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#86 Strategic Wellness w/ Rochan Kakar
2 Playsin 4 days
Rochan was born and raised in a small sub-urban city - Chandigarh in North India. At age 23 he moved to New York to pursue a Masters in Finance at University at Buffalo.
Today, Rochan Kakar is the Chief Strategy Officer at Granimals (www.granimals.com) a digital healthcare startup focused on helping people with mindset-led well-being, injury rehabilitation and prevention care.
Granimals was bootstrapped with $600 and today it is at $3M ARR with ambitions to raise capital in FY 2025.
In addition to Granimals Rochan is an active investor in 15+ startups in the retail tech and consumer tech space.
Prior to Granimals Rochan was a Strategy Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in New York City and Toronto, MS Finance Graduate Student at University at Buffalo, Mentor to D1 students in UB Athletics and a professional soccer player in India.
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Transcript
00:00:32
Ingrid
Hi everyone, this is episode 86, Strategic Wellness and today our guest is Ruchan Kakkar. Ruchan was born and raised in a small suburban city and I might butcher the name here, Chandigarh.
00:00:44
Ingrid
in North India. At age 23, he moved to New York to pursue a Master's in and Finance at the University of Buffalo. Today, Rachan Kakkar is the Chief Strategy office Officer at Granny Malls. A digital healthcare care startup focuses on helping people with mindset leading Well-being, injury rehabilitation and prevention care. Granimos was bootstrapped with 600 and today it is a 3 million ARR with ambitions to raise capital in the fall of 2025. In addition to Granimos, Rachon is actually an active active investor in 15 plus startups in the retail tech and consumer tech space.
00:01:26
Ingrid
Prior to Granimos, Ruchan was a strategy consultant at Deloitte Consulting in New York City and Toronto, and MS Finance graduate student University of Buffalo and mentor to D1 athletes in UB athletics as a professional soccer player in India. That's a quite impressive ah background. Welcome, Ruchan.
00:01:43
Rochan Kakar
Thank you, Ingrid. Happy to be here.
00:01:47
findaway
Thank you so much for your time, Rachan. We're very happy to have you. To start off, can you tell us more about your business?
00:01:56
Rochan Kakar
Of course, so I'm currently focused in in two companies right now. And the split is like 90% and 10% in terms of effort. ah So I spend 90% of my time on granimals, which is greater animals. um And what granimals is um On the surface, we provide digital injury rehabilitation, injury prevention, or ah physical well-being services. ah But it's more than that. So, granules came from a personal pain that I had while growing up, and so did my co-founders.
00:02:33
Rochan Kakar
We were all competitive athletes, and we went through three major knee surgeries. Between the three of us, we went through eight surgeries between the age of 16 to 23. And what we ah noticed was that you know ah the the space of injury rehabilitation of personal care is like very, very, I would say, ambiguous, or it's something that people don't really think of until or unless they get injured.
00:02:57
Rochan Kakar
So we thought, hey, why you know when somebody gets injured, there's actually three phases to a particular injury, right? There's the injury ah rehabilitation part, there's the strength and conditioning part, and then there's return to sport or return to activity phase. So we said, OK, when we got injured, we were left off after the rehab phase, and we were clue clueless how to get back to you know soccer or football um again.
00:03:26
Rochan Kakar
And that's basically what we decided to do with Granimals. We bootstrapped the company with $600 back in 2021, September, ah just finished our three-year anniversary. ah We started providing all three phases of an injury in-house, which created a huge you know traction in the market.
00:03:45
Rochan Kakar
um And then now we've become a really popular platform with more than 1.1 million followers across social media, ah where a people consume our educational content first, right? we We want to create awareness on how people can take care of themselves. And then the second aspect is they come to us to go through the entire journey of injury rehabilitation to return to activity or whatever their dream you know outcome is in their mind. So that's what Granimals does. Cockarex is very simple. It's a family office style and asset management like ah slash VC firm that I run with my brother. So my brother puts the 90% of effort there and I only do 10%.
00:04:27
Rochan Kakar
um And we're there we're doing two things. One is we are extremely bullish in the commercial real estate market and ah the DFW area in the US. And the second is we're investing in ah emerging startups, mostly seed round or pre-seed round um in India, UAE and North America as well.
00:04:48
Ingrid
That's awesome. And what you said about injury and rehabilitation, just like a quick point on that. I'm not a professional athlete by any means, but I am like out an amateur athlete. And I've, not only me, but I've seen friends experience that exactly.
00:05:01
Ingrid
Like, okay, now you got your in like your surgery or whatever it is, now you get out on the road. And if you don't have the means to access physiotherapy twice a week, then you're left to kind of your own devices.
00:05:12
Ingrid
And like that can cause so much damage in the long run for athletes and even normal people that have to have surgeries that choose to be active.
00:05:19
Rochan Kakar
hundred percent Yeah. So I think as of today, we have like 90, 90, 95% of our clients in grid are working professionals who.
00:05:20
Ingrid
ah
00:05:29
Rochan Kakar
uh like to play sports in the evening or on the weekends versus athletes because athletes still have some facilities to them but people like us who sit on a chair all day long we anyway you know take so much beating our neck back everything's tight and then if you go play a sport you're more prone to an injury and physiotherapy in like this part of the world is not cheap it costs about like 200 dollars a session um You know for a knee surgery you cannot pay for that for six months straight.
