right I mean there's no other way right I mean it's a very

Dylan Pathirana (07:29.41)
Yep.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (07:30.626)
So I think I grew up in a again environment where I was like extreme sports kid. used to play as a captain of many many sports, whether it's basketball, football, athletics, TT. Surprisingly not as much cricket for me personally because I was like, I can't like stand for like, I have to be active playing every single minute of the game. Like that's what sportsmen think for me was, right? So I have to play every minute. So that does not

Dylan Pathirana (07:47.448)
Ha

Dylan Pathirana (07:55.118)
Yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (08:00.54)
happen in cricket all the time. I think that was again second thing which I thought was both, I mean kind of competing and working towards but also like being humbled by various things and various people who are better, talented or working hard. And the third thing is I think the love for engineering maths, I think that got developed probably intrinsically I would say while the environment is like we are a family of engineers, my dad is engineer, my sister is engineer, I'm engineer.

mean, like maybe there's some amount of element there, but like invariably I was extremely good at maths. I could like spend night out solving maths problems and I wouldn't get bored of it, right? So I mean, like that's the way you think about what you love and what you like doing. And same thing was for computer science as well. So I love designing for games very early on when computers start to become available. So I think very humble.

Dylan Pathirana (08:46.307)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (08:57.296)
I think sports, engineering, those were like the two things that would happen. Grew up in not a very fancy school till 10th grade, it was a convent school. were 50 % taught by nuns. And therefore you also see like a very different sort of...

Cultural I mean like there are various nuances of those culture if you're taught by nuns and things like that It's not very easy to express but like your general sort of notion of The respect for women and various like sort of subtleties around it somewhere get ingrained in your personality, right? Yeah, so that was me growing up all the way till 10th This is the early childhood

Dylan Pathirana (09:23.395)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (09:44.206)
Yeah. I guess also you learn a lot of discipline as well, working in a con like, you know, nuns around them, right? That's, mean, obviously you're an engineer, you think everything in a process way. So that helps as well, right? More discipline.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (10:01.156)
No, absolutely. mean like you kind of like inherently disciplined, right? I mean like you're like and you didn't need like like you're never going to be like rebellious per se, right? So I don't think they teach you rebel aspects in any shape or form and

But for that expression and again, because 11th, 12th I went to a non-convent school because my school was still 10th and I realized that there was like a different culture, right? Because like the teachers are kind of different and your ability to express yourself or maybe like fight over it. I mean like I think there the respect levels with the teacher was very different. Like you'll have that distance, they will have that distance.

and then the way you interact or conduct yourself in the class or inside the school premises or even if you conducted yourself not very well outside the school premises, those things mattered. And let's say the school I went to in 11-12, those things didn't matter as much, right? So you kind of see the difference that there is and therefore the character building becomes very interesting. So for example, in 10th grade, I spent three days along with students from various parts of the

country which was somewhere around this moral education. We used to have this book.

We used to be taught on moral education like like character building kind of I don't know whether I mean it's taught anymore, but we had some kind of mechanism where These concepts of like what does it mean to be truthful? What does it mean to be? Having integrity. I mean like those things who are getting taught those good things were getting talked about I mean I I'm not sure every school actually does it and maybe that that had some role to play because for me anything which I mean like

Rahul Garg - Moglix (11:54.018)
You have those triggers in life. So like if something is like non integrity, it just triggers something in my head, right? Like how the hell can you even do this or think about it like that, right? So maybe there was an element of righteousness which you got ingrained, I guess early in the life as well.

Dylan Pathirana (12:00.983)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (12:09.91)
Mm. Mm.

So Rahul, I know you ended up at Google heading up the ad exchange there. I want to understand the journey between, you know, that young Rahul who's interested in computer science and ending up at Google. How did that happen?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (12:26.65)
That's a very long journey because I went to IIT Kanpur in between, mean like 11-12.

Dylan Pathirana (12:28.301)
Hehehe.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (12:34.574)
my ass off to get there. You also realize again the like however you can be good in your school in your district. was both the district topper and probably the best second best ranker in the history of the district in the JEE exam right so it's like 30 year of history maybe we didn't know anyone who got to that rank and

Dylan Pathirana (12:49.302)
Wow.

Dylan Pathirana (12:54.327)
You

Amazing.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (12:59.328)
guy I knew was a urban legend right so now I know him he's also done exceptionally well in Silicon Valley but like so but then you realize there are people who are going to be better they might be better because they they spend more time they spend they got access to certain better teachers or they just perform better on the day I mean like all of those combination right so

So IIT Kanpur was there and then I spent nine years in semiconductor across different organizations. Then I went to the business school. Actually the first business school I went to was ISB where I said like I want to learn sales and marketing.

Dylan Pathirana (13:41.942)
Nice.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (13:45.68)
post the sales and marketing sort of degree I said I want to sales I want to go and join a technology company which where I can do sales Google obviously is the best company in the world probably at that point in time I would probably challenge maybe still it is the best company I mean there will be some contenders but I guess it's among the top few companies from the product technology product perspective and go and do sales there

Yeah, so that's what happened. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I think that was one reason I went from technology to business school to actually going towards sales because I realized that you can't easily become or succeed as an entrepreneur if you didn't understand the nuances beyond technology into sales, marketing, finance and things like that.

