Saving the planet WITHOUT going out of style - How Anish Malpani makes sunglasses from plastic packs.

From giving financial advice to social enterprise entrepreneurs in Guatemala, to becoming one himself, Anish Malpani’s journey has been rewarding, not just to the waste-pickers in India, but to the planet. A former finance professional left his lucrative job in New York to start ‘Ashaya,’ a social enterprise that helps increase the value of waste though deep tech solutions. One such solution is their brand ‘WITHOUT,’ that provides sunglasses made from recycled plastic packets. Join us as we explore Anish’s story of finding unique solutions to several problems we face today by tapping into the potential of waste.

Transcript

Go-Beyond Podcast Transcript: Anish Malpani

Speakers:

Akshay Kapur

Anish Malpani

Akshay Kapur 

Welcome to the Sony Pictures Networks ‘Go-Beyond Podcast,’ where we go beyond conventions to bring you the extraordinary. I'm your host, Akshay Kapur. In a world where plastic is as present in our daily lives as water is for fish in the ocean, a former finance professional champions a solution to save Planet Earth. He left his lucrative job in New York to return to India and start ‘Ashaya,’ a social enterprise that aims to increase the value of waste through deep tech solutions. An example of this can be seen in the launch of their brand ‘WITHOUT’ which is taking steps towards solving India's 3.4-million-ton plastic waste problem by producing sunglasses made from recycled potato chip packets. Through this initiative, not only has he been able to address an environmental challenge, but he's also been able to solve for greater income equality by ensuring the money earned from the sales of these sunglasses goes to pay not only the waste pickers, better wages but also fund their children's education. It is a pleasure to welcome the man spearheading the initiative, the founder of ‘Ashaya,’ Anish Malpani on the Go-Beyond Podcast. 

Anish Malpani

Hi Akshay, thanks for having me. 

Akshay Kapur

So, before we talk about the sunglasses specifically, I have to say that we know that you've been quite the globe trotter having lived around the world and worked around the world. You've been in Dubai, the US, Guatemala, and Kenya. So, what motivated you to come full circle to the land where you were born in India and come back here and start your initiative?

Anish Malpani

So, I was born in India. I was here till I was nine years old and then my parents moved to Dubai, so I spent my formative years in Dubai, in the Middle East and then I went to study my undergrad in the US; ended up working there in finance. So, I spent like a decade in the US, and I was in New York, I was making good money. But for some reason I was very depressed because it felt like something was missing right? Something didn’t add up.

Akshay Kapur 

Right.

Anish Malpani

And, I remember being very down and I couldn't understand why I was down. Right? I'm like, am I allowed to be down? Like, I have everything that anybody else, I would want but then it was a very important point of inflection. It gave me a chance to reconsider what I was doing. You know, really think about what I want to be working on for the rest of my life. And as cliched and corny as it sounds, I decided that I need to quit my job here and focus on using my privilege to make more of an impact, right? So, I believed in social enterprise. I always believed in the power of entrepreneurship to solve social and environmental problems. So, I knew that I wanted to come back to India because my chances of making an impact in India were higher, but I did not want to be that guy from New York who thinks he knows everything. 

Akshay Kapur

(Laughs)

Anish Malpani

I didn't know anything about India, I knew nothing about the impact. I haven't lived in India for over two decades. So, before, coming to India and after quitting my job in New York, I first went to Guatemala to learn about the impact space — like, how do you make change happen on the ground. Then I went to Kenya-Nairobi. And then I was like, okay, I understand impact, now It's time to go to India and start the journey of my impact and even before I started Ashaya, I spent a year researching the poverty and the waste management space.

Akshay Kapur

Right, and you spent three years starting the impact space while working in Guatemala and Nairobi? Can you tell us a little bit about the work that you did over there, and how that shaped your view on social impact issues and social enterprises?

