Trade Spends, Deductions and Drink Entrepreneurship with Komal Devjani, Co-Founder of Revya AI

Komal Devjani, Co-Founder at Revya AI, joins the show to break down the back office problem most CPG and beverage founders never look at until it costs them real money: deductions.

Revya builds automated deduction recovery and trade spend planning tools for CPG brands, from emerging labels to companies doing over $100 million a year. In this episode Komal explains what a deduction actually is, why DSD distribution in beverage creates more complexity than almost any other category, and why founders who never open their remittances are quietly losing margin they could put back into their next production run.

This conversation is drink entrepreneurship at its core. Komal walks through the early pilot brands that took a bet on Revya, why conferences still beat cold outreach for founder led sales, and why she believes there is almost no excuse left to raise venture money without product market fit.

The back half of the episode turns personal. Komal and Nate talk about honesty, sobriety, growth through suffering, and why raising money without doing the internal work first can turn a founder into someone they do not recognize.

What we cover:
- What a deduction is and why it happens
- Why beverage and DSD distribution are uniquely complex
- The cost of not opening your remittances
- Trade spend planning and true ROI on promotions
- Founder led sales and why conferences still win
- Raising a seed round without losing product market fit
- Sobriety, honesty and building a business grounded in reality

Connect with Komal Devjani on Linkedin 

Learn more about Revya AI: Revya.ai

Subscribe for new Ready To Drink Podcast episodes on the brands, operators, and policy shaping the future of adult beverage.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I'm Komal Devjani, CEO at Revia AI.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Excellent, excellent. All right. So give me a cloud level overview, like flyover of Revit AI and what it is you guys do.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

So Revia is essentially a back office finance function for CPG brands where we do things like automated deduction recovery, trade spend planning, and some a little bit of like bookkeeping.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Perfect. Well, I can tell you that in my experience, uh, it sounds like we're about to get into some of the stuff that what might be something that might be overwhelming to a lot of founders and senior leaders, but it is something that is necessary. And it is such a necessary thing because if you're tracking all those things, a lot of these founders and startups they don't track it well enough. And so they don't realize the inefficiencies that exist. So I want to I want to lead in with everybody saying if you're running a business right now and you're not tracking and you're not doing what we're about to talk about, you're losing, you're leaving money on the table and you're you're really not as efficient as you should be. So compliments to what you guys are doing. And are you uh kind of when did you get involved in this? And and kind of let's go through your personal a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

So um before before I started Revia, I was at Boston Consulting Group, part of an incubator, and I was working with brands like L'Oreal and Clorox, and I actually saw that they were walking, they were walking away from like millions of dollars in deductions. And I realized that a lot of these, you know, in conversation with like the finance team, in conversation who came out, that a lot of these are potentially recoverable. And most of the times they don't have the bandwidth to necessarily check line by line every single detail. And so uh a year ago, basically, I was like, you know what, let's full send on this problem and support not just these L'Oreal and Cloroxes of the world, but also emerging and mid-market brands that might not have the same infrastructure that L'Oreal and Clorox has to identify in balance.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Talk about what it is you're talking about when you say when you when you mean deductions for anybody that's listening here. That way we can give a little bit of I know what it is, but I want the world or the audience to kind of understand that part. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Yeah. So deductions is basically a chargeback that a distributor sends to you or a retailer sends to you for either having a shortage in how much product you send them, or you sent it late, or um you uh you actually agreed on some trade spend and they'll send you some deduction billbacks or some like charges around that. And most of the time, those they can be likely recoverable. So if you're not checking against the contracts that you have signed on with the distributors, and if you're not checking against the original trade spend agreements, there might be some deductions that you're charged and are paying for that are potentially recoverable, but they're just being taken off your check when you're getting your check back from your distributors.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

And to uh with me, with the clients I work with, uh it's it's very it can be if you're not watching it ahead of time, it can be a shock sometimes, especially if you're doing well and you have you have a lot of chargebacks. Or if you do, a lot of times people get excited when they launch a new market because they're like, we're selling so much, but they forgot about that co-op trade spend and they get that invoice and then they get all scared and everything like that. So like talk about how uh kind of maybe like giving some examples of different things that uh you know or different uh scenarios or categories where this kind of would come up in specific.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Yeah, so I think most of the short most of the shortage chargebacks that a lot of the ones that we've recovered at Revia are shortages. And so most founders are like, okay, I don't necessarily have the team, the resources, or the energy to go in line by line looking at every single deduction, right? And that's that's where that's where a lot of their recoverable margin is. So you might be thinking, okay, I sold for $100,000. That's what my check is supposed to be, but I only got back 60 or 70. And of the $30,000 that was gone, most founders don't necessarily, you know, especially like the smaller teams, don't necessarily have the infrastructure to go in and necessarily build out a team to go and check everything out, or sometimes not even like the time themselves to go and check everything out. And the worst thing I think uh a founder in the CPG space can do is just not even open their remittances and see like what's going on, right? Like, and and unfortunately that is the reality, right? And you're working, we're working with the time that we have, and I can see the perspective of I just want to grow my business. I just want to focus on growing revenue, but also there is this really big part of margin, which can potentially help you with your next production run. And a big reason why deduction recovery is so important in CPG.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