Dylan Pathirana (14:21.486)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (14:38.168)
Yeah.

So Rahul, you're an engineer, you're coming from engineering background, your family background is all engineers. Why you decided that you wanted to learn sales?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (14:51.14)
Yeah, only to become an entrepreneur because I realized that I tried doing a startup and I didn't understand sales. Like I didn't have a good starting point. Like what do I do? Like I can build a product but like I don't know. I mean how to sell, how to go knock on the doors and kind of like get those fancy purchase orders so that I can go build a product, right? So my...

entire sort of like pivot at the age of 30. So at the age of 30, I was probably the youngest and one of the most celebrated researcher in semiconductor because I had filed 16 patents and like was very well regarded at that point in time. But I said like, I'm going to become an entrepreneur and I don't know sales.

Dylan Pathirana (15:35.278)
Explain to us what do mean by semiconductors? you you mentioned nine years, maybe Dylan probably know better but yeah what's that mean?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (15:47.768)
So after, so I did electronics and communication from IT Kanpur. So I wanted to design wireless systems. So I joined multiple companies in the area of semiconductor designing wireless LAN systems, satellite receivers, 4G cell phones, XDSL. So I ended up designing many of these products that you have in your houses. And yeah, because I was the architect of that. So obviously a lot of innovation. So filing many of the patents in those areas across the company.

Dylan Pathirana (15:51.0)
Yep.

Dylan Pathirana (15:56.312)
Okay.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (16:17.722)
that I work for.

Dylan Pathirana (16:19.49)
And what drove you to want to become an entrepreneur?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (16:23.664)
Again, I don't think there is like a one mega moment which is like that but I think it's always been there and I think it's maybe somewhere tied to the impact. I think every time I think about it, I believe as an entrepreneur I can create bigger impact which actually now is true. I mean we just finished 10 years of Mogulix. think our ability to drive impact is like way higher than if I didn't become an entrepreneur.

Dylan Pathirana (16:48.206)
And being at Google, as you said, it's one of the top companies in the world. What was, what was the learnings from there, which kind of triggered you and you took on to, to mogulics when you started it.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (17:04.784)
I think there lot of learnings. Obviously, I learned a lot about internet ecosystems because I was like a semiconductor geek. So I learned about every single internet company, their business models, companies evolving in different markets in the Asian context, global context. I think that was a very good vantage point. Second, think when you are sort of re-

putting yourself in a completely different functional role. Like are you able to do well, are you able to succeed? So I was actually able to do extremely well, which kind of made me more confident as a sales business development and those which I think also is super important when building Mogulix, right? I think that was probably the second thing and one thing I think your...

When you have the engineering confidence, the sales and marketing confidence, think overall and you have a good vantage point of how you look at world, how you look at different companies, business models, so and so forth. So I think you're able to take bets on various ideas, and fiction, persistence, just increases, right? So I think...

those would be probably the top three things. And then brand name helps in every shape or form. mean, all the companies I work for in some shape or form play a role because just like your education institutes drive a certain level of credibility, the professional companies you work for drive a certain level of credibility when you go and meet people. So you're not like starting from like proving yourself that you understand the stuff, but you actually

Dylan Pathirana (18:28.864)
yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (18:53.53)
have far more sort of going in credibility into any conversation.

Dylan Pathirana (19:01.218)
And I know the salaries at Google are incredible. What drove you to go away from such an incredible salary and go out on a limb and start from scratch and start Mogliqs?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (19:15.44)
No, so I think because the goal there was like there was a step to learn so I mean like so it was never a goal to kind of like stay there so so that way is I mean like and then since since that's what you saw the happiness becomes then important like what will make you happy like five years ten years out I mean like you went there to do that and learn that and then you want to do so like

Dylan Pathirana (19:32.238)
Mm-mm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (19:39.364)
Why would you compromise that because then you're sort of like bringing down the index of what drives happiness.

Dylan Pathirana (19:46.254)
And so you go out and you start moglics. What gave you the idea for moglics?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (19:53.26)
So good thing is, I I was fairly connected into the ecosystem. So I kind of like start to have my own opinions. What should future look like? mean, entrepreneurship is all about taking a bet on yourself and the idea space that you believe in, which will be relevant in the future, like 10 years out, 20 years out. Right. So, I mean, we were lucky, like we picked something which kind of worked out, right. But I'm sure we could as well be wrong. Right. I mean, what's the odd of picking up the right space? Right. So,

But yeah, mean like growing up as I said like I was very passionate about engineering manufacturing Technology and then with the internet world. I was starting to become very excited about the role of

and supply chain and how that will change the country for the better. So I think Mughlai became like coming together of e-commerce, coming together of manufacturing, coming together of like the global thinking. So I felt like this is something that I will probably continue to enjoy 10 years out. I like I feel like we're just getting started. I think the next decade is actually the exciting decade. Even though we had a lot of fun in the first decade but like I think the next decade is actually the fun decade. So yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (21:03.626)
Absolutely. Anything inspired you to start MoGlix?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (21:11.414)
As I said, entrepreneurship is always on the card. So five years into Google, I felt like I knew what I needed to know. I mean, the incremental value of anything which will affect entrepreneurship was probably very low.