Anish Malpani

What was very interesting was that, because I was working in New York in Finance, I had a skill, right? A skill set. So, the way I made my way to Guatemala was that “Hey, listen! Look, I don't speak Spanish, but I understand finance. I can help by training-teaching finance in exchange for learning about a social enterprise and what it takes to learn an organization. So that's the umbrella. So, that was important because you know having some sort of skill set to offer, gives the entrepreneur a reason to talk to you, right? Like a finance guy in a company is generally the doctor, right? Money is like the blood of an organization. So, you cannot to reveal all your secrets. Like you can't hide anything from the doctor. You can't hide anything from the finance guy, right? So, it was a great way for me to learn about how organizations work, how the impact space works. What it takes to make impact. I worked with this organization called, ‘Alderna’. They are a Social Enterprise Accelerator enterprise that they help to improve their business, right? Yeah, so it was like really hands on work. I remember one of the things we did was like a 5-day workshop where we got like 20 entrepreneurs and we had them stay you know in our in the city that we were in, in Getzaltanam, Mushela. 

And-and I went through a journey with them, right? Like what it means to make an impact. Like, we taught them things on finance, well, not ‘taught’ them but like gave them you know guidance on finance and impact and marketing and how do you make this happen? But just, basically one of our mottos there was like ‘tough love,’ right? Like, how do you give entrepreneurs tough love so that we can be a mirror of sorts to be like, ‘hey, have you seen what your blind spots are?’ and I think it was a great way to learn about the space and also, like very humbling as well because you know it's easy to advise somebody what to do. Like, it's really hard to actually do it. 

Akshay Kapur 

Right.

Anish Malpani

And now it's very interesting because like three or four years later I am the entrepreneur, so I have like even more empathy and I'm like, wait! was I an arrogant douche back then? Did I think I knew more than I actually knew? So, it's always been to reflect on that. Obviously, I wanted to be helpful, and I tried to come from a place of humility. But you know it's easier said than done.

Akshay Kapur

No, absolutely! And it's interesting because I think this makes it feel like your life has come full circle in many ways – born in India, return to India you went from consulting on these projects to actually being on the other side of that spectrum as well, where you're implementing advice that maybe you gave to other people. I have to ask you though, taking a bit of a step back over here. We talked about the fact that you had quote unquote, everything that conventionally people would want in terms of like the world purview, but there was this lack of fulfilment. What was the discerning process like when you were figuring out what you wanted to do that would fulfil you and how did that guide you to developing an interest in waste management and deep tech as a way of solving for that?

Anish Malpani

Yeah, I mean this is taking me back to-to those dark days. No, no, I think it was a really important time, right? I remember I was in New York, and I felt like I was doing everything that society had kind of told me to do right? Like get a good job, make a lot of money, move to the greatest city in the world, you know. The next step was to get married and move to the suburbs and, It was just like you know everything kind of seemed to be set. 

Akshay Kapur

The white picket fence picture, right? 

Anish Malpani

Exactly! yeah and I think when you kind of are close to that and you're embracing it like, Look, technically, I can do anything I want because (a) I'm very lucky to have the opportunity that I have and (b) I made the most of it I've worked hard to get here, right? And then I'm like, okay, after all that I'm still kind of like, questioning who I am as a person. Also, the work culture at the company I used to work for, though I learned a lot there, in New York. It was a toxic place in general in the end, you know I was working and making rich people richer, right, while I thought I was becoming a worse version. Because there was a lot of pressure on me and I was tough on my team and I was like, ‘Hey, is this even worth it?’ So, I mean it was a very important point of inflection I think and then what I learned from that was that I'm very privileged as a human being, and that privilege gives me a moral obligation to do something with it. At least that's how I felt, right. Like, here I have all this wealth, I have all this exposure. Why don't other people in this world have the same wealth or exposure, right? And why is it that I have so many more choices than everybody else? And then the other truth that I kind of learned was that people in power, people with money and you know abilities that can really try and make change in a way they have more power to make change right, if you use the power for the right things. If you're willing to sacrifice and compromise on things that, you know, might not be the most important for you. So, I think that was very important. So first, I felt the strong moral obligation to do something with the purpose that I have, and then the second thing was like, why don’t you act on it right? Like, you know, if you don't act on it then there's no alignment, right? So, that alignment is very important. And the action was what like made me quit and come to Guatemala and go to Nairobi. And then when I came to India, I started researching the poverty space because you know that's what my burning is. And while researching the poverty space, I came across the waste management space because there at one point, you know, I found these two reasons specifically: one is that 1.5 to 4 million waste pickers in India who live multi-dimensionally poor lives. And that's a really vast range like, there is no occupation called ‘waste picking’ in like the census and stuff, right. So, it's very hard to know how many there are. This is based on, you know, on calculations like on high level calculations and they live really poor lives — not just from an income perspective, but they are low-income migrant workers. You know like 30% of waste pickers in Pune, the city I live in, have been bitten by dogs. They work in not very fun environments, right? 

