Alphapreneurs

Why Free Cash Flow Matters More Than Profit | ft. Avinash Vora

• Rayhan Aleem • Season 1 • Episode 20

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 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗼𝘀? 🤔

In this episode, Rayhan Aleem sits down with Avinash Vora, Managing Partner at Chroma Consulting L.L.C-FZ. Avinash shares lessons from family business, scaling across industries, spotting where opportunity in Dubai has changed, and why free cash flow is the number founders should care about most.

They also talk about staying connected to your business, succeeding in family business, choosing the right path as a founder, and the framework Avinash uses to help entrepreneurs grow in a smarter, more sustainable way.

👉 Follow Avinash Vora on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4888Rsi
👉 Learn more about Chroma Consulting L.L.C-FZ: https://chroma.consulting/ 

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𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗔𝗺 𝗜?

My name is  Rayhan Aleem, Founder and CEO of 𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿 and 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀. At  𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 podcast I sit with top industry leaders for in-depth conversations that dive deep into their success stories, market dynamics, and firsthand tips on entrepreneurship and profitability. Whether you're just starting out or already running your own business, 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 offers something valuable for everyone.

👉 Follow 𝗥𝗮𝘆𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗺 on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/49yyO4n
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𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀:

𝟭-𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀:
  -𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲:  https://www.alphapartners.co
  -𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻: https://bit.ly/3Yf4VRZ

𝟮-𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿:
  -𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲:  https://www.taxstar.app
  -𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻: https://bit.ly/3ZVjzPD
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🔗 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲: https://bit.ly/4nmA53y
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🔗 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁: https://bit.ly/4dOfS2f
🔗 𝗔𝗻𝗴𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗶: https://bit.ly/3Mutunk
🔗 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲!: https://bit.ly/3XfGYbD

𝗘𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲? 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝘂𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀! 