My daughter was 2 and a half, my son was 7. So I think we said like we'll pack up our bags, move to India and start the company and we'll be closer to home. Which anyways, like as I said, our family is all of it like, like staying together and that's the first step of definition of happiness.

Dylan Pathirana (21:46.84)
So where were you then when you thinking of starting Mooglix you were in

Rahul Garg - Moglix (21:49.764)
So Google I spent most of the time in Tokyo and Singapore. So last time I was based in Singapore for almost three years before we moved back.

Dylan Pathirana (21:54.274)
Alright.

Dylan Pathirana (21:58.51)
So if people don't know anything about mogulics because our audience are not just in India, what's mogulics?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (22:08.784)
So MoGlix, are a B2B e-commerce company for manufacturing and industrial sector. So we sell almost a million SKUs across 150 categories of products.

There are almost 20,000 suppliers which sell on our platform. And we sell to customers which are largest automotive company, largest steel company, chemical, pharmaceutical. When they want to buy products to run their manufacturing plants, they come to MoGlex and buy those products. So we service almost 700 large enterprises, 500,000 SMEs again in India, present in five countries as we speak and continue to expand internationally. But India is obviously the larger epicenter for us.

Dylan Pathirana (22:52.12)
So at the time, I assumed that the manufacturing space was pretty low on technology. They weren't very technological driven. And I imagine there must have been a lot of skepticism and it would have been very slow to kind of change people's mind. How did you, like, what did you learn about resilience during that period of trying to transition it and kind of reshape a very incumbent industry?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (23:18.448)
So, I am a general believer in solving hard problems which are large. typically persistence is not as big issue for me. Like, I do not wake up saying that if I am not overnight success then what the hell am I doing in life, right? Kind of a thing. Early in my life there were several deep technical challenges where like

I had to literally sit down and try and solve that for like six months. Imagine if you were given a maths puzzle and you couldn't solve that puzzle for six months and you're like every single day trying to solve it, right? So I've been that way strained to be able to sleep with the problem and sit on it and I derive some amount of joy from the fact that if there is anybody who can solve this problem globally, then I can solve this problem. I mean, the problem has to be worth solving for. So that's important.

but like I'm not afraid of solving her problems.

So yeah, so when we started they were like people said like maybe this cannot be done. B2B has relationships, B2B has certain amount of people with misaligned incentives, kickbacks, blah blah blah. and then we are just going to be poor technology adopters and things like that. But then we would ask go back and ask this question like But do you think I mean this makes sense. The answer was like yeah, it makes sense. But like we are just too lazy to do it. I'm like yeah, maybe there's like 10 years and then you'll retire and then

Dylan Pathirana (24:31.629)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (24:54.578)
next generation will not be as lazy.

or the fact that in consumer we saw and actually derived a lot of comfort from the fact that if consumers are adopting technology, consumers are coming online, consumers are buying goods. mean like the same consumer is a business buyer as well, right? So at some point we'll go and show him like a slide, like how do you order your taxi? How do you order your food? How do you order like your iPhone? And then what are you doing in a professional life? And I had this like vivid quotes, like maybe people leave their brain

home when they come to work because they just want to be dumb nine to five and do silly things right I mean so and so we would make all those vivid jokes about and in our own subtle ways kind of plant it and then people people don't want to look bad right I mean like that's a human psychology so

Dylan Pathirana (25:29.838)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (25:46.576)
So you start to have people change and then they'll start to come up with objections and then you say oh what happens if this objection is solved? Oh shit I have to come up with another objection right? Otherwise I have to do it. So I mean like those are journeys of but it is always a journey that I've seen also in Google days. mean like when I joined Google I mean YouTube monetization was very low and not many advertisers were spending money on YouTube and people were like we spend money on TV and who comes to YouTube and maybe people come to YouTube to watch all

that crappy content which people produce and that's not high quality content that we want our ads to be placed on. So you understand that adoption curve theory and then you start to figure out like how do you sort of narrate those stories and how do you sort of like overcome those sort of naysayers and blockers and champions and I mean like so I mean like

Again, education teachers use some of these concepts, practitioners if you pick up those concepts, you can see through those concepts and then you can try to find solutions towards it and then you keep moving forward.

Dylan Pathirana (26:54.158)
And what was, what was the uptake like? Like how long did it take before you got your first order?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (27:00.528)
That wasn't a lot. mean, we launched in July of 19, July of 15. So, and then we got the orders instantaneously online. mean, like, they were not, and then we started to see, I mean, some amount of traction in probably 12 to 15 months. It was not a lot, but it was some traction.

But one of the defining moments started to come when India went through a tax reform because it was a very complicated tax structure and that happened in 2017. So I think that's when we started to see more tailwinds coming our way.