Akshay Kapur

yeah.

Anish Malpani

Like I don't think anybody wants to pick waste for a living but that they think is an option they have. That was one reason. The second reason was that there's this untapped potential or value in waste, right? There's an economic resource there. And I found that to be very interesting. ‘Oh, there's this economic value that is untapped and you have this poor population,’ and that gave rise to the initial thesis of ‘Ashaya’, is that how do you increase the value of waste and use that value to empower waste pickers out of poverty?

Akshay Kapur

Right. You talked about alignment as well and at the start of our conversation you mentioned something about how as an organization, now you have officially committed to making that change, making that impact. Could you tell us a little bit about that commitment and how it's been formalized?

Anish Malpani

Yeah, So, when we were starting Ashaya, you know, what will we register as like, you know, want to make impact should we be a non-profit? So, I chose not to register as a non-profit because the thing with non-profits are that — the non-profit legal structure, not the non-profits in general. Non-profit legal structure is that it's more restrictive. It's a lot more bureaucracy. You can't move as fast. So it's sometimes difficult to get things done so that's where we chose to be a private limited. Because private limited also allows you to (a) move faster, and (b) also to raise funds by selling equity – if you have to, at some point – right? Because we need funds to kind of scale or would need funds to scale. So, we ended up choosing the private limited structure as a tool, right? That doesn't mean that we're just doing this to make money. So, one thing we did and even a lawyer was a little bemused by this. He was like, “Why are you doing this?” What we did was we amended our memorandum of association, or MoAs to include clauses that legally bind us to our impact. So that way, you know, it's not just my morality that drives our company. We have this in our DNA, so you know that ‘hey, were we're not doing this to maximize profit.’ We're doing this to also to solve social and environmental problems. You know with like these various UN SDG goals in place. Yeah, so that's how we kind of, we're trying to do this hybrid, I guess? Or just kind of tweaking the private limited to be a little bit more impact centric.

Akshay Kapur

No, I think that's fascinating. And can you tell us about some of the impact issues that Ashaya solves for or is looking to solve for? 

Anish Malpani

Yeah, so our mission statement is, you know, we want to increase the value of waste using deep tech and use that to empower waste in poverty. And our vision is a thriving world in which poverty doesn't exist. And I think a lot of these words are important that we've chosen. Like, for instance, our vision of a thriving world means a world that is not impacted by human-made climate change, right? So, like for instance, one thing I learned over the last few years is that like poverty and climate change aren't two different problems. They're very interconnected. Like, when we start seeing the adverse effects of climate change, the people that are going to be impacted the most are the poorest. And it also turns out that the poorest are the least concerned about the future because they have the ability, but they don't have the incentive to think past the next month. They’re like, ‘hey, am I going to get my next meal, am I going to pay rent, am I going to have a place to stay?’ So, you're living day-to-day, week-to-week, months-to-months, so you don't have the luxury of thinking long term. So, the most vulnerable people to climate change are the least concerned about it, right? Which is very ironic.