00:05:57
Rochan Kakar
It goes to north of like ten fifteen thousand dollars It's Chandigarh but say Punjab it's easier.
00:06:01
Ingrid
Yeah, I completely agree. That's awesome. It's, it's really needed service. So you grew up, can you, can you pronounce the name of the city that you grew up in? So I don't bow cherry get again.
00:06:12
Ingrid
Okay. Chandigarh. I think I got it.
00:06:14
Rochan Kakar
Oh, yeah, you nailed it Right
00:06:14
Ingrid
there's just i just yeah There we go. Look at me. Chandigarh. And then you made the leap to New York for your masters, right? What made you choose to do that move?
00:06:22
Rochan Kakar
right
00:06:24
Ingrid
And like, how did this shape your career? Like, did you choose and you're like, okay, I want to stay in North America. Was it kind of like, let's see what's out there. We'd love to hear more.
00:06:32
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I think more of the latter. So honestly, I never wanted to leave home. I had started my first company when I was 19. And ah ah you know I'm ah um like a pure grandmama's boy. like She's you know my favorite person in the world. I didn't want to like leave her or my parents. And my brother had already moved to the US. And my dad always said, you both need to be together no matter what.
00:06:58
Rochan Kakar
So, you know, when my brother graduated, he said he's never going to come back. So I was like, OK, then I'll come and stay closer to you. That's what led to, you know, the ah the the move to New York. And it was pretty much like, ah what are my options?
00:07:13
Rochan Kakar
you know, I can do marketing, finance, law, I just picked finance. um And that's how I ended up in New York, to be very honest with you. But then when I came here, my perspective was that it doesn't matter to me where I am, like I'll, I'll be in Africa, I'll be in Europe, it doesn't matter, as long as there are opportunities and I can create opportunities. So, and then when I came here, you know,
00:07:36
Rochan Kakar
Every part of the world has opportunities. So I saw mine and I just you know kept rolling with the punches since then. Yeah.
00:07:46
findaway
That's incredible, Rochan. I'm curious to hear more also about grandimals that you mentioned you started off with $600 and now you're a company with ah growing to over 3 million in ARR, which is incredible. ah What were some of the key moments or decisions that helped you drive this growth?
00:08:09
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's been like ah a lot, right? So for example, when we started Granimals, we were actually, you know, at the tail end of COVID, it was like 2021 September, right? So we were like, okay, everybody's, you know, ah starting like digital fitness startups.
00:08:29
Rochan Kakar
And sorry, a step back before that, you know when I think of startups, it's I always think of, okay, it's either something I love or something I know. And then you know fitness or well-being or you know staying active in life is something I know and I love. ah Same with clothes and other other things that I aspire to do in my life later.
00:08:50
Rochan Kakar
So, we actually started Granimals with fitness. One of my co-founders, he was the head of F45 North India at the time. And he was like, you know, all into functional coaching. And we said, okay, let's start a fitness company.
00:09:06
Rochan Kakar
um And then you know the fitness company would also be very, very heavily focused on like holistic training ah because that's the part people you know miss most of the time when it comes to wellness. ah So we started with fitness and we had no clue what was happening. Coincidentally, my co-founder was going through his third surgery at the time and he started blogging about it. And this huge influx of queries started coming in and you know We were like, wait a minute, you know we we've all been through this for so many years. Why don't we just sell this service? Because it's a genuine problem. ah That was one of the biggest decisions that made a shift from you know fitness to injury rehabilitation.
00:09:46
Rochan Kakar
ah Since then, I think ah every time we feel stuck, we feel a plateau, we feel growth or a decline. We always reassess where we are and where we are going. And I think it has been like over a dozen or two dozen different decisions that have constantly you know helped us stay profitable, be intentional with the business and also you know scale from 600 bucks to where we are today.
00:10:14
Ingrid
I love one tip of what you said. like ah I love everything that you said, but one tiny thing that I think is so important, which is when I look at startups, I look at things that either I know or that I love.
00:10:26
Ingrid
And like I think that passion is also what drives us forward, is when things are not going well as well, or that you know well your market and you can predict how it's gonna react. And I think it's understated how much you actually have to, because you're leaving breathier startup, right?
00:10:41
Ingrid
So like how much you have to be into what you're doing.
00:10:42
Rochan Kakar
Yeah.
00:10:44
Ingrid
Uh, so thank you for explaining a little bit more about, like to us about what made you create that change.
00:10:45
Rochan Kakar
100%.
00:10:51
Ingrid
And we would love to hear about like grandiose focuses that it combines mindset led wellbeing with injury rehab. So how do you see the connection between mental and physical health plays into today's healthcare environment?
00:11:04
Ingrid
I would love to hear your opinions on it.
00:11:06
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, so that's a great question because ah I feel or me and my co-founders feel that everything in this life is like a mental game first and a physical or ah intellectual game later, right? Like, you know, if whether somebody wants to lose weight, ah gain muscle, recover from an injury, maybe somebody met with an accident and something really bad happened, you know, somebody lost their legs.