Dylan Pathirana (27:38.286)
So, I mean, 10 years, congratulations. You I mean, you achieve amazing, you know, results in 10 years. It's like a long time, but same time is such a short time in a business, right? So, I mean, during that 10 years, have you ever thought, okay, am I doing the right thing? Or you had a very, very, you know, like...

Every year on year you saw that this is it. This is what I want to do. you know, you know what I mean?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (28:11.6)
So I haven't had a moment where like, is this what I want to do kind of a thing? But I think there are enough moments like, can we do this faster? Why does it need to take so much time? Or like five conversations? I mean, for me, logic is like a kind of the...

Dylan Pathirana (28:21.804)
Yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (28:32.194)
strong anchor for me so once I am logically convinced when I feel that the other person is logically convinced then I'm like why the hell wouldn't you do it right that means like then the guy is like logic is fine and then like I want to sit on it for a few weeks before I and then I want to have four meetings before I sort of just make sure that I cannot find any more holes in the logic before I do anything right so so those were like the tough moments I mean like frustrating moments because they're like like people people got to become more intellectual

honest and people got to become more intellectually sharp and fast I mean like because yeah my ecosystem has lot of slow people both on customer and supplier side right so so you kind of like sometimes have to be more patient and just sort of like not push people over beyond a point that they break

Dylan Pathirana (29:30.574)
I want to understand how important is raising capital.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (29:36.302)
So not at all important, I guess the key question is depending on the company you're building, they're going to be like capital required or not required and speed at which you want to build may have capital, may not have capital requirement.

start with again happiness like and what do want to do then what do you want to do may require capital may not require capital because also in the speed you want to do so i guess and then it's not an isolation right because if you want to succeed you have to think of like what's happening in the ecosystem and like how do you attract talent and how do you attract sort of like

Dylan Pathirana (29:54.456)
Yeah, exactly.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (30:12.848)
the right kind of partners to work on so I think every idea every space is different and therefore the capital should be a means to the end not the end I believe from raising capital perspective and you'll have like a lot of like myths and random shit people advise people but I think it should be a means to an end not the end because we have seen enough cases of

people sort of like chasing the wrong objective.

Dylan Pathirana (30:44.46)
And how did you view it from Moglic's perspective?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (30:48.304)
No, so we are really on realize this is going to require capital. There's not a space which will because you have to build warehouses. We operate 58 warehouses across the country. We got to build like full stack supply chain, delivery vehicles, the technology software you're building equal into an Amazon and

These cost money and these are still thin margin businesses. you can sort of like assume that and I didn't come from like a rich kids family where I'll put in like a exorbitant number myself. So you got to have this comfort that you're going to raise from external people and you have to convince them that you will deliver like massive returns for them. mean like our earliest investor has got like 80x in 10 years. I mean actually 8 years.

So I mean like you can't have those kind of returns in most scenarios in life, right? So I would think like today if I have all the money and I find someone who can deliver a TX in eight years like done. I mean like you should put all the money there. So but yeah, those are. So that was the only choice that you will need capital. You will need to invest in the building and yeah, you have to feel comfortable about.

Dylan Pathirana (31:54.69)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (32:07.982)
And take me to that moment that you guys hit a $1 billion plus valuation. And I want to contrast that to like the moment that you got your first order and you knew that this was going to work. What were the two feelings like?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (32:22.862)
So as a personality, I don't take too much high or too much low.

Dylan Pathirana (32:28.877)
Okay.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (32:29.36)
So I have sort of conditioned myself, trained myself, whichever shape or form. I generally do not have extreme relation. I don't have a depression either. So I think therefore there are like small peaks. mean like you get happy because like yeah, because it also matters to your team. It matters to the family and it matters to many people you love and care about and things like that. So it feels like, okay, you might be on the right path and things like that.

but external validation for me is limited value.

I think the first one is first capital raise was special. I mean in some shape or form because you like I've done something right in life because while we have not fully figured out what we want to do, but we were given that capital and somebody kind of believed like you got you're going to do the right thing because like we didn't have the prototype and somebody just on the paper and the fact that I was doing it was convinced enough that if you're doing it, I kind of believe in it. So you feel good about the fact that you've been doing something right in your life, right?

So I think that was a very exciting in that sense that you felt like you at least earned that respect and right from people willing to invest in you believing that you're going to do something right. And we got Mr. Ratan Tata was like the probably the biggest figure that you can think of in India. We are the only B2B e-commerce company invested in. mean, he investing in small check at that point in time in the first, again, very, very amazing moments there.

Because you just felt like you had blessing from someone that you really looked up to, right? So, and becoming Unicorn, think we became, interestingly we are the 13th unicorn ever in India.

Dylan Pathirana (34:20.142)
Wow.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (34:20.66)
So from the history of the start of world we became the 13th. Like it was a funny number right so you're like you're tagged with you're the 13th unicorn of India right in the history of unicorns in India right so so I think it's interesting because you feel I think the biggest sort of like again moment of contention and I would say relief for me is like you feel that you have delivered value to lot

Dylan Pathirana (34:22.936)
Amazing.

