Latest / Reframe First / Lakshmi Natarajan, Fractional Executive/Advisor/Investor | Balance Perfection and Speed in Business

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Lakshmi Natarajan, Fractional Executive/Advisor/Investor | Balance Perfection and Speed in Business · Reframe First

• Oleksij Rak: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Reframe First. I'm Alexey, host of the podcast, and let me welcome our today's guest Lakshmi Natarajan. Hi Lakshmi, it's great having you here. Lakshmi Natarajan: Thank you so much for having me, Alexei. It's an honor and privilege to be here with you and also all of your listeners. Oleksij Rak: Awesome. Thanks a lot for coming. look, I did not introduce you as like a role in a company because by looking at LinkedIn, you need click to see more to see exactly what you're doing. So you have experience in a couple of, I guess, for Fortune 500 companies. did some startups, you are investor, you are strategic advisor, and there is even Wikipedia page about you. Lakshmi Natarajan: you found that page. Okay, okay. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, my team does a great job. Could you tell us about what you do and about the whole story of that? Lakshmi Natarajan: Yes, thank you so much for asking. And you know, on any given day I wear many hats. And I think a lot of your listeners and people who are entrepreneurs or who have multiple business can understand that. We're in a time where we're no longer, we no longer have to be defined by just one profession or one job or one company. A lot of people still are on that path, but that is what we're seeing around us, many different things. So I'll walk you through my journey. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: So I started my career, yes, working for various different Fortune 500 companies globally. I was mainly based in the United States, but I also have worked in Europe and Asia and Australia as well for some of these companies. Global teams always. So we were on global teams before there was Zoom and video calls. We collaborated through a phone. Oleksij Rak: . Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: And it was amazing to be part of global brands and teams because I had the privilege and opportunity to meet with so many people, connect to the innovation, the strategy, the product, the customers in different markets. So I started my career in marketing at American Express, both business to business and business to consumer as well. And then I pivoted to management consulting at Accenture, working across different industries from tech, Oleksij Rak: Okay. Okay. Lakshmi Natarajan: the hospitality, to retail, to finance, to pharmaceutical industry. And as in the management consulting space, you're constantly with a new team, new colleagues to collaborate with, new clients, of course, new industries and companies to get to know, new leadership. So the concept of learning agility and collaboration were core to having a successful project. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: And then I went to pharmaceutical sales as a leader at GlaxoSmithKline ⁓ based out of Europe, but I was based in the Americas in the respiratory division. And then from there, I pivoted to a company that's since gone public, but at that time it was considered a tech startup called Compass. I was general manager there when they were going from series D to E. And then over the last five years, it's been five years, I've worn many hats. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: I resigned from at that time a W2 role and then decided what to do. So I was around the ⁓ pandemic time. So first I was a ⁓ travel slash global education blogger and I was really focused on raising children with a global mindset. So I was doing that a lot of during the pandemic as my passion business, working with a lot of tourism agencies and tour guides and also the educational system to bring that global mindset. In parallel, I was doing corporate consulting. So I had a couple of fortune hundred big clients that I had longer term contracts with as an independent consultant. And then over the last few years is what I'm still doing today. And it's just continuously evolve. I started working with founders as I was a founder myself. But more importantly, when you're looking at the amount of innovation that exists. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: And specifically in Miami, which is where I live now, but globally as well. So much brilliance out there that people have on businesses that they want to start. Whether those businesses become, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars or whether it's just a phenomenal small business that has annual growth. A lot of founders need guidance. all wear, we can't all wear every hat, although we try to. Oleksij Rak: Yep. Lakshmi Natarajan: there's a lot of areas that my experience can bring value to founders with their brilliance and innovation. So I started working with founders on a couple of different topics, go to market advisory, ⁓ path to profitability and strategic partnerships, and overall just being a support to the founder. So whether that's as an advisor, whether that's as a consultant, whether that's a board member. In addition, I recognize no matter what phase your business is in, whether you're in early phase of revenue, you're in growth phase of revenue, or even for capital partners, everyone is seeking to raise capital and working. That's where the capital, whether it's equity capital, non dilutive capital, grants that exist, people are seeking that to further build and scale. So I started to work with ⁓ a few different Oleksij Rak: Okay. Lakshmi Natarajan: private equity firms, VC firms as ⁓ more of a venture partner, then came into general partner roles. And now it's working with different family offices, including Zanara Advisors, which is based out of Dubai, a wealth management firm that's building in an alternative investments division. And I'm a part of that team. And overall, all these roles, nothing is more important than giving back to the community. That's where the most impact comes. Oleksij Rak: you Mm-hmm. you Lakshmi Natarajan: So I do a lot of mentoring work for the city of Miami, Monatac, which are various different startups and incubators based in Miami and working with founders, not only here, but also globally that are trying to launch in the United States. So I really enjoy those roles in addition to ⁓ working with different