Akshay Kapur

Yeah.

Anish Malpani

So, when we are trying to solve the waste management problem, and the poverty problem. we have to look at it holistically — you can't just think of it as, like, an environmental issue. There's also a human element to it, right? And so how do you find the right balance and be holistic in your thinking? It's like waste recycling has, like, you know, a second-degree effect on climate change, right?

Akshay Kapur

Absolutely.

Anish Malpani

Because you're a working on carbon emissions. So, it's not something as direct as carbon capture, but it is an environmental concern that, you know, we're working on. So, I mean, we really strongly believe that you have to find the right balance between you don't want a world with no poor people that is crumbling, and you can't live on, and you don't want a world that is beautiful. 

Akshay Kapur

Ah, like the hunger games?

Anish Malpani

Yeah, but you don't want world either which is like beautiful and green but like has a bunch of poor people in it as well. I think you need to find the right balance between both.

Akshay Kapur

You mentioned there is a human element to the problem. But I have to ask you, and not with anything in mind but just genuine-genuine curiosity. Is there also a systemic element to it and how do you feel, like, that can be tweaked, that can be changed, or you think the-the system is just about the human initiative within the given system?

Anish Malpani

I think it's a combination. It's a little bit systemic. It's a little bit, you know, things can be better within the system as well. But I think the way we like, do-one big thing about the waste management space is that waste is a local problem, right? Like, waste is generated in households, right? It's not generated centrally but most waste management solutions or big recyclers are centralized entities which doesn't make sense to me, which is like, counterintuitive. The reason why they centralize is because of economics, right? Because it's easier to build one large factory that processes tons and tons of waste. You just- ‘hey, we'll just transport the waste from the entire state to this one place,’ right? which to me doesn't make sense. So, changing the system, that's one thing we're trying to kind of shift, right? Which is. hey, let's look at ways from more decentralized perspective, and let's try to treat it and recycle it as close to the source as possible, while not only including waste pickers for like a checkmark we've done CSR and check. Right? No, it's like as a core tenet, right? We want to graduate waste out of this profession. But if you're graduating them out of this profession, it has to be into better livelihoods. It can't be a negative displacement. Sometimes people find it more impressive if you're like, ‘haan, we gave 100,000 waste pickers you know, lunch every week’. 

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Anish Malpani

You know and then they’re like, “oh, wow! You fed so many waste pickers? That's amazing!” But I'm like, a lunch every week is not going to change their lives fundamentally, right? Yeah, they might be a little happy and they'll get to go out, but that's not going to change anything. We'd rather work with the waste pickers in the short run, but like, try to change their lives, like significantly, or you break them out of this cycle they're in and then scale that depth, right? Like, once you figure out how to kind of work on that, right? Like really get waste pickers permanently out of poverty. You know, make sure their children don't end up as waste pickers then scaling depth. Like the-the Holy Grail of the impact space in general is scaling depth and there are people who believe that you can't scale that depth. It's very hard to scale depth, like, the depth of impact because you know every individual is unique. Every individual is different. So yeah, it's tough, but that's what we're trying to do. We have a blueprint for it that we think might work but it's like, there’s a long way to go. 

Akshay Kapur

Yeah, no I can imagine and what you're saying. Sounds to me like, the classic, you know, ‘give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish’ conundrum. I mean, classic economists probably have a different like, view on this. And I have to ask you if, what you would say to them which is, assume that your mission is super successful, and you are able to graduate all the waste pickers out of poverty. And you've eradicated the waste picker population effectively. How do you see, you know, the waste management solutions scaling up from there?

