[00:00:27] Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast today. I'm very lucky. Super special guest today. My favorite person in the world, Manoj Sinha, my flight instructor, good friend, mentor, a million different other things. My, my motivator for a lot of great things in life. very lucky to have you on today, Manoj.
Thanks for joining me, buddy.
[00:00:46] Manoj: Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. And you're being like extra generous as it is always.
[00:00:54] Jay: Well, I, this is how I talk to other people about you. It's not how I talk to you about you, but this is how I tell, you know, when I tell everybody about Manoj, this is what I talk about. So Uh, Manoj is the CEO and founder of BISIL. he's also a certified flight instructor, CFII, just a man of many talents.
He's got a ton of cool experience, so I think this is gonna be a fun time. So, Manoj, take me back. Where did you start, you know, where did you grow up and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?
[00:01:22] Manoj: Well, I grew up in, in India. and, I was always, sort of keen on doing something. I had a million ideas growing up. You know, my original idea was to Make some toys because I think toys are very challenging. They have to be good, interesting and grossing safe for kids and things like that.
Anyhow, as I, you know, joined the workforce back in 1985, sorry to let you know my age. You know, I've worked in an engineering company to start my career. And, I've met a lot of great people over there. and each, at each stage in my life, the people that I met, I've been very lucky to have interacted with some of the best minds in the engineering company that I just talked about.
Then I went to MBA school, one of the best in the world. Again, very privileged to interact with some of the greatest minds. My classmates are, some of the biggest entrepreneurs. In India right now, including I think we count two or three billionaires over there, first generation billionaires. so, you know, all that kind of, it's, there was never a single aha moment that, hey, I got to be an entrepreneur, but it's just something that just kept on building up over time.
And then I worked in another, one of the best companies in India, ITC limited. And, you know, Again, met some great people over there. So, one thing after another, and, I started BBISILback in, 1990, November 1990. Spectacularly badly timed because literally, 15 days later, the Gulf War one was declared.
and you know, everything came to a stop, in terms of, you know, transacting business and things like that. people put a hold on a lot of plans, including people that I was talking to. you know, so that's a little bit of my history of where I started and some of the motivations, that, that led me to,Start this.
[00:03:29] Jay: Timing is I think, probably the most underappreciated facet of success, right? I mean, it just. Every turn, there's just, whether it's the market, whether it's your personal timing, whether it's, you know, your client's timing, it's all about timing. we talked a little bit about that yesterday at dinner, just how, you know, the timing of market, you know, crashes or the bottom falling out kind of makes or breaks a lot of people.
So I feel like that's a consistent, theme in your journey. So was BISIL the first company you started?
[00:04:02] Manoj: Yes, the first and only but but just to go back to what the commentary just made. Yes, timing is very critical. However, nothing lasts forever, right? So, you know, I've now been in business for what, 30, 35 years and I've seen three major business booms, cycles, booms and busts So that Gulf War thing was just a little blip and then we saw the dot com boom and bust and we saw the 2008 crisis and then very recently the pandemic, right?
So, you know, things come and go and that's one thing that you learn over time. to get back to your question, yes, BISIL is the only company that I have started. Well, not entirely correctly, but they've been offshoots. So. There are a couple of other, companies that I've started, but yes, BISIL has been the first and only, however, it's been through, I would say, four cycles, because I've built and launched four technology products over these 30 years, so it could technically have been four different companies, I've just kept the same name, and, two of those products have been Failures to have been somewhat, you know, minor successes that have kept the home fires burning and fuel the growth in the next generation of products.
and right now we are working on our fifth one. So,
[00:05:25] Jay: Wow. I think we're going to keep doing this thing where we'll ask a question and then we'll go back to the previous thing because somebody says something that makes us think. do you think there's a wrong time to start a business?
[00:05:41] Manoj: Oh, interesting question. No. I think I am ultimately it's your attitude and your outlook. Times don't last. Tough times don't last. Good times don't last. Right. So, there may be momentary setbacks, like, you know, I talked about Gulf one, Gulf War one, in my case. But as it turned out, that thing was over in, like, the impact of that was over in three or four months.
I mean, at that time I said, oh my God, what have I done? I've left this well paying job, comfortable, secure in every way, one of the most, coveted jobs in the country. And here I am without an income, you know, about to get married in two months and,and I have no business, but then it doesn't last.
So I, so it may seem big, but it is not. Ultimately, if you have the attitude, have you read Who Moved My Cheese?
[00:06:34] Jay: No.
[00:06:35] Manoj: Oh, I must recommend that to you. I will give you a copy.
[00:06:39] Jay: I love a good book recommendation.
[00:06:40] Manoj: it's an easy read. And you know, the key lesson over there is you got to keep hustling, you got to keep hustling, you know, so that saying tough times don't last is absolutely true.
So in the long run, there's nothing like a bad timing. It can create difficulty, you can run out of money. And you know, If you have a lot of responsibilities and if you have imminent issues like, you know, you're going to get married and have a kid on the way or you have a house, payment loan repayment due or something like that, it can create significant issues, but, ultimately you'll come through it.
[00:07:19] Jay: Have you, how have you weathered those storms? I mean you talk about boomer bus times but how do you, how did you kind of, I mean, I loved hearing your story yesterday about kind of how you just kept Plugging along and I kept trying the next thing and kept trying you made some big investments some of those paid off some of it Didn't but how do you how would you tell somebody? To kind of weather those storms like you're saying. I mean, it's a great point that you know tough times won't last very long But they are there Is there anything that you could tell somebody to kind of help them if they're feeling that crunch? To kind of keep pushing through and that there is kind of you know light at the end of the tunnel I mean, is there anything from your story that? That would kind of exemplify that.
[00:08:03] Manoj: I think, entrepreneurs in general, like I was mentioning yesterday, intrinsically optimistic people, they have a can do attitude and that's why they're entrepreneurs, right? they, they feel that they can make things happen. and about, and the other thing that, that I have realized at least is that we are nobodies.
We are like little cogs, right? we cannot influence events in any way, right? for example, 2000. com, boom, you know. People felt that's going to go on forever. it did not. Right? Nobody could have predicted the mortgage boom or bust in 2008. Nobody could have definitely predicted the pandemic.
Right? So, that See, you can't predict events but if you have the right attitude and it certainly worked in my case. Right? In 95, 1995, we were on a big high. you know, we had, our product was that we had launched in 1993 was very successful. we had a significant percent, part of the market that was using our product.
And then, in India, we had, or in Asia, there was this Far East, you know, financial crisis, which happened in 97, actually, 97. March, it started and then, 97 May was the big one, when the tiger economies of the Far East actually collapsed and there was a ripple effect on India and that had a ripple effect on my clients because my clients were all financial service companies and from having 40 percent of the market share, we were standing, left standing with two clients, you know, literally overnight.
I had 100, 125 people at that time. I had to let them go. You know, most of it happened by attrition. I was lucky. I didn't have to take a lot of hard decisions because if you go back to 1997 98, those were the years when there was a Y2K boom in the IT industry. So all my people got excellent jobs and you know, they did well.
So I didn't have to take the tough decisions, but ultimately you persist and, and you have to constantly keep hustling. Like I said, who moved my cheese? You have to read the book, right?
yeah, I will send one copy to you.
[00:10:34] Jay: I have a couple audible credits. Maybe I'll just grab it. I'm a,
I'm
[00:10:37] Manoj: I'm not sure if I answered your question.
[00:10:40] Jay: I, don't know if you did. You kinda did. You were getting there. I, think I cut
[00:10:44] Manoj: kind of drifted off.
[00:10:45] Jay: but No, I mean How, you know, so I think the completion to that answer is What did you do after that big Holy shit.
I have to cut all my people. I have two clients left. Like, you know, anybody in business is going to come to, we've all had, you know, bad things happen. Clients leave. what was the next step? Where did you go from there? What did you do to go? Okay. I'm not just going to fold completely my shop and go work for wherever I came from.
How do I continue this journey as an entrepreneur?