Ha

Dylan Pathirana (34:29.57)
You're the lucky one.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (34:49.488)
people that you care about like you are early investors people who believed early in joining you as a company and so you have kind of lived to the promise that you told as a leader like as a leader it is very rewarding because you feel that you like people like I think in 2021 we were like maybe 800 people so you feel that you have kind of gotten and you're making many decisions I'm a single founder I feel making

many many many decisions.

Dylan Pathirana (35:20.75)
Amazing.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (35:22.896)
to get to that point then they can have a certain bit of a fancy car if they want to buy a fancy car, they want to buy a house for their families. mean like some of those also we did. Some of our investors got some money out. mean like their investors are happy. So I mean like you kind of have a nice feeling about that and then you also feel that you're, in our case we are probably like the largest. mean in the segment that we play we're like probably 10x

bigger than anyone next to us. So we almost created the entire category by ourselves, passionate about the sector when no sort of like a young kid graduates from college and wants to go into manufacturing. I like every young kid wants to live his life with a laptop. Right. So we have gone and built a company which requires sweat and blood and like stepping out of the air conditioning and being a little bit of the steam chamber. Right.

So I mean, yeah, so it was a nice feeling.

Dylan Pathirana (36:26.124)
Yeah. So you mentioned Ratan Tata, right? Last year, we were together at Harvard Business School when Mr. Ratan Tata passed away. I remember you were very emotional and you did a speech to all of us, a memory of Mr. Tata. And is that someone inspired you?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (36:50.432)
Absolutely, think so I have this philosophy I take inspiration from multiple people for different qualities that they sort of represent and walk the talk kind of a thing and I think he was very sort of a

one of the most sort of like I think illustrious Indian to live to the spirit of building India, building manufacturing and being supporter of technology. So I think that was like roots that I would but in general I've built a philosophy that I'm like I mean there will be a little bit of jam that I would say like this is something very exciting about jam I mean like I would love him for that and maybe there's a small portion of that I will try to adapt in my personality I mean like similar for so I have this sort of like this

curious mind that I am if I find a fantastic quality in a person which I admire like or something I try to take a small portion of that and see if I can because I don't want to change my personality but I feel there's all these sort of nuts and bolts that you can keep changing your your own self which makes you a better person right so and there I'm not sort of like like I need to be only following one person like there's there's so much of the friends at HBS that I learned from and like they're different quality

Dylan Pathirana (37:56.934)
Mm. Yep.

Dylan Pathirana (38:02.828)
Yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (38:06.994)
around you.

Dylan Pathirana (38:07.724)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to mention because we were at the Tata Hall when we, when Mr. Tata passed away. There was quite emotion, not just to you. I mean, I'm sure that you met him, you had some association with him and even for us, because he was someone that we all looked up to. He's such an amazing guy and represent India in a very positive way. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Rahul, you...

Rahul Garg - Moglix (38:32.815)
Yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (38:36.272)
Thanks.

Dylan Pathirana (38:37.164)
You mentioned that leadership and you've I've got you quoted saying before you become a leader, success is about growing yourself. And then after you become a leader, it's about growing others. And I want to understand over your journey from starting mogliqs from nothing, how has your definition of success changed?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (39:06.712)
I don't think as much it has changed because I think this is a very deep rooted belief on like, so we first anchor on impact. So impact is all about like customers, how many customers you are able to serve because that's the closest proxy you think about like impact because if impact is not large, that means it's a smaller impact, right? So impact remains to me.

which is about eventually building the size of company, size of number of people, size of the customers, suppliers that you're impacting. So impact remains a very key thing for me. And the second thing in terms of people definition is about, we able to create life-changing moments for people? Are we able to become like, I think there many, many leaders at Moblex whose best career or best sort of like...

achievement in life is Mughleks. And I think that's again very exciting, right? Because you say like what's your biggest achievement in life? I wouldn't be surprised for several hundreds of people it will be Mughleks.

So that I think is like you've taken a person like I mean like as many many examples of young people like this guy who joined us like pretty much data punching guys gone to become senior manager within the organization leading 30-40 people I mean like he probably never imagined he could get there right I mean like

So those are very interesting scenarios for me from the people in PAK because we generally tend to invest more and more into people. We like to grow within, we like to sort of invest into people, we like to kind of educate them, we run our own.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (40:58.32)
Jam can relate to it, but like I have this like hundreds of frameworks which are some some common some different than what HBS teaches us and then we create those frameworks we teach them like the latest framework last year we said like Everything in life everything in company. We want to become a public company I mean like there are three letters which can kind of think about like what you need to do as an organization We came up with what we call as SSP like so what matters is speed scale and profit mean like if you think about the commercial

Dylan Pathirana (41:27.128)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (41:28.274)
element of the company and long term modes and everything. I mean, it is about this framework. So like every day you wake up and think about what am I doing for speed. And early this year we sort of launched this 5v framework of thinking about it. We said like every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year, like you got to step back, reflect every day, maybe 10 minutes, like could you have done better? Every week you spend 30 minutes, like what can I do better? And every month. I mean like those are like simple

executable ways of making people think.

to become better versions of themselves, better versions of teams, better versions of the company. So we keep on doing this exercise all the time. And HPS is interesting because then you find many of those sort of this first principle things that we are coming up with. There's probably someone who's written an entire book on it. And they're like, shit, there he copied from me. So there are always academic frameworks.