chamber of commerce. I also serve as vice president of the India US chamber of commerce. So that's, I guess in a nutshell of my background and my experience and what I do today. with the sole purpose that how can I bring value to the people in the community, the clients that I serve, and how can we build, scale, and grow together? Oleksij Rak: Awesome. That's a big story. How do you manage all of that? How do you manage your signal-to-noise ratio for errors? Lakshmi Natarajan: So I will say, I don't know if I'm, I'm not the person to offer the best advice on how to manage everything. I, for those listeners out there, I could definitely use some help in the people that I meet and the ecosystem that I'm just organically building. I call it an ecosystem. It's not something formal, but when you're in different environments, I speak at a lot of events, I attend other events and you just meet a lot of people who start following you on LinkedIn or. How many of you can understand this? ⁓ Between WhatsApp, phone numbers, business cards, LinkedIn, and all these VR cards, how many times have you exchanged information in different ways and you have to remember who you met when and what was a conversation you had? So when it comes to managing all the different people I meet, I do my best, I have a good memory, but. Oleksij Rak: you Lakshmi Natarajan: I like that people stay in touch. I think that's what's important. So when we talk about relationships that you're building, it's more important on the follow-up, not the minute that you meet someone, because you can meet 50 people in any given event. How do you ensure you follow up with them so you can learn a little bit more about their backgrounds and then to seeing if there's an opportunity to collaborate. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Okay. Lakshmi Natarajan: But on any given day, I wear many hats. I'm on calls with founders related to the advisory work I do. I'm speaking to investors on potential opportunities to expand their portfolio. I'm looking to raise capital for funds. So it is any many given hats. But what I know is I set, what is the end goal of all this? Like where are these opportunities seeking to go? And I focus on that end outcome and the end value. not necessarily on the day-to-day tasks to get. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome. Talking about funds, you mentioned that you had your own startup in travel, but what industries do you actually work with nowadays? So you chat with a lot of founders, you work with some venture capital. Lakshmi Natarajan: Thank you. Oleksij Rak: What are the industries? Lakshmi Natarajan: Of course. So I think it's a gift that I have with all these experiences that I've worked across different industries. But again, sometimes you cannot be Jack of all trades, right? There are some industries I know better. So I would say the industries that I know, again, better because of my strategy and operational experience in that industry. I would say things related to healthcare, that it could include health tech, biotech. Oleksij Rak: Yep. Mm-mm. Lakshmi Natarajan: and longer term innovation in that. It's a very unique industry in some ways compared to other industries because some of these companies do involve advanced clinical trials and testing to actually go to market. So that's one vertical, I'd healthcare overall. The other one is PropTech. ⁓ I am an advisor to a PropTech company called Smart Bricks. They've recently raised a pre-seed round with Andreessen Horowitz. So I'm very proud of the team. They're amazing. And so I've gone in more into this industry called PropTech, which is so vast and has so many verticals within. So I'm constantly learning there as well. Another one is ⁓ anything AI B2B SaaS related. I did work with Oracle and other tech companies as well. So I understand that world. But B2B SaaS products can be built for different industries. So it could work across different industries. I recently got into ⁓ Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: hospitality sustainability as well when you're thinking about the future and impact and what you can make. So that's another vertical as well. And I also would like to support more women across industries. I'm part of global women in BC and different female founder incubation areas to really support women in that. But those are the four industries. I'd say healthcare, prop tech, AI, B2P, SAS, and sustainability. And majority of them are B2B industries versus consumer driven industries. Just because I know that going into retail and having an online sales, know, selling online is there's other individuals that are experts at that model. I wouldn't consider myself an expert there. Oleksij Rak: Over this couple of years that you built, like you mentioned five years, right, since you left the big tech. Over this ⁓ couple of years, what trends have you seen? Like what has changed? Like apart from AI, AI for sure is there, but what has changed in this industry and what trends are there? Lakshmi Natarajan: Yes. So I think that anyone, any entrepreneur or even founder has to recognize that things around us are moving very fast and they're moving with or without us. So what does that mean? And I'm part of a generation, we've seen a lot of change in our generation. We sometimes fail to recognize it, but I grew up without a cell phone in high school. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: I had one later in my college years when I had a summer job, so I had money to pay for it. that was like big cell phone. It looked like a cordless phone. my point is, I can't live without a phone, nor can anybody who's listening here. It's part of our lives. But we grew up at a time without it. So my point is, we've seen a lot of change. So it's not that we can't transform. I mean, we've gone from ⁓ taking notes on paper to AI joining our calls and capturing notes and action items for us, right? So there's a lot of evolution happening. So what does that mean over the last five years and for the next five years? That's another thing. We can't continue to think about five years. People who worked in big companies, we used to have a one-year plan, a three-year plan, a five-year development plan. That window has become what about the next 18 months, right? Because that is where we can have a greater foresight of what's coming and how we can Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: continue to grow to that. think five years has become a long duration of time. So in the last five years, I've had to pivot a lot and I've pivoted because the market was moving. So for example, I started in big fortune hundred independent consulting and then I saw the market moving to fractional roles. And so I started entering that with private equity backed companies, going in fractionally as a, the chief of staff or chief sales officer, operations officer, right? Those were new things that didn't exist 10 years ago and that continues to grow. So why I've pivoted the last five years is because the market around me, my customers have moved, everything is moving. So it became, how do you apply the skills that you have and the strengths that you bring to the table, your superpowers and apply them into different arenas? And that's what I've done. Oleksij Rak: you Lakshmi Natarajan: So one of the greatest things I have and something I really enjoy is the relationship component, relationship building. How does your product and service connect to a customer? Because ultimately it's your customer, your client that is buying those services from what you're offering. So that is something I've always enjoyed, problem solving in that solution building and thinking longer term, not necessarily transactually with Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: customer, but how do you build a relationship over time? But those skills are still transferable across different industries. So I think everyone who's building today, build for today, but build with the foundation to grow for tomorrow. But don't wait two years to have a customer. Whatever you're building today, even if it's not the end state of what you're envisioning. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: How do you get the customer today? Because that customer will be on the journey with you to help you build for what's needed for tomorrow. I sometimes find small business owners, entrepreneurs, founders, waiting so long for this perfection of a product that they know is going to transform the industry, break barriers, disrupt. But if you wait too long, Oleksij Rak: Yeah. you Lakshmi Natarajan: for that customer to come with you on that journey, there's other people building similarly around you. And that's okay. I mean, people are building in similar ecosystem. That's a good thing. But that customer is who you're ultimately serving. So you don't need to wait to have them on the journey with you. So that's my best advice is even in my work, as I was continuing to pivot, it was really on. Oleksij Rak: you Lakshmi Natarajan: OK, now I'm offering these services or this is the value I'm bringing. Is there a customer on this journey where, ⁓ this meets what the customer is seeking? I can do that work. So let me go and obtain that work. And so that's where I think it's the concept of pivoting and ensuring that you're connecting to customers on that journey. I hope that makes sense to the answer. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely it does. Especially about like five years. Yeah, we do not have five years. Even Entropic, one of the biggest companies nowadays, they have roadmap for six months. They do not know what will be there after six months. Lakshmi Natarajan: And to your point, were they around five years ago? Oleksij Rak: Yeah, they weren't. ⁓ Which brings us to the question of how they go to market nowadays. You mentioned find your customers, start working with your customers. What did change about going to market recently? Lakshmi Natarajan: Yes, to your point, going to market is a dynamic concept. And what I mean by that is I was a management consultant at Accenture for many years. We used to have these amazing strategic decks. Who remembers decks and those amazing presentations that had so much customer insight, data and feedback with building a narrative around personas or how you go to market. All that does exist today, but how you capture the insights about your customers and the data of who's your target segment, you could do that much faster. But when I say dynamic, I mean, it can't just exist on a paper in January, and it's the same in December at the end of the year. You are constantly learning and building and pivoting. And you can do that through so much data collection you can learn in real time. So if you see something is not working, Now you can't necessarily wait 24 hours and say, it's not working, let's do something else. But you're not waiting a year either to saying, ⁓ it did not work. We need to try something else next year. So going to market has become dynamic. The key customer. So I talk about the ideal customer profile persona that P. It has to be very clear. So for example, when you're a founder and you're building something, it could be relevant across various industries. I'm not debating that, but you should pick an industry to go after. So for example, if you're building for ⁓ hospital systems and your key customer is someone in procurement at a big hospital system, could your solution be relevant for ⁓ an aerospace company procurement, for retail procurement? Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. . Lakshmi Natarajan: Potentially, yes, right? But what happens is when you say we're for all procurement across all industries, it becomes very hard for your customers to understand how is it directly for them. I think there's a customer view of how you go to market and then there's an investor view of how you go to market, right? So when you think of customer, be very specific on who you're targeting and build the solution for them. Oleksij Rak: . you Lakshmi Natarajan: solve their problems, bring them value. How can they do something faster, better, smarter? How is it potentially eliminating steps in their ⁓ full, you know, how they're looking at their day to day? And I always say, if you focus on that customer and don't talk about your, so going to market, it's not about your product features. It's not about all the amazing things your product can do. It is always translating that to what it means to your customers. How does that help them bring them value, solve something, do something differently? Always draw that linkage when you are building out your customer profiles. But in order to do that, you have to learn about what it is that they do. So if any given customer that you're targeting has 10 things in a day that's their job scope and things that they do. Which components are you addressing through the solution that you're offering? If you don't understand the full view of your customer and you're only solving for two or three things, which is okay, you can't solve for everything. I'm not saying you have to, but you have to know that because then you don't want them to say, well, that doesn't help all these other things. So it doesn't help me. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. ⁓ Lakshmi Natarajan: So really know your customer. I often think that ⁓ customer becomes an afterthought. Unintentionally, I don't think it's intentional, but so many founders are amazing innovators. They're brilliant. I mean, they can think of things in their sleep and build it the next day. that's where their brains are at. I'm not that brilliant to do that. But where I can help is, OK, now let's come back to the customer. Oleksij Rak: you Lakshmi Natarajan: because ultimately this brilliance can be built by you and a team quickly. But if you don't have customers, then you don't have a revenue generating model. Now those customers can come from partnerships. mean, it's not necessarily going direct. It can come from strategic alliances, but ultimately you have to think of product market fit and product customer fit in parallel. And I think it becomes a much, I've seen it come as a much later thought. in the founder journey and the build of a company. And so that is, those are the things I would change is, you know, look at product market, product customer fit, be very specific when you're going to market on who your customer is, build within a particular industry first, and then you can scale and also get, bring those customers on the journey early. Even if you do not have the perfect product that you're envisioning that becomes a Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: a game changer and disrupts an industry. When you have revenue coming in through customers, a lot of other things follow, including your journey to build. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for a great answer. Recently I'm hearing especially from entrepreneurs that you first should start building a community and then build your products. You first listen to the community and then hear what they want and then you try to solve their needs. Lakshmi Natarajan: I don't know if that always happens. I'm glad that you're saying that because it makes a difference. Because guess to your point, you said the community. It's a wonderful word. Community follows. Community trusts. Community innovates. And if you're building that in advance to learn authentically, genuinely, Oleksij Rak: you Lakshmi Natarajan: When the time comes where you do have a product or solution that serves that community, you've already built trust, you've already built transparency, you've already built a relationship. They will be on that journey with you. And we can sit here and say what comes first. Where I think that what you're saying and I agree with you is that it is no longer having to be so sequential. things can happen in parallel. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. That's chicken and duck. Lakshmi Natarajan: Yes, that old saying, chicken and egg. I still don't know the answer to that question. I, my daughters asked me the other day, I said, I don't really know the answer to the question. I think I'm figuring it out, but it's to me, it's all about perspective. And because I am not necessarily the product brilliant genius. am the, I'm very focused on customer, but ultimately it's a customer that drives revenue. because they're paying you for what you're offering. So that to me has a big priority as well and shouldn't be an afterthought. And that's the key message. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, for sure. Lakshmi, you mentioned several times about you should listen to your customer, you should build what they need and so on. And that's true. I agree absolutely with that. But my question would be, there are a lot of industries where customers are, I would say, underserved. Quite archaic industries. don't know, banking sector, mortgages, loans, attorneys. I guess there are a lot of them. You know, my thoughts are like, I run a software company nowadays. I can build any product in the world, any software in the world nowadays. So question would be, what do you think as the industries where there is a room for disruption because right now we have such powerful tools? Lakshmi Natarajan: We'll see. Oleksij Rak: which when applied properly, they can bring some change into the market because customers are underserved. Lakshmi Natarajan: Yes, sir. I'm so glad that you asked that question and you're absolutely right. There are certain industries that the products and the innovation and the brilliance that founders are bringing are transforming the industry. The customers aren't even ready. ⁓ It's... Well, I'm glad you mentioned that. So for example, last week I was at a PropTech conference and... Oleksij Rak: know, innovation stopped 20 years ago there. Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: I was talking about so many different topics in this industry that we're calling global real estate, but it's so much more than a physical building. It's the smart cities, the planning around it, the ecosystems, the sustainability, ⁓ how that interacts with our earth and room and globally thinking about it. Then you have the finance side of it, the tokenization, how the banking industry is changing around it. how you're building with AI twins. So to my point, you're absolutely right to what you just asked. And there are certain industries where the innovation is defining the future of the industry. So what happens there, right? Because to your point, I'm here talking about customers, customer, customers learn from your customers, but then you have some industries that their model has not moved. ⁓ as quickly as the innovation is and they're going to have to because traditional big companies are not moving as quickly and the innovators that are smaller companies are scaling at an accelerated pace, faster than people can process. So what happens there to your question? ⁓ So that is, so that's such a, I'm so glad you asked. And so in those industries, I absolutely think that the innovation is driving it. But ultimately still, there are customers coming to that. And it's not necessarily maybe the traditional customers. Maybe the bigger ones that have defined those industries of the past are now lagging behind. And some of them could be the Fortune 500 companies, right? they, because of their scale and their breath globally, they're sometimes not able to be as agile. Oleksij Rak: Hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: in moving quickly. So you see a lot of ⁓ newer innovation defining that. So to that point, yes, those founders and those innovators do need to define those industries, but they are serving someone. Right. Because you're still building to serve someone. So for example, let's talk about tokenization of real estate. It's a newer concept and it's already happening though. Right. But it was newer to me and it's already happening, not necessarily in Oleksij Rak: them. Lakshmi Natarajan: the United States as much as it's happening in other parts of the world. It's happening in the US, but it's happened already. this is where innovation comes, where it sees no country borders. Innovation is truly global. And there are things happening in many parts of the world that need to be brought forward to other parts of the world. It's not necessarily looking only within your country. It's looking around the world for that. related to tokenization, there are other countries that already have these models. So how could we learn from that and scale to a broader market? That's where there are places that are defining it. But again, innovation and customer are working together on that. It's just happening maybe in a smaller arena where it's not a big company that's part of it. And that then needs to be applied. And I myself see founders from Latam, Europe and Asia and Africa, when I talk to them, they're doing things that I haven't necessarily heard that's happening in the US. Maybe it is. Again, there's hundreds of thousands of founders with brilliance, but they're moving markets. They're redefining economies and ecosystems. They have customers and they're growing and they're looking to scale. They're looking for that capital or that market entry to scale. So there is innovation happening. Oleksij Rak: you them. Lakshmi Natarajan: in other parts of the world that's taking over and defining what the future is. And so to answer your question originally, you're absolutely right that some customers are lagging behind and maybe they don't know what the future is or what they need and the innovation is defining it. But to that point, it's still product innovation is meeting that customer and innovating and then defining the industry to follow and defining some of the bigger players to follow. And that can happen as well. And, you know, these founders and I've spoken to some of them, they went to market before everything was figured out. They got customers. They didn't have all the answers related to tokenization. When it comes to, for example, the legal component, the compliance component, the data component, I mean, those are still being defined. We don't know what that is yet. It's being defined and the industry has to catch up because it's happening already. But it wasn't all defined before it was in market. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: It's being defined as we go. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, which industries are these that you mentioned? Like, that you've seen this innovation happening and which industries do you think are still waiting for change? Lakshmi Natarajan: Well, I think you said it earlier. think FinTech is a big one, right? The financial services and FinTech solutions that exist in some places is far more advanced than even what I'm used to. I still have a traditional credit card as an example that I swipe. People walk around with their phones. That's it. Their phone has become everything. And there's been innovative solutions at some big companies that put forward some smaller companies that are becoming huge, put forward, that have addressed market needs for millions and hundreds of millions of people in certain economies. And I'll just give me an example. Walking around India, everybody uses GPay. It's like even the small vendor that's like a desk, it's not even a full shop. They're using GPay. They don't even use the plastics anymore, not even cash. It's G pay. there's that. That's one industry, would say, fintech and payment solutions and banking overall. There's massive banks in certain countries that do not have a physical presence. And that works for a lot of consumers, right? I'm not saying it works for everyone because we are a very diverse world, multi-generational with many needs. But did we think like 10 years ago that there would be banks with no physical location? Right? So it's happening. So I think that's one industry, know, fintech and banking. I would say real estate is another one where Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: You have innovation and the brilliance that the founders are bringing that's defining the future with digital twins, building AI cities and smart cities and grids ⁓ in different platforms before it's even built, tokenizing so that you are creating more accessibility for investors and buyers that you're, it's not a traditional model where you're enabling greater diversification and access to that. That's already happening. So it's not just, ⁓ I'm buying this one property, one home. You have a agentic AI platform such as SmartBricks that are enabling months worth of analyses that can now be done in minutes that are enabling you to make smarter, better business decisions for investors. you have ⁓ so many different aspects of innovation that are defining the industry future forward. And so. Those are two that I've seen. think the third one you mentioned is the legal component. Now, laws vary in the United States by state, by country. Wow. When you think about that multifactorial process, when you're thinking about international law, global law, because again, there are things happening. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: globally that may not have existed 20, 30 years ago, and especially when it comes to founders and their solutions that they're building. So how does that transform as well? There's a lot of ⁓ digital agents that are enabling the legal system to be more efficient and impactful. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to misrepresent or misspeak, but when you're thinking about intellectual property, patents, innovation, Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: There's innovation, things are happening there. There's transforming solutions of that and everyone needs to move with that. When you think of healthcare, that's also another industry that is moving very quickly in some markets more than others, but how does the full ecosystem evolve? So to your question, there are industries that are moving ahead and are having to transform. faster than they anticipated because the innovation in that is coming and consumers and clients want it. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, for sure. And which brings me to another question I would ask, especially since you've been on the both sides. What are investment companies you worked with, you worked with VCs looking at the startups? What are they looking for in terms of AI and what by building a product, by building a startup, what do you have to... to show in terms of AI and how to distinguish when there is a real breakthrough versus, I would call it nothing. Not to call it other world because everybody's talking about AI and everybody's trying to pretend we are doing AI. And I've seen a lot of companies who are trying to do AI in not a proper way. Lakshmi Natarajan: Yes. Well, everybody, I don't, I never, I never want to Yes. Well, I'll never tell a founder or an innovator they have nothing. Everybody has something. I think you need to be clear about what it is you have and be realistic, right? So there's founders, everybody wants to be a unicorn or have some big exit or some big IPO. I'm not saying don't dream big, dream big, but also recognize the pace of what you're building and how, what is it that you want to do? Because Not everyone has to scale to become a unicorn to be successful. Success is defined to what you want it to be. You could just be a very successful small business and build for clients. There's hundreds of thousands of companies out there that need your solution, right? And they're still working. I'm just giving an example. Off of nothing wrong with Excel. I loved Excel. It was my life for many years, but they still... Oleksij Rak: Yep. . Lakshmi Natarajan: do a lot of things only on Excel and don't even know that they can, there's AI tools out there to help them do it faster and better and smarter, to leave their time for more valuable based initiatives, right? So they don't know that. So that's a client. doesn't always have to be ⁓ someone who's already innovating there. So what's my advice to ⁓ people who are building in this and the concept of capital raise? So one, there's a lot of types of capital. There's equity capital, there's grants. There's non dilutive different types of debt. There's credit. mean, the term capital is a big thing. you need to understand what are you seeking on your capital growth journey, right? Is it the build? Is it the scale? Is it to launch in a new market? Are you looking, do you want to not dilute the company? Are you okay with dilution? Are you looking for a strategic partner? Are you just looking for money, right? Are you looking to find someone who can help you scale and do those relationships and be Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: you know, be on part of your company's growth outside of just money. So those are like strategic questions that I would recommend companies to answer first. And if they don't know, they only know when they start talking to people and learning about it. You don't have to have every answer, but you need to define a strategy around it. It still comes back to a strategy. Then what do, now you're asking, what do companies look for? It's so multifaceted. I couldn't just answer it with one thing, but I will say, a few things that are relevant across, right? So in the advent of AI and the growth, there are some companies out there that have something amazing, but the bigger players in this may be building that as well. So if you've already built it today and you have customers, maybe your growth is actually being acquired in the next 18 months. And that's, that's a great path. Right? You don't, not everyone will get an IPO exit, right? And that's where you see so many companies not getting there. So having an exit, partnering, getting acquired, those are also great paths as well. Because people that could, you don't necessarily have to be on an island doing it alone if another company is doing it. So to your point, I think the concept of six months, one year, 18 months is a great plan. That is a wonderful thing for a founder to present. But what do investors care about? They do care about market opportunity is important, but market opportunity on any pitch deck is always big. I've never seen a pitch deck that says my market opportunity is only five million, right? It's what you don't see. Obviously the market is big. It's huge. Realistically, what's your market? That's important. And realistically, how quickly can you get there? So the concept Oleksij Rak: you Lakshmi Natarajan: I'm speaking vaguely across all industries. It does matter by industry and what you're building, but at a high level, it can't take you seven years to get there unless it's like something that requires, you know, clinical trials and legal, like government approval, you know, to put medicine out. think that's a little different, but in general, that's concept because I was attending a VC event recently and I heard this from, and it's not me. I heard it from experts on stage who've Oleksij Rak: Hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: One, exited companies or two are raising their third or fourth round of capital in VC and they've had a few exits in their portfolio. So these are experts who've done this. They said their trajectory that VC once was, for example, five, seven plus years has shifted. People are looking for liquidity. They're not going to wait seven years for something potentially to happen. It's a traditional model. It will work for some industries, but everyone is looking for, what does this look like in a year and a half, three years? Where can you be at that point? So in a plan as a founder, investors are looking for revenue faster, scalability faster. And again, it doesn't have to be direct to customer. It could be through strategic partnerships. I know it's not something we talked about a lot, but Oleksij Rak: So. Lakshmi Natarajan: you can grow and scale through partners. Who else is doing what you're doing out there? Who else has the customers you have out there partner with them because they can help you scale faster. one thing is always, so how big is the market and be very realistic about how big your market size is. The second thing is what you're building and how quickly that looks like over the next three years from a revenue growth perspective. And any investor will always be attracted to a founder saying, I have customers now, whether they're pilot, they're beta. I mean, the greater the revenue, fine. But even if it's smaller revenue, it's showing that you have market traction and not just current market. Like I have five customers in pilot that will. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: then pivot in three months after a free beta version to a, know, we're going to, we're monetizing it. What's in your pipeline? I often see founders not presenting their pipeline of customers that they have. It could be LOIs, it could be customers you've had preliminary meetings with. I understand it's not everyone is at the finish line to sign a contract, understood, but it's that you're actively out there trying to grow. So that's another pillar is not just current customers, it's future customers pipeline. Another question that's come up, and it's something that I always envisioned as a later stage founder component, right? Because early stage founders, was all about revenue growth, great product, market share, your brand, like that values. I heard someone say recently and ask a founder this, it was at a pitch competition. Oleksij Rak: Hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: And it was an investor who asked the founder and it was a founder that's been building for the last year. They have a few customers. They asked them, only let's say 16 months in market. What's your path to profitability? And I think that's a question that's definitely asked for ⁓ AI only companies, right? Because some companies have ⁓ product warehouses and AI, right? It's like part of their solution, but some companies, pure AI companies, an investor asked that question. And unfortunately, that founder didn't have the answer to that question. The answer they had was great. It was a great answer overall. I give them credit for having an answer. Oleksij Rak: Okay. Okay. Lakshmi Natarajan: But I was also surprised because what I'm saying, that question generally, historically over last five years may have been asked to a later stage founder that's in the hundreds of millions of revenue that's raising series CD. Like it's a later stage question. It was asked to a 16 month innovation in market. And what is your path to profitability? Now, the good news is they can have that path faster because they do not have a lot of operating expenses and overhead. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: But that question is also something that investors are looking at. So as I've said, to summarize, especially the overall opportunity of your market size, your product and what you're building and how quickly you can grow and scale, not just in five, seven years, but really quickly, because investors are looking for that 18 month to three year growth trajectory, because that's the VC space is changing. And I'd also say that path to profitability is something that think about it earlier on. I always talk to my founders about it early, not to scare them and shift them away from growth. I want them to grow, but at some point you have to grow with a profitable mindset and not everyone necessarily thinks that way. And with investors, consider all the options that you're seeking from a capital perspective. It doesn't always only have to be equity capital. There are other things out there as well. And align to investors that understand your industry or want to work in the industry. There are industry agnostic investors out there, whether it's VC, PE firms, family offices, high net worth. I mean, so many things, but. Oleksij Rak: you Yep. Lakshmi Natarajan: Align to investors that understand your industry. And if they're industry agnostic, great. But if you're in fintech and you're presenting to someone in prop tech, it's similar, but it's not the same. invest time in identifying the right investors and build community. Finally, as you said earlier, I'd like to end with that to this question as well. You have to be out there and people need to know what you're doing. Don't hide. We want to hear about you, want to hear about what you're doing, what you're the innovation you have, what you've learned, be vulnerable, share your learning, post everywhere, go everywhere, invest time in the ecosystem. I know it's hard when you're working so many hours in a day building and then you have to go out there and meet people, but don't hide, meet people virtually in person because that's when you can build a community that then bring like that's where some of the investors could be in that community. So. ⁓ Max Pog is actually someone that I think has a great ⁓ global platform. I've been very impressed with all his events that I've attended. And I've met so many people, mean, hundreds and hundreds of people in so many different countries for founders, investors, operators, advisors. I mean, it's a big mix. And now there's industry specific verticals and ⁓ because the ecosystem has gotten so big, you have to pivot. But that's just one place where you can be at home. and meet people virtually. But there's a lot of communities like that. That's just one of them. just meet your investors out there. Oleksij Rak: Yeah, yeah, awesome. Maybe one last question because it's already taking a bit of time. But still, ⁓ but Vita is an interesting point. So the startup is growing at some point, it becomes like a kind of established business. And I already had about 50 interviews with different businesses and all of them nowadays are saying margin is getting small. Smaller and smaller funnel is not working for certain industries like for travel industry funnel is not working anymore. You need to change it into flywheel. Otherwise you have no margin. And everybody's trying to save some costs and becomes a bit more operational efficient. And different people trying different approaches. Some various AI automation, some various cutting costs, human labor and so on so forth. You've touched a lot of industries and you've seen that from different angles. What do you think is the best way to save costs? And what is the smartest way to do it, in your opinion? Lakshmi Natarajan: Cool. ⁓ this is ⁓ near and dear to me. I have been an operator for most of my career, led teams, and anytime the company said, we need to consider how we can be more efficient and impactful in our costs. We don't say cutting. I don't like that word, but those words, and generally guess where it went. It went to human resources, to human capital, right? People. I've never been