[00:11:18] Manoj: So, hustle. That was, what you do. So, I,you know, because my customers in India, kind of collapsed, most of them actually shut shop. My customers shut shop, because of the crisis. I went, I, I said, let me explore, other markets. So, we looked at Singapore, which I kind of knew wouldn't work because the crisis was, a Far East Asia crisis.
And then in early 99, I came to the US,and then started exploring over here. so going to the, so it's basically hustle, you know, you got to take a deep breath. It does seem dark and, you know, when shit happens and you feel that nothing's going to work, this is the end of the world and all that.
But you got to pick yourself up, dust yourself and, go back at it, right?
So, I,
[00:12:04] Jay: get complacent, right? Like you're
easy to get, things are great, things are going good, and then you go, oh shit, now I have to hustle again.
[00:12:13] Manoj: and you know, a parallel corollary to that is you learn only from your mistakes. So, you know what happens when things are going well and it's happened twice in my, 35 year career with BISIL,33 year career with BISIL is That things are going well happened first in 95. things are going gangbusters.
Like I said, we had 40 percent of the market share and then all hell broke loose. Right? you, I got complacent happened again in 2015. We were doing extremely well and got complacent. now there is a saying that you learn only from your mistakes. And you're forced to try newer and newer things when things don't work, right?
And that goes to the point that you made that if things are going well, you get complacent. You think you found the formula, the magic formula,and this is going to go on forever. It doesn't. And,that's completely true. So as an entrepreneur, I think I have learned. To take all this with, you know, a certain amount of equanimity, good times, that's great, enjoy them while they last, because there are tough times coming.
They will come.
[00:13:31] Jay: They will come. They will come. I mean I guess there's a big correlation there to being a pilot, with complacency, right? I mean it's very easy to You do it a bunch of times, you start, it's just the one time that, unfortunately, being a pilot, you know, mistakes can be fatal, and you can't really learn from some of those super, bad mistakes you make, but I do see an interesting parallel there between like, being a CEO, an entrepreneur, and getting complacent because things are going well, and the same thing happens to pilots, and most of the time, that's why there's accidents, is because, you know, somebody forgot to hit a checklist, you know, a box on the checklist, or they did something they shouldn't do, you Have you found, and that's another question just in general, how do you, for something that's so life and death like being a pilot, how do you not become complacent?
I mean, my god, you've flown thousands and thousands of hours and you're sitting with people all day and you're talking and you're doing, how do you stay locked in and make sure that you're not missing the small things?
[00:14:31] Manoj: two things over there. you have to keep your scan going, just like I keep telling you when we are flying, that you have to scan all the critical things, the six pack in the plane, right? Don't fixate on one thing. So you have to keep, you know, what's my attitude? What's my altitude?
What's my, you know, air speed? am I coordinated and things like that, right? So you, you got to, keep your scan going. Similarly, when you're running a company, when you become complacent, you're starting to take it easy and getting fixated on just one thing, probably, or you're observing only one thing.
You're not keeping your scan going. There is something brewing somewhere that's going to come in. Right. take you from the left field, right? The second thing is, your, anything that happens is never a single mistake. It is always a chain of errors, just like in, in flying, right? and, so if there's Some emergency in a flying situation is because you forgot a checklist because something was not maintained because that date happened to be extra hot or the fuel was contaminated.
So it's like three or four things and they're starting to build up and then you didn't have your scan going and you know, all that. Similarly, in a company, when you're running it, you think, Oh, I've got these nice clients, you know, I've got, stuff happening. and I've got my pipeline full.
Something is brewing somewhere. You're not, are your people on board? Are your key employees in sync with you? You know, is there a competitor coming up with a different way of delivering what you're delivering that you're not looking at, you know, so you gotta keep your scan going. Competitors, customers, employees, you know, finances.
of course, nobody can predict a pandemic, but even a pandemic, people can, weather and have weather. If they had the rest of the system, in a healthy state, right? So, you bring up excellent points and,and a great battle. In fact, I do write a blog. I don't know if I've mentioned that to you.