Dylan Pathirana (42:05.987)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (42:20.225)
Yep.

Dylan Pathirana (42:30.744)
Yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (42:33.266)
which sometimes are there but again they are many a times more complicated than what may be executable in a practical life.

Dylan Pathirana (42:43.374)
Rahul, I want to understand, like you started off as a technologist and now you're the leader of a multi-billion dollar company. I want to understand from your perspective, like what that transition was like, and do you prefer where you are now or do you still kind of wish you were, you're the technologist that you are at heart?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (43:04.91)
No see, I've been close to technology, I'm still very deep into designing products and be part of many product conversations and on and forth and learning new technologies and getting into more and more verticals where I'm learning technology. I think, so I wouldn't say that

it's either or kind of a thing because in this role I get to choose and spend time where I want to right so there I was like I could only do that here I can do x plus y plus z right so I think it is exciting and then I think I continue to remain passionate about technology and I think

company that you are building, that amount of technology we are using. There are obviously in the role as an entrepreneur, you also have lot of work on solving operations, solving people related dimensions and customer and so on and so forth. those are also part of growing up as a person. I think my appreciation for the fact that technology alone is not the difficult problem to solve.

has increased multifold because I know lot of problems are about people. People growth, people working in teams, people working towards the aligned objective of the company and the vision of the company, customers understanding to be able to design products and understanding the incentive structures of different economic stratas of people. I mean those are dimensions of problem which I don't think as a technologist I would appreciate as much. I think my appreciation for all of those

dimensions has gone up drastically which I think is exciting. I believe lot more in psychology, believe a lot more in economics, I understand more about people and I think how basically that leads to constructing kind of the society and the world and so on so forth.

Dylan Pathirana (45:02.254)
I want to extend that question, Rahul. So from a single founder, how did you build your business around people? Like, I mean, obviously, when you start a business, you believe that you know everything, So handing over to others, delegate, what's the journey like?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (45:23.716)
So I am, I think, fairly intellectually honest. If I don't know stuff, I mean, like, I don't fall into a trap of sort of, like, I know you, I know it all and...

I'll teach you, mean like so kind of a syndrome. So I have not had that syndrome as an individual. So I am okay to be surrounded by people and I prefer to be surrounded by people who are good at certain things which I may not be good at or I may not love or enjoy doing every single day.

So in fact, one of those criteria is like, oh, this, mean, like everything needs to be done right in a company, right? You can't say like, this is good, this is bad or something like everything is good and everything needs to be done. Right. You've got to figure out creating your team so that like somebody who enjoys doing this, somebody who enjoys doing this, because like if they enjoy doing that, which is the happiness definition, they'll become better at it. And then you can push them to become better at it. And that's how you create a better company. And that's how you create a large company. So, um,

I don't think therefore that was as much a boundary per se for me. And I am very intellectually curious also. So I keep on learning about every nuts and bolts because I am just genuinely curious to know it all.

Dylan Pathirana (46:42.67)
And I imagine the startup phase of Mogliq's was quite a grind, right? Putting in huge work days to build it to what it is today. But I also know that you, you mentioned that your, definition of success is a lot about happiness and also family success. How, how has that kind of life balance shifted from the startup phase to now?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (47:11.536)
So, I think as sort of strange as it sounds, I think I have worked equally hard over last 30 years. So, maybe like there will be couple of days you just work more but like...

I think I've maintained a far more like as I said the happiness and depression I don't go through it. So my hard work has not been correlated to whether I'm an entrepreneur or working in an organization. So I work kind of equally hard when I'm working in an organization like so Therefore that dimension hasn't been sort of I would say that different And it is still not different. I'm like six days in office for the last ten years. I mean

So I'm always in office. I prefer to work from office. that way is I think and therefore I feel that the consistent beats the spiky. So if you're like consistently hardworking then there is more chances of hitting the luck and more chances of you beating someone who can work hard for three days and then he has to lays off right.

So that has been kind of the mantra throughout.

Dylan Pathirana (48:28.398)
But you also place a priority on family. I'm wondering how you, how you still have that priority when you're spending so much time in the organization.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (48:38.948)
Yeah, but I told you that it has been the same 30 years. So that's the norm that they're used to, right? Like I will work this hard. So my entire family is oriented towards like, like I'll be in office 9 to 8. Okay, then I'm at home, right? So and that's what I have been all through my life. So

Dylan Pathirana (48:42.25)
Yeah, so everyone's used to it.

Dylan Pathirana (48:59.182)
Yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (49:00.768)
So in some sense they are used to kind of that's my definition and then we believe in work life continuum. So if I need to get something done, I mean I'll get it done. If I need to work even on a Sunday, I'll do that and then I'll do some. So I think in some sense because both are happiness and joy, you kind of like blend both of them into your life.