We saw I saw it a lot when I was working with um craft breweries from 2010 to 2017. You know, they had such a surge in trending and their volume and they were launching markets without a lot of effort. You know, and a lot of them did, I'm not gonna disparage all of them, but there was a lot that you could, if you had a good package and a decent product, you flew. This is where a lot of them started falling apart in the years into their launches, was this. And so, like uh, you know, you guys, you work with large distributors and small ones, and a lot of times, too, when this isn't planned for ahead of time, it damages the relationship between the supplier and the distributor. So outside of just the monetary value that you're reconciling and deducting and then and then recovering from, I want everybody to understand how important it is. It's more than just the budget line, it's more than just the net net profit. It's about your relationship because even if you don't have a problem with your distributor, if you weren't paying attention, our natural human instinct is if you didn't know that chargeback was coming or you didn't know that deduction was coming, you all of a sudden get this resentful feeling towards your distributor. And I speak for my experience being the bridge between those two scenarios. I guess not bridge sometimes, but it was more like a referee. And uh, and in those scenarios, the core problem was this 90% of the time that it was a it wasn't mismanagement nefariously, but it was just a disorganized reconciliation process of their finances. So, kind of what are kind of the scale of businesses that you currently work with? I mean, I assume you have a lot of startups and stuff like that, but you probably have some larger ones as well, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Yeah, for sure. So we work with brands that are in a pretty wide range of how far along they are. So we work with like Wilcox Farms. This is obviously like over a hundred million dollar brand. We work with like, you know, mid-market brands that are like at 15 million, 25 million, 30 million, things like that. So the what the one thing I've noticed though is um the brands that bring us along later in the later stage, I I've seen that, you know, systems that they've implemented ages ago that might not have been like designed to scale actually scale problems as opposed to necessarily solutions. And and that's a tricky place to be in because it because it might not just be that you're not looking at your books, but it's also recognizing the process that process that you have in place that's leading to so many chargebacks. And and you know, it's kind of like um, I I feel like I heard this somewhere where if you're not checking your bank account every day, it's not growing, kind of a thing, or if you're not looking at your numbers every day, there's something wrong. And so it's really important to keep track of your numbers because that actually shows you beyond beyond what your you know profit loss statement is, but it shows you where your process needs improvement, right? And so I've seen I've seen that some brands have literally had to like change their process around because now they're suddenly suddenly paying attention to what their deductions are and and how they can actually improve it, even for the valid ones where it's like rightfully deducted. There is a process change that could be implemented, like like um labeling differently or showing up to the DC earlier, having a conversation with your category manager earlier. So just getting ahead of that allows you to like preemptively reduce deductions as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Now, I'm curious for you, like you're in the entire CPG space as a whole. So you so I'm just in beverage and then I'm in every category within beverage. And as a service provider, when you when you don't niche in too deeply, we get to really see the forest from the trees as far as the industry goes and stuff like that. So, like, what which parts within the CPG world do you think have the toughest in here? I know for alcohol in my my world, we don't have pay-to-play or anything like that. It's all illegal. So we really the minimal amount of deductions and billbacks and stuff like that. Are there other industries within CPG where that world is full of a lot of layers and of the onion?

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Yeah, I think the I think there's greater complexity with just managing DSD chargebacks in the beverage space. I I would actually argue that beverage is a little bit trickier than otherwise, just because there's more trade spend going on, right? There's always these like like BOGO deals or two for five situations. There's a lot more trade spend. Um, there's a lot more complexity in how you're delivering goods. So, like if it's via a DSD distributor versus like a Kehy or Unify, non-alcoholics are like in this unique position where they can they can go through the DSDs, they can go through the um the beer, wine, alcohol distributors, but they don't necessarily have to follow the same rules as a beer and wine producer. So it's it's a challenging place to begin because you're kind of like, how do I navigate these type of deductions that are that are intended for like a beer and wine supplier versus us where we're a non-alcoholic? And then I think I think DSD in general, like more complexity from like a paperwork standpoint, like the the way in which DSDs like distribute their invoices is is a little bit more complex just in terms of like coding and like if you're looking into like getting everything organized into your ERP. I know some I know some brands that are like have teams manually coding what their GL code on NetSuite should be for the DSD invoices. But you know, like with Rev, it's just one click, you upload, and everything is passed through. So it's not it's so it's less of a so that was actually one of the first problems we solved, really. This is this is terrible. Like, why does someone have to manually go in and like find the GL code and like write out what's what are all of the pieces of itemized list of things that we got charged back for? So yeah, I I mean I guess I guess it's a long answer to say they're all really complex, but the areas where there's more trade spend, or if you're running a lot of tradesmen, you can see a lot more buildbacks.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

What were kind of the first clients whenever you guys got started? Like what what were the brands that were like early adopters to the concept of what you were trying to service the market with?