All other metrics are really about what is going right or what is going wrong. Um, free clash flow is that one really particular metric that talks about time, right? So for a business that's struggling, this tells you how much time do you have? You can then make a decision. Can we go methodically? Can we go with a great deal of investigation? Or are we in er and we have to do medical triage right now? Welcome to the Alphapreneurs podcast. I'm your host, Rayhan Aleem. I'm also the founder of Alpha Pro Partners, a bookkeeping business based in Dubai and Tax star, a tax technology startup, automating corporation tax returns. Join me on each episode as we talk to inspiring Dubai based entrepreneurs who share their stories, challenges, and secrets on building world-class businesses. Today on the Alphapreneurs Podcast, I'm joined by Avinash Vora. He's an entrepreneur and a managing partner at Chroma Consulting, where he helps businesses around the world with operations and strategy. Prior to this, he led the Defiance Group as CEO and Executive Director growing it to a $30 million business with more than 2,700 people across Africa and Asia. Avinash, thank you very much for joining me on the show today. Um, so we've known each other for a good number of years. Used to be my coach at one point, my accountability coach at eeo a. Um, and I've really learned and continue the learnings that you've provided me and, and, and the group back in those days. For those who don't know you, for those who don't know, uh, what you've done, do you wanna give us a quick introduction about yourself and what kind of things that you've done? Sure. Yeah. Firstly, thank you. Uh, thank you for having me. It's, uh. It's been really interesting to watch this thing grow, and I'm glad to be a part of it. So, as a background, I am Dubai kid. I grew up here, um, went to school here, went to college in the States, and I joined my family business, which is, um, still around. It's in based in India, uh, textile and apparel manufacturing. Um, started there and spent 10 years really fully focused on that one business. My wife and I, uh, met in India, moved back here and kinda started a journey of really expanding into a lot of different verticals, different areas, and completely different styles of business. So, um, I spend most of my time now doing coaching, uh, advisory and consulting work with, uh, with teams that are in quite a few different areas, but primarily teams that are looking to scale in a sustainable way looking to grow. And I, I just, I, I love working with, with leaders who are, um. Going through the same struggles that I did when I, when I started out. Um, but yeah, a wide variety of industries. I'm in agriculture, I'm in technology consulting, coaching, advisory work, fundraising, really all over the space. You've, I, I think you're underplaying yourself. I mean, you've got massive trove of experience that you can dip into, whether it's funding or setting up a business or working in a family business. And, um, I want to kind of dissect into these different types of aspects of, uh, knowledge that you have that we can share with our audience so they can learn, you know, learn from you. I wanna start from the beginning. Um, this podcast, I've mainly had entrepreneurs who are based in Dubai. Few from the uk and few from other places, but mainly from Dubai. And, you know, you went to Dubai College, very prestigious, uh, school, uh, which I'm sure there's many of your cohorts that have done amazing things now having grown up in the city. Gone to the US to study, you've ran a bus massive business in India and then you came back. What are some of the things that you've seen over the last, in your journey that really makes setting up a business here different to other places? And how do you feel about the future of entrepreneurship in, in Dubai? Yeah, that's a good question. Um, so I think for me, the, the, the big first change was, um, you know, obviously in university I'm not in a business, right? I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm at university, I'm studying, um, didn't really, um, especially as a international student in America, even really have much opportunity. Um, even as a startup scene was exploding to explore entrepreneurship there with the regulations on Visa. But coming to India and just having this, that kind of, you know, doors blown, wide open of the style and. Mechanism in which business is done there. Um, it really felt like the wild west. You know, my, my, my dad's an entrepreneur himself and I grew up seeing how his business here ran. And really it, like the first few months, I really felt like my life was very sheltered in Dubai. Uh, not in a bad way, but just more in a way that, um, I think just the basic things to get started here have for many, many years and continue to be very straightforward. It's not that hard to start a business. You pick a, a jurisdiction, whether that's a mainland, whether that's one of the free zones, whether that's even outside of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, or Russell Kamar, or Sharjah or whatever. Um, and with a couple of bits of paper, um, a a day, maybe two days and, and some emails, you can start a business. Um, it's not that hard to file your taxes here. It's not really that hard to get a high quality office or, um. Or to get, you know, good infrastructure for, uh, a physical business and manufacturing or if you're in a service business to get good infrastructure for that. And as time has gone on, I think it's become easier. Mm. It's become better. Um, obviously Dubai's much bigger now than when I was growing up, but with that has also come more opportunity. Probably the size of the opportunity I think is reasonable to argue was much bigger back then, but it was much harder to get. Yeah, I think now there's still big opportunity, but that those, like those crazy industrial, um, opportunities where people were just doing what can frankly be described as arbitrage and making generational wealth, um, maybe that doesn't exist anymore. And I don't know where in the world that still does. Um, but I think here the, the, the types of opportunity are bigger. And I think really when I look at my parents when they came here in the eighties, that was a, like a, a risk of a life. You've risked everything for that. Um, and, and, and much like them, I've, I've heard of stories of people who came here even before that, decades before. Um, and I mean, it's hard to imagine, right? You've basically given everything up for like the, the smallest sliver of hope. I don't think you have to do that anymore. I think it's, it's a safe place to come. Uh, the quality of life is great, and I just look at the other kind of great places in the world that historically have been great for entrepreneurship. I don't know if those places are on the up the way that I feel Dubai is. Yeah. Still on the up. Um, and to me the last thing is just everyone is going to have some component of family in their life, right? You're working for something. It could be just yourself. It could be for your wife and kids, uh, or your husband, or your parents, or your children, siblings, whatever it is. Um. So for me, like safety is the most important thing, right? I want my kids to be safe. I want my wife to be safe. I want my, my, my, my parents to be safe and feel safe. Healthcare is great, education is great. The worlds are great. That is important. And I think, um, Dubai didn't lose that. That was always great when I was growing up. And Dubai didn't lose that. Um, you know, that's, that's continued to be, I think a critical focus for the government here. And I'm glad to see that it doesn't feel in any way compromised. Yeah, that safety net for an entrepreneur is very, very important because if you are coming here to