00:11:31
Rochan Kakar
The decision, whether they want to now compete in Paralympics or they want to climb a mountain while being in a wheelchair, starts with the mindset. So we feel that you know any big change in life, be it opening a startup, quitting a job, any growth ah decision has to be mindset-led, which is one of the biggest you know drivers behind our business. So what we do right now is we try to really push our clients to say that, hey, this is for you.
00:11:59
Rochan Kakar
right like you want your refund and you want to stop doing this, sure, here's your money. it doesn't It's not our life that's getting affected. It's yours. And it's our job to make you aware that if you don't take care of you know this, let's say, particular injury, post-opry, or whatever it is, you can face further issues in this area. So the goal is to you know arm the person with the knowledge that they require. And then after that, it's all mindset. It goes back to the old quote where you say you can take the horse to the water, but you cannot make them drink.
00:12:30
Rochan Kakar
um So that's you know something we really, really, I would say, embody, foster, and even promote within the team as well. ah Like, mindset is everything. Without mindset, nothing can be achieved.
00:12:43
Ingrid
I know i'm I'm adding a lot in here because it's just one of my favorite topics because I agree with you in like every single word i use that you said, but also just coming from personal experience. Like as you said, it's a mindset thing, but also because a lot of healthcare people just don't under understand athletes in general. So like if you, I had to get a surgery, a minor surgery on my foot and what I was told is like, Oh, you can't run for two months. And that wasn't necessarily true. I could run a little bit. I could like do adjustments. I could do other exercises.
00:13:11
Ingrid
but there is a fall that people end up in. And if they don't look for the right resources, like what you're building that they're like, okay, I can't do anything for three months because that's the, like, because our healthcare system is overburdened, they just don't have the ability to support you in a proper rehab, right?
00:13:27
Ingrid
They're, they're worried about preventing, like fixing your issue, not the longterm.
00:13:27
Rochan Kakar
Yeah.
00:13:31
Ingrid
And that needs to be the people's responsibility to take their rehab to the next level. And I'm talking very small injuries. I'm not even talking like I have friends that had like ACL injuries or even like you know, more serious injuries, but it's really, it's really important.
00:13:44
Ingrid
Yeah, I love that.
00:13:45
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Like that's literally the first thing we do. And I'm sure we lose a lot of clients because of that. But we say like three to six months, don't even talk to us because it's not a magic potion, right? Like something as simple as let's say I have, you know, tighter hamstrings. Uh, my, my therapist on our team tells me Roach in 12 weeks, don't even think of going on playing a sport because There are so many issues that need to be fixed, ah you know, that it's not going to happen in two weeks because there's so much untangling that's required. So yeah, that's your spot on there. There's a lot of misinformation and bad advice being given.
00:14:26
findaway
Rochan, I love the topic on mindset, and I believe mindset is everything, whether it's for you know personal life, for ah recovering an injury, or you know professional, or pushing through building a startup, building a 3 million ARR company like yours. And we know that every startup has its challenges. So I'm curious to understand how you process this and how you focused your mindset in what were some of the toughest hurdles that you faced in the early days of granules and how did you use your mindset and you pushed through them? So do you recall any that you could share with us?
00:15:04
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I think two ah two challenges that we constantly have faced and we continue to face, and I think every business in the world faces them, is you know how to manage talent and their expectations. And second is you know how to continually promote the business to to get the best ah ROI.
00:15:23
Rochan Kakar
ah And I think you know there's so much advice out there. Somebody says, do this. Somebody says, do that. ah What we learned is that you know you have to really apply yourself in one particular field, master it until you can go to the next one. Because it was it is always easier to say that, oh, let me outsource this aspect of the business or that aspect of the business.
00:15:46
Rochan Kakar
But for us, what has happened is every time we've tried to put it on others, the output has been very mediocre because we don't have a very strong opinion of what that output is supposed to be. But whereas whenever we've said, OK, let me dig into this particular area and see what do I want out of this, we've been mad we've been able to salvage a lot more returns.
00:16:08
Rochan Kakar
But I think this is something that ah that ebbs and flows. right like ah Earlier this year, we were going viral one after the other on social media. We were getting a lot of inbound traffic. ah After that, you know whatever algorithm changed, whatever happened, our organic social reach declined. We had to figure out performance marketing for the first time.
00:16:29
Rochan Kakar
So I think like growth um and market, I don't know what's the right word, like getting in front of more people ah plus managing the expectations of your team and doing right by them are two challenges we feel are just never going to stop, be it you know as big as Amazon or as small as us.
00:16:50
Ingrid
I love that. um I remember so when I started, my company i started at 21 and I didn't, it's that age that you think you know a lot, but you don't know much. right and um But I remember how much I studied about talent and talent acquisition, talent retention, because I saw on the jobs that I had previously, how bad talent was managed.
00:17:11
Ingrid
especially for a startup, you're competing with so many great companies that have great benefits. So like what makes them stay with you? What really like, what is the thing that makes them wake up in the morning and say like, Oh, I want to work in this project full time because it's not easy for you or for the people working with you.
00:17:24
Ingrid
Right. So I love that. that That's a, that's a thing that I don't think people have pointed out before in the podcast, but it's super important and being able to manage that.
00:17:26
Rochan Kakar
Yeah.