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Yeah, so we piloted with three brands. It was uh true, uh it's like true, and um and you can check them out as Drink True, uh Obvi as and Just Ice T.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Okay, yeah. Oh, well, that's really wild. So full circle, one of my first uh guests on here was uh the founder of Just Ice T.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

Oh, Seth, really?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, Seth Goldman was one of my first uh guests on the show on the show. It used to be called Free Mind Podcast about four years ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Wow, that is that is actually full circle. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

That's super cool. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

I actually love how this is a small world, and you only realize when you're on podcast and you're like, oh, I know someone who's on.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah, yeah, I've been doing this uh, I guess four coming up on four and a half years or so now, and uh we I just like surpassed 300 guests, and and uh this is it's not often that it's happened, but it's so exciting when it does happen. When I'm like somebody's like, Oh, I worked with this person. I was like, Oh, they were in the beginning, it's always the first season, it's always the first year. Is like I had some I had some good ones on there, and I have some great ones now, and I love this. I love tying everything together. So so when you were working, I mean that so just just just ice tea right off the bat and those other ones, there's some big brands. I mean, what did you know them prior? Walk me through. I'm gonna nerd on the business development side of how you kind of lined up pilot programs that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Yeah. So um I think one of them, so when we were testing the idea, right, we went to like Expo, we met, we went to a lot of these like conferences just getting to know people. And it was all founder-led sales. And like, I would say we're still doing a lot of founder-led sales. And um the first couple, it was just it was just through Expo, I believe. And just I see I met through another another friend of mine who I met also at a conference who made a recommendation that they should work with us.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

That's a note to anybody in the audience that doesn't attend conferences. I've been to three or four, or actually five already this year, is that conferences are the best way to grow your business.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

The best way to grow your business. I I know people talk a lot, like I don't know about you, but like in my in my in my space, everyone's talking about CAC, right? Like what's your cost of customer acquisition? And I always put conference as like the cost for customer acquisition because I think that's one of the most under like slept on channel to to meet people and not just like get customers, but also get feedback for what you're building and validate and validate what you're building. So I know a lot of people love to be like like uh behind their screens, and it's like I just want to be like a LinkedIn warrior, and I think that's amazing. It's it takes a lot of discipline to be able to do that, but there's nothing like going out there and making eye contact with someone that you think might value your service that's going to that's who you're solving a problem for, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, and honestly, too, like the I'll also say that at least in the in the adult beverage space, the quality conversations have changed in the past year. It is it's surpassed everything I could have imagined from the quality of conversations, also from strangers. Like in the pre-COVID and a little bit after COVID, we were still very transactional. Like it was very the conversations were very like, what are they gonna do for me? What am I gonna do for you? But I feel like this year especially, it's everybody slowed down a little bit. And it's more like how it's more like getting to know each other and starting to build relationships now. And that's where like I thrive. So it's really a place that I really I can say that I've enjoyed conferences in the last year more than I ever have.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Why do you think that is? Like, why do you think that people are more open to having connection now than they were before?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Do you want the do you want the heavy uh spiritual answer or do you want the professional answer?

SPEAKER_03 13:21

No, I want the real I want the real answer.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

The real answer is I really believe that the weight of the world right now is forcing people to realize um how much everybody else is going through. And I think that we're past the wearing the mask and being like, this is business Nate, and then I come home and this is dad Nate and this is boyfriend, this is whatever. It's now I feel like people are fully coming, and me included in the past couple years, fully coming into it. Doesn't matter the room, it doesn't matter the state, it doesn't matter the vehicle. I am me. And uh I feel like there's a lot less superficial conversations that are going on. I feel like people are getting very deep really quickly. Now, I could hear somebody tell me it's exact opposite, and it could be that I'm putting that out there, therefore I'm receiving that, which I accept. Um, I also am on a show every week on two different shows where I'm very vulnerable. So when people come up to me and they know the shows or anything like that, they open up faster with me. Um, so I could have a very, you know, I understand that I could have a tunnel vision view, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Yeah, I think there is some truth to that. Like that it might be the case that you're putting it out into the world and so you're receiving it, but also like I think that we we underestimate how much we like influence the world as well and as individuals, right? Like I think a lot of people I when I was younger, I used to think I have no power over the world, but the older I get, the more I realize that I actually do have an influence and the way I exist in the world, the way you exist in the world, really does have an influence on people around us. And if we show up as authentically ourselves, that I think will inspire others to be more authentically themselves as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

It's uh it's a it's a big piece of my life, is is uh it's I spent a lot of years in my earlier career being young and running through and and um dealt with substance abuse issues and stuff like that. And that put a big mask on my life. And in the past few years, getting sober and going through all that stuff, it's really changed my lens and it's kind of become a core piece of just how I carry my everyday life. And I I my goal in life is not to force it on anybody of what I did, but if somebody sees something that I'm doing and they're like, that's really cool, and they and it ends up tweaking something and changing something about their life, that's the goal in my day. You know, I mean that's that makes it for me.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like it's like we have a ripple effect in the world around us and the and the people we talk to. And I and the more radically honest and authentically ourselves we can be around them, the more we're like inspiring and teaching others to be themselves to us. I actually like that's actually really hitting home right now because um because I I I've been struggling with Can I be personal also and honestly?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

Okay, um, yeah, I've been struggling, I've been struggling with someone who I I find has not been completely honest with me. And I I was so frustrated about it. And now I and then I I remember I was just like, you know what? I'm gonna show up and like tell this person everything that I might not have been honest about, just like preemptively, like be like, hey, by the way, like you deserve to know the truth. I care a lot about you. Let me tell you how I feel about this. And and it was so beautiful because he came back and he started like telling me everything, and and I was like, Oh, that's what it takes. Like you just have to kind of be an example of like of like I believe you can do this because look, I can do this.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