Dylan Pathirana (49:27.256)
So apart from work, family and also you're in your foundation, right? So contributing to others. Can you take us through, give us a bit of you know, what you do with Moglic's foundation?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (49:46.448)
So Mowgli Foundation is still kind of early days. picked it up during COVID because like COVID we worked on bunch of stuff. I mean, we realized we were at the... So we got involved in COVID by the way, Jan 27, 2020, much before it came to India because we were part of supply masks to China. It's kind of unheard of in the history, right? Because like when China factories were down and they needed masks from India. So it's like we we kind of had a pre-glimpse of it. So I think COVID...

Covid became an interesting time because we were part of many many efforts of both in Mughalic's capacity as a volunteer on building what we called as Action Covid team of VCs and startup entrepreneurs to solve for Covid problems. Coming up with innovation and be part of building indigenous ventilator in India, indigenous oxygenator oxygen concentrated in India, solving for supply chain challenges of mask, oxygen.

various various aspects so I think that's when this thought came in that I don't have to wait for another 20 years to kind of like become

another Bill Gates or someone like and then say I'm going to be completely doing philanthropy. I felt that philanthropy again in the third bucket of maybe in small parts I'll start to do as much as I can and so and in different shapes or forms so I I am part of CII unicorn startup I'm the co-chair for that so I enable fostering startups creation in India

Obviously, Action COVID team, I've been part of it. Then I started to sort of create a chair for within my alumna, IIT Kanpur, there's a award dedicated to my grandfather on the best student in electronics engineering and innovation. So I think we started to do a bunch of this stuff.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (51:49.859)
But again, I think there's limited time. So I think still the focus therefore becomes also again back to like the best form of contribution to the society's job creation. So I think continuing to sort of scale across multiple countries, multiple product segments. We launched CredLex four years back. It's one of the largest supply chain finance company also now. So there's so much to be done that I think.

Just keeping busy doing all of those stuff

Dylan Pathirana (52:18.444)
Yeah.

Yeah, you're creating amazing impact in a country like India, know, definitely need that, right? People like you, leaders like you, helping that country. mean, when you're a young engineer, looking at some of, if you're looking at Google, looking at Rahu, I found some of the fascinating things that you've done, like 2019 Fortune 40 under 40 list.

Forbes magazine, Tycoon of Tomorrow, 2021, Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India Congress Award, 2023, Times Now, Most Impactful CEO. As a young engineer, 20 plus years ago, have you ever thought that you will achieve this stuff?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (53:09.264)
Probably I didn't think about it. So I kind of lived towards like what do I do better? What do I do? Like I don't create that that glamour I have to reach and therefore like so while I mean since you asked that question would I have thought about it? The answer is no but like because I also was not thinking about that life in that manner.

Dylan Pathirana (53:36.376)
Yep. Yep.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (53:38.07)
So yes, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So if you ask me a question like did I want to be an entrepreneur? answer was yes. Like did I care about like will I become a unicorn or not unicorn or this that I mean like no I wasn't thinking about it. I felt that I could create more impact because somewhere I felt that I could do things differently and

becoming an entrepreneur might give me that flexibility to execute those in a different way versus a corporate ladder.

Dylan Pathirana (54:10.024)
But I mean, my question, extending question, how do you feel now? I mean, achieving, I mean, you can see you want to become entrepreneur, but also you wanted to create that positive impact for others, right? Create jobs and things like that. You, how do you feel now? Yeah.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (54:26.288)
So I feel very fortunate. I mean like yeah, fortunate, blessed. I do feel that I would have done some good deeds in my past life and things like that. What the Indians believe in.

because none of this happens by just like you working hard because there's a lot of sort of like enabling ecosystem that kind of lifts you up or gives you the tailwinds and things like that, right? So I think this definitely I feel fortunate and I think I also feel responsible because there's so many people, teams, customers depend on you to do the right thing and therefore, and this is just the beginning, right? So I mean like the next 10 years are going to be even more exciting and bigger. So there's...

Dylan Pathirana (55:03.512)
Mm-hmm.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (55:08.818)
there is always also this paranoia like as a leader are you doing enough and are you stepping up enough because leading teams of 25, 50, 100, 1000, 2000 in multi countries, multi locations I mean like it's a different thing right so so you're continuously sort of challenging yourself as a leader are you able to do a great job at leadership and next level of leadership as you build the company and contribute your whatever you can contribute to the

Dylan Pathirana (55:39.566)
And Rahul, to all of the young aspiring founders out there listening to this, what is the single biggest piece of advice you can give?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (55:47.46)
mean follow your passion because your passion will give you happiness and then you'll do better at what you do, right? I mean like do not sort of like do something which makes you like...

sad and happy or like cynical at the end of the day right. I do something which like end of the day when you go home like you're like wow I did something nice and I'm like happy about it and I want to go go tomorrow and do that same thing or do it better right. mean like because and this is all about the journey right because if you're not sort of like enjoying and having those positive optimist happiness around you I mean you don't want

a sulky human being because it doesn't help you, doesn't help anyone.