set up a business, then having that safety of knowing your family or you know, safe and your children are having good education, you've got their healthcare. Um, that's, that's, that's very important. Um, you mentioned that there were opportunities before in Dubai that you saw, um, where now you don't necessarily have those opportunities now. Do you wanna give some, in examples of industries that were. Quite hot back then. Um, but now they're not as much. But is there any opportunities now that you see that entrepreneurs can get yourself, get, get into? So I think, uh, especially talking like 30 plus years ago, manufacturing was still, you know, there was many more types of manufacturing were possible here. Mm-hmm. Um, and in a lot of those cases you could just be first because there's nobody else. Yeah. So, take my dad's example of, um, we came here and started buying clothes that were made in the UAE and when he was doing that, um, we think back to maybe even the early eighties and the seventies, somebody came here and was the first distributor for Cook, or the first distributor for Cadbury or something like that. Right. It might've been one of the locals here. It might've been somebody else. It might've been somebody who came here as an expat, but mm-hmm. You know, the, these very simple things that you take for granted now, those were things that somebody was first and they weren't first. A hundred years ago, they were first 40 years ago, or 30 years ago. Um, I think those kinds of opportunities just don't exist anymore. Dubai doesn't have many more firsts. Right. Um, in terms of at least breaking a new ground in an industry. Yeah, yeah. Or, uh, a new type of product or things like that. Um, the first we're gonna see now are quite innovation, uh, led. Right. It'll be something very new that's, that's the first on a global scale. Mm. But in, in, in Dubai's, uh, and, and the UAE, uh, as a scale for like just this region, I think it's very difficult now to, to see what's missing here. We have basically everything. Um, the opportunities I see now are, uh, and, and this is what I love about this place, is that's the opportunity that you could see anywhere in the world because you can be here and do anything Now, uh, I run my business, um, that's got operations in the us it's got operations in India. We do work in Singapore. Um, we have work in Europe and, and, and the uk and. This is just a great place from which we can do that. Mm. Um, so I mean, to to, to answer your question simply, what opportunity could anyone see anywhere? And I think you can mostly, for the most part, do that here. Yeah, sure. There's a couple of industries where maybe there's not enough people. If you're focused on a local market, the population is not that big. Um, but it's big enough, it's got enough, uh, it's got enough wealth that there's still plenty of global, for example, direct to consumer brands that have started here and have become global powerhouses. Right. Um, but yeah, I would say now the opportunity is what's an opportunity that exists anywhere in the world. It exists here. I want to talk about your, you went to university, you went to college in, I say university. University college. So you went to, uh, co college in, in, in, um, in the US and you graduated and then you joined your family business straight away, pretty much. Right. And it's not like a small. Shop, mom and pop stock store. It's a fairly substantially large business. Uh, that, that you've, you've joined and you know, you, you grew up in Dubai, you went to college in the, in the us and now you are being dumped, not not dumped, but you are dragged into a, a massive business. And you know, it, it's a family business, so there's a lot of responsibilities and pressure on your shoulders. Um, for, we have a lot of clients and a lot of, uh, a lot of our crowd are from family businesses as well. So you going, you graduating and then going straight into like a, a big business, how was that experience for you and what was the, what were the things that you were doing in the first year of that business? Um, in terms of, you know, what were your targets? What were your. Can you share some of your failures, some of your successes? What kind of tips would you give for someone who is about to go into that sit situation? Yeah. Um, you know, I think, and everyone who's, who's, who's had the similar start of journey, uh, that I did, I think Will, will resonate with this. And I, and I know many of my friends in the same place have, uh, the same thing. Ultimately it's just another business, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that's the really hard part to just remember that, um, as you said, the responsibility, the kind of weight, um, and you very, very honestly, um, our business is not in a particularly amazing place financially. You know, it had, uh, it had struggled, um, for some time. And the kind of the general health of the business really across the board was not super strong. Um, this is when you joined the business? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, just as I joined the business, um, it was kind of, I'll say. Approaching a bit of a, a bit of a slump at at at its worst point. Um, and so I had a couple of challenges. The first one was we didn't have that much time. Like the business wasn't gonna be able to coast for two or three years. Um, that was one. The second thing was it was a very technical business. Um, and I didn't really know much at 22. Um, but this kind of technical, I didn't know really anything. Mm-hmm. And number three, it was in the kind of environment, which what I mean by that is like large labor intensive heavy industry in India where, you know, the outside factors are also quite important in a business like this. That was also something to really contend with and I think is a very natural part of running a business like that, which I didn't realize. Um, so for me, my kind of day one thing was I just need to understand where we are. Genuinely actually understand where we are. Uh, number two, I need to figure out what are the things that I need to learn in which order? Three, how do I actually learn those? Because, um, you know, the one thing I'll say about the, the education in the textile and apparel industry, this is across the world. It's terrible. Um, there's no great resources. Um, you know, there's no great, uh, there's no great figures that people could really point to and say like, you know, go listen to this person, or go read that person's, uh, work to, to really fully internalize and understand this, right? Um, like, I don't know, Damron is who I would send someone to, to learn about valuation, right? Like, just go pick up his books or read his blog or his podcast and you're, you'll absorb one of the best people in the world for this thing. Um, I, I just don't think that exists in textile education. And if it does, after. Over 20 years, I didn't find it. Um, and so that was really it. It was, it was figuring out, um, where we were and learning enough that I could try to figure out how to solve those problems. Um, it was a set business, so it had a lot of the team already in place. Um, and then my next goal was just kinda like I went around, spent time in every single department, starting the office, going down to the shop floor. Um, and for me, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm quite hands-on when it comes to learning. So it wasn't just learning how this machine works, it was learning to operate the machines. It was learning to figure out how to mix color or how to change a needle on a sewing machine or a knitting machine. Um, and I think for me, the big failures were at the start, the failure, I think of every, uh, 22-year-old, uh, hubris mostly, right? Like. I've learned enough now that I can make a decision