I think sometimes yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

And I think that's a that's such a it's such a powerful, it feels like a micro leadership moment, but it's actually bigger. And it's taking that first step and taking that vulnerability and like taking it and just being like, this is me. And I use this metaphor a lot, is when I started my sobriety journey, it was put all the skeletons on the clothesline in the backyard. And if somebody comes to the door and knocks and the door's always open, so if they've already walked through the yard and they've walked through the skeletons that I've exposed for them and they still want to sit on the porch with me, then it's a good person. And that's kind of the way I've built my life. Yeah, I don't put walls up, but you got to navigate through a few skeletons uh to get through. But it's actually to where people can understand me because I'm if you don't understand me, you I'm a very polarizing person. And I know that about myself because I can be very intense in two directions, and sometimes because of my stature as well, being 6'3, 250 pounds and having tattoos and everything like that, people misunderstand me if you read me on the surface.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

So it's it's one of those things, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

How do you feel about um how do you feel about going through your sobriety journey while you know working in the alcohol space? Like, how does that how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

So I'm very uh I'll be open with you, is the first year I left. Um, so I had the first year I knew I could not continue to go to bars and restaurants all day long to sell. I do uh market development and strategy work. So I'm in bars and restaurants and breweries and wineries all the time. And then I also do the podcast with them as well. And this I started the podcast right at the beginning of the journey. So actually, it's really incredible and it gets me emotional in a good way. When I go back to my YouTube channel, I'm not one of those people that scrubs places of I'm of embarrassment. So like you can go, my YouTube channel is all the way to the beginning of FreeMind, which is 2008, and it goes all the way to whenever YouTube started. So you can see videos when I started this business where I was using like one of those white flip cams in the back of a bar, and I used to record bands while they were playing, and then I book bands and stuff like that. So I everything is one YouTube. I didn't curate like a new one for the podcast, and I did it intentionally because the the th the theme of this is reflections of a founder. And and it's like from myself, how I meet other founders, other leaders, other leadership in different areas, and also staff from other places. We have staff on here as well. But I want everybody to know that it's not a media company that is built to sell sponsorships, it's a media company to bring to light reflections because reflections are the importance of growth. If we don't reflect, we don't grow. It's like when you like I've been divorced, and uh sometimes people go to my Facebook page and they'll be like, Why don't you delete all those old wedding photos? Like you're in a relationship now with somebody else. And it was the first part of our relationship conversation was I'm not gonna delete my history. Because those things, while they didn't work out, they're life's lessons and their life's tuition and they're who made me today to a place where I can receive love and I can give love. But I had to go through all that to get here. Right to hide away from that would be the complete hypocrisy of anything in life to be like, oh, I got here on my own. Like like people like other men I know in today that are like, I'm a self-made man. Well, bullshit. Like a whole, a whole, a whole community like helped you, whether it was your mom, your uncle, your your teacher in fifth grade, someone planted some seed that pivoted that. And it's not that you were manipulated, it's that you know, when you people say that type of self-made man or whatever, it's just built on it's built on lies. And and it's like in order, we have to be more humble about who where we are, and we have to be more humble about how we got here because life is built as a village more than we, it's it's a whole ecosystem.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also the other thing about deleting things that have happened in your life is kind of like deleting it doesn't change what actually happened.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

Like it doesn't change what the reality uh is. And I I find it really funny too. Ben like sometimes on Reddit, I'll see like a post of like, oh my partner's upset with me because I won't delete my ex's photos or whatever from my phone. And it's like it's like, what are you upset about? The fact that it happened or the fact that they're on the phone, because that doesn't change what actually happened.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

No, and and and that's where it wasn't not even a point of contention when I like explained myself because every time I explain it, it's like, oh, that makes sense. And then I think it's like sometimes when people have a problem with it, I think it's more of a projection because they've done that. And it's because once you do that, you can't go backwards. Like that is a and and I know that sounds stupid to talk about social media like that, but it's also representative of your life. Like, if you want to, if you want to wipe those things from the public view to eventually hope, because I come from a PR background, that's what my degree is in. So, you know, manipulate the public. If you want to make eventually you think over time, people will forget that that happened. But you if you want to forget it happened, then you learn nothing. And then you're not your whole purpose of being on this earth is to learn.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

Exactly. I feel the same way. I actually think that if I'm not growing, I'm slowly dying. Like if I'm not learning, I'm dying. And I actually think that a big reason why I like even went into entrepreneurship and like wanted to like explore other ways I can I I can just do career outside of like Boston Consulting Group, right? I've had a pretty good, like I've had a pretty good career, right? Like I was in computer vision, I was in edge computing, I had a pretty technical background and then went into BCG. I could have stayed there, but I after a while, you're just kind of like, I want, I want the next challenge, I want to learn, and I wanna see, I want to see what's like if I have it, if I can do it. But also it also it's kind of like I think there's a puzzle to be solved out here, and and I I feel like I can solve it, you know? I feel like there's a puzzle to be solved, and it's it's interesting that I to be able to solve it. It solves problems to be able to solve it and helps people to be able to solve it.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