Dylan Pathirana (56:35.256)
So talking about Journey Rahul, what's next for Mogliqs and what's next for Rahul?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (56:42.48)
So there's lot lot to be done. The time is not sufficient. is a world in chaos and distress almost seems like World War 3. So I think we have an opportunity to create an impact. And every day I wake up I think we have an opportunity to create 100x impact on India and the world. And I think therefore the question for me is always like are we doing enough?

And that always keeps you sort of curious, hunger, wanting to do more, bigger, so on and so forth. So I think we are in a very, very interesting inflection point in history of the world, where the world is being redefined and power centers are redefined. The philosophy of how the world should operate is getting redefined. India has a massive role to play, we as a very small company, but I think we feel that we still can create more impact.

and that's what is super exciting for me.

Dylan Pathirana (57:42.67)
And Rahul looking back on this incredible journey, do you feel successful?

Rahul Garg - Moglix (57:50.318)
I don't think about it like that.

Right leg so like am I again happy are we creating positive impact? The answer is yes. Yes. Are we doing enough for the society also? Yeah, maybe we could do more so In that sense if I was to use the combination of three parameters, I mean like happiness I think we have four out of five Impact I think we 3.5 out of 5 we can do more society. I think we are just checking along I think we can do more there So that would be my scorecard for myself

Dylan Pathirana (58:04.845)
Well, yep.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (58:23.922)
But some total of it, yeah, we are doing okay.

Dylan Pathirana (58:29.976)
That's such an engineer response got a checkmark and I love that. Rahul, you know, we could spend hours chatting to you, but I'm unconscious of your time. So I want to wrap up. And throughout our, throughout our conversation, I've been jotting down some ingredients, which I think build your successful life. And I'd like to share them with you. The first one I think is you mentioned it persistence. You, you stick with the hard challenges, even when they get hard. And I think that's something that's becoming a lot more rare.

especially in the new generation, when things get hard, it's like, okay, there's so many more other opportunities out there. It's easy to go and pursue something else, but you find the hard challenges, which maybe other people don't want to, and you stick with them. And I think that's one of the key ingredients to your success. The next one is curiosity. And I think it's, comes from, you know, learning as a technologist, always learning the new research and understanding technology, but also, as you said, learning from

from people, whether it's your, people you look up to like Ratan Tata or people you come across in your life like Jam, I think you mentioned in there, just taking core traits from people and implementing them into your life. think that's something really powerful, taking the best bits of people and the experiences that you come across in your life. The next one is you're focused on yourself. Like you're not worried about validation from others.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (59:53.626)
self-imposed.

Dylan Pathirana (59:57.954)
You're trying to do what's best and what's right for you. And in doing so, you're not like swayed off your course by what society expects you to do or the, the input of other people. You can really drive after what you want. And I think that's led you to kind of the path that you're on right now. And then the last one is you're extremely impact driven. I think we heard impact said quite a few times throughout that conversation. Everything you're doing is trying to drive towards.

having impact beyond yourself. And I think that's kind of a very selfless trait. You're always not thinking about yourself, but the impact that it will have on other people that are around you. Yeah, to add to that, you know, knowing you Rahul, you know, you're a true leader. You're not about just you. It's all about creating that positive impact around you as well. I mean, we learn so much from you and you're happy to share that your experience.

and knowledge as well. you're all about not just developing yourself, also developing people around you. So that's also help you to grow and become who you are today. And thank you so much for your time and thank you. We learned so much from this conversation.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (01:01:14.16)
Always a pleasure, think.

It is important, I while I feel COVID taught many people across the world many things, sometimes people have short memory. I think we got to really be continuously sort of reinforcing in our life that there are things that matter and there things that do not matter. And things that matter are those happiness, family, and then the society and how we are moving together into a better technology, better life, better environment, so on and so forth.

Dylan Pathirana (01:01:36.322)
Yep. Yep.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (01:01:49.444)
I it's very very important that we continue to sort of bring back the world towards like what really matters and be at it. So I had an amazing time talking to both of you. Dylan, great to meet you. I'm like, I'm sure you're learning all the positive traits about Jam. Otherwise I'll send you like five things that you can learn about Jam. Kind of a tutorial. one thing Jam has to learn is Hindi. And maybe you pick few words on Hindi as well.

when we meet next time in person, that will be fun conversation.

Dylan Pathirana (01:02:24.448)
Yeah, I know. every time I talk to you, that's the first thing you ask. What do you learn Hindi? Right? So I got to do that. You know, yeah, definitely. We look forward to catching up, Rahul. And thank you so much for this conversation. And for our listeners, if you got something valuable from this conversation, it would mean the world. If you could go and subscribe and follow us on whichever channel you're listening to this on right now. And if you want to see more of our inspiring content, you can head over and see all of our episodes on our website, the quest for success podcast.com. And with that,

Rahul Garg - Moglix (01:02:27.833)
Hahaha!

Dylan Pathirana (01:02:53.666)
Catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thank you.

Rahul Garg - Moglix (01:02:55.844)
Thanks guys, bye bye.

Dylan Pathirana (01:02:58.358)
Hey, Rahul. he just left.