about this thing. No, I, I, I, I still didn't learn enough. Um, or I think you, you never as an entrepreneur, even when, whether you are 22 or 42, right? Decision making is always fraught with lack of information, and you have to kind of be very comfortable with the fact that you don't have a lot of information and you gotta make a, make decisions. Yeah. And, and I think sometimes that comfort comes with wisdom and experience and the knowledge that the last time when I didn't have all the information, I still had all the other experiences that I've accumulated throughout my career to guide me and kind of give me a bit of an edge in this, um, asymmetry of information. Um, but as a, you know, um, as a, as a 22-year-old who didn't have any of that, um. I was just kind of just walking with my, with my eyes open and forward. That was really my, my kind of policy. Um, and one thing I'll say is I, I was very fortunate that I was able to learn from failure. Um, you know, I, I was able to make small mistakes so that the big ones didn't get made. Uh, I think that was, that was a, a, a big learning for me. My, um, my team had failed a lot, and so I got to, you know, capitalize on that learning. Um, but really I think the biggest thing was after a certain point, it was very obvious to me that I got nothing to lose now because we were in the position where either this was gonna work or it was better to kind of stop just burning effort, resources, time, money, and uh, and, and try to make something of that asset. Um, I'd say the kind of turning point for, for us was. When I just got a grip of the business. Um, I always tell people I work with that, um, like the most magical time of being an entrepreneur is when you can hold the entire business in your hands. Um, and what I mean by that is it doesn't matter how big or small the business is, it just means that like, somehow there's this, I, I don't know if you've experienced this, but there's like this perfect moment where every single operation, every single process, every single number, everything just kind of fits in your head at the same time. And you can just draw all of these connections and, um, make decisions with this, like what feels like perfect information. And of course it's not. And of course you're missing things, but it feels like that. And um, you know, it's like flow state, but for running a business maybe. Um, and that was really I think where things changed very drastically for us. Um, you know, I. I really built, what I would say in the industry, at least in India, was the best team in the country. I got very comfortable technically, and um, I think it allowed my team to also be their best because, um, you know, if they wanted to make changes or if they wanted to propose things, they didn't have to justify them, either understood or I didn't. And if I didn't, I had to go learn. And if I did, then the justification made sense or it didn't, but there was no like, let me try to convince somebody who doesn't understand what I'm talking about. Um, we had old machines, but exceptional machines and we focused really hard on having the best engineering and maintenance department, um, to kind of keep everything running at its peak and to keep everything running without having to waste money and time in reinvesting into new machines. Um, it was how can we extract 'cause we didn't have the money, right? How can we extract. Outsized value from something that's 25 years old at this point, had a service life that ended 15 years ago, but now we gotta compete with our, um, neighbor who just bought something five months ago. Um, and we just, we kind of worked with what we had and that resource constraint environment for me, that was exciting. I found that interesting, but I also found it kind of gave us solutions that other people didn't have. Um, and that's what I was always looking for, like, what's the, what's the non-obvious answer here? And usually it was simple. You know, people get blinders because they're doing something for so long for the same, uh, in the same way for, for this really, really long time. And it, it might be something that was passed down by your boss or your mentor or whatever. Uh, and just like fresh outside perspective, I think really brings a lot. I think you've, you've, you've raised a really important point here in terms of running a business as an entrepreneur. Um, I've come across many entrepreneurs who they go through. The growth phase, they get to a certain point and they're like chilling, right? They don't look at what's going on in terms of their, um, finances. They don't look at what's going on with the people or what's going on with the customers. And then they slowly start to crash, and then they start panicking and they're having to re-understand what's going on in the business. Now, I think the important point you came across is that kind of zen state of, you know, what everything is means in the numbers, uh, and processes in your, in your business. So for example, in, in my business, I know that if, um, we've got a pipeline of X, then we need y amount of accountants to to, to join and to then, uh, make up for that demand. Or if we have a certain amount of books which have not been completed yet, then we, I know something's going on in the business where we need to make sure that what, what's going on in terms of why are we not closing some of these books? I think whether you are on that chilling mode or growth mode, you still need to be in a state where you understand these important numbers. Um, otherwise you, you will completely lose track. Um, and I think the way you've described that you, when you first joined the job, you know, humbly, you didn't come in and say, oh, I'm, you know, my business. I'm gonna do it my way. You actually went to learn the different components and different departments. I think that's a very, uh, amicable for an entrepreneur who wants to, who's kind of on that situation where they're almost lost touch of their business. What kind of advice would you give them to kind of get back to that state where they know all of the key metrics and numbers in their business? Yeah, I had, um, I had this real distaste for getting email reports. You know, we had, I mean, I dunno. Hundreds of staff members, uh, thousands of workers. I was getting over a hundred daily reports, 50 weekly reports, and uh, two dozen monthly reports and quarterly. And I just got very, I got very tired of this. And, you know, that, that holding everything in your hand. Eventually my business got too big and I couldn't, and then it, it's, you're kinda like holding water or sand and it's like kind of dripping out and it's a bit, it's a bit hard. And so my solution to this, um, was I had, I spent a weekend and I designed a singular, a four piece of paper. And on one side it had every single number I care about from yesterday across my entire business. Um, and obviously the hard part is just finding really 25 numbers right, that fit on a single piece of paper, uh, across at the time, three separate, you know, independent verticals. But. That's the point, right? It's like this, I can hold in my head. Yeah. And I can, I can see this every single day and it takes me five minutes. And I understand in this five minutes exactly where we are, what the health of my business is, where the challenges are, and where things are going well. Um, and every single morning, by the time I came to work, my assistant would put that on my desk and that would stay with me. And it was always, and I wanted a piece of paper so I could write on it. The tangible, physical, tactile sensation, I think, um, has more value, at least to me, than Excel on the screen where it's, can, I dunno, it feels a little more abstract. Um, and then also became my cheat sheet for the rest of the day, right?