00:17:33
Ingrid
Um, so talking about your investor side a little bit, because we are curious, I'm an investor as well. And I would love to hear like, you know, invested in over 15 startups in retail and consumer tech space. What are some of the things that you look for companies and founders before to you invest? Like what are some of the markers that you're looking for?
00:17:51
Rochan Kakar
I think ah you know investing in startups, I would say pretty similar approach taken by people globally. right They want to look at the team. They want to look at ah whether they've had any kind of past success or failure in this particular area and whether you know the idea is scalable or not. I think that's that's where it actually starts. But for me, ah Why I started investing, or you know why my brother and I came to North America is we didn't grow up rich. like My parents you know gave me $1,000 and a pat on the back when they sent me to the US. And they said that, don't even think we'll give you a penny besides this.
00:18:30
Rochan Kakar
ah or help you with your loans. ah So being responsible with money is I think the biggest, like it's it's a non-negotiable trait that I i see ah or I like to see. And even with Granimals, right, ah we've we've made bad investments in the past and our focus is always like, how do we not make this again? And the directive is, hey, if you see me make this same mistake, call me out and do it across the board because I feel when it comes to actually raising money where startups fail is when they get irresponsible with their cash. right There have been the post COVID era where everybody was you know cutting checks like crazy. What happened? like So many startups fail because people were irresponsible with cash. So I think ah whether somebody's business plan succeeded or failed,
00:19:24
Rochan Kakar
If they can justify the story behind the decisions and that makes me feel comfortable that they know what they're doing with their money is I think the biggest indicator for me ah when when I'm looking at deals.
00:19:39
findaway
I love that, Rochan, and the financial aspect, even in our personal lives as well, right? So ah for a company, for a personal life, I think it's it tells a lot about where you're where you want ahead, what you're doing, and it's I agree completely that it's crucial for the success.
00:19:56
findaway
um I'm curious now, switching a little bit to your experience as a strategy consultant at Deloitte. um So you've worked as that in Deloitte a few years ago, and now you're leading a lead strategy at a health tech startup. So how does your approach to strategy differ when you're working in a large corporate environment compared to a startup environment?
00:20:22
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, that's I love that question. I think the biggest the biggest difference is speed speed to execution ah is the biggest difference that people don't get about strategy. So Deloitte is like does the second largest consulting firm in the world, what, like 50, 60 billion they cleared last year in revenue.
00:20:43
Rochan Kakar
um the They are twice people like Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix, Bank of America, like you know the the the giants of the world, right? um when When you make a strategy for an Apple or a Google or an Amazon, ah that strategy is for a very, very small e division of a very, very small ah component of the company, right? So for example,
00:21:11
Rochan Kakar
No company is being hired to say, make the entire corporate or growth or go-to-market strategy for Apple. like Not even the MacKenzie's and BCGs of the world get hired to do that. It's like, oh, maybe you know our cell phones that we are, cell phone sales in a Northwestern area of Canada is being impacted, or we are trying to enter X region of Africa or X country in Africa. like How do we do it? right So A, this the the size of the problem is huge. B, ah it's a very, very big runway, right? They take like months to make the strategy analysis, do everything, and then months or sometimes years to execute the strategy. And in a startup, you get days and sometimes hours. So that honestly has been the biggest difference that I have observed is nothing can take more than
00:22:08
Rochan Kakar
a week or two weeks. Like if we start talking in months as a startup, we've we've killed ou ourselves. ah That's the biggest you know difference I've seen. Whereas on the consulting side for big orgs, sometimes you might not even be able to get on the calendar of the C suite for months because they don't have the time.
00:22:28
Ingrid
It's definitely a different pace and you're right. Like there's so many moving pieces when you're in a startup that you just have to like, you have the overall idea of what you're going to do, but you can't plan that much ahead, especially on the first couple of years of the the company. Uh, so curious because you have the two, like you have the two visions as an investor and now you're raising capital for your company. You're planning to raise capital.
00:22:50
Ingrid
um What have you learned about the fundraising process so far in the sense of like what advice would you give to founders who are getting started to raise their first round and they have no prior knowledge of it? Like what are some of the things you would tell them?
00:23:03
Rochan Kakar
I think there's two or three ways to raise capital. right like theres over ah i mean People always focus on VCs so much, but there's like 15-20 ways to raise money. right you can take You can take debt.
00:23:17
Rochan Kakar
ah You can do a friends and family round. You can do crowd sourcing, equity, crowd sourcing. There's like incubation. There's all sorts of different ways to raise money. So first advice I would give is like don't just focus on you know chasing VCs. There's 100 different ways to do it. right The second thing is, ah you know people People say that oh when you're just starting out, you should give away equity because you don't have any cash and you have equity give to give. I think that's a very, very expensive mistake. ah right like For example, if yeah you want to raise 100K or let's say 50K to get get off the ground,
00:23:57
Rochan Kakar
um You don't need to give away 20% equity to somebody. You can take out credit card debt, bank loans. like You can form a small business and get a small business loan if you personally have good credit. Why the hell would you give 10, 20% of your company for 50 or 100K? So I think like you know explore more options before you give away too much equity for cheap. The second thing is focus a lot on, at least my advice is focus a lot on the story that you're telling about yourself as an operator.