Anish Malpani

So, it's not isolated, right? We obviously have a utopia we're driving towards, but you can't look at waste management in an isolated space. Especially if you're trying to say, like, hey these 1.5 to 4 million waste pickers will no longer be waste pickers because, I mean, with like, with Chat GPT like, going crazy right now. Um, we're kind of seeing these jumps in technology which are really justifying the idea of universal basic income or some sort of world where the amount of work that's going to be needed per individual is going to drop significantly because the things are going to be automated. But focus is going to move on to well-being — overall well-being of humans and other creatures and the Earth and cost of goods and the cost of, you know, like phones is all going to drop precipitously. So we're going to have to reimagine a lot of that as well, right? And then the waste picking issue is a part of that. So, if while we're it's not like we're going to graduate waste pickers out tomorrow, right? Over the next 10-20 years let's see how many we can move. But the world is going to change along with it as well, and how do we as a population, as a species, adapt to that change is extremely crucial from the way we think.

Akshay Kapur

Right? No, I absolutely think that's a very strong point. That humans have to evolve not just in isolation but with the world that they're living in and talking about a lot of the brainstorming that you've done and the work you've done with Ashaya and, the vision and mission that have led you to developing the brand ‘WITHOUT.’ So, can you tell us a little bit about ‘WITHOUT,’ is there a story behind the name? Uh, I noticed in many places it was written in all-caps. So, is it an acronym for something?

Anish Malpani

No, it's interesting. Good observation. You're saying WITHOUT. We made it all-caps so that it wouldn't sound. Like, just a general word. It's like, it's something more but no, it doesn't. It's not an acronym. But yeah, there's a story behind the name. We worked really hard on finding the right name. We actually did like, many brainstorming sessions and we narrowed it down to like, top 20 names and then I think ‘WITHOUT’ was one of the recommendations or suggestions by one of my closest friends. One of my best friends, Harry, and he was like, ‘yeah man! WITHOUT would be cool!’ And like, yeah, it is cool, so we had it on the list and-and it kind of it went through all those filters, right? And the reason I really like WITHOUT. So there were two names. It came down to like the top 2 names. There one was WITHOUT and the other was ‘Rasara,’ which comes from the word, ‘Samsara,’ which means rebirth. So, when I thought, let's put an English twang to some ‘Samsara’, rebirth, recycle etc… sounds, you know, would be cool. So, a lot of the advisors that I spoke to were like go with the ‘Rasara’, because ‘Rasara’, it's a cool name and also, it would be very good for SEO, you’ll get your domain name very easily. You don’t have to worry about any of that.

Akshay Kapur

right.

Anish Malpani

But it's like ‘Rasara’ would be the safer choice. it's just one other kind of Indo-English name. You know, like it's just another one that you get lost in the crowd. There's so many of those, but WITHOUT really stood out because the positioning that the word ‘WITHOUT’ does, or we wanted the word, ‘WITHOUT’ to do in the consumer's mind was that ‘hey, look, as we build a world without waste, we want you to consume without any worries. Because we are working really God damn hard to ensure that the products, we produce are the most sustainable products out there. Not only environmentally but also socially.’ Right?

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Anish Malpani

So, the idea is like, whenever you own a WITHOUT product — whether it’s a coaster, or sunglasses or whatever future products would be, but I have no worries about It. You're like, yeah okay, I can feel good about this. And we're seeing that in our customers or at least I think we're seeing them, where people seem to be proud of the glasses. They like to say the story about, ‘look, these are not only, like, made from the least recycled plastic waste out there, but they're also empowering waste pickers and they're giving scholarships to children of waste pickers and keeping them in school.’ You know? So, it's a lot more than, you know, you're not just wearing sunglasses, like, you're wearing ‘change’. I mean, that's appreciating. But like, that's-that's what we're kind of going with and now, I think that's it seems to be powerful.

Akshay Kapur

No, I like that, I like that messaging but and I have to ask you a question that I'm sure you've got asked a lot — why sunglasses? And why was that the choice of product and then what made you think of using, you know, chips packets and those kinds of plastics to recycle those, and-and develop these products? How did that entire idea germinate? Where did that come from?

Anish Malpani

So, it's not like some like, you know, Cinderella story. It wasn't like, I was walking down the road and I saw a packet of chips, and the sun came in my eyes, and I was like, ‘oh my god!’ It was none of that, right? Like, it was very calculated, so when we started researching the waste management space, and this plastic space specifically, we found that a lot of like, India has a really high recycling rate in plastics. We recycle about 60% of our plastic waste if you believe those numbers. But it's-it's very high, much higher than the global average of 9%. But the stuff that is not recycled is mainly flexible packaging mainly, these things called ‘metalized multi-layered plastic packaging’ or packets of chips. They have many layers and they're considered, quote unquote, ‘impossible to recycle.’ And everywhere I went, everyone I spoke to just seemed to be running away from this problem. They're like, no, this is the worst. It's like, you know, it's like the problem-child, it’s like the black sheep of the family. You just don't talk about it, but you know it exists and you don’t do something about it right? 

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Anish Malpani

It seemed like that, and so, we're like, ‘hey, nobody wants to deal with this. We're not doing this to make money we're going to solve problems so we should deal with it like a real problem.’ Like, there's no point recycling a highly recycled material, right? That isn't-that's not changing much. So that's why we chose packets of chips, and then once we like, you know, extracted materials from it and built our technology to get to like, the materials. Well, okay, what applications can we you know, work and, you know, what-what can we do with this? Like. selling materials would be hard because we're too tiny. So, like we can maybe, you know, we can sell products. So, what product do we sell and as you-you're seeing a pattern here. We brainstormed like what products to do. We had like a long list of products we dwindled them down to like a top 70 and then we did extensive like, research on them, where we looked at number of Amazon searches. You know, a number of competitors on Amazon average pricing-average margins. All of that, you know, even like things like team excitement you know of complexity and all of that and then sunglasses seemed to be the perfect fit because it was not too complex because look. It's a proof of concept, right? you can't use just any material to make sunglasses. So, we are taking the least recycled, quote unquote, ‘impossible to recycle plastic waste,’ and converting it into high quality materials. We want to show off the mechanical properties of the material and be like, ‘hey, look, you can have premium high-grade applications of this material.’ And plus, it was like a statement-good right? You know people wear it they own it. They care about it so like, hey, look, this seems like the right kind of ambition around this. But like, don't get me wrong. I don't think sunglasses are going to solve the MLP or the waste problem or the plastic problem, right? It’s just a proof of concept.

Akshay Kapur

That makes sense. A quick two-part follow-up here — is, one, do you see these sunglasses, and I mean, could these same products be used for conventional glasses in stores, like I could walk into an optician’s store and-and pick up your glasses off the shelves? Maybe at some point in the future? And the second part is, what are some of the other products that were in the consideration set?

Anish Malpani

Yeah, for the optician part or the or the optical glasses, part — like, I'm wearing the fames right now with like just normal like glasses, right? Like just eyeglasses, right? Because, I mean, I want to try my product on and wear it all the time but I'm not going to walk around wearing sunglasses. That's like, a little ‘douchey’ right? Like, so, I got like normal lenses fit it in, and you know I have less hair if you see my pictures – and it fits well, it looks nice on my face. I'm doing R&D. But I think some people could dig it for optical glasses because it's a thick frame, right? So yeah, I think it's completely possible because it's a frame. And if there's a demand. And then the other thing about different products. So, on the list, I think, the one that scored really highly that we were considering was solar powered power banks, right?

Akshay Kapur

Wow, interesting.

Anish Malpani

Because again, green product. You know, big demand like some of the Amazon data we got was very good for that. But then we thought it was too complex, right? Too much circuitry. We’re like, wait like, maybe, you know, we're just left with plastic recycling when we want to keep a little a little simpler. But the other one that keeps coming up is phone covers. People are like, ‘hey, you should do phone covers!’ And I think that's a really good idea as well. You know, and we did like things like dice and things. sure we like, uh, dice is maybe very easy. But then you start looking into how dice is made and it's not easy. It's actually a very complex art. Because all the 6 edges need to need to weigh the same right? Anyway, so, yeah, we had a long list of these things. I remember I went and looked at Shark Tank USA, like all the old episodes and tried to look at all the products that they had done. Let’s just see, like, you know, what ideas are there because you know, plastic has a lot of uses and is in a lot of products.

Akshay Kapur

Absolutely yeah, it sounds like it was a fun research process when you were working on this. But I have to ask you on Anish because setting up any enterprise is a challenging task but transitioning from a finance professional and a for-profit institution to a social enterprise must-must have brought about a whole host of unexpected challenges. What were some of like the defining unexpected challenges that you faced, and how did you overcome them?

Anish Malpani

So, when it comes to challenges, you know I've been thinking about this a lot in the recent past. And I think it's a lot about framing and perspective. And you know, the challenges were everywhere all the time but it's really how motivated are you to kind of be able to deal with those challenges. Like even moving to Guatemala, you know, the sister said, ‘never move to a new country with a new language not knowing anybody,’ right? Those are the triple whammy is like you don't do all three things right? And I moved to Guatemala, not knowing anybody, not having been to the country before, not knowing the language and not like, it was a new job as well, right? So, but then you kind of like, face it like, you know. Spanish was extremely hard and you know even in Guatemala, you have to just be learning. You have to be speaking Spanish. So, I didn't speak Spanish, so I spent like the first few months, learning Spanish and that was-that's really humbling, right? Because, you know, you might be smart and all but like you're deaf and dumb if you can't speak the language, right?

Akshay Kapur

Hmmn.

Anish Malpani

You can’t understand what they're saying, so that was very challenging, but you find your way through it when it comes to starting up, right? Like, yeah, before starting up like, I wrote to people who are saying things like, “Anish, you want to go to India and start an enterprise — that sounds great. What are you doing in Guatemala?” I'm like, no, I'm learning. They're like, “what do you and need learn? Just go and start and learn just by starting.” and I'm like, ‘no, no, no. I want to kind of, you know, understand the space’ but I say that, to make other people feel like I'm confident but then I'm reflecting like, ‘holy crap! am I scared to start like, am I just delaying this?’ So, am I actually going to be able to start?’ So, I think one of the biggest – not challenges but just thoughts– was that, am I going to actually do it or am I just saying this, you know, am I just doing just the story. 

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Anish Malpani

So, from the first day onwards whether it's finding the right scientist to help you out, whether it's finding a lab you know, finding the right equipment, finding the right chemicals, you know, going and talking to these big professors who laugh at you and ridicule you and then be like, you going to fail, right? All of those things happen. You know, at every step there's something or the other that comes and hits you, punches you in the gut. But I think that's where your motivation really matters. You know the why, ‘why you're doing what you're doing?’ and I think the way I like to think of it is that I don't think there was any big one big challenge I think there've been a bunch of challenges. But there’s never been a breaking point where I just feel like my motivation is really strong and that, you know, quitting New York and kind of finding my purpose so, you know, finding my path to purpose is a really strong motivation. It's a strong driver. It can make you do things that you've never thought you could, right? And it makes challenges seem like not challenges, and I think that's really powerful for me and. So yeah, so I think there's been lots of challenges whether it's on research, whether it's belief from other people whether it's just proving you know. But I feel like we're able to power through them because our motivation is strong.

Akshay Kapur

Is there any inspiration that keeps you or any one great inspiration that has kept you motivated through this process? You and your team?

Anish Malpani

Well, I don't know if I can speak for the entire team but from at least from my perspective, I think like I really believe in what I'm doing in the cause that I'm working towards, and that's a really strong motivation and inspiration. And then I think, also like having the right heroes, right? I think one of the reasons when I was quitting my job in New York, I read this book by Jacqueline Novogratz called, ‘The Blue Sweater’ that my sister recommended and she's founded this, this impact investing firm called ‘Acumen’ and you know, and that book is so powerful that And you know, I've been following her journey ever since I we got to chat with her once on a clubhouse. Can you believe it? not chat with her but like, I was — back in the days of clubhouse, there was this was a little thing and she was on it and you know, I really admire the bravery in the work that she's done, like, she spent some time in Rwanda, and you know, right before the-the genocide, she's the, like, strong believer in social entrepreneurship. And you see people do this work and you see people, you know. It's been very empowering to find other people who align with the way you think. And not just at a superficial level, right? Like everybody agrees fundamentally, yeah, you should do good. Like, nobody's contesting you that but it's the ‘how,’ right? It's trying to build sustainable solutions that are impact first that still play with the rules of capitalism, you know, because you have to sell material and product because you can't change capitalism overnight. So, that was really inspiring and motivating is two-fold like, one is the internal motivation, right? where you're intrinsically driven and then as the external, you know, heroes and people you know who are doing this, who believe in you, who at least make you feel like you're not a crazy person to think what you're thinking. Oh, you know. It's possible and I mean, look, and the third thing. Sorry, I have to say this, that I I've had an amazing support system. My parents, my sister, like they have not ridiculed me at any point. They've been my biggest supporters and I think that has been, and this is not easy, right? Like having your, you know, kid quit, y’know this cushy job in New York, to come to India to do like, God knows, what like they had no idea what I was going to do. Not lie, right? But this support was very undying, and I think I'm very fortunate to have that and I've also been very respectful of that, I think and that's an important balance, right? Like, you-you can't abuse that freedom either, right? You have to find, you know, you can't just be going around doing nonsense either, right? So, it's that healthy balance and I'm very lucky to have that support system. Not only my current, my immediate family but also my extended family. I've always felt very supported. but that just makes everything easier because you know, you're not fighting those battles.

Akshay Kapur

Right, I think that's perfect. and that brings us to our final question for you today. Towards the close of our conversation, we like to ask each of our guests for a ‘Go-Beyond takeaway.’ But I know there is a subject close to your heart that I think you would like to talk about as that takeaway. So, I thought I would ask you what you feel about the importance of taking calculated risks and delayed gratification?

Anish Malpani

Yeah, so I think this has been the biggest learning for me in the last half a decade, last five or six years is that you know it's really important to take calculated risks, that are focused on long-term gratification. Which means that, look, they involve putting in the work, the hours, the effort, the quote unquote ‘sacrifice’. You know to be like, ‘hey, okay, I'm not going to go out tonight’ or ‘I'm going to do the extra reading,’ ‘I'm going to quit my job,’ ‘I'm going to move to a country that I don't know the language of,’ I don't know anybody there, but I've done enough research to find though that this organization is registered, it's real. You know, so it's a calculated risk. And because with a long-term goal in mind, I think that's been really, it's important like, you know. It's not even at work I say like, you know, sometimes it's important to do like the ‘not fun’ work to be able to do the ‘fun work’ later, right? And I think that in-in the long term. That's what has been very helpful, and I think the kicker is delayed gratification arrives, right? Like, after like, you won't feel it immediately when you're like, putting in the extra effort putting staying in on the weekend to study Spanish, or you know, working extra-long hours to get something done. You might not feel it in the moment I feel it might feel like crappy, but you know on the road, you'll see like you relish the gratification that is delayed gratification arrives and I think I'm feeling some of that these days, you know? At least when it comes to the work I do and the you know, the inner peace that I have, I think and that I didn't have while I was you know, and in corporate America and I think that's very strong. That's I feel a strong, takeaway like, you know, hard work does pay off, you know, and delay gratification does arrive so take those calculated risks, man. I think you might there probably more fruitful than you imagine.

Akshay Kapur

Well, Anish, I think that's a fantastic note to end our conversation on. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on the Go-Beyond Podcast and we wish you all the best with your social enterprise going forward.

Anish Malpani

Thank you Akshay, thank you for having me and thank you for the platform.

--ENDS-