I'm now at 4:

00 PM and I'm drafting an email and I was like, Ooh, double check. And I just like slide it over and I can see, okay, here's actually where we are. Um, it is, it's very simple, right? Like reporting works. But the point with the reporting is that it can't be overwhelmed by too much information. Mm-hmm. Especially when you're at that stage where. Your scale isn't just the scale of that report or that department or that vertical or that person. Um, as a leader, as an entrepreneur, your scale is too big, your scope is too big, and you have too many things to look at and worry about and seeing the entirety of the entire reporting function of your business. Um, I think the other way to get back in touch is, um, to really look at how meetings are run in your business, to focus on making sure that they're valuable and that the ones that you are in, as again, the person whose scale and scope is likely the biggest in the organization, to make sure that those are truly effective and that every single minute that's being consumed by those is giving you outsized value. Mm-hmm.'cause for the most part, in a meeting, you're not really changing anything about your business, you're just talking. Uh, and so how can we, how can we make that be more effective and be more useful? Um, and then honestly, the last thing is. Cash, right? You gotta look at, you gotta look at where your business is from a, from a cash perspective. Um, you know, we work with, we work with not big teams, 20, 25 people. And the, the, you know, the founder of the business doesn't, who's in involved on a day-to-day basis, doesn't know the cash position of their company to within like one order of magnitude sometimes. And that's like that, to me that's really quite alarming. Like, how do you, how do you not know? Will you make Monday or will you make next year and your business is struggling like that? You know, those are the kinds of things that I think you really should just have, no matter how big your company is. Um, you should have under your thumb if you're involved. Yeah, no, great, great insight and thanks. Thanks for sharing that. I wanna talk about the dynamics of being in a family business. You know, someone who's an entrepreneur and they also have a family business and they want to bring family members into it, or. They've already got you. You are new to a family business. What kind of advice can you give that entrepreneur? Um, I know you've done, you've done husband and wife business as well, you've also done current business as a solo, uh, entrepreneur as well. If I was to join my family business, what kind of things do I need to do to succeed in that, in that environment? I think, frankly, especially if I look in the textile industry in India, um, we had it relatively simple, right? Like there's a lot of these businesses that have split or, you know, the next generation hasn't gotten along and things like that. For me, my kind of first point was, as I said, I didn't know anything. Um, I didn't know enough. I had to learn a lot. So I took this as an opportunity. My, um, my parents still lived here. You know, I had my dad a phone call away to ask, how does this work? Um, and to be humble about that and just be like, I don't understand. Maybe I can't say that in front of an employee or a new recruit or. A client, but yeah, I can pick up the phone and call my dad and ask him, I don't understand how this works. Walk me through this. Um, and not just the, the, the vast experience he had because he also started in the same industry, um, right out of university. So not just that like wide array of experience, um, having worked in America and the Middle East and India and worked with not just us as a manufacturer, but bought from dozens of manufacturers all over the world. So not just having that like incredible wealth of knowledge, I, I used it, I used it often. Um, but then the other thing was the success and benefits that I brought to the business and the failures that I brought to the business. I'm bringing that to my family too. And that's, um, you know, that's something that I took as a, a very serious responsibility. I think that my, my, my, my dad kind of saw that. And I think that was also, um, what let him, frankly, and I will say with the hindsight of experience, give me more and more responsibility, probably a little earlier than maybe was sensible. He had faith in you. He had faith and you know, I, I, I can look back and say that for the most part in the grand scale, um, it was, it was well placed. Um, but I made dumb mistakes, right? Um, everyone does. Um, and I had hubris and I had an attitude when I probably, uh, had to learn the hard way how to fix those things. And then for me, the other thing was the only thing I was interested in, my sister, she should come and work with us as well. Uh, and she, she, she, uh, one of the few people in our, in our business, in our family, sorry, uh, who's actually worked in another business, uh, and was employable. Uh, but no, she eventually came, she runs a business now. And I, I couldn't wait for that. Um, but I would say like, for me it was really understanding that I can be humble with my family and I can be vulnerable with them in a way that I can't with anybody else, even though we're kind of colleagues. Uh, and then one thing, I think we worked really hard on a family, uh, and this took effort. We really work hard on having business time and family time and, you know, not letting those two get conflated. And I've seen not only with our own family the hard way, but also with other family businesses, either that I've worked with or that my, you know, my, my friends run. I, when that line gets a bit too blurry, I think that's when it becomes hard. And I think that's why people are very apprehensive about, um, you know, kind of either getting into that boundary or once that has already been the case. You, you're in your family business. It's kinda hard to separate out again. So I I, I'm very mindful of that. Uh, I think everyone else in my family is too, we'll catch each other out, you know? Of course, sometimes it's natural. It's such a big part of our family to, to, to have, um, all of us in this business. But we also try to enjoy ourselves the way a family would go on holiday. Oh, okay, great. We're in this beautiful place, seeing this amazing side, or eating this lovely food. We don't really need to talk about Q4 cash flows just at this moment. It can wait until the plane, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. I guess, um, interesting point that you've come across is that just like how if you are in a husband and wife business where you would want to separate the personal side and the business side, you need to do that within the family business, but also, I guess because you have. A business as well as your personal relationship. You, you kind of, am I right in thinking I've not been a fan of business, so I don't know, but am I right in thinking you have to spend extra time and extra effort building the bonds and making sure that, you know, there's no loose ends in, you know, about what you said about this business or this decision and all of that. Are you having to do that as well as in, in a family that runs a, a business? Yeah, maybe a little bit. Um, I just think like, you know, and, and this may be a tangent to what you said, but maybe also part of it, but I think it's really important for people to just define those areas, right? So, you know, my wife and I have very different styles. Um, we have great strengths that we each have, and I'm quite lucky that our weaknesses are relatively complimentary, right? So she's, she's very strong in areas that I'm not, um, and, and vice versa. And so just kind of. We stay in our lanes, right? Uh, it's not productive for me to really invest too much of my effort in areas that she's good at and that are her strengths. And if I do, I'm not giving much value. I'm there as a sounding board, and I'm there as someone to, um, to, to, to, to, to be there, to just have questions asked of. And I use my wife for this all the time, but we are kind of clear in that area. That is what she does, is what she's good at, and here's what I do and here's what I'm good at. Um, and then we have kind of work time, right? So we talk about work things during work time, and that means that, for example, we're having dinner with the kids. We're not gonna talk about work, um, on the table, or if we're out just us watching a movie, we're just gonna watch a movie. Mm-hmm. Or have dinner and not talk about work. I just think that like having that. It doesn't have to be a formal relationship that like, you know,

this is my colleague until 5:

00 PM and then at 5 0 1 this becomes my wife. Uh, or this becomes my sister, or this becomes my, my, my, my my dad. I just think having that kind of slight balance of we have personal time and we have work time, it just means that that personal time continues to be personal time.'cause I think it's very rare it goes the other way. That work time becomes personal time. I think more likely you're gonna see the personal time and then eventually that goes away and everything is work time. And that's what I don't want. And I think my family is, you know, mostly on board with that. Yeah, no, that's great. Great point. You've obviously, like I said, you know, you've, you've done the family business, you've done the husband and wife's business, and now you are, you have done the kind of solo entrepreneur, uh, business as well. I believe you've done a few ventures with partners as well. Mm-hmm. What advice would you give to the entrepreneur who. Is in a family business versus a, you know, a spouse business with a spouse or solo entrepreneur. What would you say would, do you prefer being in a family business? What's your preference in terms of the different states and at what point is it good in your opinion, um, to go that, to take that journey, whether it's family with a spouse or solo, uh, solo entrepreneur? Yeah. Um, that's a good question. The, you know, I think the hard part was when I was younger. I really, and sometimes, and I really felt that I wish I was a sole decision maker on this. Mm-hmm. Um, and for individual decisions, I think it's natural to feel that sometimes. Um, but you know, now if I really think about it, I'm not a solo. I'm not so alone in anything anymore. Um, either it's my family or I have amazing partners that I work with. Um, people that, again, as I said, we're very complimentary in our strengths and weaknesses. Um, and they're people that I can rely on. You know, sometimes I think you kinda have to take a hard look at yourself. And I, and I, and I did that a while back and realized that they're just things I'm, I'm not great at. And I could invest a huge amount of time to attempt to maybe make those skills stronger, maybe a lot of time. Or I could partner with someone who's excellent at that and has made their entire career about being excellent at that. Am I gonna potentially get better than having that partner by doing this myself? I just don't think that's the case and the reason I know, at least for me, I tried that, uh, and it didn't work. Uh, you know, you invest a huge amount of time. What's that time costing you that time's either costing you time, you could have spent in your business, um, time you could have spent with your family, or time you could have spent working on some other aspect of yourself that would have given the result where this one didn't. Um, so yeah, maybe that's partnering. Maybe that's hiring someone. But you know, what I found is the kinds of businesses that I work on now, um, you know, we have a lot of manufacturing, we have a lot of industry. Um, so I'm, I'm trying to do more on serviced, uh, based when I start now. I just don't think that, I just don't think it makes a, a huge amount of sense to attempt to do everything yourself. Mm-hmm. Um, and AI can't automate everything away. We're still quite far away from that. Um, I think the people who do fully solo businesses, you can do well. And I think I see a lot of people who have done really tremendously well. But for me, maybe it's 'cause I have a lot of things going on. I like the idea that I have somebody I can rely on. And somebody I can trust and somebody that is there to kind of take a little bit of the load when it's required and, um, and, and, and, and always be with one eye on the business. Whether that's my family, whether that's my wife, whether that's my partners. Um, I just, I like sleeping. I like spending time with my kids. And, uh, the fully solo journey is, I just think I'm past that now, I guess, and I'm paraphrasing probably, but you know, many entrepreneurs that I've come across, they've worked in, they've been an, they've been an employee. I've, I was an employee then I set up my own business. And one of the reasons why they moved to entrepreneurship is because they want to do everything themselves. They wanna have freedom. Uh, and I guess what you are saying is it's okay to be a solo entrepreneur and have that freedom, but I guess. If you, and it's difficult to find partners in businesses who you can trust, but when you find the right partner, you are able to then really expand or work on other things, uh, as well. Because in business, one plus one isn't two, one plus one could be 10 exponential when you have the right dynamics around you. And I guess, am I right in, in, in thinking that's your philosophy in business? That that's one. But you know, the other thing is I just don't believe that, you know, this mantra, that entrepreneurship is hard and it has to be a grind, and you have to sacrifice. I just don't like that. Um, you know, I mean, we've been to EO events together where like the first thing the speaker says when they open their mouth is like, entrepreneurship is a hard journey. It's a grind. And I, I, I just don't like that. Um, it can be nice. It can be nice, right? Like I'm famously eminently unemployable, right? No one, no one's gonna gimme a job. Uh, and I never had a job. I never worked anywhere. Um. So I need to have entrepreneurship be the thing that is fulfilling also. And it makes me happy and it makes me feel like I can spend time with my family, uh, and also have time for myself and also have time to, you know, go on a date with my wife and also have time to travel and go on a holiday and also have exciting things at work. And that whole, you know, you have to grind, you have to sacrifice, you have to give things up. You have to, you know, put other things on the backseat. Oh, you have to work nights, or you have to do this and do that. Um, I just don't wanna do that anymore. And, you know, a really easy way to do that is when you see somebody that you wanna work with and they're great and they think you're great, maybe work with them because that's two people for, you know, the, the job of one person. Mm-hmm. Um, or if your family is doing something and you can participate in that, it's great. Now you have a whole family who's trying to do the role of what one person might meet. And, and so everyone gets to have a little bit of time. Um. Yeah, I just, you know, I, I think it's, I think it's definitely the one plus one is more than two for sure. Um, and, you know, two very well aligned people can definitely do more work than three or four or 10 unaligned people and two people who are with, you know, kind of complimentary skill sets that can have an even bigger multiplier effect than that. All of that's true. Um, but the simple thing is I like to work with people that I like to work with. Um, I like spending time with people. I enjoy my, my partners are people that independently of, um, the work that we do together, uh, we're good friends. We see each other and enjoy spending that time with each other. Um, and much like how it is with my family, um, you know, after work is done. We'll go get dinner or we'll hang out and we're just friends now. Mm-hmm. And so that's, you know, that's something I enjoy. I don't wanna work with somebody who, I just don't have like a particularly great feeling that at

5:

01 AM I gonna still enjoy being in the same room with that person. Um, and yeah, maybe I have the, the benefit now of having had success in my past and, uh, you know, being able to kind of take the risk of not going 110% every single day. Um, but, uh, I don't know. I see young people now and I don't think anyone wants to work as hard as VI did when I was 22 anymore. If I, if if I'm wrong, you know, I apologize. But, um, I just think culturally things are different now. You know? Uh, and this, you know, 1990s business speaker circuit of, it's hard to be an entrepreneur. I just don't think that's true. And so for me, like that's, that's the big takeaway is that. It can be easier to not be 100% alone. And, um, it's not just, just that it's, you know, it's hard to be alone because you don't have anyone to rely on. All the responsibilities are yours as well as all the decisions and successes. Um, it's scary too sometimes, right? Especially if it's something that nobody could possibly help you on. Um, and I think besides being alone and scary, that feeling of just being alone sometimes that's hard. You know, it's hard. I, and I, I felt that even in my own family business, uh, a couple of times where it's like this feeling that if I don't figure this out, it's over. That's not like a particularly, um, or at least it wasn't. It was, it was powerful in that it made me do whatever I needed to, but I don't think it was a motivational power that I would love to feel again. Um, you know, I don't look back at that and feel. I want that tomorrow when I wake up in the morning so that I'll work harder. No, I wanna feel that, you know, that, that feeling of success or that feeling of I solved this amazing problem that had been bothering us for ages or, um, you know, I had a great meeting today, or something very small like this email is perfect and I'm going to get this client right. Like, those are the kinds of things that I wanna feel motivated for, not the feeling of it's over if I don't get this. Like, I just don't like that. So with one of your new ventures, chroma Consulting, one of the things that you are focusing on is coaching, coaching for entrepreneurs, for startups, for established businesses as well. And you use a framework called Bloom. Mm-hmm. Um, and I looked into it and I was quite intrigued by it because I went through the EOA accelerator program, uh, and I could see that Bloom has a few more elements to it, right? Uh, that could be quite useful for entrepreneurs as. So can you just give us a quick brief on what Isbl the Bloom framework and how can it help entrepreneurs? Um, and are there any success stories that you can share with us that have, where entrepreneurs have gone through that program? Yeah. Um, so at a very high level Bloom growth system, um, they call it the Bloom Growth Operating System, is basically an execution and communication system that focuses on leadership teams and brings them more aligned, more accountable, um, and helps 'em very clearly and specifically focus on what to execute for the end goal that is correct for that business. Mm-hmm. I tell entrepreneurs and founders that it gives you what you want from your business. So that could be profit, that could be growth, or it could be freedom and that, um. That, that seems to be of everything else that's like this. And there's a lot of things like this. It's the one that I want implemented in my business. Um, it's new. And so it kind of takes a modern approach, um, to how businesses are very different to, you know, 1995, uh, in 2025 and 2026. Um, and it's got kind of three components. One component is the, the coach who kind of is your trainer and coaches you through this journey. Two is the methodology and the operating system itself. And three is software that kind of helps tie all together. Mm-hmm. And so when a entrepreneur is implementing this in, in their, in their business, for example, how long does it take for the results to come about? Are there any success stories that you can share that a company's gone through and has gone from? X to Y, for example. Um, I don't wanna speak for any companies by taking their names, but just to give you some examples, um, somebody in Dubai that we both know has gone through the journey and, um, you know, in four or five months, um, you know, I could see them as a company being much healthier, um, the founder being much freer and happier. Mm-hmm. But the revenue has gone up, profitability has gone up. Uh, that's the kind of thing you tend to see, right? Um, the amount of time it takes. That's a good question. And I think it depends on the business. Mm-hmm. Um, but I would say that on your very first session, there should be value and there should be outsized value. Um, you know, you, you do these kind of full day offsites with your coach. Um, and so the very first one is called a Bloom day one. Um. And I think you need to take away a lot of value from every single day day that you do with your coach. Um, but everyone will take away outsized value on the first day because just the process has been refined and kind of evidenced over so many different companies. I don't remember the exact number. Close to 5,000 or 6,000 organizations on Bloom across the world now, and it's been done and every single person takes away value from the first day. Um, I think the most value will probably come once it gets slowly rolled out to the entire organization. Um, but we're kind of now after that talking about, um, you know, getting smaller and smaller gains, though there are gains, the, the, the biggest value I think you're gonna take away on the first day because the tools that you're equipped with on, on the first day. Um, a simple example of that. How to run effective meetings. Mm-hmm. And how to make meetings, the kind of thing that you look forward to and you look forward to them because they're not a waste of time because they're super effective and because everyone is always on the same page and there's no one, um, who is kind of there just to be informed or too mm-hmm. Everyone is an equal participant. Um, I think just like, just that having this become a part of, you know, you do your day on Monday and on Tuesday morning you go make this change. Um, just that alone, I think for most businesses is, is, is a great, um, a, a, a great help, but there's other tools. There's, there's tools you take away that are gonna be valuable just the next morning. So it's not just theories practical as well. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Very much. In fact, I'd say it's almost the other way around. Um, you know, very little about it is kind of theory that you have to learn. It's more about equipping tools and processes and, um, and taking those into the specific business. It could be anything. This is an industry agnostic framework. Um, it works with, um, it works with businesses that have small teams or very large teams. It works with manufacturing service. Um, to me just it's about the right tools to make sure that your company can achieve exactly what it needs to and the how to to do that, the what you're doing and who is going to do that. All of those things. That's part of what's, um, what, what, what's kind of taught in the system. Yeah, no, no. It's definitely beneficial for those who want to try it. You, obviously, I know you very well and you're, you don't blow your own trumpet, but I know you've been in many different industries and many different situations, so manufacturing a farm. In the UAE in the desert, you run a business, right? Uh, consulting, blockchain, ai, uh, BC almost. You had a kind of like a fund at one point as well? No, no. Never a fund of my own, but I, I'm an advisor, um, with, uh, with an investment bank and I have, uh, um, participated in VC transactions. Yeah, yeah. Um, you worked as a solo entrepreneur in a, with your husband and wife, with partners and in the family business. So you have such a depth of knowledge, not just, and some of these businesses are massive and some of them are small and you have such a wide spectrum of experience when it comes to entrepreneurship. If you were to give a entrepreneur one or two pieces of advice, what would they be? Um, firstly, thank you. It's very kind. The two things, and I think it doesn't matter what, um, what industry you're in. You're talking about someone who's starting up, right. Starting up, or maybe they're already in their journey. Okay. Yeah, because everyone, every entrepreneur goes through circles, right? The, the value of death as well as you say eo. Yep. Yep. Um, so maybe I'll give one for each. Right. So for someone who's starting off, I think the biggest thing that I see people make mistakes, I have also made this mistake, um, and I think has the most outsized, um, impact on potentially turning a new venture from a struggle into success, is to focus almost all your energy on the sales and not on the product. We're in a really different time to even 20 years ago now, where getting your product is so easy. Um, and I, you know, I, I don't mean to belittle people who do product. I'm a product person and I'm an ops person. Um, but what I mean by that is if you wanna start a shoe business today, you can get shoes made. Exactly how you want them. Easier than in any other time in history. Mm. If you want to start a technology business today and have your product be some technology offering, it is the easiest time in history to ever get something like that done. Um, whatever. It's right. But selling, selling is so hard now. Uh, understanding to like a really, really fundamental level. What your market is, what your marketing is like, what your business development is like, how you're gonna acquire customers, what that's going to cost, um, how are you going to retain them, uh, that entire journey of just the kind of selling side of your business. Um, I think very few people put enough time into that. And I have made this mistake. You get the product salt, salt on day one or day 60, or day 365 or whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Right? But after that, the rest of your entire business is. Success forever will be hinged on. Did you manage to identify your market, sell properly, continue to keep those customers loyal, not spend too much on acquiring them so that it's actually profitable to sell to them, so on and so forth. Um, doesn't matter who you sell to, doesn't matter where you sell, doesn't matter what you sell. Ultimately businesses are selling something, right? Um, so I think for, for, for a new business, I would even go as far as to say, if you spend 100% of your time on that 100% and don't even think about your product at all and go start a business, you'll still have a better chance of success than if you spend zero time on that. Um, and for someone who's already in their journey, um, you know, for me it is very, very simple things like, look for free cash flow. I am, I, you know, I would say, do you wanna define what free cash flow is? Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, I can define it, but, well, I'll actually ask you to define it in a second. But, you know, the, the way I always look at it is. Revenue is vanity. Yep. Profit is sanity. Mm-hmm. And cash is king. Yep. Right. I am fortunate. I don't have some, uh, very large investors to whom certain metrics are important. Um, so for me, the metric that I'm always looking at, and this is in my own businesses when consulting or advising other businesses, um, I don't wanna look at profit and loss. I don't wanna look at, um, anything else from the finance and accounting perspective. I'm only focused on free cash flow. Maybe a close second would be creditor and debtor aging. Um, but it's probably also the type of business that needs that. You know, maybe in a service business that's slightly less important. Um, but free cash flow for me is the most important thing I look at in a business because all other metrics are really about what is going right or what is going wrong. Um, free cash flow is that one really particular metric that talks about time. So for a business that's struggling, this tells you how much time do you have? You can then make a decision. Can we go methodically? Can we go with a great deal of investigation or are we in er and we have to do medical triage right now. Um, and that's for me, a really powerful singular thing, um, that I think focusing on it as the kind of number one metric in your finances as you're trying to scale your business, whatever, it's, doesn't matter what the industry is, just focusing on scaling and growing rather than profitably, I would say like FCF plus Lee. Um, it just to me has always worked as if this is positive, everything else falls into place. Mm-hmm. Um, you can be. Profitable. You can have growing revenue, you can have happy customers, you can have all of that, but still have negative cash flow and your business isn't truly healthy. And most importantly, you as the entrepreneur, as the founder, as the person running that business, you will never feel settled and safe because you don't have time. You're short of time. So for me, that's a kind of like the biggest thing is that focus on, focus on the thing that makes you have time and give you freedom, which is cash. Yeah. It's just, and, and, and I'll ask you to define free cash. Well, I think it just goes back to one-on-one fundamentals of a business, right? Run a business to generate profit. And otherwise you run a non, non-for-profit. And I think with free cash flow, what that allows you to do is it gives you more flexibility, flexibility and freedom in how you run your business. And you don't need, you don't necessarily need. A technical accountant or accounting software to work it out. It's, mm-hmm. It's if you've got good reports in place and you've got, uh, if you're recording all your transactions on a timely basis, you can work that out and then it can help you with your forecast and it can help you with, as you said, you know, if I've got X amount of cash in my bank, how, how long is that gonna last? How much can I invest in the business? How much can I take out, uh, as, uh, as an entrepreneur? I mean, well, the entrepreneurs that I know, they'll take out their cash as well. Dividends as well, right? Sure. Yeah. It's, you've worked hard. Right, exactly. Um, and so I think it's, that is a very one-on-one, you know, business, one-on-one advice that many entrepreneurs need to think about. If they don't, if they don't have free cash flow, what's the plan to get to that state of free cash flow? Because maybe you are compromising margin to win customers, or maybe you are investing in a. A new machinery. If you don't have that now, then you need to make a plan. And if you don't have a plan for it, kind of running a charity and you don't have time, yeah. Your business can't happen. Right. Um, and, and I think you said one thing that I didn't, I didn't talk about, which I think is really important, and I didn't realize this when I was younger. I didn't have a, you know, great deal of financial education. I had enough, but not enough to, to realize this. And I think this is very important. For the most part. There is no new data that needs to be captured to understand cashflow. If you have a audited balance sheet, you already have all the necessary information for this. Uh, it's just, it's just kind of reporting it in a different way. And I think this is really for, for me, and I hear this from a lot of people, I can't capture any more data. My team is already this and that, and things like this. No, your software that you're using today probably can generate this for you by just selecting to generate it. You're almost certainly not gonna have to capture any new information. Um. Maybe in Dubai before VAT and before corporate tax. Yeah. Probably you didn't have the, the reporting if you weren't a, you know, large international business or, uh, or anything like that. But today, if you have VAT and you have corporate tax, you can press a button in whatever software you're using and get, um, a cashflow report. And this, I think is very important because like, people just don't look at that because they don't think that that's important or they don't think that it's, um, the single biggest lever that they have to, to make sure everything in their business has time. Uh, and for me it's just time, right? I, I wanna make sure that I have time to make good decisions or bad decisions or whatever it is, but I have time. Um, and so if I, if I, if I have time, that means I can take business cash out. I've reduced the time in that business, but I know how much I can take out because I know how much time I have. Yeah. If I wanna go on holiday and I know that I'm, so I, uh, you know. Fundamentally important to my business that my single day presence not being there causes this catastrophic loss in my business. And if I know my free cash flow is there, I know I have the time to do that. Mm-hmm.'cause I know how much I can afford to lose. To take your example of, you know, buying machinery also, you know, maybe it's in, in your business, you know, you've, you've got this order book, you have to get more accountants, but you have to have the accountants to get the order book. But you know how much you can afford to do that because you know how much time you're willing to give up. Like that becomes your, um, that becomes your currency. Um, and I will say after a year of free cashflow positive, I have never seen a business that didn't eventually become profitable. That just, that always happens because if you continuously have free cash, how could that possibly come unless you're actually generating cash? Right. Um, this is another thing I think people just don't think about this, and I don't wanna say that, like it's a question of financial literacy. It's plenty of people. I think it's just a question of like perspective. Yeah. Um, because for me, when I joined my family business. It wasn't a very profitable business or anything. And so for me, I was just like, how much time do we have and what's the number that tells me how much time do we have? And that was it. That was the number that I found that this is the number, this one singular thing. Um, and I know now this very well popularized by Amazon. I didn't know that story, that Amazon was like purposely, you know, working exclusively on free cash flow and, uh, didn't really care about profit and so did 20 years or whatever of, of, of zero profit, um, and still kept rising in evaluation. I didn't know that at the time. For me, it was just, this is my lever. I have this much time. What can I do with this much time now? Can I sell some of this time to buy something else, to gimme more time, or can I buy more time by doing this? That was it. That was my lever. My lever was time. I didn't have that much of it, and this was the number that every single day when I woke up in the morning and I saw the report from yesterday, this is how much time I've left. That, that, that was it. Avinash, it's been great having you, having you in the show. As I, every time I meet you, I always learn something new. So thank you for sharing your, your insights and I hope that that our, you know, our listeners can, um, I'm sure they've got a lot out of this episode. From, from your expertise, from the depth of your wide spectrum of, uh, experience in entrepreneurship. What's the best way our listeners can get in touch? Um, and, you know, is there any final kind of closing thoughts that you wanna, you wanna pass on? Uh, as closing thoughts? Just thank you, man. This was, uh, this was fantastic. I really love what you're doing here. Um, I enjoy watching the episodes and hope people find value here. Uh, to get in touch with me. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter. Um, but just Chroma Consulting, that's my website. We'll put it on the shoulders. Um, perfect. Yeah, that's, uh, that's usually the best way to get in, touch most things now run through that for me. So that's, uh, that's the best way. But no, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us on The Alphapreneurs Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the show. Please subscribe and give us a five star rating and a review. Your feedback is appreciated. For show notes and more, check the link in the description and connect to me on LinkedIn and search for Rayhan Aleem. See you in the next episode.