00:24:28
Rochan Kakar
and What I mean by that is, we now have decided to raise capital because the speed with which we want to grow, it's going to be almost impossible to self-fund it through our profits. right Otherwise, we don't need money to survive. We don't need like working capital to like survive. We need additional working capital or capital infusion to grow.
00:24:50
Rochan Kakar
But one thing that most people forget is the only way you can keep getting up rounds is if you take you know the chunks of capital, show that you can use that money really, really well, and then do an up round. Otherwise, if you screw up your investments that you're getting, you'll have to do down rounds going forward. And that shows a very, very bad picture. So I think those are the two pieces of advice that people should definitely keep in mind, have them on a wall, and always you know ah Just that should be the epicenter of everything you do and it's something we are trying to be intentional about as well.
00:25:28
Ingrid
That is so important. And I seen so many companies fall in this pitfall on the 2021 hyper evaluations that we have for SaaS companies. Because sometimes I think that that we suffer from FOMO, like we want to say that we got evaluation of X, evaluation of Y. But you if you have a valuation that is unrealistic now, there's a high likelihood that you have a down round and it's going to be way harder for you to raise later on.
00:25:56
Ingrid
So you have to you have to think long-term.
00:25:56
Rochan Kakar
100% exactly. Yeah.
00:25:59
Ingrid
And I think I can't stress as enough. I love that, yeah.
00:26:02
Rochan Kakar
Yeah. And I think just to, you know, one more thought on that is let's say, you know, just simple math, let's say your revenue is 1 million or you're valued at 1 million and you raise at five. It's okay to raise at three. People like really feel like, Oh shit, you know, everybody has the billion dollar valuation in their mind, but so many people forget how many hundred, $200 million dollars founders are out there.
00:26:27
Rochan Kakar
And that's a lot of money, right? ah So, you know, instead of five, if you think you can do three, test your idea, just scale your, let's say your revenues were 500k, simple math. If you take the additional capital infusion and can just scale it to 550 or 600, you've already proven that you can use the money. Well, now go from three to the 10 or seven, whatever million valuation you want. You don't need to be valued at a hundred million on day one.
00:26:58
findaway
I gotta say I'm loving to participate on the conversation between two investors. And I know as much as you both love this, um I love hearing about it too. I am going to shift a little bit. um You, Rochan, you had a career as a professional soccer player. I want to hear more about that. So how has your experience in sports influenced the way you lead and run a business?
00:27:24
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I think funny thing is, you know, it's it's a question that you ah get asked a lot or see people getting the same question a lot. But for me personally, I think that sports have a very beautiful impact on you. Like I never actively think that, oh, that aspect of the sport is helping me now. I think it just sports just turn you into a different kind of person. And to me, those different kinds are like,
00:27:54
Rochan Kakar
ah sports teaches you how to run harder when you have nothing left in the gas tank you know when you're near you know the brink of collapsing it teaches you how to self motivate yourself to last another 20-30 minutes it teaches you when you have three knee surgeries ah go and enroll in Muathai at the age of 30 and be like, you know I'm going to learn this sport now. So I think like sports really teach you or ingrain the trait of relentlessness or not giving up inside you, which I feel has stayed with me forever. And I think you know I continue feeding it. So that to me is the biggest a ROI on
00:28:41
Rochan Kakar
sports, you know, if somebody's thinking, I'm 40, and why should I start playing sports now? Or, you know, maybe it's working out or biking or running, whatever it might be. I think the ah ROI is that it is one thing that will tell teach you how to get up. When like, you don't want to, you cannot, you shouldn't. ah what It helps you turn every single no into a yes, you know, mentally and physically.
00:29:09
Ingrid
I love that. and i complete As someone that does sport regularly, I completely agree. That's thiss one of the things that I always work when I'm mentoring someone. I was like, okay, what are you doing for your mental health and your physical health?
00:29:21
Ingrid
Because it teaches you consistency. It teaches you to get up, especially for training for a specific goal.
00:29:24
Rochan Kakar
Yeah.
00:29:26
Ingrid
It teaches you long-term reward of like getting from a place. I have no idea what I'm doing to running your first 5K or 10K or whatever it is that you're training for. So on that note, what are some of the like more general personal values or principles that guide your decision making in life and in business? And just like what are some of your like core that you think are your core values?
00:29:49
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I think ah
00:29:53
Rochan Kakar
That's a good one. If I were to pick, I would pick, ah I would pick like just being raw and honest as as one. ah The second is, um like not taking no or impossible as an option or an answer. ah Right. And third is like extreme ownership like you are responsible for every outcome. I think those are the three that really, you know, drive me. And what I mean by each of them is, you know, I feel like
00:30:27
Rochan Kakar
I feel like it's such a waste of, uh, energy to pretend, uh, and like I have extreme ADHD, so I anyway have very less impulse control. I say stuff that I shouldn't at times, but I feel like, you know, if I can just be honest with you that, Hey, listen, this is what I know. This is what I don't know, or this is my intention with you. And this is not my intention with you or like, don't waste my time or I'm not going to come to your birthday because I want to sleep at 10 PM and not like 2 AM. m Like you, you eliminate so much nonsense and bullshit, right? Uh, and that's just how I hire people. That's how I fire people. Uh, right. And that's basically how I try to, you know, maintain every relationship that I have. Uh, the second, uh, I even forgot that's, that's the ADHD kicking in. The second thing I said, I believe was around, I forgot you'll have to rep remind me.