a fan saying that's the path. no, because people are what makes the company. Now we're supplemented with humans and agents, right? Like that is a lot of what's happening out there. It's reality. But you can't just say, let's just, and especially in the private equity model, I've had conversations with some of the clients I've worked with. Whenever they want to scale and be more efficient, let's just look at one particular department across these companies. ⁓ there's just too many people. Oleksij Rak: So. ⁓ Lakshmi Natarajan: You can't look at the number of people. You have to look at what they do, the skill sets they have, what their plan is to grow, how are the right people in the right positions to grow that, and how can you supplement that? So you're asking what is the best way. ⁓ I would, what's the best mix or what's the best way to be the most efficient as a company to think profitably? One, I would say you need to think about it earlier. Oleksij Rak: Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: Okay, so if you're someone newer that's building now or has built and you're, you know, you're scaling, think about it today. You don't need to wait for some milestone to start thinking about it. As I said, you need to think about revenue, top line growth and bottom line as well earlier on, because then you are building a business that is profitable. So these more challenging discussions that can happen at a stage. Oleksij Rak: Mm-hmm. Lakshmi Natarajan: may not need to happen because you're already profitable earlier. for those who companies that are looking at ⁓ operating efficiency, lowering costs, I don't say just look at people and start making decisions. That's not how it works. You have to more think strategically. What do the next 18 months look like aligned to what we need to achieve as a company strategically? It's a bigger story. You have to think more strategically, not just tackle what you think is the easiest to do and it impacts a line item. There's so many different ways and to your point, like travel industry is one of them, for example, the margins are not as high as other industries. And so it becomes a strategic view of what you're trying to achieve. Then it becomes what are all the levers that we have that we can explore to become more efficient. ⁓ Is that physical office space? Is that certain aspects of technology? Can we leverage? certain individuals and those scope that they do, can we offset that by having agents do some of the other tasks that agents can do well and have them focus on value added revenue growth? Have them focus on growing customers, innovating for the future, something else that we need. I think you have to look at everything more strategically and that is what I always recommend to my clients. And sometimes they don't want to and I understand because it's... People make decisions off of what's easy, but you're building culture, you're building community, you're building talent, you're building the next generation of leaders. That means something. And that has this value that's sometimes hard to quantify, but when you look at high performing, impactful individuals, they will fuel growth. further than anyone can. So you can't just look at individuals and say the easiest way to cut is just to cut teams because there's too many people. That's not how it works. Again, going back to a bigger strategy and looking at all the levers on a P &L that matter and strategically how you can make change across. And yes, I don't want to end this without saying there are people who have, I don't know, 10-time full-time employees, a few consultants and advisors. And agents, they have agents, AI agents that are working at the company. That's part of the company. It's happening. And they built that agent model around the areas that can enable them to be more efficient and impactful. It didn't necessarily say, we don't need these other 10 employees and consultants, right? So I think think more strategically about how you're building your business. I hope that answers the question. It's a tough one and we can talk about it for a lot more time. Oleksij Rak: you Lakshmi Natarajan: But I am always human first, people first. The innovation is brought through us. The transformation that we're bringing globally to industries, to businesses, to customers, to products and solutions, it's coming through us with the assistance and the support of AI and technology, right? But it's still us bringing these businesses to Oleksij Rak: . Yeah, for sure. For sure it is. And that's what I see in some companies that they are doing. They are just enabling the whole company to make some hackathons, company-wide, to learn and to adapt, adopt these two words, to start using these tools. And it's not about letting people go. It's rather about building more, making more. automating the most common repetitive tasks to enable people, even in customer support, which is the first one to get cut, but still to enabling them just do something different. ⁓ yeah, yeah. Awesome. Thanks for great discussion. Before we wrap it up, is there anything else you would like to add on top of this? Lakshmi Natarajan: Yeah, so thank you. So we I thought we could do this in a reduced amount of time, but there's so much dialogue and I would love to hear from your listeners and anybody else, your guests, other people. Let's learn together because we are all on this. That's my last piece of advice. We're all on this learning journey together and I will always say that the growth that we can have individually. Oleksij Rak: Yep. Yeah. Lakshmi Natarajan: comes from our collaborative efforts collectively, like working together. We can scale more, achieve more, do it faster and better when we collaborate. So I welcome to hear from anyone. I look forward to learning from you. There's a lot I'm learning on my journey. Every day I learn something new. And I am able to connect with different people just like you. So I'm really happy for this opportunity. And let's continue that because it does make an impact and a difference. Oleksij Rak: Awesome, awesome. That's exactly the reason why I'm running this podcast because I'm an entrepreneur, but still it's a reason to chat with people and to exchange knowledge. Awesome. It was great having you and thanks a lot. Lakshmi Natarajan: Yes, thank you so much. really appreciate this opportunity, Alexi, and I will look forward to hearing your comments from all your listeners. Oleksij Rak: For sure, thanks. Lakshmi Natarajan: Thanks.