I firmly believe, and uh it'll sound woo-woo to a lot of people, but I believe that we are put on this earth to learn lessons, to then build those lessons, and it's not to fix anything, but it's to grow and thrive and continue to be alive. And you nailed it when you said when you feel like complacency is death, it is. And it is to me too. And it's because if we're not moving around, like if you walk into nature, nature isn't just sitting around sleeping all day long. Nature's moving because if you don't move, if the deer doesn't go over and eat the grass, it doesn't drop the tick that comes off of here, but then the bird feeds over here, but then the pollen from the bee leaves over here. Everything has to keep moving to feed the other things. And the second that we think that we're only here to serve ourselves, you you're not feeding the ecosystem, and thus the ecosystem will not feed you.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Yes, you it's like you lost the plot if you're only going to feed yourself. You lost the plot when you're just like getting DoorDash every day and like not going and like not leaving the house and interacting with your neighbors. Like somewhere, somewhere the plot was lost, I think.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

It is, and and I speak passionately about it because I lived it. I spent like 10 months to almost a year living in a basement and motels and different things like that when I was going through my sober journey in the beginning because I was afraid of the world, because I was afraid that I wasn't strong enough to walk into a bar to buy a cheeseburger because I was afraid I was gonna put my head under the beer faucet and start drinking all day. You know what I mean? Like, and you can laugh because that's what that's where that's where my head went.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Um it's your intrusive thoughts when you're when you're at a bar. Like at the time you were like, This is an intrusive thought. I just want to put my head under the and I I can completely I can understand.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah, and I was a I knew like it, I was the kind of guy, like I worked in the beer industry. If somebody ran to me at a bar, it wasn't I was that I was a celebrity, but people did know I was the beer guy. So, what a beer, what do you want to do when you walk into a bar and you see the beer guy? You want to buy him a drink? And so that was how like you know, I would be drinking all day long and for free why everybody buy me a beer. But at the same time, that was my other fear. I was like, well, I don't want to turn them down because I don't want it to hurt my relationship with them. And then that was a whole nother internal battle. So it took 10 months to a year to get out of the basement, literally. So when you mentioned the DoorDash thing, exactly, like that's all it was. I didn't want to go anywhere, I couldn't do takeout. I was I was doing takeout because it was quick and easy. But um, to answer, go back to your other question real quick. Uh today I drive, it's funny, like today I'm three and a half years in and I drive with uh my back seats full of spirits. Uh like so I can literally be driving in my car and I can reach back at any point and grab a canned cocktail and pop it and drink, but I don't. And people are always like, How is that possible? And I said, because I did the work. Like I did the work years ago by setting myself up in that basement, but also I did the work by getting out of the basement. And I speak differently about sobriety than a lot of other people. Like I did AA and I did rehab, but I didn't stay long. And I didn't stay long because if I stay long in a cycle of rumination and regret and shame, it'll weigh me to a place that I don't want to be. So it's but it's also not the same as deleting the photos. So it's not denial, it's moving past it and then learning from that moment because every mistake is a lesson. And one thing it took me years to learn was I stayed in a place where why is this happening to me? That's what went through my head all the time. Why is this happening to me? And then it wasn't till I got to a place where it was like, it wasn't why is this happening to me? It was what can I learn from this?

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

When I was able to shift that thing to where every time a negative thing came up, it was what can I learn from this? The entire life changed. Like it was like you unlocked and like you wiped the windshield wipers off my sunglasses or a foggy mirror kind of scenario. It was that it was that instantaneous.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Yeah, it's it's actually it's actually really incredible. It's incredible the wisdom that comes to us when we're in a moment of suffering when we feel like no, there's no other answers, there's no solutions to this. Like there, it's it's I actually I actually wonder, I wonder if like the reason we suffer or like the reason our bodies suffer or like we feel the emotion of suffering is because it's because we're supposed to learn. Like it's literally like your final exam after you've like been through it. It's like your finals. And right after that suffering, you just have this like really cool feeling of wow, okay, like and now I can go back out there. Now I can go back and like go back in the ring, go back and play and and you just engage differently with the world. I actually um it's actually interesting, very different, very different from you. But um, I had a similar moment of suffering, but like it was uh it was like maybe a heartbreak plus food poisoning, you can think. And I remember I was just in bed for like 48 hours. I was so sad, and I was thinking, I was literally quite literally reflecting on the concept of suffering. And 48 hours later, I came back downstairs. Um, and my uncle, uncle was there at the time, and I went up to him and I was like, Uncle, I'm gonna be vegan now. I think that I think that these animals are suffering, and I don't want to be part of that. Like, I felt enough suffering for the last two days. I know it's like such a silly thing to say, but it's not silly, it's not silly, you're good. I felt suffering, and it makes me really sad to think that there's these beings who are out there suffering, and I I want to like stop. I don't wanna I don't want to participate in causing them suffering. So, like I and I've been vegan for like eight years now, since that time.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

So I guess you've still got the cycle.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