00:31:19
findaway
You mentioned using no as an opportunity and the accountability piece.
00:31:22
Rochan Kakar
No, yeah, exactly.
00:31:23
findaway
Yes.
00:31:24
Rochan Kakar
So I think, thank you, Beatrice. It's like, you know, um everything can be done, like everything can be figured out, everything can be done.
00:31:35
Rochan Kakar
And that's how I'm here, right? The way I see it is, you know, I came to the US, I did not know how to what networking is as a concept in Chandigarh didn't exist.
00:31:46
Rochan Kakar
Chandigarh is a place of people who own farmlands and have like ancestral money and you know small businesses. So had to figure that out, had to figure out how to get an internship, a job, a raise, starting up companies. So I think every single thing, and I have zero experience in health care, even with Deloitte, my entire consulting experience was in financial services. I have no idea about the health care industry. I can go to Google, I can figure it out. So I think you know the figuring it out mindset, and you'll have to remind me the third one as well,
00:32:20
findaway
I remember you mentioning those two.
00:32:22
Rochan Kakar
um Yeah, I think that's, yeah, the it's maybe, maybe some other day.
00:32:23
Ingrid
Yeah.
00:32:24
findaway
but there They're amazing.
00:32:30
Rochan Kakar
but
00:32:32
findaway
I just want to highlight that I always say that if you want to if you want to get to know what resilience is in the form of a human, get to meet an immigrant.
00:32:44
findaway
Um, and I just like to add, um, for, you know, everything you were mentioning about sports and all of that. So adding on top of that, being a business owner and an athletic, you know, like an athlete.
00:32:56
findaway
So you get resilience times three. So I just want to highlight that and every opportunity that I have, um, just so a lot of admiration.
00:33:04
Ingrid
I was just, I just want to add, I was like, Bea is saying this because I don't know how many times she called me and we actually had a business called while I was on the run.
00:33:05
findaway
yeah
00:33:12
Ingrid
And I'm like, I'm doing a 10K, but it's fine. It's easy. Let's go. like let's Let's get this dude.
00:33:15
Rochan Kakar
yeah Yeah.
00:33:17
Ingrid
Yeah.
00:33:18
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I think that's the same.
00:33:18
findaway
it's It's really nice.
00:33:21
Rochan Kakar
Like when I came to the US and before my brother, one of our cousins came, so he was actually the kind of the first one who came here and my brother applied for like 50 jobs and he was like, I'm really like depressed.
00:33:32
Rochan Kakar
He said, how many jobs did you apply to? He said 50. He said, the day you apply to 1000, like then you can come and cry to me till then like don't even waste my time and you know that was his way to say just put in the reps like you'll figure out how to do more with less but right now just keep working uh and you know i think that's what being an immigrant teaches you is because we come here with kind of nothing right and we have to start from scratch so definitely a huge contributor to reli resilience person personality development like everything
00:34:08
findaway
I just remember the third one because you mentioned it, it was the will to do things. So if you have the will, you're gonna achieve that. If I'm not wrong, I think that was the third one that you mentioned and make sense of me, ring a bell.
00:34:20
Rochan Kakar
Got it. yeah will Yeah, I think Will again. right i even So when I was at Deloitte in 2019, I got like really depressed because I was like, I love what I'm doing, but this is not something I want to do forever. right So how do I start you know carving my path to find something that I really want to do in life, which is like entrepreneurship?
00:34:42
Rochan Kakar
And I started, you know, and like I was traveling a lot, I was flying like every single week. And when you're flying to a client site almost every day, there's a dinner, there's a team dinner or a client dinner. And I was like, man, if I'm like working till six or seven, then I'm having wine, drinks and food.
00:35:00
Rochan Kakar
How am I going to build a startup? So I started saying no to the drinks and dinner, started ordering like you know room service, and started waking up at 4.30, 4.45 AM. So 5 to 9, I could work on startup ideas. And you know people would be like, oh, this is crazy. This is this. This is that. And I'm like, there's no other way, right? ah I'm one day I'm going to be 30 and I'm like, big just because I was afraid to sleep less for a few years, uh, I'm not gonna do what I've always wanted to do.
00:35:33
Rochan Kakar
Um, and I think that's where the willpower comes in, right? If you want to do something, you'll have to sacrifice something and sacrifices require willpower, be it coming back from an injury, be it start a company or grow a company.
00:35:49
findaway
where there iss a wo there's a way
00:35:49
Ingrid
Um, yeah, there's a phrase that came from a very smart woman, which is my mom.
00:35:51
Rochan Kakar
Yeah. 100%.
00:35:55
Ingrid
The show is similar to what your cousin told your brother, which my, what I would tell my mom was like, Oh, I don't have time to do this. She's like, it's not that you don't have time. It's not a priority and it's okay if it isn't, but time you have, it's just, it's not a priority, especially on your young years.