On, on, on the lessons that I learned from flying and how they apply to, to business. I'll send you the link.
[00:16:45] Jay: Oh, please do. I'll post it in
the show notes. Well, you're giving me all sorts of title, you know, ideas for the show. I mean, so far it's keep your scan going with, Manoj, Sinha. tough times don't last. We've got a bunch of them. I think by the end we
may
[00:16:57] Manoj: it's always a chain of errors. It's never a
[00:17:00] Jay: of errors.
Look, there's another
[00:17:01] Manoj: one. It's never a catastrophic thing. And you know what? The other thing, it is always a management problem when a company fails. It's never a worker problem.
[00:17:12] Jay: Oh, yeah.
[00:17:13] Manoj: it's always bad management. So every time we have failed, it has been me failing to
look at things.
[00:17:19] Jay: 100 percent agree. I can't, even the, I mean, if, That, that's a fantastic point. Because even if it's a shitty employee that does something, you hired them.
And if you didn't hire them, you hired the person who did hire them. So like, you've done something in the chain, like you said, there's somewhere that traces back to the pilot in charge. you know, that like you missed something and
you misdiagnosed something. And I love the parallels there. And I'm glad you picked up what I was laying down without having to say it, but like, you connect the dots between being a pilot and, but it's a nice, I said this on a show last week. It's crazy. To me, and I would assume to you, to live any other sort of life, right? The stuff you just explained, I think, would give a lot of people extreme anxiety, right? Like, oh my god, competitors, and is our marketing going good, and is our team But like, that stuff is, that's fun to me. Like, I love that.
Like, that's what charges me up and keeps me going and keeps me wanting to drive the business forward. So, and I don't, I think there's just some people who are happy to work. And don't want to be business owners and that's great and thank God there is because otherwise you and I wouldn't have businesses because everybody would want to own their own business, but, it is a special type of person, that can weather that kind of like storm and do the scan count because the scan is exhausting in a business going from left to right and going, Oh my God, is this fine?
Is this fine? Are the customers happy in my, my, is my pipeline full? Are my people happy? Am I paying people enough to the HR? Good. Like all the things that you just mentioned. So I love all that stuff. Who was, BISIL's first customer. Do you remember?
[00:18:56] Manoj: company I used to work for.
[00:18:58] Jay: See? There it is.
Tell me the story, man. I want to hear how you got, converted them from, an employer to a, a client.
[00:19:06] Manoj: Yeah. you know, like I mentioned, I've worked with a great bunch of people and, they were very encouraging and supportive, in every way. while I was an employee, they were one of the best employers. I've worked only for two and both were excellent to say, but they were great employers. And, I met some of the nicest people.
I had a great manager over there. And then when I shared my plans. you know, rather than say, hey, what the hell are you doing kind of thing? I said, sure, you know, what are you going to do? Is there any way we can help? And, and I'm friends with, a lot of them to date. In fact, I had dinner with one of them just last week.
So, I didn't any, I, it was not me converting them. It was more them offering help. So it's, I just got lucky. That I've worked, worked with, such a great bunch of people. You know,
and I would, frame your question, I would expand on your question. I think I've had two first customers. The first when I started BISIL, and second when I started BISIL here in America because I landed here with, you know, 350, the classic immigrant story, or the very, the one that is repeated ad nauseum.
but I, I landed here with no contacts, in America. I had not studied here. I had not, I had visited America a couple of times before, but that was, those are just like visits, right? and through friends, actually it was, it was a senior manager in one of the companies that invested in us.
Remember I told you 98, we had a tough time. So we had to attract outside money. Before that, all our growth was fueled internally. But then because we kind of went bankrupt, we had to invite money and the folks who invested. One of the senior executives over there actually came on a road trip with me here in America.
And he had some personal contacts. And one of the big four consulting companies, we met one of the partners over there. And because the work we had done for financial services back in India, they decided to take a shot. So that was my first customer here in America. And that was also through friends and family, broadly speaking.
You know? so in both cases, it was friends and family that, that gave me my first customer in India, and then here in the, in the States.
[00:21:29] Jay: People who do listen to the show, all three of you, will know that Friends and Family Plan is something that I hear just about every episode. How would you If someone is going to start a business and they've thought they've got a good idea, how would they use their friends and family network to either prove out the business or to attract their first customer?
[00:21:57] Manoj: So, a word of caution there. You should not overuse or over depend on the friends and family network either because you can piss people off, you know, you don't want to be in a stage where people say, Oh my god, Manoj is coming for dinner. Let's not go there. Otherwise, he'll be pitching to us. So, so it's more, if you certainly discuss with people, get there from a point of view of getting feedback.
Okay. If it is of value to somebody and if they are truly a friend and want to help out, they will help out. I think in my opinion, I would never make a pitch to, you know, people in, my friend circle or my family. I will tell them what I'm doing and if they feel that I can help, they will offer. And if they offer, I will certainly take it.
Remember, it's a double edged sword. You can't screw up, right? So, because you'll spoil more than just a potential customer.
[00:22:57] Jay: Right.
[00:22:58] Manoj: so, again, I don't know if that answers your question.
[00:23:01] Jay: No, it does. That's a great, I mean, it's a great point. It's kind of the other side of it. most business comes from your network in some capacity, maybe not friends and family, but just from.
[00:23:14] Manoj: yes.
[00:23:14] Jay: of people. and you certainly don't want to be you know, that guy that's like pitching your pyramid scheme to your family that they don't invite you to Thanksgiving or whatever.
So, that's a fair point. if you had to start BISIL over again today, with everything that you've learned, what would be step one? Well,
[00:23:34] Manoj: I, I don't know if, I can answer it that way, but I often think of that. If I were to do it all over again, what would I do differently? I think there are two things that I kind of was not good at that I'm still not good at. I come from a technology background. So I, you know, that part I understand and I can handle that.
I can manage that. I can think about it and so on and so forth. I can strategize what I cannot and what I do not do a good job is sales and I do not do a good job of finances. Right? So, and a lot of my,friends, especially from my MBA school,You people who are great at both and I listened to them.
I have listened to them over years and say, shit, I didn't know this, you know, or I didn't think enough about this. I think you should figure out how you're going to go about selling, marketing, you know, scaling up. You should have some idea of that and you should pay enough attention to that, right?
Shouldn't get complacent. Like if you get a couple of good clients. you shouldn't become fat, dumb, and lazy, right? the second one is finance. I still remember this conversation with a classmate of mine. He says, it is not so much that money is important to you, but access to money, right? In case there is an emergency.
You know, I have for a long period of time. I was always, Hey, I've got money for payroll for the next two, three months. I'm doing well. And I've got visibility in terms of my clients. So, you know, I can manage this. And suddenly, you know, two of my significant clients disappear for whatever reason. And now what?
Right? So that's when you need that watch list. You need to keep your powder dry. For that rainy day. So those are two things that I didn't know how to manage. Well, I think I have maybe better become better on the money side of it. And I'm starting to learn a little bit on the sales and marketing, even after a lifetime of being an entrepreneur, that's something that maybe it's intrinsic and, you know, it's not part of me and I have to force myself, but those are the two things I would deliberately and consciously focus on if I were to start.
All over again.
[00:25:50] Jay: you're doing sales and marketing stuff right now. This is free marketing. So, look at you. You're figuring it out. You know,
[00:25:56] Manoj: Hey, I'm doing it because I always enjoy talking to you. This is
[00:25:58] Jay: Yeah, that's true. That is true, but you can teach an old dog new tricks. So yeah here you are So let's switch gears a little bit How you know we talked about age yesterday, and we talked about kind of staying tuned up and you know how many healthy years we have left Give me three things that you do actively Or trying to do actively to keep yourself As tuned up and as high level as you can for as long as possible.
[00:26:32] Manoj: Sorry, you broke up a little bit. Can you repeat that?
[00:26:35] Jay: Give me three things, health wise, that you're doing to keep your longevity as high as it can be.
[00:26:41] Manoj: Ohwell, I exercise regularly, like seven days a week. you know, you, we just talked. I get up early in the morning. But again, I'll link it back to flying. My other passion. I keep telling my wife, she, she kept on asking me, you know, where's the money coming from. I, my, my answer to that was, this is the best health insurance policy that I've got, right? Why? Because I don't want to lose my flying status, right? So I want to make sure that my, you know, I have a family history of diabetes and, you know, cardiac, both My dad and both my grandfathers and you know, all of them have had it. So I need to be watchful about it So I get up every morning keep my weight under check my sugar in control, you know I make sure that I have enough aerobic activity and things like that.
So So I exercise I work out At least an hour a day I swim I do yoga I used to run but I've got recurring foot injuries, so I've given up on that. Swimming is my original sport. I used to play water polo in school.
[00:27:49] Jay: I didn't, yeah, I forgot you played water polo. That's such a cool.
You're a nice tall guy I'm sure that worked out well for you.
[00:27:56] Manoj: You know, in 1984 Olympics, before 94, in 1984 Olympics, there was this, which was, they were in Los Angeles, if you remember, and I was in school that time. Time had a nice article, big bold headline. The water polo guys are the best looking guys in town and we cut that out and we put it up on the bulletin board and the bulletin board used to be those physical bulletin boards,
not the
[00:28:17] Jay: Yeah
[00:28:17] Manoj: Hey, girls, look at this one.
[00:28:20] Jay: yeah, look at me check me out All right. Well, you've done many things in your life Minouche if you could do anything non business related Anything on earth and you knew you couldn't fail. What would you do?
[00:28:45] Manoj: There's so many things that I want to do even now and there's so many things that are that in my mind are cool. Flying certainly, would be a part of the plan. music is something I feel that I have never, learned. I've never been trained. I'm a lifelong aspirational guitarist. If you can see over my
shoulder,
[00:29:06] Jay: that, I didn't see, I, it's funny that, you know, it's like that materialized when you said music, I hadn't noticed that the entire time until you said music. Okay.
[00:29:14] Manoj: So I'm a lifelong aspirational guitarist. You know, in every decade of my life, I've played guitar for about six, seven months, I can scratch out maybe four songs. Very badly. Nobody else knows what I'm playing, but I know what I'm playing. So I would definitely love to work on that. And, you know, and something that I've now started doing, this is not directly an answer to your question, but,is giving back.
So, and I'm trying to combine my flying and giving back. So I do angel flights. I've started doing angel flights. Let me not. Over characterize what I'm doing. I've done only one so far, but I plan to do more in the future. So, and you'll probably come on one of
[00:29:52] Jay: Yes, I was gonna say, I couldn't go on the last one, but I would love to come on, maybe we'll play guitar and fly at the same time.
If it's a Cirrus with the autopilot, you know, we could probably pull that off.
alright, well let's end it there. This was fantastic. I feel very fortunate to have any of your time.
One of my favorite people on earth, Minotia, people are trying to get in
touch with you after today's episode Or if they want to find BISIL How do they find you? How do they find BISIL?
[00:30:20] Manoj: Well, BISIL is just B I S I L dot com And, my name is Manoj Sinha So it's, msinha at bBISILdot com So, very easy, or You can just hit the contact us From the website and the message Will eventually come to me If it's directed to me
[00:30:36] Jay: Are you a LinkedIn guy?
[00:30:38] Manoj: I'm a LinkedIn guy, yes, of course See how Non digitally native
[00:30:42] Jay: technical, you know.
you're showing your age here. You got to be like on top of the LinkedIn is like one of those weird Tools that has like it's success. it's like comes and goes with how Popular it is, but it's back to being super popular right now well, I hope people reach out to you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week my friend let's fly again soon and thank you for being on brother
[00:31:06] Manoj: Great. Brilliant talking to you. And, as always, hope to fly again with you.
[00:31:10] Jay: Yes, and brush off that guitar and let's learn
something new by the time we fly again, all right, thanks
man, see you buddy
[00:31:16] Manoj: Right. on. Bye then.