So yeah, I I think that I think that suffering does help us grow. It helps us change, and and sometimes it leaves like lasting, lasting lessons and lasting changes in your life, hopefully for the better.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Now I'm like, I'm not a I'm not a religious person, so to speak, but when you go look at other religions, I do read them all. I read, I read and I'm obsessed with religion. Um, I just can't choose. Like that's where you know what it or that's my joke, is like, so I'm very I'm I'm very obsessed with religion. But one thing that's interesting is in a lot of these religions, it suffering is a piece of it. And you know, when when you and and always in the religion, what we lose as humans when we read those scriptures or or whatever book it is that you're choosing, that suffering is intentionally put in there because it is a growth. But we uh in our world in a modern society, sometimes I feel like we get it as like, well, that's that's the higher power, the source, the God be putting pressure and controlling the person. But I I think we're misunderstanding it. I think it's an intentional suffering because you know, let's say I'm gonna go down the reincarnation path. Okay, let's say if you believe in reincarnation, that is what the belief is, is that you're going back to learn the lessons you didn't do the one prior. And you know, if you're if you're you know, if you're male on the ground on the earth right now and you go back and you reincarnate, you if you didn't learn your lessons as a male and you might have been a let's just say a piece of shit male, you might be reincarnated as a female next time to learn how to grow and learn the opposite side of things. And I think when you mix all these things together and you get scared of suffering, and I think a lot of times we try to get the easy fix because we're afraid of the process of suffering. And that easy fix, and I was one too. I I literally checked out for years in my life through drinking and pills and things like that. Like I took the easy route. I didn't want to deal with the world, I didn't want to look in the mirror, I wanted to hide. I wanted to exist and be present, but mentally I didn't want to process any of that stuff. And it wasn't until I faced it all that I could understand it. And I look at these religious perspectives and I see the commonality and all of that. It was, it's too it is in every religion there is suffering, and in every religion it is for a lesson, it is not for a uh oppression, so to speak, of things, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah, and I think I think the one thing that's actually really fascinating about suffering, I I love that we're on this topic. Um, is that it's uh it's that like no one can quite like capture it, right? Like I I feel like I feel like a lot of stuff I see on social media and like no no not to throw shade, but also like sometimes it feels like performative suffering, like I'm suffering so much. I'm like going through it, and but it's like I just know when you're I don't know, I could be wrong. And there's different ways to like navigate like suffering. Like some people might be like, I'm so radically myself, I want to like pull up the camera and like record myself, and I have so much respect for that, and that's real. I know that's real, but also it's just like I think there's I think I think there's like a inability to express suffering, right? Sometimes right it's like I'm in it, and and and then when you explain it, it almost kind of loses the loses the purpose. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 31:39

It does because what happens is what I feel like in my per when I'm explaining my suffering, it feels minor. And the reason is because when you can put a face and a label on it, you're acknowledging it. And what happens is when you acknowledge it, you've completely taken all the strength and power away from it. So actually, when you talk about your suffering more, not in a ruminating victimhood way, but truly in a I'm accepting this position I'm in in life, this is not where I want to be. But when I I verbalize a lot of things, and and when I verbalize those things, I do it intentionally. It could be the autism and and stuff like that in my and the Asperger's, but at that time, it's it was a therapy piece to vocalize the issue, and and you you then completely take the power away from it.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Yeah, yeah. So okay, that's interesting. So it's kind of like a solution to suffering is talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

It's worked for me, is like, and if you think about it, what is the number one thing people that stay in a suffering don't do?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

They don't talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

Yeah, yeah, I'm guilty of that. I'm very guilty of that.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

So I still do it. I'm not I'm not preaching from a high tower. I'm just telling you a couple times I bounced off rock bottom and it worked. So yeah, but um, let's talk a little bit about I would well speaking of suffering, let's talk about be entrepreneurship. Best kind of suffering. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Did you uh what age were you when when you got the entrepreneurial bug? There you go. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah, and then paint the picture, give me the environment, the emotions, everything when the when the light bulb came.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

So um, I've actually I think I've always had the entrepreneurial bug. My my parents are entrepreneurs, they're like immigrants from India, and like the only way to survive was really entrepreneurship because they don't have the like they're not like going to be C like computer scientists, right? My mom owns a beauty salon. My dad, when I was like 12, I remember, was like, I'm gonna sell printer ink. And he would take me to these like offices around the valley, and we would go door to door. Can you imagine? He was there with his 12-year-old child going door to door, and he didn't speak English really well. So I was the one running the sale. And I was like, Hey, um, would you like to buy printer ink? You know, we got great deals. Like, and so that's kind of like where I think my entrepreneurship journey really started. But I I did the college thing, I did the job thing, I did some like, you know, side gigs, like some consulting gigs, which I thought was my initial stint into entrepreneurship. But honestly, it wasn't it wasn't until I was at at BCG where I was like, okay, I think I've seen it. I've seen the startup thing, I've seen the corporate thing, I've seen, and I kind of want to do my own thing. And it was really scary. It was just like, imagine just like you're always used to having like consistent income and you're used to like having a stable job, health insurance, all of the benefits. And BCG had it nice, like it was so good. And can you imagine? Like, you have it all, and then you're kind of still like, yeah, but I'm just gonna like drop that and go cold into like into space that you know, like CPG is a pretty new space for me, I would say. But but tech has always been like this connector across multiple spaces for me. It's like I can get into, I remember I did a project for for mining, like in the mining industry at BCG. I did a project for like L'Oreal, Clorox, I did a project with um American tire distributors and so forth. So like I got a chance to touch a lot of industries, and I was like, okay, like tech is something that I can actually take with me and create something with for an industry that I believe I can solve a problem for. And my co-founder, also my best friend Kershma, she was kind of having the same itch at the same time. And we we were talking about it. And at one point we were just like, you know what? It's better to try and have an A plus life than be totally comfortable with a B minus life. It's better to try and like know that you put your all in and and have control over your life, have control over the output, have control over the impact that you have over the end user. And for you know it, I was submitting my resignation letter and going full cent on this.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

The uh I'll tell you, as somebody who's been a solopreneur for 18 years now, I can tell you that the joy you're gonna you always need to keep is never let the aspirations or goal of money be any driver. And I'm not sure I know that's not the case in the in how deep we've already gotten in this conversation, but there are gonna be moments five, 10, 15 years from now, where it's gonna distract you. Stay grounded always in what you just said to me. And what you just said is one of the driving reasons that I started the show and started interviewing founders, because the founder story is done, was always done in a very performative way with big lights and and uh you know in a studio and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

Or like, look how much money we've raised. And I and actually, like now that I'm in this world and now that I see it, I feel like I feel like there is I feel like there's founders who raise money, and then there's founders who build businesses.

unknown 36:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

And and every now and then you'll see uh you'll see an overlap between the two, and those are freaking incredible founders like really running it. And you know, we've seen like a whole bunch of these like in the last 20 years. But but I I've also seen a lot of founders that raise like over raise too much, and then now they're in like zombieland or or founders that can't that raise a lot but can't quite get to that product market fit, right? And now I I think there's almost no excuse to raise without product market fit.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

So exactly right. You're exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yep. And and and that's I'm glad you brought up the the fundraising piece because I've met a lot of founders and known a lot in my life that were very successful found fundraisers. And the second that they received those funds at the big scale, we're talking. Yeah, they told me that the whole thing changed. The whole the whole the whole mission, the whole intention, the whole mindset, the whole mental health, everything went down. And I've actually had a lot, and I will never share their names publicly, but I've had some that tell them that the raise, the successful raise was the biggest regret of their professional career.

SPEAKER_03 37:59

Yeah, which is which is really hard, right? Because maybe they came in from a point of view of I actually do want to create a product that helps, but then they got caught, they got lost in the sauce, I think.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Yep, it happens, and I did it at different points with different projects. And uh I can tell you that from my experience as well, when things get to a scale where things are beyond your control, it's not fun. And we've we we achieve like in this American society, it's like you gotta be the biggest, you gotta be the next Elon, you gotta be the next this. It's like really, like, I don't know that that's even like there is there is a lot of success in this lower tier and this lower area where there's only a couple, you know, a couple commas. There's a lot of fun in that area, and there's a lot of growth, and there's a lot of sustainable ecosystem. And let's go back to the ecosystem. It's like when you're busy doing that and running, let's say you raise $500 million or 30 million, even $30 million, or let's say you're a founder that has two people and you just raise five million dollars. The second you receive that five million dollars, you just took on a high-paying job. You're no longer a founder because your boss wants his money back. And every day, that is what's in your head is getting your boss that money back. And sometimes that weight, and let's go back to the ruminating, the the stress of it, all of that. If you're not mentally and emotionally built, I was just on a podcast a couple weeks ago where we literally talked about this. Was the people that get to that level but didn't do the self-work before then, that's where they turn into monsters.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. Like um, like you heard about builder AI, right? Uh the downfall of builder and and how much money they raised, and now they're in like some really big trouble for like misusing funds. And I think that's also good a risk of you know, some people raising too much. In all honesty, Rav AI is raising. So like if anyone's hearing this and interested in investing in TV, like no shade on investors at all. But like, um, but I do think I do think there is there is more work that VCs and investors need to do in like who they're investing in and like understand what their objectives are, understand what like whether their object like just understand what how they're trying to build a business. And I feel like VCs have gotten like much better, like investors in general are gotten much better. It's like we've kind of passed the wave of like anyone can make it or anyone can do anything. All you need is like a little bit of VC money, and then this like crazy project is gonna take off. We're now in like a more uh more everyone's doing a little bit more due diligence. And I think like the recent horror stories of like what's been going on with investor funds has made everyone a little bit more alert. So so there's there is that piece, right? Like there's people, you know, there's like people like uh the ones that ran Builder, and and then there's people like the ones who run Uber or like regular businesses that we now know and love, and they wouldn't have made it without VC money. They would they needed the fuel for the fire. So there's good and bad to both. It's really just about like what you're doing with it, right? Like it's what you're doing with it.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

And that's exactly what you nailed it. And I wasn't, I wasn't gonna throw, I wasn't throwing any shade to ventures, and I know a lot of those guys and they listen and stuff like that, but it's it's one of those things, and they'll laugh when they hear this because what I said, what I want to reiterate to everybody in the audience so it's not taken out as well, is it's the individual when you're taking the money with the wrong intention and you haven't done the work with the confidence. Because then what happens is the paranoia comes in, and then when the paranoia comes in, then it reflects out to your team, and then you're on them, you know, I mean, and then you're projecting on stuff on them. So when you come into it, like you're saying, when you're grounded and you based on the conversation we've just had, you're grounded in this, and that's you're not speaking to you. I'm speaking to those that what you just said is the money will fix the problem. The money won't fix the problem.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

The money is not gonna solve product market fit, man. Like, no, like if no one wants your product, no one wants it even if you have a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Exactly. The money will scale the problem, whether it's good or bad.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

The money is gonna scale the problem, exactly. Exactly. And actually, it's like it's kind of bad because it's delusional, right? Like it's feeding into the delusion of like I have a product that might have product market fit, but like it doesn't. Oh, and now you've just raised a bunch of money to like go pursue a pro like uh solving a problem that's not really a problem that might be like just nice to have.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Exactly. Well, hey, we got about a couple more minutes left. And now that you mentioned about the fundraising, I do want to give an opportunity out there because there are a lot of people that listen and watch that are in that world. What types of investors and and and partnerships are you looking for in that area? So anything that has resonated in this conversation, it's been an extremely vulnerable conversation. They they very much have gotten to know you very well and you and an individual in a very short amount of time.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

Yeah, so uh we're kicking off our seed round, actually. And um, I'm happy to go over like our numbers with anyone who's interested. So just like shoot us an email or find us on revia.ai. Like the booking meeting goes straight to my my calendar links. So if anyone wants to chat or reach out, that'd be great. Um and we're really excited about the business we're we're building. I feel like there's strong traction for you know, like how long we've been on it. And there is, we're doing like we're our growth is pretty incredible for for you know who we are and like how hard we've been working on it. It's and the one thing to say is like it's not just it's not just the product and the problem that we're solving. It's like this team is like amazing. Like I work with my co-founder who is one of the most incredible sharp people I've ever met. She's um, she's a data queen. Like, if there's you know how there's these like crazy documents that have um that have like 300 line items, and if there's even a small discrepancy on it, she can just like spot it just by looking at it for her. And and um, and it's because she's just she's just that good. And that's what that's what you'd be investing in a really solid team and a solid business with good traction and lots of Lots in the pipeline already building and brewing.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

There you go. Nice. And then as far as uh as far as customers go, like people that would uh get in your services, like uh any size scale and and and uh you guys kind of adapt and necessary to any size scale, or is there any bottom caps or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 44:16

Yeah, uh I would say any brand that's doing over ten million dollars in annual revenue and they're selling via retail grocery channels or through distributors and they find they find that they're getting a lot of deductions, you should reach out. Definitely check us out on revia.ai. Uh deductions is our core metric. So our we we measure our success by how much can we recover back for the brand. So it's all about margin optimization. And the second tier is trade spend planning, revenue forecasting, and and being able to see like, okay, I'm investing so much in this trade spend. What am I actually getting back? And being able to see the true ROI against your promotions. That's like the second tier. So if you're looking to have a little bit more support on your financial back office or trade spend, check us out on RevVia.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

Nice. Thank you so much for coming on today. I really, I really appreciate it. And I I just I have to always say this that that it's it takes a lot of courage to come on a show where there's no prep. You know, we didn't hop on a meeting beforehand, we've never met before. And it's one of those things that it's a joy, it's a true joy to be able to do this on a weekly basis and meet founders like yourself and just be completely vulnerable and just like really just shed any sort of aspect of it, but because that's what's real. And that's what this all is built on. And back to what we talked about was sustainability of the sustainability of our ecosystem of relationships and business. And I think that the more the more we get those masks off and we just are real and honest about each other every day of the hour, the better we can all be. So thank you so much for for the courage. And I knew I I knew going into this, having founders uh on this show, they were gonna be courageous, but I gotta give credit because some founders decline whenever they I tell them there's no prep and there's no questions. They don't want to be on. So I do have to give you guys credit.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Amazing. Thank you so much for thank you so much for having me on the show. And um I can't I can't wait to see it and can't wait to see all the ways in which you grow as well name.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I'll close out with this, everybody. I want to remind you, as much as we talk about business and we talk about life, it is involved with being a good person. All right. So my challenge this week, starting off and every week moving forward, is five minutes of positivity with a stranger every week. That's all we're asking. That's one minute a day, Monday through Friday, and a little on Saturday and Sunday if you want. So while you're walking down the street, put your phone in your pocket, look a stranger in the eye, smile at them when you're filling up that cup of coffee at the gas station. Look to the person next to you, ask them how they're doing, and close your mouth and actually listen to what they say and make a connection with them. Because even though your life might be great and everything's fulfilled and everything like that, you don't know what's going on in everybody else's life. And statistically, a lot of people are at it hard up. So that five minutes a week, you could change somebody's day, change somebody's year. And this is a business show, so let's think about ROI. You spend five minutes making somebody's life better, communicating with them, and they spend three days thinking about it. That's a pretty good ROI. So thank you so much for today, and uh, I really appreciate it. I look forward to to talking with you again. We're gonna uh I'm gonna bring you back in for uh round table and we're gonna talk about some other stuff in a couple months or so. So I'll let this episode kind of go through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

I would love that. Let's run it. Let's run it.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Perfect. Perfect. Well, you have a good rest of your day. Uh, it was so nice meeting you. I'm looking forward to this relationship moving forward.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Yeah, likewise, Nate. Thank you so much.