00:36:08
Ingrid
If you don't have children, like. It's just not your priority right now. And that's okay. But don't put that on. Like you don't have time on your day. And that's something that I always took from my life.
00:36:16
findaway
where there's a wall, there's a way.
00:36:17
Ingrid
It's like, okay, it's this, and it's okay. It's like, this is not a priority for me right now. It's good. But if it is, how can I, there's other things that are not going to become a priority. So I'm able to achieve what I want to achieve. I love that.
00:36:26
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, all these things are like beautifully entangled like past few days we had month closing right super busy time but then I also am giving two guest lectures this week in University at Buffalo and I had to prepare like guest material and I'm not going to half-asset and you know I've been doing like two three hour nights you know sleeps and that's okay I haven't done these in like six months but if a week requires it
00:36:27
findaway
It's.
00:36:51
Rochan Kakar
you know, you do it. And one one story I shared is it which is kind of depressing, but also, you know, ah
00:37:01
Rochan Kakar
puts together resilience, will everything together is 2021 was a very, very interesting year for me, because 2021, my mother-in-law got sick.
00:37:12
Rochan Kakar
ah When she got sick, unfortunately, my father-in-law passed away due to a heart attack. 12 days later, my mother-in-law passed away because she had grade four cancer, which was just like undetected. And I got stuck in India during the COVID ban, ah so I had to be pens down in my job in New York, and I had to like stop working there. And then a month later, my best friend shot himself a week before the birth of his son.
00:37:41
Rochan Kakar
And you know people think that when when shit happens, right it's like this chaotic environment. Whereas I very, very vividly remember that I was just sitting on a couch and I'm like, what the hell should I do? right like And in my mind, I'm thinking of options because, ah you know, it's my brother always says, it doesn't matter how much shit you're in, what matters is what you're trying to get, but what you're doing to get out of it. Right. So, and he was like, didn't you always want to start a business like
00:38:13
Rochan Kakar
This is the best time to start a business. And I think like having that mindset is very important, where you know he's not saying, oh, it's OK, order a pizza, or be depressed, or sad, whatever. He's like, sure, all of this happened. Take the time you need. But if you're asking me for a path forward, life has handed you what you've always wanted to do on your plate.
00:38:36
Rochan Kakar
So go do it. And I think it's, you know, ah having that balance ah in life that, okay, each, you know, problem can also create an opportunity for you or you just have to go find them versus staying, staying on the ground is, is the mindset we want to really promote. I want to promote to people through the content, right? Through the work we're doing at Granamals.
00:39:02
findaway
and It's really great that you touched upon that because um the question that was left, as you know, we always do this dynamic of the previous ah guest leaving the question to the next one.
00:39:13
Rochan Kakar
yeah
00:39:14
findaway
and The question that was left for you is, what makes you happy?
00:39:19
Rochan Kakar
Oh, what makes me happy? I think there's a couple of things make me happy. ah And coming back to the things I love, right? Like the people I love, like my wife, my parents, my brother, ah some of my close close friends, including my co-founders, because they're my childhood friends.
00:39:38
Rochan Kakar
ah food, ah love food. So, you know, I'm a big foodie every weekend or even during the week, you'll find me trying new places and clothes. ah You know, my future aspiration is to one day launch my own menswear brand. So I think I try to create happiness in my life through the things that are deeply ingrained in my DNA.
00:40:00
Rochan Kakar
Like if I wear something, I truly enjoy it and that makes me happy. If I'm eating something, that makes me happy. ah Same, you know, just watching Netflix with my wife makes me happy. So I think I find happiness in simple things ah because that's what you're doing on the day to day is just simple things, right? A vacation lasts a week. Dinner with your wife lasts pretty much every day of the year.
00:40:26
Ingrid
I love that. And on that same note, if you can get me like in ah in a phrase, what is success to you to return? Like, what do you consider success?
00:40:36
Rochan Kakar
I think success to me now has become, uh, if I am satisfied and proud of myself, uh, and what, what that means is, um, if I feel that I am living up to my potential is what success is to me, right? Everybody's like, everybody's life story does not lead to, you know, the successes of Michael Jordan and Cristiano Ronaldo or Ellen Musk. Uh, but.
00:41:05
Rochan Kakar
striving for that ah while feeling like I'm maximizing my potential ah is success for me. And I feel like you know if if things were to end, like we're in a vehicle going towards death all the time, if I felt like I did not fulfill or work towards my potential, that would I would feel I'm unsuccessful. So I think you know, potential meaning if I can run and I did not, that really, really like eats me. So every single day I see success as if I, if my head hits the pillow, I'm like, did you make the most of it? If yes, that's a successful day, year, month, whatever it is.
00:41:48
findaway
being the best version of yourself on a daily basis.
00:41:50
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I think that's, that's been like the, it used to be money.
00:41:52
findaway
I love that.
00:41:54
Rochan Kakar
I won't lie. I had like pictures of Range Rovers and yachts and, you know, ah fancy cars still want them, but that's no longer like fascinating to me at all.
00:42:07
findaway
Thank you for sharing that, Rochan. If you could choose one superpower, what would it be?
00:42:14
Rochan Kakar
Oh, there's so many. I think one superpower. I don't know. Have you seen the movie Jumper? It came out back in like 2008, 2009.
00:42:24
findaway
No.
00:42:24
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I wish they turned it into a franchise. It was a cool concept. But basically, it's like there are these people who, if they like imagine a place, they can ah teleport to that place in like seconds.
00:42:37
findaway
Telepreclusion.
00:42:38
Rochan Kakar
So ah like not even seconds. you know like That's the superpower, basically. So I i think that's most teleport i yeah that's that's one I wish you know I had.
00:42:51
Rochan Kakar
Because I'm usually late to everything, so I could you know
00:42:53
findaway
Hahaha.
00:42:56
Rochan Kakar
I could, I could, I could be late and still be on time. Cause we like, Oh, you know, it's, it's 12 PM. He's not here. And then poof, I'm i'm right there.
00:43:04
Ingrid
Yeah. As Brazilians, we really understand the concept concept of being late all the time, even if you're trying to be on time. So yeah. Okay. So we're going to go through some quick rapid fire questions to get to know you better.
00:43:15
Ingrid
So we're going to give you two options and you give us the one that you like most.
00:43:15
Rochan Kakar
sure
00:43:18
Ingrid
Uh, so I'm going to get started Android or iOS.
00:43:18
Rochan Kakar
Awesome. I was.
00:43:24
findaway
Introvert or extrovert?
00:43:26
Rochan Kakar
introvert
00:43:28
Ingrid
Dancing or singing?
00:43:29
Rochan Kakar
introvert her knee there but i was like singing
00:43:32
Ingrid
I was going to say as an introvert, I would answer it neither.
00:43:39
findaway
Campy or a luxury hotel?
00:43:41
Rochan Kakar
like shihata
00:43:44
Ingrid
Okay, so as we get close to the end here, I would love to hear if you have any book recommendations for our guests, for our ah for listeners.
00:43:51
Rochan Kakar
Oh, shoot. Yeah, that's one thing I didn't prepare. But one book that right off the bat I'd recommend is The Alchemist. um You know, i I know it's mainstream.
00:44:01
findaway
Paulo Coelho.
00:44:01
Rochan Kakar
but
00:44:02
findaway
Yeah.
00:44:02
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, I think like every single line in that book is a masterpiece. It's a lesson by itself. It's insane. I mean, ah every time I read it, I catch something different. So I think the Alchemist, and there's a broader meaning to it as well, right? That your true passion and happiness is where it was to begin with, whereas people keep searching it externally. um The second book,
00:44:27
Rochan Kakar
I'd say the second book um on the fly, I'd recommend David Goggins, Can't Hurt Me. It's a bit groggy for a lot of people, you know lots of, I would say, cuss words and everything in it, and very, I would say,
00:44:41
Rochan Kakar
It's the right word. I can't think of a word. But it's like very intense. ah But I think crude.
00:44:45
Ingrid
Crude.
00:44:47
Rochan Kakar
Yeah, crude is the right word. But I think you know I like to separate the negative from the positive. um I think that person has unintentionally gained a PhD in psychology by just working on himself physically, mentally, in his diary ah without getting a college degree.
00:45:06
Rochan Kakar
Because so many times I read like thesis, papers, talks by like these you know doctors, it's the exact same thing that this guy is saying. And he just has he says, I'm a practitioner, not a theorist. And I really, really respect that. Because you know ah if if he hangs his you know laundry to dry, he has nothing to be ashamed or afraid of. And that's I think that's a that's that's something I want to strive for in life. like
00:45:38
Rochan Kakar
walk with like no shame or skeletons is my in my closet is you know something that I really, really admire about the book and how he lives his life.
00:45:49
findaway
So being truly authentic. I love that.
00:45:53
Rochan Kakar
Truly authentic, yeah. and yeah
00:45:57
findaway
Amazing. um What would you like to leave for our next guest? What question would you like to leave for them, Ruochen?
00:46:03
Rochan Kakar
And it's ah it's particularly immigrants, right?
00:46:08
findaway
Yes, immigrants, entrepreneurs.
00:46:08
Rochan Kakar
Yes, the question I'd ask is the question I ask myself is how high is your ceiling and is it still as high as it was when you first moved?
00:46:20
Rochan Kakar
um That's the question I want them to you know think of and never stop thinking of because Somewhere in my journey, my ceiling, I became very low. And you know I had to remind myself, not being hard on myself, but I was like, this is not why you came here. ah So you know get back on track. So it's something I consistently ask myself.
00:46:46
findaway
I love that. This has been such a delight talking to you, Rochan. It's been very nice. Thank you for telling your story. Thank you for your time. Is there anything you'd like to add before we close?
00:46:58
Rochan Kakar
No, I think thank you so much for having me. Love what you're doing. ah you know That's why I reached out to Ingrid. I think immigrants, when they come, they need a lot of support. And if they can find it through you know your content, through the work you both are doing, as well as these conversations, I'm sure we'll you know impact so many lives um and in in a positive way. We never know what positive impact we can leave on you know other people.
00:47:26
findaway
Thank you. We really appreciate that. This was our episode number 86, Strategic Wellness with Rochan Kakkar. We'd like to thank all of our listeners and would like to remind you that we will be posting one episode biweekly, always with a different guest. So make sure to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform.