J.R.: [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome back to another fun episode of 1000 Gurus with me, your host, J.R. Yono Cruz.

J.R.: Today's guest is Rohit Murthy, a strategic leader who knows how to get things done. Rohit has a unique career path that's both a story of climbing the corporate ladder and building things from the ground up.

J.R.: He started on the manufacturing floor, literally building the product before moving into a role where he was a founding member of an innovation hub at a major biotech company. He's not just the big picture guy, but someone who understands every step of the process. On top of that, he's a true entrepreneur.

J.R.: Having founded and co-founded several startups. Whether he's optimizing a multimillion dollar manufacturing process or building a new company from scratch, he brings a rare mix of hands-on expertise and strategic vision. He's a person who understands how to turn an idea into reality, and that's something we all can learn from.

J.R.: I will say this outta the gate for me. This was a perfect 10 out of 10 recording for multiple reasons. First off, catching up with someone I consider to be a dear friend is always worth it in itself. But more than that, Rohit has the chops for being a rare [00:01:00] combination of profound insights from years of reflection in addition to his masterful articulation and overall communication. Moreover, our chemistry and vibes are just as good as when we were roommates and housemates in college.

J.R.: And lastly, being virtual allowed us to go as long as we wanted, and even after a record breaking two and a half hours, it definitely did not feel long enough as we had more topics to cover. But also time flew by, like we barely spent 30 minutes talking.

J.R.: So needless to say, easily one of my favorite episodes to date.

J.R.: We cover a wide range of topics, starting off with reminiscing about some of our favorite stories from college, him jumping back and forth between living on the East Coast and west coast, his overall career journey and major inflection points, lessons learned from both the corporate side and developing your career, as well as the journey of building three different companies. And then we ended off with reflections on Life pivots, social media comparison, culture, and fomo. This recording was always the peak of how I envision my ideal podcast episode to be, which includes the quality of the guest, their insights, our chemistry, and this very long format conversation [00:02:00] where we can go both wide and deep into various topics. I absolutely love this episode, and hopefully you'll enjoy listening to it as well. So without further ado, hope you enjoy this episode with Rohit Murthy.

J.R.: All right. Welcome back to 1000 Gurus. Rohit, welcome to the show in applause. 

Rohit: Awesome. Thanks for having me. 

J.R.: Yeah, thank you for being here, man. We were catching up a bit off camera, but I feel like it's been quite a long time since we caught up, right? I want to say definitely before you moved, but even then, like I feel like it's been a while, right?

J.R.: Since college. Yeah. 

Rohit: Many years. Right? Since we like formally hung out and like really had the in-person connection, I think a lot of that was, just after college we kind of went our own ways with different careers and then over time moved to different places. 

J.R.: Yeah. But I'm happy for you, man.

J.R.: Like you, it seems like you're doing well. East Coast recently got married. We'll probably get into that. So congrats. It was a good excuse for me to, oh my God, I need to tell you my adventure of getting [00:03:00] the the clothing for your wedding. Go on. Okay. Hold on. Well, let's I had this huge funny story that I was just telling Blessy about before the wedding and I was like, I need to tell you about this.

J.R.: It's pretty insane. But anyways. Let me just go into how I know you really quick. So, yeah, we were roommates in college for first and third year, right. And I think both were wild times. We had a lot of crazy stories, parties, lupus nights, typical college stories.

J.R.: In my opinion, I dunno if I ever said this, but you were always the social guy. Maybe you knew this already, but I remember first year in dormant, like you are the guy who anyone could talk to or you could talk to anybody, be friends with pretty much everyone. Life of the party. You joined a frat, more social, and then your parties were always like very, I don't wanna say it lit.

J.R.: And then during that third, fourth year when I was a, when I was a ca and then, and then your apartment would have parties, and then you just let me know. I'm like, all right, just lemme know I'm on call, but like, if it gets too loud, I'll stop, I'll stop by. And I'm like, oh man. Yo is here. Yeah. Tell him to calm down.

Rohit: Man that [00:04:00] was good. Oh, that was so fun. Oh, I like time. I had to talk to whoever the I don't know the, like the office manager for Yeah, yeah. Camino Soul of trying not to get evicted. Oh my god. Like so many times and have to talk to her.

J.R.: Yeah. The post staff. I know, it's funny. No, it's about that.

J.R.: Yeah. No, I actually had, I had one of my old bosses on as a guest too. I don't know if you know Alex Rubio? He was like the general manager of Camino. Yeah. Yeah. At the time. Yeah. But yeah, it was a lot of fun times. Oh God. Let's see. So, yeah. You were also in the paint. Did you, were you president of the paintball club or was it I was, you started it.

J.R.: Okay. Yeah, so I remember that and I guess quick side tangent. Remember when we moved in first year and it was like, all right, Eric is the badminton guy. You have your paintball gun, and I'm the dancer. And so if we had someone break into our room, we, we have a certain skillset. Oh man, that, that will break up our trio.

J.R.: Sorry, another tangent. I was telling someone, [00:05:00] remember in our, so we had a, we were in a triple Yeah. Which was super fun. And remember I had a, I had two posters. I hopefully I'm not getting this incorrect. I had a ninja poster. It was like life lessons from like a ninja person and it was like satirical. It was funny.

J.R.: Yeah. And next to that was a huge Edward Colin Twilight poster. Yeah. And then when people would walk in, especially girls, they'd be like, whose poster is this? And I was just like, I don't know. It's Ros. Like what? Just throw you and Eric under the bus? Like, I don't know. I think it's Eric. I don't know who put that up.

J.R.: I don know, but it was clearly mine. Crazy, crazy work. Okay, so let's see. Yeah. Your frat is Kappa Sigma, right? Am I getting that correct? Yes. Yeah. Okay. I didn't know this, but you, well, maybe I did know this. You were an Eagle Scout. I've just been stalking your LinkedIn. Sure, yeah. I'm just hyping you up right now for the intro.

J.R.: Yeah, you moved to East Coast, Massachusetts a few years back, and then I attended your wedding. Like I'm, like I mentioned in San Jose with your wife Melissa, which is fantastic. First time wearing traditional Indian [00:06:00] wedding attire, great food and vibes. And then you've been working with your company for over 10 years now.

J.R.: Is that correct? Yeah, over 10 years. Love day, 

Rohit: Manu. Well, we're 11 actually now. 

J.R.: Yeah. You're a veteran man. You're an og. And then, yeah, so last thing I guess is then you run a skincare company with your mom Belfore. Am I getting that correct? Yep. Yeah. Belfore herbal. Yep. Nice.

J.R.: Cool. Awesome. All right. So yeah, that was a big spiel. Hopefully that will entice people to keep listening, if not, totally fine. Any clarifications you want us to know about? No, this is all good. This is this is, this is a good intro. Thank you. Yeah. It's at least fun for me. All right. So I guess, yeah, first question before we get into the Indian attire is so yeah, we haven't caught up.

J.R.: So how has life been on the east side and how's married life? 

Rohit: It's quite nice, I think Melissa and I have been together since just before the pandemic. So in that time, even when we were both living in LA separately, we cohabitated a lot during the pandemic. So that gave us like a preview of what pretty much life would be [00:07:00] like.

Rohit: And then when the job offer came to move to the East coast, she was all in. And then it became us, really starting our own lives together in 2021. So when you think about East Coast, west Coast there's a different atmosphere in this east coast. I live in Boston currently, specifically in Cambridge, right.

Rohit: Kendall Square, it's right next to the Charles River. We used to live in Inman Square, this area it's an older part of the US nice parks everywhere. You have the combination of. Folks that have been here for some time lived near the universities, but also new tech and new biotech and new restaurants and old restaurants and like the community feels quite nice compared to where I was in like in Hollywood before.

Rohit: Right. So we like that a lot. We actually really, really enjoy living out here. And have been having serious conversations about, how we can settle down here a little bit, have kids, but still have our families based on the west coast. Right. Melissa's parents are in Granada Hills in LA and my parents are in the Bay in Walnut Creek.

Rohit: So we're trying to figure out like, is it possible for us to even start a family out [00:08:00] here and be bicoastal just 'cause we love it so much out here. It's also very easy to travel up and down the east coast from Boston. You got all the major highways and and trains and it's so easy to get to Europe from here.

Rohit: Normally would be like a 9, 12, 10, 12 hour flight from the west coast is a five hour, six hour flight to central Europe. So, and for the same cost as it would take to get to la you can get to, Zurich, London, Rome, anything like that. So we genuinely love living out here. It's been truly really nice since after the wedding.

Rohit: 'Cause that was the longest project we planned and so now we're both in a space of focus and rebirth as if you 

J.R.: That's cool. Do you guys go to Europe often or is it more just like the option because you guys wanna go there? 

Rohit: Combination. Right. So we'd like to go more often. We had a trip to Vienna right after we got married that was tacked on to some of my work travel.

Rohit: I do travel to various parts of Europe for work quite often. And I'm very thankful for that. So we can try to extend a little bit and have some vacation times. And [00:09:00] then this coming October, actually in about a month Exactly. We'll go to Edinburgh for another friend's wedding. It's a good excuse just to be able to get over there and go travel around.

Rohit: And then we're traveling, we're trying to do more European vacations. Thinking really about this pre family situation right before, if kids like, how much can we squeeze out of like even weekend trips to Europe? Right? 

J.R.: Yeah. That's exciting. And so I guess just to go back, so you moved to the East coast because Melissa had a job offer over there?

J.R.: It's 'cause I had a job offer over there. You had a job. Okay. So, but if you worked at the same company, was it just like a, they wanted you to be on that side or? 

Rohit: Yeah. The, you know how large companies have different divisions? Mm-hmm. And sometimes those different divisions are, they have offices in different locations.

Rohit: So when I was working in Los Angeles, that was. One of the many manufacturing sites that we have as part of Takeda at the time, Baxter through mergers and acquisitions. But our corporate office and our real headquarters for the US is in Cambridge, in Boston here. So [00:10:00] to level up in the career there was an offer that came in and it was hard to say no to that.

Rohit: Plus also at that time, I think I'd been living in the same place in West Hollywood for some time, and I was also looking for do I wanna move to downtown? Do I wanna move to Santa Monica or Silver Lake, what have you? Just to get out of the, I really liked my roommate, but I think it was time to maybe make some independent moves.

Rohit: So like all these things came together and it was just like a good perfect storm to take a leap across the country. Nice. 

J.R.: Yeah, I feel like, and I guess maybe the audience doesn't know this, but you were, I know you're from New York. Were you born and raised there? I forgot. 

Rohit: Yeah, so quickly I was born in San Francisco actually.

Rohit: Okay. So my parents had come here. They had immigrated to San Francisco. They met at UCSF first house in Daly City. We were born there, my brother and I. And then from there, my dad was also in biotech, so we moved to San Diego for a bit. Then moved to San Jose for a quick minute. And then biotech for, in my dad's job, took us to the Hudson Valley of New York.

Rohit: And the exact years that my brother were going to elementary, middle, and high [00:11:00] school, and that as. My brother went to college in New York for a state school out there. As I was going to college or getting ready to apply, my parents were at the point where I was like, okay, we've done the East Coast thing for a little bit.

Rohit: We wanna move back to the bay where our friends are. We wanna move back to where, friends are Fremont, San Jose, but maybe a little bit change of pace in an area that they like. So like Pleasant Hills Walnut Creek was very high on the list. And so Right, right. As college years came around they were ready to move.

Rohit: So we, my dad actually moved out first. I went under his name and I got in-state tuition for uc, Irvine, which is great. And I'm thankful I got in 'cause I didn't get any other uc schools, so I'm like hugely thankful for that. But that's how we came back to the West coast and I've been there since, yeah, 2009 until I left again in 2021.

J.R.: Mm, okay. So it's like this back and forth, like your family is like West coast, east Coast, back to West Coast and then now you're back to East Coast, so it's like hopping a bit. Now I'm curious, having lived on both sides, I know different states and [00:12:00] cities, but I don't wanna say what do you think is better, but maybe what are your general vibes for where you've lived East versus West?

Rohit: It's really hard to beat the Bay Area. Like I think that has, like in what sense? I think there's a couple sense, which is. The community that we can build in the Bay Area for the variety of people that are there. If you want to go deep into your own ethnicity, but also bridge out to others, I think is very hard to beat that pool of diversity.

Rohit: It's basically San Francisco or New York, right? I think those are two very comparable things. I think LA is physically spread out where that becomes tougher. And I think there's. Industry influence that drives and just sort of hype influence that drives like pockets of less genuine community in major, in like central la we'll call it central or like major parts of la I think outskirts you could more likely to build community.

Rohit: I think it's hard to beat the weather on the west coast. That's is I it's an important factor, but it's also hard to beat the seasons on the east coast. Like fall and spring [00:13:00] in Boston is phenomenal. If we could live here just for this be, I would do it in a heartbeat. Winter is terrible.

Rohit: It's very cold. It's very like depressing with this, sun coming up at 8:00 AM you're already in the office already getting ready for work or whatever, but then the sun sets at 4:00 PM so you would've spent your whole daylight hours in an office. And so people struggle with like vitamin D deficiency because of that.

Rohit: So I don't know. It's like it's hard to do it, it's hard to go both ways. I think I would love to, again, be bicoastal, but I'm leaning toward how much we really love the vibe of specifically San Francisco in the Bay, right? I think that's, that just fits our bucket. You can also get to nature super quickly, like the diversity around that.

Rohit: The Rockies, like Eden, Sierra, Nevada is it's hard to beat that. 

J.R.: I really like your analysis comparison, because that's something I've been thinking about too, is for me, bay Area is always home because that's where my family's from. That's where most of them are. I like SoCal. I just hate the weather.

J.R.: I don't like sun, I don't like sunshine. I even though we have sunshine all the time, I'm in [00:14:00] my room for like most of the daytime hours and then I go out at night. So, and then I have a friend who, you know, east Coast as well, and she was like, yeah, seasons can't beat them. They're great. It makes you look forward to things that are seasonal because it's like, oh yeah, winter's coming.

J.R.: We get to do these winter things or et cetera for summer. Right? And so that's what's really enticing for me is oh, I actually would love seasons. And even then, I guess more than that is I would love any place that is not as hot as SoCal. Yeah. But I like your analysis too, of the community side too, because I think Bay Area, like you said, probably has more, it's more conducive to having those communities, whereas exactly what you're saying, like la OC area is so spread out that they're all over the place, but you really have to drive to get the, get to those places, right.

Rohit: Yeah, I think, I mean, to tack on that really quickly, like Boston makes it really easy to live. Boston's small, like Boston, the entirety of Boston proper is and Cambridge is the size of downtown la, something like that, right? Or maybe just the size of, [00:15:00] even just downtown San Francisco, you can walk across three miles without an issue in an afternoon.

Rohit: Or you can take public transit, which actually works kind of well out here. And so it's easy to have friends and Uber around really quickly, or take public transit or what have you. But it's easy to live in different pockets of community and actually see your friends, in a, in in a less planful manner, right?

Rohit: Oh, you wanna do something after work, you wanna do something on a weeknight Boston And certain East coast cities really lend themselves to be able to do that, right? This is quite a bit difficult in Los Angeles, right? Where if you're in one neighborhood to another, it's, it is a significant time suck to go up to the other side.

J.R.: Mm-hmm. Especially if you need to go through traffic too, right? Yeah. Like 10 minutes. 10 minutes. LA traffic is actually 40 minutes. 

Rohit: That's exactly it. Yeah, that's exactly. 

J.R.: So yeah, my friend who also is in Boston who had, on the show, she was talking about building her community from scratch in the Boston area.

J.R.: So I guess I'm curious for you, what was that like having since moved over there? How did you [00:16:00] approach building community and finding friends? Or did you already have an existing network over there? Or what was that like? There's two things that 

Rohit: paid dividends coming into Boston that I'd, that helped jumpstart the community.

Rohit: One was. At the exact month that we were moving over here, two of my very close friends and fraternity brothers were also moving to Boston for various reasons. One was moving 'cause he got a job as a product manager for Harvard. The other was moving as part of a veterinary rotation. And these are my very good friends.

Rohit: So we were able to all move at the same time and have built in friendship community there. The second thing is that now the three of us are all working at different careers. We all made friends at work. Right. I think that came a little bit naturally to you, so to all of us. So it made this model of us bridging out in our workplaces to make friends, and then the friends from these different industries coming together.

Rohit: And then because of that, we've built longer term community here. Just from this different variety of friend groups coming together. We also had some [00:17:00] friends that had moved previously from California over to Boston, and we just sort of reignited those friendships. That worked out super well. And then oddly enough, Melissa was on she didn't have any pre-existing community here.

Rohit: So she was making friends all Bumble bff. Hmm. And some of those friends actually became like very long-term friends. This was like many years ago. And they've come to the wedding and they're like part of the, part of the family at this point. So it's all kind of worked out really. Yeah. That's dope.

Rohit: Yeah. I mean really I think this, I think making friends at work is hugely underrated, right? It's it's the part that people might miss, working from home all the time or from doing the entrepreneurship thing where you have to force yourself to go to networks. But like when you have preexisting structure in we'll call it a corporate job or just any other sort of job that you go to frequently, you're able to build genuine friendships at that just 'cause of 

J.R.: proximity.

J.R.: Yeah. Okay. So I wanna double click more on building a community and networks and stuff. I think [00:18:00] it's fascinating for what you've said so far as someone who is ignorant to East Coast and Boston and that area. What do you guys do to build those relationships? So, I know you mentioned in work you obviously see each other and then maybe there's things you guys do outside of work, but, so what does that look like, I guess, for you in particular?

J.R.: How do, what do you guys do outside of work to build those friendships? 

Rohit: Yeah. Honestly, I think this was, I think this is an evolving field. We'll call it a field, right? I think this is an evolving field of how you build friendship, right? Because a lot of this comes back to your health and things that you have mutual interests on.

Rohit: And I think it is why it is also a little bit different between the sexes, right? I think this is a piece where how I built community is it's very simple to be like, Hey man, you wanna go grab a beer and just do that? Or check out a local pub and then pop to another pub and then, the, of course the social lubricant gets that flowing right through.

Rohit: Whatever alcohol you're drinking which is much more prominent on the east coast than on the west coast. Right. People out here I haven't run [00:19:00] any numbers, but I can just see from my own first party research, everybody, doesn't matter what where your industry is or what, where you are in age, male or female or other, everybody builds connection through alcohol.

Rohit: It's fascinating to watch. And it's specifically beer, right? People love beer out here that doesn't necessarily agree with me. I have to go with a tequila or a wine or something, but that's a whole thing we can talk about. And so that's how it started very quickly for all three of our friends in this, in the same area, which was like, Hey, you wanna grab beer with somebody that you just kind of vibe with at work?

Rohit: And vibing with at work is a whole thing. It's kind of, for the most part, I think is built on humor, right? I think built on humor and your same level of okay, you're either in the trenches together and you're solving problems together and you've done it. And so let's go get a drink and talk about it or bitch or complain or whatever.

Rohit: Or you have the same fucked up sense of humor or maybe not fucked up sense of humor, but you then take it to the next level and you're like, again, go do something that's outside of work that strengthens your bonds. Even Melissa was the same way, which is okay, all [00:20:00] these bumble b fff dates start with with go having a drink somewhere and then evolve into something that's a bit more.

Rohit: A bit more involved, like a fitness class. Right. And I'm fascinated by the field of how networks are built nowadays because a lot of like old school networking is like male centric where it's like beer, golf I don't know, watching sports, right. But female networking and if you look into this is fairly interesting 'cause it could be like less alcohol focused and more wellness focused.

Rohit: Mm. Right. And I think this is a fascinating field because that you can naturally see as friendships build over into their thirties where that split may come. And so that's how we built these communities and these networks. It's been a lot of hosting and toasting. 

Rohit: And then it's evolved back into wellness.

J.R.: Right. That's fascinating. I think especially as someone I regard as a really good networker, friendship builder and relationship builder, I was like, okay. I think there's a, I don't know, I wanna say it's like an untapped skill base of being able to move and [00:21:00] make new friends. I think that's what a lot of people are scared of because it's a nor it's a understandably scary thing to move to a new, new city and not have your friends.

J.R.: And so we stay where we're at. And so I'm always curious when people do make that jump to a different place. Like how did they do that? So yeah, that was very interesting. Okay. I think it's just 

Rohit: very quickly on that. I think it, I think I, I think me and my friends had a bit of, kind handicap, but a bit of a leg up because we had these already set jobs that had people in it. Right. If you move cold to a city, I respect that. It's very hard, I think then to make your own introductions and make your own valuable friendships. 'cause you really have to go out cold for that. Right.

Rohit: And then build from truly zero. I think that's a big hurdle and I give people a lot of respect that do that. 

J.R.: Yeah. So then would your advice be to just put yourself out there and make those steps if you're going in cold? 

Rohit: I kind of had to do that when I came to uc, Irvine actually, and I think a lot of us did, which was, some people I think maybe had [00:22:00] a local community or high school friends, they could fall back on.

Rohit: But I didn't know anybody at all at UCI. Right. So I really had to just put myself out there to try to make friends through genuine connection quickly. And I like actually give a lot of thanks to our triple when we were living there. That was, it was nice because we all vibed in the same way and then also most of Niebla did too.

Rohit: Right. And so that, I think again, had the handicap, not the handicap or maybe the leg up, which was we were all in the same community for long periods of time. People have moved cold. It is tough. You have to frequently go out, like you have to build yourself time and energy to basically make that your second job to build your community because otherwise loneliness will kill you over time.

Rohit: Right. 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. I always thought about that too, because remember how they say that UCI is like a commuter school because a lot of people live in SoCal and so they can just drive home for the weekends. Yeah. Eric included. Right. But then the other half of us in BLO were like, we're from out of like town, out of state, whatever.

J.R.: Yeah. And so we are stuck here for the weekend. So that's when we would just go out and, go to random [00:23:00] places because we're always together. Yeah. So, yeah. I get it. 

Rohit: Yeah. I remember you gotta remember I think that was actually good learning for a lot of us, right? That we're like, a lot of it is commuter school, but a lot of us that stayed there, I think those friendships developed even stronger over time.

Rohit: Right. Because it was weekends, it was the, it was like swiping at whatever, makesa comments like together where there's nobody else there. And that's like how you build like that community of especially if something goes wrong. Right. That's your family right now to help take care of you.

J.R.: Yeah. Okay. Good. Transition into now UCI stories. So do you have a, any fun story that comes to mind from the times that we lived together? I'll, if you wanted time to think, I have one on the top of my head. There was this one day, it was you and me specifically. We were. It was a rainy day and we were gonna go walk to the other dining hall.

J.R.: The one right before you get to what's, what was that one called? That's like right in between Mesa and, or Brandywine or whatever. Brandywine, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so I spec, I don't know if it was okay, I know the details are fuzzy. It might be making this up, but it was either you or me wanted to [00:24:00] go.

J.R.: And I remember there was, they had those ice cream bars that were really good. And so I, I know I don't, maybe I'm mixing up stories, but I wanted to get that one. And so we both went with an umbrella. I don't know if we had one or two umbrellas. I just remember we just went just together and walked all the way, like, campuses empty.

J.R.: It's rainy, we just go eat there. And then we just came back and that was it. But I was like, it just, yeah, I want that ice cream. And then we just ate there.

Rohit: Man. I just, man I was like thinking about this over time, actually. Like really oddly, three things came to mind this week without even reading this prompt for the podcast.

Rohit: Right. Three things. Okay. The first one was actually not one of our first servers second year. When you're living on one side of VDC and I was living on the other side, and you had gone out and you had called me and you were like, dude, I think I left my stove on. And I was like, I distinctly remember this.

Rohit: And I remember it because I had this same thought earlier today. I was like, shit, I leave my stove on. And I, I was like, like, I was [00:25:00] like, and I remember, I dunno if you gone, I maybe even gone out with called modern folks or something to like one of the, one of the various eateries. And I was like, so I walked over there and I remember the stove was on and then you would run home.

Rohit: You thankfully were already on the way and the stove you had to turn off. And I was like, shit, that's very relatable. 

J.R.: Oh my God. I can't even there are some times where I would do that too. I'm like, okay, not to this day, but over time where I'm like, fuck. They leave the stove on. I'm like, oh God.

J.R.: It was been on for four hours, 

Rohit: y'all. It's, and I, the reason I had that thought is because we recently moved from a place that had a gas stove where I can very much tell if the stove is on or off. 

J.R.: Right, right. To something 

Rohit: that has like a heating pad, right. Or like electric top. And I was like, shit, no.

Rohit: I'm now living in what JR lived in right now. I dunno. I dunno if it's all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then after, okay, so then on the first year. One time, I don't know what it was, I had gotten like crazy sick and I was like, puking all over the apartment, and you and Eric opened the [00:26:00] doors, cleaned up all this shit.

Rohit: I ended up puking in the, in the common sink instead of the toilet. It was crazy. So like, I was just, just, Eric was like, oh, I got open the handle up. I threw off on it and you guys took care of me for that. That was something else. 

J.R.: So, yeah, really let me jump in on that real quick. Okay. So yeah, I think I want, like you were, you had like food poisoning from something, right?

J.R.: Yeah. And I also remember around the same time I was sick too where, like during first quarter, during Kaba Ma, or no, during KASA dance off, I was sick for six weeks straight. Yeah. It wasn't even yeah, because we just, I had no sleep. I remember that. Yeah. 

Rohit: And so, yeah, 

J.R.: you, I think I, I'd woken up from a coma or something and then you were like, you were sick and then you'd woken up and you were like, oh, I'm gonna throw up.

J.R.: And then you just yell door. And they were like, what? And so you started throwing up all over the wall on the fridge. And so I jumped over and opened the door. And you ran through? Yeah. And as you got down the hallway, you, you reached the second [00:27:00] door, which is to the bathroom. And that's where Eric jumped over, open that door.

J.R.: And so Eric and I were looking at each other at the hallway holding open each door, looking at each other and we're like, and hearing you throw up in the sink. And we're like, so we had to clean all that up on the walls, 

Rohit: both walls. Oh, crazy. I just there's so many stories because I, I like, I like Chris.

Rohit: Chris Lim literally just texted me like maybe yesterday a picture of us that Niebla first picture, right? Where all of us threw up I don't know, like peace signs or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I'll send that to you. But I was like, damn, what a throwback. I was like, where is everybody now?

Rohit: And I'd actually just seen Carl Markowski a month ago at a wedding, right? Mm. And he's married, get a kid, great family, the whole thing. But I remember he was like, yeah, damn. He sucked to live with at the dorm. Like, like the worst like guy lived at the door. Yeah. Yeah. Like I remember our pocket. I I think we keep in contact with most people.

Rohit: Mike Desal has a good career. Lyle's doing [00:28:00] well. Girlfriend, Marine, the whole thing. Todd is like a marine lawyer somewhere. Mm-hmm. All of us I think are all in good pockets. Arthur I'm is some hipster in Brooklyn. Really? Right now. I don't actually, I think it's the last I saw of him, but I think it's just funny to see where everybody ended up.

Rohit: I mean, there's so many other things. Like I was just thinking just the picture brought back. So me so many memories. I remember like in the dorm, hey, living in the dorm and listening to Neo on repeat and you guys just making fun of me endlessly for that. Like endless endlessly making fun of me for listening to Neo on.

J.R.: What song was it? What, what was it?

Rohit: It was either like. Fuck, what was it? 

Rohit: It wasn't because of you, it was the other one, like the other mainstream pop hit that he has. Mm. You know what's funny? 

J.R.: Independent. Yeah. You know what's funny? Blessing. And I saw Neo at a club. It was a clubbing event and it was like, oh, Neo will be there.

J.R.: He'll spin a little bit. Right. So it was like a, let's say it was 10 to two or something like that. Right. Of course he doesn't come on until one. Yeah. And everyone's there for [00:29:00] Neo. He goes on and he like, karaoke literally behind the DJ booth, sings like four songs. And then he pieces out it's probably eight minutes total.

J.R.: And we're like, well, is that it? Like we dropped $50 just to hear Neo sing three hours in and everyone leaves after that. So the club is still open for another like 45 minutes, but everyone's gone because we know why we're here. Yeah. And it was like, really? We get seven minutes of Neo and that's it.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. But he did, he did sing the Bangers and he was good, but it was just like, damn, we were oversold that. So, 

Rohit: oh, that's it's funny. That's what like, we're all very much in that camp is we all wanna see like the artists from our like. I don't know, our, like upbringing eras.

Rohit: Right. And I remember we saw like Rick Ross here in Boston, I think he was on for maybe 10 minutes, right? Mm-hmm. And we had dropped like tickets and gotten to the whole thing, coat check yeah, yeah. Maybe 10 minutes or like 50 cent keeps coming around. And now we're like, okay, I think we're done with 50 cents.

Rohit: I think we've seen enough. I think we move on. Yeah, I think we move on from this. But it's just, it's funny like that parallel of artists [00:30:00] that were like peak for us and where they are now and like their longevity in like physically of that concert now is not it's not gonna be like a Taylor Swift three hour set.

Rohit: It's gonna be like 10 to 30 minutes, you know? 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. I guess another thing that I do remember was did we get you into it was one of the animes. Okay. There was a you were watching anime. Oh, so many. It, yeah. Was it, was it Avatar? Was it Code Geass? What was it like? There was something that we made you watch was Kios, it was 

Rohit: Code Geass. Yeah. And I had actually, I literally just reed that like last year. I think it's good. It one of my top, it's one of my tops. Oh man. It. Somebody I'm assuming it was you and Chris on our third year got me into a full metal Alchemist. Yes. That's, I watching Full, I was all that. 

Rohit: Mm-hmm. 

Rohit: And then there was another spinoff that was like sword art online and that was cool.

Rohit: Mm-hmm. But I haven't re-watched that. The other two I rewatched like, and I was like, that was peak. That was like, like you meet Chris and Walter like [00:31:00] watching like anime. 

J.R.: So what I loved about that was I remember you like having a mental breakdown. 'cause you're like, I have to study, but I can't stop.

J.R.: And I was just dying. I was like, yes, we gotta,

Rohit: oh, it's too good.

J.R.: You were like, fuck, I need to sleep, but I need watch. 

Rohit: Oh, fucking, that was so good. That was, that was great. Dumb crying. That's so funny. That's so true. These like breakdowns of like us having too good of a time. We're like, oh fuck, we need to sleep or we need to study. We're still like, you college.

J.R.: What? I, it's like sorry, not sorry, but like y'all were engineers. I was a poli sci major, so I'm like, I am good. You, y'all were freaking out all the time. And I'm like I feel it, but I can't relate.

Rohit: Oh, it's, that's honestly too funny. Like all of that. Yeah.

J.R.: Yeah. That was, yeah, it was, it was good. There was, there's one other thing. Okay. Last thing on, on dorming, but remember the times [00:32:00] where everyone was gaming at the same time with their doors open and you would just hear everyone just rage quitting because the lag. I know that was me too, playing Call of Duty. I was like, fuck this shit. Like, ugh. 

J.R.: But I remember everyone else had the doors open. He could just hear a symphony of yelling and that was hilarious. You know? I love that.

Rohit: I love that because, because when it came time for us to apply for VDC or whatever, our housing, we all had the same thing. Fucking like, Carl put his headset off, like there's no sound at this, like, like Lyle's there, like we're all trying to like game like us our lottery to get into VDC and we all rage quit when the thing crashed out. Oh, it's so funny. Like the parallels between rage quitting in real life, right? Yeah, definitely.

J.R.: Between first and second year, or was it second and third? Did I live in your apartment on the couch or was it someone else's? Because I, I remember I lived in someone's couch for the summer between my like VDC

Rohit: that might have been us. I remember. Who was I living with? Did you live with Lyle?[00:33:00] 

Rohit: Jesus, did I live with Arthur and Edward? Was that Edward? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I remember I was on someone's couch for two, three months. Yeah, 

Rohit: that might've been us. Mm-hmm. Because I remember we had the start in we just moved right from the dorm to VDC I think in the June to June one. And I'm pretty certain that you lived on our couch and then we just go to arc, right?

J.R.: Yeah, no. Okay. So it, yeah, it was just that I remember that summer, this was my routine. It was like sleep, wake up gym, eat tuna and egg whites, and then play final fantasy. Yeah. And then sleep and repeat. I lost so much weight. I was just gyming every single day and then just sitting on the couch. Yeah. And so it was like very unproductive. Productive. 

Rohit: Yeah. Fuck, I remember that. I like, yeah, because we had to take all the bio and chem people, we all to take chem organic chemistry in the year.

J.R.: Again, people who are productive and I'm just sleeping on the fucking couch because I'm, I'm not a, I'm not a,

Rohit: I mean, only had class for three hours. Like we the summer rent to do that. We just [00:34:00] partied the rest of the time. Right. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

J.R.: It was funny. It was always funny because I would obviously sleep in, 'cause I didn't have to wake up and so people would be waking up, walking through the living room and I'm just like sleeping on the couch.

J.R.: Oh man. I remember that. I, I was like, damn, I could never do that. But it's just so funny. I'm like, yeah, just fuck it. Just knock out on the couch. I've been up until 3:00 AM and then you guys had to wake up at eight or whatever. Classic. Classic times. Classic. Yeah. So that was Okay. That was fun. That, that's, that's what I wanted to do on this podcast, which just catch up on that.

Rohit: But there's, yeah, there's so much more we can do, but yeah, go on.

J.R.: Okay. So I wanted to, now we're still in our intro, but, all right, so let me tell you about the existential crisis I had leading up to your wedding, and then I'll get your thoughts on it afterwards. Right. And so this is something that I was like panic texting my mom, like the month before your wedding, which was because of the, like the traditional attire suggestion things. And you listed out in the wedding invite like, oh, here's where you can go. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. And 

J.R.: here's where you can buy. And it was [00:35:00] very, all clear and laid out. And here's if you can order online and blah, blah, blah. And so. I for the month leading up to it, I was like, okay, there is an option. You can just wear, traditional nice or nice just wedding attire, like a yeah. Shirt button up, whatever. But I was like, and so I was like, okay, I don't wanna ask gro hit because if I ask him, it'll sound like I'm trying to imply, I'm trying to get out of trying to dress a certain way, right?

J.R.: And, but my thought process was, okay, if they put this so much effort into guiding us on how to find the attire, then maybe they want us to dress up, right? And I don't wanna be that one guy who doesn't, and everyone else is. But then I was like, oh, but maybe he's chill. Maybe I should just text him. My mom's like, maybe you just ask him.

J.R.: And I was like, but I don't want to put it forward. And now he's gonna feel bad and be like, oh, just whatever we want. So I'm just going back and forth to having a panic attack. And then the crazier part too is Artesia is like a five minute drive from my house. Yeah. So it's, there's all the, the, all the, like Indian restaurants and clothing stores are there, so I don't really have an excuse.

J.R.: [00:36:00] And so a week before. I finally was like, okay, fuck it. Let me just go drive to Artesia. Found a spot. And I walked in and it was like the, it was an, it was a clothing shop, and it was just like these four Indian ladies sitting around a table. It looked like they're about to close up because I came to the last 30 minutes, like, hi, I am trying to look for a clothing for a wedding.

J.R.: And they're like, oh let me, and then, so one of the ladies took me next door, which was the men's clothing. And I was like, okay. And so he, she took me there, got me hooked up with the guy, and then he was kind of like saying, oh, what do you need? Measuring me and everything. And then he starts bringing out the different options, right?

J.R.: And he is like, oh, what's your budget? And I'm like negotiation talk. Okay, let me be smart here. I I read books, all right, I know how this works. And then culturally, Asians like to negotiate. So I know that's a normal thing. And so he brings out like, he's okay, what's your budget? I'm like, well, my top range is about this, but I'm really trying to be over here.

J.R.: But my mistake was I gave him my top range. Yeah. And so then he starts listing out, he's like, oh, here's one that's, top range, some reason. And I'm like, Hmm, I don't know. I was kind of trying to spend a little bit like [00:37:00] 20 ish, less than that. And so he shows me like maybe eight options, and I only really like one of them, but I'm not gonna show my excitement for that one because negotiation tactics, I'm like, okay I like these three.

J.R.: And he is like, oh yeah, but this one is high quality. It's high. I'm like, in my head, I'm like, I don't know what high quality is. I'm just here for one thing. Right? Like for a wedding. And so he's trying to emphasize high quality so he can send me the top tier item. And I'm like, okay, well maybe this one is the cheaper one.

J.R.: It's to anchor me back down. And then so, but the really one I want is like mid-tier pricing. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I'm just kind of hesitant. I'm like, Hmm, okay. And then he is, and I was like okay, maybe one of these two. Okay, maybe this one. And he is like, okay, this one. And then, so he's measuring me and I'm like, oh, how much does it cost to tailor it?

J.R.: 'cause it was too long for me. Right. Or at least the pants. And he is like, oh yeah, don't worry. He's like ignoring my question, he's measuring me and everything. And then at the end he is like, oh yeah, it's $10 extra. I was like, oh could I just buy it and then I can get tailored somewhere else? And then so.

J.R.: The lady from before comes in [00:38:00] and now they're talking in a language I can understand and then they're like arguing and she comes with me, she's like, no, we'll do it for you for free. You're, embracing our culture. I was like, oh, thank you. And I was like, okay, look, look happy. And then so I negotiated that down and then so I got the free tailoring and then I think it was more expensive, but I think he brought it down like 10 more dollars.

J.R.: So I think I saved in total about 30. So then I finished and I'm like, and I told Blessy, I was like, oh my God I like haggle $30 down. I think I feel like I'm a real Indian now, or a real Asian person.

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. Because you, they're expecting you to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And also it's like a positioning. And I feel like if you don't negotiate, then it's okay, you're definitely an outsider and it's not like they're not expecting you to. But I felt like I got my Asian card by negotiating.

J.R.: I was like, okay, it's not like I needed to negotiate down, but I did the right thing and I felt really good about it. And then, so I came in feeling even better about that decision. And then we went there and it was a great wedding and most people were dressed up and I was like, okay, I made the right choice.

J.R.: But, so anyway, that was my panic attack the month in. So I dunno if you had any thoughts. 

Rohit: I [00:39:00] love it. No, I love it. This is, this is it like, yeah, it was great. You had a great court, like the whole thing. And it's funny, like it depends on. You know, like when we were living on the East coast and upstate, that that part of Indian culture didn't really bleed into the very, very few Indian stores or shops that were up here.

Rohit: But then coming back to California, NorCal or SoCal, like that just hits you. Like you're back in that oh fuck, I have to like kind of fit the stereotype a little bit. 'cause otherwise they're gonna take advantage in this place. And I'm like, I get it. Like I think it was, that's like way back history of gura and stuff.

Rohit: But that I was like, oh shit, I forgot we have to do this now. Because it definitely is not the case for like the one Indian store in Boston. Like Mm. It's just a nice hot, I'm not gonna haggle with there like, yeah, but like this dude here in Artesia, he probably gets this 10 times a day. He is like a pro at it, so you gotta be up against that, you know?

J.R.: Yeah. And two again, it wasn't really about the money, it was more just okay, let me just engage in this dance. Right? Yeah. But also because as soon as I stepped in, he started the whole thing of the [00:40:00] pricing. Like he asked, okay, what's your budget? It's not like, oh, here's our $80 one, here's a hundred, here's our 300, whatever.

J.R.: It was like, okay. I was like, all right, he's playing right now. Like he's, he's starting the game. And then he's like, oh, but this is high quality. And I'm like, I don't really one, I don't know what high quality is. And two, it's I don't, I just need it for a wedding for one time. Yeah. And so, I'm just kind of playing the ignorant outsider, but also okay, but let me play this the right way.

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. And so it was a, basically what I'm trying to say, it was a fun game and I'm, and I felt like I played it well. And it benefited. And then the lady was really nice. She's like, oh yeah, you're, you're wearing your embracing our culture. We appreciate it. We'll just give it to you on the house. I'm like, oh yes, I feel so good about that. So yeah, 

Rohit: you got Asian card. That's a,

J.R.: yeah. Yeah. So that was my, that was my side story, but yeah, that, that was a lot of fun. Alright, anyways, so that was intro topics. Love it. Cool. You guys ready to move on to our first actual topic?

Rohit: Let's do it. Yeah.

J.R.: Alright, so first on 1000 Guru, we always ask about origin story and kind of your career journey. So first questions is kind of where did you grow [00:41:00] up and what were your main influences?

Rohit: So. There's a couple things, right? Between being born in San Francisco in the Bay. I don't remember much of that. But then living down in San Diego is when the memory started to flood in. I think that is from oof how to do this, right? That is from 93 to 97, right? So I was born 91. So okay, three years old, four years old. Those memory, that's when the memory started to come in, right? So I remember my brother and I playing with Legos.

Rohit: That was the whole thing. I remember like finding friends on the street, like playing outdoors, riding bikes. I remember the hills of where we lived in San Diego as okay, like the views that we can get from being at the top of the hill. This comes into play later, but like these kind of like small memories coming in and like the Olympics at that time I remember eating like a bunch of frosted Cheerios to get like the little Olympic medallions.

Rohit: I think it was the 96, like Winter Olympic. Yeah. But I remember like doing a lot of that with like my brother. So that was like a nice community. And then I think it was. [00:42:00] 98 that we moved to upstate New York with with my dad taking the job over in, well, it's not really upstate, it's like the Hudson Valley of New York, right?

Rohit: So just two hours north of New York City still has train lines, the whole thing. But it's a very beautiful very suburban, rural part of New York that people will have, you have a combination of a small city called Poughkeepsie, but also the green mountaintops that run through the Appalachia, like Appalachian trail.

Rohit: And so part of that growing up was then like the sort of culture shock of going back where my friend group was mostly Caucasians from Italian descent, right? It was like a large pool of Italians there. And growing up there, I think I remember I always looked a little bit different which is quite funny, but it was very easy for me to make friends, just naturally being outgoing.

Rohit: So that was all well and good, but I genuinely enjoyed the, again, the what we brought over from San Diego to there, which is like the in-person community, right? So the neighbors now houses are a little bit further apart in, in more rural areas, right? You have the land acreage versus [00:43:00] like more packed together classic California homes. So I remember it was a little bit further to get to friend's house, but we, I was always active in doing that and having people back and forth. We were always active outdoors and my parents actually enrolled me in Boy Scouts, my brother and I. So that was a nice pathway of like building resilience through uncomfortable conditions, which were like, okay, we're gonna go camping in the rain and it's gonna suck, but we're still gonna do it.

Rohit: Or camping in the snow or hiking. I'm thankful because that kept us physically fit too, because my brother and I were kind of lazy. And we weren't like the most like sports. Everyone was active in that sense, but like this hiking passion and like, all of that kept us going. I look back and that's like a very fond time of building like character and building resilience in life.

Rohit: I think that shaped a lot of things. 'cause I had like leadership positions in the scout troop. Right. And that bridged into leadership positions in my career or in the fraternity or what have you afterward or in general entrepreneurship. But I think a lot of that formed through Boy Scouts. And then through just building [00:44:00] friends and community through, through high school and middle school and all of that.

Rohit: I mean, after that, like coming back to going back into college, right. The thought was our brother had made his way into what those like the equivalent of uc, schools,

Rohit: parents. We're like actively gonna move back to the West coast. So we can do uc schools or like top tier schools here. Or we can do maybe there's hope to go to an Ivy League or something. I think one of the first like series of rejections that really shaped me was like, I was doing well in high school, but I was never like the top top.

Rohit: Like I took a lot of APs, but I wasn't in all of the aps. Right. And so when it came to applying to schools, I used to talk to the same group because there was around, when you look at the high school rankings and subtle amount of students, it was around like a hundred or 200 of us that were always in the same group of like top performers or like in the same AP circles.

Rohit: Maybe some people split off into more [00:45:00] engineering or more like science or more mathematics or what have you, right? Or more arts. But like generally the same circle of people were in this top 200 and then the next 200, the next 200. That's kind of like how maybe naturally we teared out. Right? This is a nice, like even distribution through the high school system.

Rohit: So I remember like this top hundred of us all kind of had our viewpoints of there's a select Ivy League schools, there's some other top tiers on the East coast and maybe there's some other, like Midwest and Florida, like most people's parents were out there. I was the only one that looked West Coast along with one or two others because of we knew what was out there.

Rohit: Right. And I think the first couple rejections were like, okay, I wasn't doing super well in like non-science AP classes. And so that I think shaped my perception of like maybe what I'm good at, what I'm not good at. But then when it came to like college rejections, I had thought I was like, good enough material to get into Ivy Leagues and stuff.

Rohit: And my parents had hyped me up into that. And it's [00:46:00] classic like Asian parents areas and parenting, right? Like top tier, we should go in for it. And I was like, okay, I, I get that rejection and I get like the Berkeley Stanford rejection. But then I was like very thankful for UCI because my older cousin had gotten into UCI.

Rohit: So I had some familiarity on what it was, but then when we actually came to visit the campus, I was like, oh, this is awesome. Can't beat it. Something California, this is great. It's so different than the Hudson Valley. This is a nice change. And then when it came to spa and like actually meeting you and everybody, I was like, this is a nice community change.

Rohit: And now the next hurdle is building friends out here where there's nobody, right? Because there's no high school friends out here. My high school friends, thankfully I'm still very good with, but they're, we're all east coasters, right? And we've kept in contact and we're good. And those are folks that gonna their weddings and they came to nine.

Rohit: But it's like that jump in 2009 to go to the west coast to start college was the part where I really had to up my social game. I thought I was social, but now I had to like cold [00:47:00] social with just the community around us. That also then built into, one year of doing well in school, building the community with nibla and friends, and then going into the fraternity.

Rohit: Which actually I was toying with that a little bit once I got to know more from like Todd and others in the dorm. But then my mom was actually like, yeah, you're pretty social. You probably do that. And I actually became like a really good trigger to like more growth right? Over time and then balancing.

Rohit: I think one thing I was very happy with university, it was like the various friend groups that continued to merge together, like us living together and being friends or like Niebla friends together or like the paintball group together, or like the fraternity together, like these continuous groups, I think have stayed in contact with quite well over time.

Rohit: And that then led into into like just career growth over time. Because the challenge with studying engineering at uc, Irvine is that there's not really a direct pathway to a career off of that, right? Because we're not really the [00:48:00] target recruited school, right? I think this is different from maybe computer science or different for some other majors, but it's more likely if you were to go for like Berkeley or UCLA that you would go into an entry-level engineering job.

Rohit: At a various firm top tier, or sorry, big company, small company, not whatever firm. Right. I think what had shaped really well in my like junior, senior, super senior is friend groups that had started to think about ventures and entrepreneurship and networking for professional development.

Rohit: Suraj Sampath was actually like the the catalyst of a lot of this because he like figured this out early and was like encouraging me to do this. And so this became like business plan competitions or like research grants, like getting into these kind of things that were extracurricular, not just just not just the class schedule.

Rohit: But this opened my mind to like what else is out there as far as careers because I thought chemical engineering would bridge into medical devices or oil and gas or energy. We started to learn more [00:49:00] about pharma and back to again the like valuable networking piece is when one of my fraternity brother friends, Kevin Cho and I started to start this ISPE professional chapter for pharmaceutical engineers for students at Irvine and we're like, we'll use this as a way to build the base of like people that are interested in this kind of career and start to bring in industry speakers.

Rohit: And I think the most clever thing that we did was we both at that time. This is like 20 20 13, 20 14 is we both bought LinkedIn premium. We both joined this ISP professional chapter. So those have little fees to it. And we both looked down the list of who had gone to uc, Irv Irvine, because we can look at their LinkedIn now 'cause of LinkedIn premium and who was in part of this ISP and we just send out the email so like, Hey, do you wanna come speak what pizza or whatever?

Rohit: And do that. And one of us would go get them from the parking lot and one of us would walk us back and we both at least got our foot in the door to have a first party connection into that company. And [00:50:00] that was hugely helpful because that's how I ended up getting my first job. Realistically.

Rohit: And that's what I ended up at, like Baxter bioscience. So that was like the origin of getting to the career. But I think there's a lot of examples that shaped through there between like leadership and in Boy Scouts and resilience through Boy Scouts, but then also like leadership that has been over time through fraternity and then the networking professional aspect shaped by friends in the right circles or had been doing that before, like yourself included, like bridging out from beyond just the class to like Kaba Modern and others and building your friend group and network that way.

Rohit: It's inspirational to think about and I think we all like kind of collectively learned from each other. 

J.R.: I love that a lot. I want to touch on two specific things. So I like the career journey and thanks for explaining kind of those breakthroughs and what you did to get to where you're today.

J.R.: One thing is the self-awareness piece for maybe people who, where we were at in college, maybe high school going into college [00:51:00] is how would you advise on that process of figuring out where you want to go? I know part of that is choosing a major, right? But when you're in the major, the second part of is alright, what do I do with this? What are the opportunities what opportunities I can create for myself post college that I can go into the workforce? And then I guess the second off of that, we can touch on it later, which is, so then how did your career evolve from that first job into where you are today? So I guess going back to the college piece.

Rohit: Yeah. You know, it's so interesting these days because the amount of information we have at our fingertips and influence through the internet and social media, I think is something that we didn't, we were growing with from the 2009 to 2014 time, right? I think that was when we started to rise with like beyond what just Facebook was for personal connection and to maybe like other groups and things like that, the outside influence of Instagram and Snapchat.

Rohit: But like it wasn't, you know what it is today where you can see just the sheer amount of the world in the palm of your hand. I think that is tremendously powerful now because now you have a sense of what others are doing and you have maybe some POVs and the whole concept. I think [00:52:00] that has totally changed the game of what is possible with your career. I think LinkedIn has also done the same thing. This will come back into like comparisons and fomo, right? But it also shows you tangible paths that people have gone down to get in different places of their career. And now you're sorry to see even more if through social, how they actually feel about it, right?

Rohit: Was this a good choice? Was this a bad choice? How did I get there? I think the major is important. I think. I think STEM careers are incredibly important. And like poli sci and everything that has some, well, everything at university is important. I think that's the main piece is go to university.

Rohit: Again, education, like higher education is incredibly important to, to shape your mind and all of that. But what you do with it, a lot of it is built off of where you've learned that others can go or where you think you can go. 'cause the other pathway out of all of this is entrepreneurship and doing your own thing, right?

Rohit: With the skills you have or learned skills afterward. This is maybe a little bit tougher and I don't wanna sound too tone deaf, but it, a lot of it is backed by like where you are [00:53:00] financially, right? Do you necessarily need to go into a career right away, or do you have time to maybe go to grad school?

Rohit: Do you have time to maybe draw down some more student loans? Do you have time to go to we used to be like coding boot camps or similar activities like that to just get the next level or build the network off of that. I think a lot of that, again, bases like your own financial situation and like the impact of student loans is not to be ignored.

Rohit: Right? This is quite heavy. But I think university in general, half of it is class. The other half is actually building your own network and professional network and going to those events that are like the five o'clock afterwards. 

J.R.: Okay. So there's value in it and also there's more things than just what you're studying that you can get value out of. So I guess you might've already answered it with the whole, in this day and age, the possibilities of what you see in terms of career and life trajectory. It, there's a lot more, it's more infinite. And so now you, it might open your eyes into what's out there and it might push you to really dig in to see what you are good at, what you [00:54:00] wanna do what's a possible career.

J.R.: So I guess now connecting it personally, from the moment you graduated until where you are now, what were some of the main inflection points or biggest factors that helped to get to where you are today? 

Rohit: Yeah, this is a good one because this kind of ties a couple things, which is I got a job from this.

Rohit: ISP, professional network that Kevin and I had stood up and over time we had, we'd made the right connection. I think a couple things like fell in luck wise, which was that, that we invited the head of technical services for Baxter Bioscience at our Los Angeles site to come speak. We had, we'd really hit it off well, he's like, we're expanding into Georgia.

Rohit: Would you like to maybe move out there to start an entry job? I was like, that's, I'm good to move the whole thing. And then when he actually contacted me after, he's like, Hey, we have a rotational program, classic in, in many large companies you have rotational programs for entry level undergrads.

Rohit: You have rotational programs [00:55:00] for grad students, and they split off based off of like finance, it, engineering other various leadership tactics. The rotational programs are how you build talent pools in large matrix organizations versus people coming in with added experience that you look for a specific career path, right?

Rohit: So these rotational programs generally are like your entry level. And so at Dr. Sun had provided the LA one to me and I had applied, went through the number of interviews to this and thankfully got the offer with the start date. That was a little bit out from when we graduated.

Rohit: So we had, I moved back home and then moved back down, lived on a French couch, eventually found the apartment in Hollywood. So we started at this job, but the entry job was a little bit different than I expected, right? What I had imagined as a engineer undergrad was sitting at a desk and looking at diagrams and okay, there's like fluid flows through pipes or whatever, and like mapping that out.

Rohit: Like classic, classic like entry level engineering, grunt work. Right? That's what I imagine. But what this rotation program did, and what I'm [00:56:00] very thankful of, somebody had the vision of doing this. This was, was actually rotations of six months with the technicians, like classic blue collar workers on the floor in the clean room, like turning wrenches cleaning walls, like doing things on shifts, right?

Rohit: Actual like California shift work, right? Six to two, two to 10 graveyard shifts, weekend shifts. Because that was where you you're in the trenches. But this is like regular, this is somebody's like job. This is like somebody's regular life and it's very value added if to use those real terms.

Rohit: But it's like value added work, right? You're the one that's actually moving a medicine from one location to the next. You're transforming it versus somebody that's building the plan versus somebody making financial PowerPoints, right? So we call it this value added work. The top part in the world today is like, this is the, this is what's traditionally blue collar work.

Rohit: I'm very thankful for that activity because that it showed me what like LA technicians who they really were. You had the variety of individuals that might have been of Hispanic descent or African American descent or like old [00:57:00] school. Just people that have been working there for 30, 40 years, like turning wrenches and like making things happen. And they really knew how shit worked. And I'm thankful for that because once I built that trust that I was able to hang with them, when I eventually got this role, which was an exit out of the rotation program to be a supervisor of those technicians, the trust was already there.

Rohit: This is a, this is like an incredibly valuable thing that I think a lot of people miss, is you have to build a team that trusts you. And a lot of that is built, I think putting through, like I think they're putting sweat equity together. Like when shit goes wrong, are you there or you're like trying to command at another level or you're down on the floor with it?

Rohit: I think putting in work is like one of the areas that people sometimes shy away from, but is a quick way to build trust with your peers or your team. And then, so after that time, 'cause I think I had enough trust and like leadership potential at that time when I was a young supervisor, like 25 to 27, my [00:58:00] teams did really well, and the upper management trusted me to supervise more, or like on shifts that were a little bit a little bit more like a little less supported by the rest of the plant. So like on weekends or weekend nights or holidays. And because I was able to do that when I came to the manufacturing site through the week, I was able to spend my time on improvement projects that got me a lot of visibility.

Rohit: And so between trust on the floor and then visibility from offer management, it all really worked well of building the network that led me into the next job, which was like global network strategy. So now not just one manufacturing site, but how do our other manufacturing site all fit in the value chain of plasma derived therapies?

Rohit: That's what we were working on there. And this, I had a wonderful manager George, who actually came to my wedding through the time where he would, now we'd fly to different parts of the world, we'd have to figure out some different engineering processes or again, how does logistically, like how do some places from the starting product move to the middle [00:59:00] product?

Rohit: And that gave us a whole nother perspective because my perspective was just one site. And one very US focused viewpoint. But then George gave me the opportunity to see how things work in Europe or Asia or different parts of the us. How we as a company fit in, like the global picture and then how we as a therapeutic area fit into the global company picture, which was truly eye-opening in that aspect.

Rohit: Over time we had found challenges that we wanted to solve for like logistics, supply chain engineering. And that gave me an opportunity to work on what we call innovation programs. Very early stage unproven items, small budgets attached to it, but at least try something. And one of these try something programs got me connected with not just our manufacturing and engineering arms, but also our business arms because now there's some overlap with other [01:00:00] companies doing things and maybe we need to go into mergers and acquisitions. Maybe we need to go into what's patentable. Maybe we need to go into like our own r and d space. So this is a different part of the company that I had no visibility to versus what I was doing previously.

Rohit: And this bridge in that one innovation program is what got me the offer to move to Boston. To move from just the engineering, manufacturing side of that particular innovation program to leading it from a a more business perspective. So traditionally that looked like moving from the manufacturing site to the office, right?

Rohit: And that was now after a couple years, I've kind of established myself as like an innovation player that people could come to, to drive these sort of ambiguous programs. It's a little bit, it's almost, somebody described it to me as this is almost entrepreneurial. Like intrapreneurial, right?

Rohit: Mm. You're starting new things within the company. This particular program was was a product, right? So it had various players from r [01:01:00] and d and our manufacturing sites and mergers and acquisitions and business development. And that gave me, and my manager at the time now had a different manager in a sort of support to spin up an innovation arm for our business unit.

Rohit: Now it looks throughout, again, our therapeutic area across the globe to look at different innovation or different challenges that we have. Either the starting products, marketing products, getting new products right? Finding new ways to help patients or others. And we built an innovation culture off of that.

Rohit: And this worked really well for a couple years when innovation was the buzzword from. 22 to 24. This was like the time where everybody wanted to be in innovation and we had set up the innovation culture. So this became us even stepping another level higher where it's build a community around the thousands of people around the company, teach them what innovation is, jobs to be done, how to do pilots, like how do we move through really ambiguous [01:02:00] intrapreneurial tasks.

Rohit: And then the last pivot that happened to where I am now is that the focus became everything digital. So now I'm in digital innovation in a pharma company, but it's still very much intrapreneurial. How do we change processes or things that are inherently inefficient or can we bridge to new gaps in the large company, right?

Rohit: In spaces of r and d or commercial or the starting material for Takeda for what we're doing in plasma. And so all of this led to where I am now, which is like managing a portfolio of different programs and projects for the various sub-functions within my therapeutic.

Rohit: And it's a great job. I really love it because it has that intrapreneurial aspect where I'm like managing the budget and the stakeholders and the expectations and like helping teams drive tactical, seed development happen. So I like that because it's very analogous to where I started where you wanna see the thing, the value added work happen.

Rohit: Now you see the value [01:03:00] added work happen just in a digital aspect, and somebody's life gets easier, patient lives get better, what have you. So this is where I'm like very thankful that we're in this pathway right now. And it's also everything I think when you think about career development, you have to keep learning, keep growing with yourself. And I'm thankful for these pathways in Takeda through the various mergers and acquisitions that brought me here. But now within tech, this is the place to be, right? I have colleagues that are experts in artificial intelligence that are helping me understand foundational elements to what the cutting edge is.

Rohit: And I, I get to help others learn that. I get to teach that to others. And I am also self-teaching for different aspects. So I'm tremendously thankful at the point that I'm at right now, and it's the place to be.

J.R.: Thanks for sharing. That's a fascinating sort of trajectory. And the pivots.

J.R.: Two things I wanna ask is for the intrapreneurial side. I think if people are drawn to that, it's interesting how you have that within a corporate structure, because entrepreneurial is [01:04:00] traditionally, when people think of it, maybe it's the small business startup, whatever, and then kind of growing it, but you're within a company, existing organization and having that sort of arm.

J.R.: I guess my question on that is, how does one either push that sort of entrepreneurial value within a company like that? Or is it something that in your experience, it's just something that was already there and you leaned into it, showed results and then it grew? Or is there something you can do to kind of insert that into an existing structure?

J.R.: And then to tie everything up in a bow, just to end that section is what advice, general advice would you give for someone to go through this pathway or similar career field? Knowing that obviously it's very specific to you, but, and anything you didn't touch on. 

Rohit: Yeah. This, the intrapreneurial innovation topic is a fascinating thing and I think has been evolving in the last five years more than anything before, right?

Rohit: Because classically the word of innovation meant to move fast and deploy, right? And look, work on really ambiguous problems. But that's, I think there's innovation that happens all [01:05:00] across, right? And we think about this with the innovator's dilemma. Huge amounts of books have been published about this.

Rohit: Clayton Christensen is the godfather of Call of Innovation. And I think that's a peak to start for any listeners, start there and then start to bridge out to other innovation mindsets and books. But the interesting, really interesting place that innovation in large companies started and had evolved from classically is like with tech, right?

Rohit: And like the famous story always is how Gmail got created. Because Google's culture was like, okay, let's work on our main things Monday through Thursday, Friday, do your own thing. And the do your own thing is like really where sparks happened, right? And I think a lot of us now in like our, twenties and thirties are always doing our own thing outside of the corporate job.

Rohit: So it's kind of like that sort of like the side hustle, if you will, right? But if you take that and you put it in the company. That's when you have, you see inefficiencies, you see challenges. And it's like how do you rise up to solve them? That's the first place where ideas spark. But then pulling it through is the hardest part for anybody.

Rohit: Pulling through any [01:06:00] innovation to get somebody to buy in. The hard part, and the truth of it, if we're like big company, is it has to be tied to some financial outcome. It has to be tied to increase revenue or cost savings. You have to be able to prove that out.

Rohit: So a lot of places is if you can build a pilot of something or prototype for low to no cost and you can model out how this will save. That's how you get the leadership buy-in. Because again, in large companies, matrix organizations, you need to show the financial outcome. You need to have the leadership buy-in. Otherwise pushing, innovation never works. Right? It's, it is effectively sales, right?

Rohit: Yeah. You're gonna be selling your idea all the time, but is a lot harder if there's nobody buying it on the other end or you don't have any champion on the other end pulling it.

Rohit: You always need to have sort of those red yellows. Greens, right? Greens are people that will pull anyway, they'll pull the innovation 'cause they know, they believe in the outcomes. So you wanna get your boss, you wanna get their boss, you wanna get your peers to pull or the functional leadership there. Then there's some skeptics. The yellows, you wanna turn them into greens.

Rohit: People always have some reds, right? Usually these folks are like [01:07:00] traditionally more conservative where their job is to be more conservative. Their job is to maintain our growth pattern as maybe delivered to investors or other exterior stakeholders. Sure. Always have some reds, but your job as an innovator is also to convert those yellows to greens and really be able to have them pull your innovation and believe in it.

Rohit: I think that's the key around innovation in general for, doesn't matter the size of your company, but you have to build that. The idea spark, the leadership buy-in, the proof of financial outcomes and the support network around it.

Rohit: I think for folks looking just general advice. You know, it's a, it's an interesting time 'cause I've been in the corporate space for 11 years and arguably in the same company. Yep. Yes, this has been merger and acquisitions, but it's in the same therapeutic area and it, yes, it's gotten more in matrix, but I'm effectively in the big pharma organization. And a lot of us are as well. You just don't hear as much about it. I think in, in college for one thing and it's just not that pre prevalent on a hype thing on social media. It's like [01:08:00] this is a classic career. And I think there's time and space for it because this is where you build expertise. This is where you build knowledge of something that is not gonna go away.

Rohit: You have the same in oil and gas, in construction, in tech, right? You like building in the big company is an important skill and getting the name on there is an important skill 'cause that builds weight as you maybe go start your own thing or go to a different company. I think getting your foot in the door for the big company, even if it's the lowest level, is incredibly important because you'll start to understand how the big company works. And how these things work across multiple nations or across multiple continent is also very important.

J.R.: I like it. Okay, so the advice for, I was gonna rephrase the question. I think you already hit on it though, which was. We're in our thirties, but going back to, let's say an 18-year-old or someone fresh outta high school, how you would advise them to approach a career and as a, it seems like you're saying try to get your name in the big companies.

J.R.: You'll learn a lot from industry titans, from those fields that will be [01:09:00] around, and then you can always apply that to whatever else you do, or if you move to another company or industry. Right? 

Rohit: I think, so there's two pieces, which is the entry job is super not sexy, right? It is not sexy at all. And it probably will not pay what maybe your friends and like doing their own thing or getting like the really sexy like tech career going. But yeah, that's a different pathway into into tech and like landing those jobs. But I think there's a level of stability in sort of the classic big organizations.

Rohit: Again, like I think the ones that come to mind are like maybe large financial institutions construction, oil and gas, things that come off of engineering, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, like even hospitals. I think, and when you think about this sort of infrastructure that's been built that has multiple players and multiple inputs, you have that stability when you get into an entry level. But you're also paid in brackets.

Rohit: And yeah, it won't be the craziest thing. You won't have like tremendous stock options. Maybe the stock won't even move that much until the, for example, the company has like some sort of breakthrough. But that stability and the ability [01:10:00] to like network into the company pays dividends. That's the piece where you start to understand how these things are structured and what different pathways actually exist.

Rohit: Because I think one thing that maybe 18 year olds and college kids have, that's a leg up that what we had is there was no visibility into how these companies were structured. We actually, I actually learned it through when we had one of the speakers come and actually show us what the career ladder would be for an engineer and like how you'd get there and where a master's of PhD might help you level up, but now you can actually just put this prompt into co-pilot or Gemini or what have you and you could, it'll just spit back out what to do.

Rohit: I think there, where then when it gets tougher is like you really have to lean into your own expertise and what sets you apart when it comes to like college recruiting time or to cold emailing recruiters or to like networking your way into the job. But no matter what, you still have to network your way into the job.

Rohit: It's always easier to know somebody at the company. It doesn't matter what it is. If somebody there is like referral [01:11:00] bonuses and all that, if you're can have somebody refer you in, it's like infinitely times easier than cold applying.

J.R.: I like it. Okay. Any last thoughts on that? Otherwise I wanna kind of pivot into entrepreneurship.

J.R.: We're already kind of talking about it. Yeah, let's do it. Cool. Okay. A big topic here is what do you do outside of your corporate job? And so maybe we've teased this already. There are some things that I, I was skimming your LinkedIn and I know you, you were very entrepreneurial, like we just mentioned.

J.R.: So obviously Belfiore, herbal with your mom I saw that it, you were developing this app, nightlife nav, Intune Health. And so I'm sure you do other things as well, but what other things, or if anything else do you do outside of your corporate job? And I guess how did you get into these different endeavors and, or why, I guess. 

Rohit: So we'll start with why because let's actually. That's probably a good one because I think a lot of people will have this bridging off what I just said, which is the entry job is not gonna be sexy and will very distinctly be like nine to five plus the extra effort you put in to stay a little bit later, [01:12:00] which classically works, right?

Rohit: Like staying in solving your boss's problem always works, always, no matter what you are, like, that little extra effort will pay so many more dividends. But the challenge that I was facing at my time with the first year working with our technicians and working on shifts was like I had to clock out and go home, right?

Rohit: Like they were very strict on that. So okay, you can learn up to this point. There's all sorts of levels of things you can learn, but like you have to go home after this. And so like the other young people in the company that were in the same rotational program were damn, did I study and push myself to this level to have to go home so quickly?

Rohit: Like where's the learning curve on this? So you of us had that like spark. I think it was also an environment of LA that bridged this, which was like 2014, 15 was like venture capital peak. Everybody was like, oh, startup startups site people are going to startups and getting jobs at whatever.

Rohit: Like maybe let's do our, let's do our own startup thing and do your own startup thing to even get the idea flowing. I recommend people go to like hackathons or event Aons and [01:13:00] some coworkers that were also at, like Anthony and Albert, these two guys that like I was working with. They were also into that, like maybe it was just go to hackathon together and see what it's like. And I remember we'd go on like weekends to Santa Monica to like, oh, at and t like science labs or whatever. And they'd have like different people from all sorts of backgrounds, like hack against a problem, right? And all that means is you're gonna, you're gonna try to prototype something that solves a problem, right?

Rohit: And there'll be like a structured problem and you just find clever ways to do it and you maybe get some recognition or prize money or Amazon gift cards at the end. But it it helps the entrepreneurial spark and like that, that like that area, like just that environment helps you bring a network in.

Rohit: And so we were doing these things because it was a way to, I know, flex our minds outside of the pharma job. And at one of those hackathons, a gentleman named Melvin had pitched an app idea he had, which was called Nightlife Nav which was at that exact time in twenty fourteen fifteen. Call 15 [01:14:00] was a challenge with nightlife was do you actually know what the state of the venue is before you get there. What's the dress code? Who's the dj? Is there a lot of girls? Is it popping? Is it not popping? Is there a door charge? What is it like?

Rohit: And his the like the cusp of his idea was basically around, okay, like you have Yelp and you have Snapchat. What if you like, combining those two specifically for nightlife?

Rohit: I was enthused about it because in 2015 I was like, this is great. I'm social, like I'm trying to explore LA and learn these things, and these are problems I have. So I actually chased him out the door. I was like, Hey, I wanna work on this with you. And then from there we started meeting regularly at these different like startup cafes or even Starbucks and like talking about the idea.

Rohit: And we put in the groundwork, which straight up drove around to these different like venues or like search deal and went web scrape them and tried to type in all the information. And one day sitting at a Starbucks, I like used Wireframe app and I prototyped the idea because we realized if we want this to work, we need to get some sort of venture [01:15:00] funding to build the app, right?

Rohit: Mm-hmm. This was like. We had learned a lot just through talking to people and through networking. This is an area I like, recommend people do, but it was a lot of work. But to understand how much it would take to build an app with no, none of us having technical backgrounds. And it was like, at the time, I think it's wildly different now.

Rohit: I think it was like 30 to $50,000, which we didn't have. So we needed some seed funding. Or like an accelerator or an incubator or something like that to help us navigate all of these other challenges of incorporating a company or even working through any legal things that we'd have.

Rohit: So we'd go to these different Santa Monica accelerators and try to pitch the idea like, Hey, this is the wire frame we built. This is how it works. If you click in West Hollywood, you can see all these different places and you can click in it. It also have like exactly what the dress code is and all that.

Rohit: And if we do build this out, it would have this functionality kind of like Snapchat where somebody could log oh, what's the dress code? Is the DJ on? Is there a lot of people? What's the music like? And so we we have the static information and the live information, we'd be able to marry the two.

Rohit: And we could tell how many people are there because they'd [01:16:00] log in through Facebook and we'd have location information. And we're like, okay, just sum that up. And that's how many people are there and it has genders. And we had this brilliant idea. And at the same time, like so many competitors for the same thing came out, but we all died off very quickly.

Rohit: Because what we learned, one, Melvin and I, we had good partnership and like we're really good friends. But I think our view of like how the business was growing was a little bit different. I think Melvin has a good heart in it, but I don't know financially if he was all in it and I thought I was all in it, but I wanted to keep growing in my current career.

Rohit: So that was like a riff point between us. And also like just the, I think just the amount of competition that was coming up was intimidating. It was very intimidating because it was sort of like people would build like social media presences off this to show how good these other apps are, and they'd flex on their funding.

Rohit: But none of these actually panned out because the really hard part about going into nightlife business is we thought we were gonna make revenue streams by taking the [01:17:00] information and selling it back to the bars, clubs, and lounges. We actually, thankfully through networking, got in touch with some of these larger bars, clubs, lounges, and got to speak to managers and all this. And they're like, that's good.

Rohit: It's helpful to help us direct our advertising to help somebody come in. Maybe draw more crowds. But they're like we need to make money off of table sales and we need to make money off of like concert tickets and we make money off of alcohol. The margin off these things. And then the problem now, I think it's a very solvable thing. If somebody's listening to this, somebody can make this really happen through partnerships.

Rohit: But now it's easy to tap into like point of sale systems and understand okay, the Jameson, Bacardi, whatever is like selling and then you could like optimize or advertising, it's a whatever, right? There's a matrix of things that can happen, but we just didn't know what that was. And there was other apps coming in specifically for table sales that were gaining traction and everybody kind of died out like even before the pandemic.

Rohit: Mm-hmm. It was just like, alright, sustainable models. There's an inflection point where [01:18:00] this was all good for 2015 to 2018. I was putting a lot of effort on this off of my shift work and off of my other supervisory work, going to like these startup cafes or whatever and working with Melbourne to try to figure it out.

Rohit: But then like I just also started to shift to like other challenges in the world that I think like we can solve. And so my other fraternity brother Andre was also in like the startup finance space. His thing was like Rohit, how do we start like a healthcare analytics company?

Rohit: Like how do we have help people have better health outcomes? And so this is where Intune Health really was born. And Intune Health, the premise was, okay, is there a help people with help insurance or helping them help better get better health outcomes. And then through talking to people one of my very good friends Katherine Rush, she was like there's problems like in in students as they develop.

Rohit: Problems that would lead to long-term health outcomes. And so three of us basically understood that, these things called adverse childhood events, like combinations [01:19:00] of maybe things like gang violence in the area or low income areas, the combination of divorced parents or maybe somebody who's getting deported.

Rohit: The differences in language like these adverse childhood events. The more of these you have over time come back as physical health outcomes. And so Andre and I were trying to figure out even before talking to Catherine is sentiment analysis and journaling a way to figure out long-term health outcomes?

Rohit: And then Catherine gave us idea of students, right? And we sort of merged these things together. And Intune Health became sentiment analysis for students in a way to track if somebody's gonna have or solve adverse childhood events, right? And. I'll say this, but we never signed any, like legal things or did anything by the book, but we basically made this prototype, deployed it in two schools from our friends, one from Catherine and one from another friend Andreas.

Rohit: And they were able to see through journaling, we had students Snapchat QR codes, put in the journals. It read out its Google file. We'd run a sentiment analysis on [01:20:00] it. Like basically like these teachers, like Catherine and Andre, like they, Andreas, they like stopped kids from having serious challenges at home.

Rohit: Like cops coming into the house or whatever. Like they, they stopped real shit from happening. And I, and a lot of it did come back to like early detection technology, but a lot of it was also trust built in with the teacher.

Rohit: And so these two pieces really were awesome to merge together. And it was a glorious journey. But we also recognize that we do need to get some legal advice. We need to get some, like venture funding. This is not something that we can self-fund because we need to have partnerships with traditionally slow moving entities like education. Which was hard.

Rohit: And so like 2019, careers going well. Like George I mentioned earlier, had taken me like to different parts of the world, like I'm seeing this. And then in tune we were like spending our evenings and weekends. Like pitching at different events, going to different . Building out the prototypes, Catherine and Andreas as like advisors showing us this is how work and school district this is, you would talk to for guidance counselor, we're going to schools in Santa Ana and out in Rialto, [01:21:00] like areas that are mostly like black and brown communities that have these adverse childhood events in mass.

Rohit: And it was great to build. And it really all got crushed by the pandemic.

Rohit: That was the ending point really. Like we were at such a peak right up to that point. Man, we were talking to some other friends that have worked with Planned Parenthood. They were like, oh, we have Planned Parenthood in certain areas in la.

Rohit: We can maybe figure out ways to, oh, if there's certain sentiments coming is there a way to connect these students with Planned Parenthood? That's already in a school, so already have that barrier removed. Like we were so ready to go there. And then it just got crushed by the pandemic.

Rohit: Mm-hmm. And then really quickly after that, which is so funny because. This is the part about being like startups on first movers, I think is interesting because if that, if those resources and everything, if we had set up a year prior to the pandemic and had some traction, this would've taken off to no end during the pandemic because a bunch of competitors launched at that time. And now I think it's like a more reasonable thing when people journal, talk about mental health, connect to physical health, [01:22:00] connect to the right resource. Now I think you actually have segments off of this. And I think somebody has solved the under 18, over 18 challenge that we were facing.

Rohit: But that was like, that was just so interesting because that was like, that could have been the jump point for Intune Health. And it kind of just naturally died out. We actually collapsed the company afterward. And it is an area that Andre and I talk about going back in all the time because there's so much opportunity to help somebody by connecting the right resource at the right point.

Rohit: The schools are such a great driver for this. Education has changed. I get it. But I think that other piece was like trust in teachers and that's a hugely undervalued part of the world right now. Like Andreas was able to help all these students from really bad things from happening because they trusted him.

Rohit: But he also knew with data, like these things are happening.

J.R.: Nice. I guess now Belfiore herbal? And you wanna go into that? What was the story and how has that been like. 

Rohit: This is an interesting one because this is like maybe more classic entrepreneurship.

Rohit: This started that same timeframe of 18, 19, 20, right. Of the years [01:23:00] and where my parents were getting older and they're looking at what like the legacy will be. And classically as Indians, we usually go into farming. Like small business routes or farming or build companies or whatever.

Rohit: So my parents were like really enjoyed farming in their lives, right? They really enjoyed always making, growing in fruits and vegetables or growing flowers. And they always really enjoyed the stuff. They enjoyed wine. And so just as part of where my parents wanted to, put some money in the future was looking at land in the Bay area for we'll call it stone fruits, which are like peaches, plums, cherries.

Rohit: Or wine for like table grapes or for sort of table wine. But the tough part is these are actually like big industries. And the California wine industry is crazy, right? It's it's very hard to get onto like vines that are producing grapes that will go somewhere versus just like table grapes and then it's like a whole mafia culture behind that.

Rohit: So we're like, that's probably, that's the best thing. So in like 2019, like 2020, my mom was like a also growing flowers in our backyard. She had she has 40 years of cell [01:24:00] biology experience, so she really knows how skin and human skin cells work. She knows like the diffusion effects. She knows everything there is to know about a human's biology really.

Rohit: Or she knows a way to figure it out through deep research. And she works at UCSF as a researcher in these kind of fields for cell biology, molecular biology, and genetics. And so my dad has a similar background. And so my mom was like looking at the time of one for her own hobby, like making things out of the flowers, which became making skincare products.

Rohit: She looks at the ingredients on, I don't know, we'll use Aveeno. And she's like, okay, this won't actually do anything. This will stay on top. This will feel good, but it won't actually help your skin. Her thesis was, can I take these plants that I grow and turn them into products that will help your cells be healthy and your skin, right?

Rohit: So it will help either create healthy cells through, different hyaluronic acids and collagen and elastin production, or we'll help [01:25:00] remove dead cells and dead cell is dead cells not being removed through your bloodstream is actually what clo causes a lot of clogged pores and a lot of blackheads and acne and things like that, gathering up underneath your skin.

Rohit: And so this is the whole thesis, right? And as the pandemic and took hold, she had a little bit more time to work on these things and to think about it and to do the research. And she's a natural at this kind of stuff. Like it's easier for her to formulate, it's easier for her to like scientifically prove that these things will happen.

Rohit: So then we just started, all the family was like, maybe we'll turn it into a business. So we made her an Etsy store. We started printing some labels. So very classically alright, let's go see if there's a market for this. Friends and family were all in. She gave it to friends, try, right? It being like face creams, the start or face washes or whatever.

Rohit: People had like dark circles clear up. People had acne clear up. People had better skin outcomes through this like natural products that she made, very minimalist ingredients, lavender, marigold, turmeric shea butter, grape seed oil, things like that, right? All, all sort of single ingredients come together with [01:26:00] maybe like just a citric acid to maybe hold some things together.

Rohit: And so like these things all together just sort of helped us prove that we could make some things. And then we started to really bridge this out into. I think I got a little bit of that entrepreneurship bug back where I was like, okay, I see it happening. I see like the skincare companies rocket to the moon through socials, right?

Rohit: This is something we've always been chasing. It kind of leads to the comparison FOMO challenge. And I was like, maybe we can do the same. And then but this is like the family challenge. So we're all kind of like, go, like we're all kinda like annoy each other a little bit. So it's like, mom, you gotta do this a certain way.

Rohit: Or my brother, you gotta do certain things other way. And they're like, RO, you have to do something this way. And we just tried to make designs and get photography done. And all of this was like a bit slower moving for us because we're all just discovering it.

Rohit: But this led through multiple evolutions of becoming an incorporated company, getting its first level designs, posting stuff on Facebook and Instagram, building traction. And the first hustle obviously with every entrepreneurship, like building a product, you should definitely go to a farmer's market and just [01:27:00] see if you get natural traction from somebody you don't know, or if you could sell them the product. Everything's sales, we gotta sell all the time, but like my mom was very good at this, right? If you, if she catches you and was able to explain scientifically it's always a sale. The problem is like volume of that. You can't do that.

Rohit: Mm-hmm. 

Rohit: Very often what she's like, yeah. Scale. Unless she's unless she is like doing it like on stage or something, we'll come back to that. But this has evolved from farmer's market and one brand to, we did, we started to go online. Etsy had a little bit of natural traction, then we spun up a Shopify store.

Rohit: Then I started running some things on just Insta and Facebook and we started to build a little bit of community and then we started to branch out a little bit in 22, which got tough because now I had moved, even further away. So I had to move. We had to do stuff over, over Zoom and teams to just try to build our social presence or film things for Insta.

Rohit: We had heard about TikTok, like we weren't on that train at all. And we were just getting confused in our own realm of what we should [01:28:00] do, how we should position ourselves, who we're comparing against. We spent way too much money on like outside branding or like outside advisors and things like that.

Rohit: This is a classic entrepreneurship. Dilemma of doing things yourself and then trying to hire people that do other things. Freelancers, if that. And I have stories for days on this, but basically over time this has evolved into like maybe a more successful entrepreneurship story where we've gone to professional trade shows.

Rohit: We try to build a three-pronged approach for Belfiore. The professional trade shows is our B2B arm where we start to go talk to estheticians and spas saying that we could, white label products for you. This is our natural skincare brand. Our lavender farm that we eventually ended up procuring and growing has gotten 4,000 plants and is like a great part of the story and a great thing that we're able to show like truly natural products into the skincare side and haircare side.

Rohit: The second prong is Amazon. It is a slog to do [01:29:00] this and there's tons of challenges to get it going, and fees are also a crazy part, but Amazon inherently builds credibility through the reviews process. We have an Amazon branch. It's tough as a company that's selling to professionals, but also on Amazon to like bridge that and keep that brand strong.

Rohit: And then I basically run our like online marketing arm, where now you've caught me at a very interesting time of my own inflection over this last week where it's I need to work on pr, I need to work on putting my own videos on TikTok. Insta and starting to show the authenticity of the brand and also doing some paid ads and the whole thing.

Rohit: But that's like where my inflection point really came. And a lot of that it's bridged out of, I had this like crippling fear of putting my face on like videos and I was just not, I I'd talk on camera all the time, but talking about something else. Even though I write about it all the time or give direction to the various freelancers, it's like a lot of this kind of just comes down to like distribution, like we talked about.

Rohit: Just the sheer volume of [01:30:00] marketing until you can find the niche that will work for you. I think we're good on the spa piece. I think Amazon is good if you pay into play. But building our own like sort of outward retail D to C space is an area that we're not still struggling in. There's like tons more detail we can go in, this is the overarching. And that now that's the most important thing outside of work for the growth obviously. And then like personal life is fine, but that's where I'm putting all my time and energy right now. And you've caught me at a very interesting time. 'cause this all started in like the end of August where it's like, I need to go all in on this.

J.R.: I like it. 

Rohit: I love the story. I wanna take a step back now. And so you've walked us through a lot of different things you've done. I want to ask at a high level, what were some of the biggest, takeaways or lessons learned or things that have shaped you through your entrepreneurial endeavors, combining with your corporate experience that you could say you've learned the most from, or you think is the most insightful?

Rohit: First we'll talk about people. So on the entrepreneurship side, Melvin was a good partner to [01:31:00] start with. I think his expectations and his viewpoint, we never were gonna grow that high. Because I think the way he saw the world was fundamentally different than the way I saw the world, both in like our personal development and both in like how we would run the company.

Rohit: I think there's maybe a time and place to come back to it, but after some time that we lost a little bit of trust with each other. I don't know if it's fully back from that, but I think naturally that happens. And I think depending on where you are and where your passions are you need to work back to build that trust or you let it flow.

Rohit: And that's one key piece is like sometimes, the people that you work with maybe have different expectations over time. But this is the, this is it's a couple's therapy, you gotta work through it. Depending on if you both want this thing to succeed or not.

Rohit: Intune, Andre, great partner, same thing. I think we're both running to the moon with this. I think where we were both ready to jump for our jobs was maybe a little different place and how rich we're willing to put into it. I think we're in a good spot and I [01:32:00] was really curious to see how that would've worked if we were into the pandemic with the lasting company.

Rohit: 'cause I think for personally, for me, that was a point where like my career was really going well. And had a really good runway to, to even grow, which it did thankfully. And I don't know how it would've gone all in on it in tune, right. I don't know. I always think about that, like to look back. I don't know what it would be if it was like a money jump or a time jump because the career was going so well and I was getting so many good opportunities off of it.

Rohit: And now working with family, it's very interesting 'cause it's actually brought a lot of us closer back together. This is an important piece and why this is the most important thing right now is because my brother has a hard time maybe getting a traditional job and he is always been kind of more introverted and, struggled with some depression here and there.

Rohit: And so the most important thing for me is to build a company so my brother has a place for the future. And so there'll always be a part of the family in there. Oddly enough, Melissa's brother is in the very same boat, so [01:33:00] it'd be nice for us to be able to bring them in, as some part of this.

Rohit: So that's why it's like hugely important. I also think with Belfiore, with the control over it, with the family, my mom and I align on what the future will look like a lot. Which is can we rebuild trust in science around, around the world? Can we build a pathway to help people that are experiencing homelessness into a job that's sustainable.

Rohit: We can start in the Bay Area, maybe make that work. Something I actually want to help and do. This is an area that like, is less so, like I know the money will come with it. I'm not really worried about that piece. But it's something that we could, and I think this is a little bit different for a lot of people, and I don't wanna sound tone deaf, but it's something that we're able to self-fund right now and not take outside money.

Rohit: So we have more control over it. And this is an important piece because of the other two that we're technology, you would have to take outside capital to scale. And if you wanted to build your social impact over time it would really be over time. Versus Belfiore, I think I need to get some foundational things moving.

Rohit: And I can start to build into my social impact [01:34:00] that I can control. I think that's the lesson is it's how much of what you're doing is something that you're, you're able to control versus how much is somebody else driving for you. I think thankfully with the family, we're able to talk about it very openly, very frequently.

Rohit: Versus my co-founders with the other ones were not actually my family, even though we saw eye to eye for a lot of things. It's just a little bit different on like how we structured ourselves. 

J.R.: So the people side is a big factor in terms of the dynamic of what you're doing and kind of like the mission of what you're trying to build is the takeaway, I'm assuming.

Rohit: Yeah. That's a big takeaway. That's it. 

J.R.: Right, right. I wanted to ask now, the piece of balancing a full-time corporate job with these side business projects, entrepreneurial endeavors. Do you have any advice or takeaways on how to do that or how to approach it? 

Rohit: Man, this is a topic I definitely think about a lot. Yeah. Because it kind of depends on where you are in your career for the corporate job, because demand gets higher as you climb the ladder. I think I'm at a point, thankfully where [01:35:00] I have a team and I have some consultants at the corporate job that are helping me move some of these more ambiguous internal programs so I don't have to spend like the after hours on it.

Rohit: But I do spend a lot of morning, early hours, calls to Europe or overseas. And the nine to five is more like, an eight to five or seven to five some days, right? And then you layer on international travel or other domestic travel that really takes your, what could be your after hours to work on the job, the other job, to focus all in on the corporate job. Which I don't mind. I think the toughest part there is balancing your own health outcomes and making sure you're diligent eating and sleeping and going out, whatever.

Rohit: But balancing back to the entrepreneurship side. I'm also in that flection part where I don't think I've given it really the time it deserves. I think I've been relying on too many like freelancers I've hired up on Upwork. Which is fine, but I think there's a lot that comes back to just me, putting in the time and effort. And this comes back to really dedicating the time and the part about fomo, which is you actually have to say [01:36:00] no to things to focus on the job.

Rohit: And like this inflection point all happened for me really through the wedding. And understanding there's so many things happening in life that I want to have happen, but to grow the business, a lot of it is just on us to do things. Mm. Right? And there's only so much you can farm out to other freelancers, but like even things that are in your control to grow it, if you don't do it and you just keep putting it off the next day, it'll just never get done. This like hesitation to start to do something has been my, like my very much like crippling challenge for so long that I think this is the piece where it's as an entrepreneur, balancing the corporate job like. I don't think you should quit your corporate job until you like, have a healthy investment egg and like your ability to self-fund some of your startup. But all this comes back to time and you get time by saying no to things. 

J.R.: Nice. That is, that's a very strong takeaway. I like that a lot. Okay. I wanna pivot a little bit more now. And so on the topic of pivots, you mentioned your pivots in life and you did touch upon some of these, but I wanna ask what the catalysts were from [01:37:00] these and what did you learn from them?

J.R.: So you mentioned pivots in regards to grad school, fitness, traditional career paths, et cetera. Anything you wanna touch on there? 

Rohit: I think the grad school one is so interesting because in the early part of my career, I'd also been influenced that the way to grow at that time was through an MBA.

Rohit: Don't get me wrong, I think there's tremendous value in an MBA, but I think it depends on the time and where you are in your life. At that time, my early career, I thought it was go all in on a full-time MBA. But that meant is go all in on full-time MBA by taking the gmat, going to a top school like a Harvard MIT Stanford, something like that.

Rohit: And then if I didn't see this early, I would've gotten influenced in the MBA program to do this, but go into like top consulting. Bust ass on that for a couple years and then exit out to a large company. And the interesting place about this is I thought I was gonna do this.

Rohit: And so after hesitating for so much I found about a GMAT book I enrolled in classes. I went and commuted across LA to go to these GMAT classes. And I [01:38:00] was like trying to do this, but I was a shitty studier on my own. And it was bad and I like had a terrible GMAT score after putting in all that work. And that kind of crushed that MBA dream. And I was like, God damnit. Am I ever gonna go into this top tier consulting, right? The McKinsey Bain, BCG route. Because that's what I had always viewed as a way to make it to like the C-Suite.

Rohit: And I think that's still a way, I think that's tremendously still a way. I think it is meant for certain types of people that are in that type of mentality. But that really crushed that piece. So that was like, damn, I don't know if I'm able to hang at that level. And it reminded me of not getting into like the Ivy League, that first pass.

Rohit: But I'm thankful because my natural career growth actually over time has outstripped where somebody would end up in my current role and current company. So that I'm good there, but I still think there's a place where, you know, that master's degree or that MBA is valuable. So now I'm thinking about an executive MBA because the value now once you get to your mid thirties. [01:39:00] It's less valuable to quit your job and go all in on a full-time mBA. An executive MBA is now built off of the people that are in your class that have experienced very different industries. And you have a built a network off that. And I think there's tremendous value in that to get to. The other pivot though, after that sort of grad school consulting dream was crushed. Which I'm kind of thankful for, 'cause that might've been in a lifestyle I'm not into because you don't really have time for entrepreneurship through that lifestyle.

Rohit: Was what I thought in like. 2021. I thought I was gonna go into a design internship. At that time I was having a little bit of do I pivot out of pharma and go into my other passion of trying to solve hunger through food deserts through vertical farming. And it's a whole thing.

Rohit: And to do that I thought I was gonna go into a design master's program. I submit this whole application to send to the guy all the letters of rec, whatever. And I didn't get into that. And that was kind of crushing, but it was less crushing than because that trajectory probably is not as fun as where I'm at right now.

Rohit: [01:40:00] And I think that's where I'm like, these are interesting pieces that helped me influence my own internal Takeda pivots. But also being at the right place at the right time and building the right network to move through those pivots. I think in parallel also the entrepreneurial pivots helped shape who I am. It was like first built off like social and nightlife and data from that and the power of that data. Which is still true. But also learning how a service industry works and really where the margin and the money is. And the second was like healthcare and like long-term health effects that are connected to mental health. And the power of building the relationships. And then now it's like very much entrepreneurship 1 0 1. But I have a roadmap of like how to help others through that. I think all of that has like kind of helped pivot me into the right places.

J.R.: I like that you're able to connect the dots going backwards of course. I think that's where the wisdom is in your journey. Compared to where I think when we're going through that journey and we hit those roadblocks and then now we're forced to pivot and we're like, identity crisis. What do we do now? [01:41:00] And so I hope that maybe the audience would take away from this is that you will probably hit roadblocks.

J.R.: You will definitely hit pivots and it'll crush your dreams here and there. But I think what I'm getting from Rohit's story is that I think it's still worth doing those things and trying it out. And then if life doesn't work out, you keep pivoting and building on the existing knowledge to figure out more your internal awareness, those skill sets, and then the, you'll be ready for those opportunities.

J.R.: Right? Absolutely. Yeah. Is there anything you wanted to touch on for fitness? Because you did mention that. 

Rohit: Man, fuck, this is a whole thing like I think, I think we could talk about. But I think fitness for a lot of us has been a combination of trying and failing. I think there's been influence tremendously over the last 10 years of like different methodologies and education.

Rohit: One thing I gotta give to social media is I think people are understanding a bit more than points of nutrition in fitness of just like calories and calories out. One thing I don't fully agree with is the amount of misinformation that's coming through, like diet and nutrition from social media.

Rohit: But I think the core thing of [01:42:00] your nutrition in your diet there is more important than all the activities you can do in the gym. Just to outstrip that. Going back, I think, once people find back to community or things they like, that's an important way to stick to it. My wife likes solid core, likes hot Pilates, and I think that's something she draws joy from. That's helpful. She's able to do these and she likes the classes. My thing was more like lifting weights. But I think the combination of sticking in consistency is what a lot of us will struggle with.

Rohit: Especially as you do maybe multiple things that are beyond just like your career. Outside of work, you have to build time for this. And it's important to say no to other things to build time for fitness. And if you don't do that, you say yes to all these other things and then it adds on to extra calories that you don't need.

Rohit: Right? 

J.R.: Yeah, I like that. 'cause I was listening to, just to connect it back, another podcast where this guy who, he was saying that a lot of community and network building especially, and he was talking about New York [01:43:00] is around alcohol and going out and stuff. But now that he's in his late forties, he's like, yeah, that stuff like, it doesn't really fit well for longevity and his own health.

J.R.: And so he's moved out to Texas or somewhere else. Yeah. But he was saying how like kind of if you're in that space of you're trying to network, it is alcohol and maybe not taking care of your health is a part of that, it's the trade off. But then, if it's a value and a priority, then maybe there's a sacrifice there.

J.R.: And like you said, saying no to things. 

Rohit: I think about this all the time, right? Because one sheer calories is an important piece for us to all recognize as like tools to help us either gain or lose weight. And then I think about I don't know, like it was a long time ago where like the Tom Brady diet. The whole thing. Which his philosophy was like, you can have beer if if you balance out the other pieces of like eating clean proteins and clean and like tons of fiber in the whole thing. And I like that philosophy because a lot of it just really goes back to calories and calories out. Liquid calories I think that adds up a lot over time for many of [01:44:00] us.

Rohit: I think you shouldn't sell yourself short to like the nightlife or going out and grabbing a drink with friends, if that's like an easy way to catch up. I'm not saying everybody has to be like always drinking or whatever. I think there's just a way to balance that with other things. And a lot of that is maybe you say no to something else or you balance it throughout the week.

Rohit: I think finding your own flexibility there is hugely important. And I think a lot of times, especially for me, I've failed and tried different methods. I'm now in a much more consistent pattern because I know where I can last throughout the week or where I can build time with other activities that I want to do or where I want to prioritize. Like mine and Melissa's health versus the outward facing social.

Rohit: I think, then you balance in like other dietary restrictions and your income and all of that. I think that's, those are like macro factors in there. I think there's a time and place for everything. I think there's a community for everything that can be built out.

Rohit: But fitness is something that will be with you forever. And fitness and health. So it's important to figure that out. [01:45:00] 

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. I like that. I always think about that a lot too. Health, fitness, nutrition, it's always this evolving, very fitted each person. And one diet might not work for someone else. And you kinda have to figure out what works with your value system and your schedule. And it's never a one size fits all. And so it is experimentation in that sense. But, I totally agree.

J.R.: We can move into social media and pressures and FOMO and things like that. So I guess my jumping off point is, do you have any thoughts on the pressures of social media and comparison culture in our careers and the need to portray outward success?

J.R.: You mentioned 30, under 30, but if there's anything else that comes to mind? 

Rohit: This is an important one because I think a lot of people, they'll struggle with this, but a lot of people think about it. Where LinkedIn has become a pathway to learn, but it's also become a pathway to show who you are, because that will build, potentially bring your next prospects. So you can kind of gamify the way you write what you do at work to [01:46:00] sound really important. And people put x big company on their title or put all those sort of fancy words there.

Rohit: And it can make you as somebody who hasn't quite done that feel a little bit smaller. Feel a little bit less accomplished. I think is a little bit tougher than traditional social media flexing because this is your livelihood, or a representation of your livelihood through your career. And so I think many of us struggle with the comparison of somebody's really polished LinkedIn and all the things they have and all the great schools they went to, and all the jobs they've had. Or even if somebody's been like, oh, startup influencer and founder, and whatever and just the way that looks.

Rohit: Because it's the same challenge as anybody posting very doctored photos on any social media. It's always the happy, positive story. I think now more than ever, people are craving authenticity. And some people are starting to relate to some of the challenges or the more personal struggles that are happening.

Rohit: And I think that's driving good engagement all around. But for the most [01:47:00] part, like you only get the highlight reels right through any of these socials. I think this comes again as whether it be starting a business or your own life, it's always the flex of somebody doing better than you.

Rohit: That kind of eats away you a little bit. Could I be doing more? Where am I like in this journey? Like, why are they so much better? It's hard because it weighs on your mental health. But you also need to know like everybody's in different places in their life. And you potentially are like doing incredibly well in your own life, to be even just seeing all this.

Rohit: So I think there's some give and take there, but it's hard for someone to keep telling you that you're doing well in life. You have to come to that realization yourself. And where you are in control and what you can do.

Rohit: It's also a lot of noise. Noise all the time. Like these highlights coming at you all the time, don't bring the best sort of mental health into where you are in your journey. But like you start to cut the noise a little bit and you're like, that's pretty good. You can be doing things and growing on your own.

Rohit: You don't always need to flex it online. That's the other piece too. It's the catch is [01:48:00] like you don't need all this flexing online, but it's so easy now today to build a distribution network of whatever your brand is or your own compounding through social media.

Rohit: So it's a combination of how you can build community online but without it getting to you mentally. 

J.R.: Nice. My question is, any thoughts or advice on how to overcome that find balance or refocus on what's more important? 

Rohit: Yeah, this is a tough one. This is something I'm in right now, right? I think a lot of it has been the one, the own realization of I need to be doing stuff requires me to put my face out there for our own business, for our own family to grow. To draw in new customers, to get some more validation, to build like the effect off of that. I've been watching other people do it for so many years.

Rohit: I've watched other people build, I don't know whether they're legitimate brands or not. But I've seen it happen. Maybe it's time I tried it. But in the effort of not building my own brand, but effort of building like the parent company. And I'm like, okay I'm [01:49:00] like more a rationale for that because I have personally no brand that I want to build, I want to build the company.

Rohit: I get it when people do build things. I think it's hard though when you keep comparing yourself to others and there'll always be people that want you to compare yourself to others because then they can sell you something. And I think it starts with cutting out the noise, right?

J.R.: Yeah. I totally agree with that. Even for myself, I think I've been on this journey the last half year, year or so where I'm trying to disconnect myself from social media in that traditional sense because I visibly feel the effects of being on Instagram, TikTok, it doesn't make me feel good and it's very obvious.

J.R.: Yep. And so now I'm like, all right, let me just like peel back some of my time on this. And then I saw your LinkedIn and then now I've had all those feelings come back and so thanks man. 

Rohit: Yeah. I'm here for it. Believe me, I, I ran this to a couple couple like optimization cycles. Yeah. It's the whole thing. LinkedIn I think is particularly, I dunno, for lack of better [01:50:00] words, predatory, right? Right. It is your calling card online, like it is your business card online. And it's where even future job prospects will look. Yeah, they'll scrub all your other pieces of media too. But you're supposed to be as professional as possible on LinkedIn. But inherently there's gaps that will show up between maybe yourself and somebody else because of like your own career journeys. And it just doesn't make you feel the best on where somebody our age may be versus somebody else. You just don't know anything about like their upbringing or what levels up they've had. And no matter how much you like try to get the outside information, you have to be able to be okay with yourself to understand that okay, maybe they had a whole different lifecycle and a whole different other things they're dealing with and I'm thankful to be where I'm at.

J.R.: Yeah, definitely. Comparison culture. And you're right, I think what you're saying is LinkedIn is kind of incentivized to flex because like you said, job prospects and being in that community directly can lead to financial outcomes. Whereas social media, yeah, [01:51:00] maybe you want attentions, likes, followers, but it's a little bit further removed from that direct incentive.

J.R.: Yeah. Of building that. I guess the last thing that I wanted to ask on this is, so fomo. I think we kind of are touching on this topic, but do you have any general thoughts on how this is manifested in our peers or for people in our generation or anything else you have on that? 

Rohit: Couple levels, which is, the first thing for those that are like slightly extroverted or introverted, trying to be extroverted is a key driver of how you'll shape your life. Because you want to say yes to things. You want to go have those experiences. This is also a factor of even prerecorded conversation of somebody who moves cold to a new city. You kind of have to say yes to a lot of things. And over time, then you have the luxury of saying no to things.

Rohit: And I think that's where fomo maybe starts off as a good thing for you to inherently say yes and get more life experiences. But then you have to have the maturity and self-realization to say no to things, to protect your time, to either [01:52:00] build your other entrepreneurship or other side career or whatever. Or take care of yourself and fitness and family and whatever.

Rohit: But FOMO really does manifest itself when you start to see, whether it be through friends having a good time or texting you or whatever, or through social media. I think now more than ever, you're gonna get it through socials, but I also am hopeful for the future that people see some authenticity through what they're seeing on socials that maybe it's like more doctored.

Rohit: I do think inherently that, as part of like maybe service industries, like you have to build a culture of FOMO for people to want to come to book your resort or hotel or restaurant or whatever. And I think that's fine. I think there's a marketing aspect to that that's always been there.

Rohit: I think it's just more on your face now because of the distribution of social media. So I think there's a, I think FOMO will always play a part. I think there's a maturity level in here that comes through, like self-realization, self-actualization of protecting your time. And saying yes to things you want to say yes to that will bring you somewhere. Or saying no and actually protecting your time for [01:53:00] that. 

J.R.: I love it. All right. That is it for planned. Anything that we left out before we move on to rapid fire?

Rohit: I'm good for rapid fire. Let's do it.

J.R.: Perfect. I'm excited. All right. First one billboard question. We ask this to everyone. If you could put up a sign for millions of people to see non-commercial metaphorical, what would it say? 

Rohit: Non-commercial? This is a good one. I was gonna say a commercial thing. The most important thing right now that I can think of to put on a billboard, 'cause the most important thing that relates to me and what I want to grow right now is belfiore. And it would have to be something related to that, because what I need right now is a way to, to drive, honestly, to drive revenue and social proof and sales from that.

Rohit: And so, like a million people seeing a billboard is easy distribution that I'm not getting today with little effort.

Rohit: I can say all sorts of fun philosophical things here. Help your neighbor or be helping hand for somebody experiencing homelessness, which is also a whole thing.

Rohit: The other one, like belief in science or like some facts is probably the other main thing that I would say at this point. Or like, vaccines work or like something around that would be like the second [01:54:00] main thing. But right now I need to drive the company. So those are my two answers. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. No, I like it.

Rohit: Like practical and then like actual.

J.R.: Just to dig into that, do you have an idea of what this metaphorical billboard for Belfiore would say or look like? 

Rohit: See, this is the part where I can use some help. I'm actually, I'm not a marketer. Right? Yeah. This is the, this is the part, like you gotta come up with a hook more than anything.

Rohit: Right? Right. I think, I mean, I, you look at like the big name billboards. They've got years of research behind like why things work and where they're positioned. Even as like an artisan cosmetic. Honestly at this point, I think I have to lean into some of the dichotomy happening in America between foreign and made in America.

Rohit: We do have the Made in America proposition, 'cause it is. I don't necessarily want to fall into one political camp or the other, but I wanna make sure the products are accessible to those that want it. And Made in America kind of is bridging a lot of that right now. So I might have to lean on that. To be honest i'm actually testing that angle on Facebook ads right now to see how does this play out. But it's a whole thing I think about a [01:55:00] lot. I'm not a great marketer and my canvas skills are not great, but I'm trying.

J.R.: Yeah. Nice. I like it. All right, next one. What is one of the hardest challenges you faced in your life and what did you learn from it?

Rohit: This was an ongoing challenge. But it is the hesitation to start. It is like the fear of what will people say. Or that sort of, it's not really anxiety, but it's like crippling hesitation of just starting something. And this has plagued me for a long time. And my brother and my dad kind of also, we always have the same thing. Starting is a hard jump for us. And it's gone into like multiple levels of our lives. And for me, very practically. It's done a lot of things of oh, I should have said something at the time that would've helped my relationship or my career or my family.

Rohit: And it's something that's compounded that I'm trying to get better at. I can't pick out one big challenge 'cause they all kind of compound to this main root cause, which is this hesitation of starting because I think some other factor is gonna happen or I'm worried about what people think.

J.R.: I feel that. There are those personality types that are more just, all right, let's just go, let's build the plane in the air. [01:56:00] And there's people like us who are more like, all right, let's kind of do some planning. Maybe we hesitate a little bit too much and analysis paralysis. But because we're more conservative, that's just how we do it.

J.R.: And I think the question I always ponder with is, all right how can I get to that starting point sooner knowing that my weakness is that I'm a little bit slower to start, but still lean into my strengths of, okay, well at least I'm going in with a better plan than if I just kind of jumped at it. Yeah. So I like that.

J.R.: Self-inflicted wound. Do you have a story about something that's gone wrong in your life and you can't blame anyone else? 'cause you did it to yourself?

Rohit: When I was riding really high and I guess the time in my career in like 2019, like that fall timeframe, pre pandemic flying all the time, literally going all over the world. I was single. I was like doing that. I let a lot of my ego get the best of me. And I think I'd gotten to a personality that I wasn't really known for. And I think that has caused some long-term effects with some friendships that I had for many years before that. I think I wasn't as a genuine of a person. I think that there's nobody else to blame for that except for me. [01:57:00] I think naturally also as that was happening, I think there was other factors in life for these kind of friends falling apart or like whatever was happening in their life, and it just didn't compound well.

Rohit: But my part that I can control was, I probably could have been better about who I was, how humble I was, what I was doing. As these friends were maybe in different places of their life and having different anxieties or different challenges. And I kind of regret that because it was a long-term friendship that was unexpected and really really, really torn me up when it fell apart and still kind of does.

Rohit: So that's an area I'm like, not entirely sure if there's a way back from. Usually time heals everything. I'm not like actually too worried now after looking back at it. But at that time a lot of that was self-inflicted. 

J.R.: In a similar vein, if you could either redo something what we you do differently or if you could give your younger self advice, what would it be now?

Rohit: I think taking a little different, it really all does come back to one of the entrepreneurial career stories for me because I think there's so much in my mind of what I could have done now that I have the [01:58:00] experience of things. And I really do think there was a time and place to go into consulting and to grind that out.

Rohit: I can pick it at every level. I wish I did the MBA program right outta college. I wish when I had the study mentality to do that, I wish I didn't party as much due to be able to dedicate time or get a tutor or whatever. I wish for nightlife nav, we had found a different mentor that could have helped us direct into the right pathway for that.

Rohit: I wish for Intune we got started like maybe a couple years earlier. Even for Belfiore, that's the one I know the most of like where we could have done because I can pick out very tactical things. Like, oh, we should have run paid ads in 2020 when everybody was doing that. Oh, we should have gotten on TikTok earlier.

Rohit: Oh, I should have started making videos. There's just levels to this that I can't quite figure out one, but it's like very, very tangible for everybody. Yeah, if you look back at it like, okay, your mentality was better to study. Like maybe we should have done that GMAT or whatever right then.

Rohit: Right? Or you need mentorship to grow in certain venture funds. Sure. That's an area you should seek out. You recognize that as a weakness, solve that problem. Entrepreneurship now with building a product and manifesting it is, it's a lot of [01:59:00] noise. That's the one I'm not really sure. I can just pick back the last couple years of where to be on trend, but I don't know what the next trend's gonna be.

Rohit: I'm sure somebody does. That's like a hard game for me to play right now.

J.R.: Of course. Next one. In the last few years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has improved your life the most?

Rohit: Maybe a little like depressing, but a lot of it is like, it's all on you to start. Nobody's gonna push you to start. Like yeah, there'll be some good motivations or stuff, but you really have to actually take the first leap yourself. Like you mentally have to do it. I think that was a big jump once we leave these communities that are built in college. Where everybody's doing something. Or work where everybody again is doing something. Any of these outside ventures or hobbies or thing is like, it's really a self-starter mentality.

Rohit: And I think this transcends through hobbies, side jobs and fitness. And I think that's the mentality change that I've had over the last couple years. And now it's like getting into more finer details of okay, maybe we'll stop some of this, like crippling hesitation because I know it's on me. That's step one. So now let's make the jump into the next level. 

J.R.: I like [02:00:00] it. How do you define success?

Rohit: This goes back to beliefs of what is success? It's health and time, I think is the main thing. Health, time freedom. Being healthy is the peak. That's the main thing for any human I think is there's all sorts of macro factors that are happening. And everybody has their own healthcare issues. Now we know more about that because of science over time. There's medicines, there's ways to solve it.

Rohit: But I think your health is what builds your energy, which gives you more time on this earth. I get sleep is incredibly important. That's a whole thing. But like time to experience life is really what success is. You want to be able to experience these things. I think money has a plan in all of this. But at some point money stops being the top thing. Money just helps you buy more time.

Rohit: Not more time as in total longevity in the day or total longevity of life. That's all in your health. But it gives you more time and conveniences. Maybe you can fly faster, maybe you can get somewhere quicker. Maybe you could stay a little bit longer. That's where money comes in, but that really just comes back in total life experiences for success.[02:01:00] 

Rohit: I think everybody has a maybe a different view of success based off of that, and I think it evolves over time. What I thought was successful five years ago is not what I think today. And I think that maybe, I'm not gonna say comes with maturity, but I think just comes with living a little bit longer, right? And seeing how life changes for you and your friends and your family. 

J.R.: What is something that you've been pondering recently or think about often, deeply?

Rohit: Pondering recently, this is very recent. But like Melissa and I have been talking about when are we gonna start a family and what's that's gonna look like. So this has been like weighing on me a little bit. The coast to coast thing is huge. Parents on one side. My parents aren't getting younger. It's very hard in this economy to raise a kid without any like nanny support or your family. And like kids were built to be raised in communities. Like this classic human nature for as far as you can tell in any community across the world for all of human history, right? So coast to coast is a hard one. So I've been thinking about this a lot, on what are we gonna do?

Rohit: There's maybe one happy medium in which we have really good parental leave here in Massachusetts. We both [02:02:00] have good jobs, thankfully. If that continues to hold, we have our kid out here. If that all works maybe Melissa's mom in her age is able to come out here. My parents are still out there with the business. The whole thing within that, how does that weigh back into the growth of Belfiore and building our goals. Building sustainable life for my brother and everybody else.

Rohit: So that's something I think about a lot. Why that really came to head this week was like, I was like, damn. I'm like, it's not that we're old. It's our energy is like going to different places. And I had worked out one day and I woke up and I was like, damn, my legs are kind of hurting. I'm tired, but I know that's a function of like my sleep and caffeine intake and like alcohol if I've had it. But I was like, Hmm, my legs are hurting and I'm not sure if I'd be able to run after a kid right now. I was like, damn, this is like deeply philosophical of what do I need to be doing?

Rohit: Which all really came back to like health. And what is success there is like really taking care of yourself so you can be there for your family over time. This is like not something I thought about like last year. Like that's like, that's a whole thing I've been really thinking about this summer. But it comes as a [02:03:00] function of fitness is really on my mind. After not being the healthiest over a couple years and growing the business is on my mind. 

J.R.: It's funny you bring that up because I think about that as well. I still work out and everything, but I've had this chronic lower back pain for a while and it's been getting better. But every time I feel it in my mobility I'm like, damn, I'm not like I pick up a kid and carry them around and then, but like, yeah, I can barely just pick up this like backpack or whatever. And so I'm like, god damn. Yeah. So I've been thinking about the same thing. 

Rohit: Dude, that's, that's it. I, that's exact thing. I was like, oh fuck. Like what if you have to carry a sustained weight of a child over time? I was like, I dunno if I can do that right now. 

J.R.: Exactly. Exactly. It's like, I need to go sleep so I can carry my kid for 30 minutes. That's what I need to. Like it.

J.R.: Okay, next one. Favorite hot take or something you think most people won't agree with. And I ask that more in a sense of something that you believe is true, but you think maybe other people don't necessarily think it is.

Rohit: Oh man. I mean there's like the [02:04:00] usual macro topics like trust in science. It's always gonna be right no matter what. Your insurance company believes that, even if you don't. Same with climate change, like all those things. I think one thing is, I think homelessness is a very polarizing topic. And I think a lot of people don't recognize it, but a lot of folks, especially as our economy continues to split, are like a lot closer to experiencing homelessness than we think. And we shouldn't criminalize them. I think we need to build services and we need to divert to find ways to help people that have experienced homelessness or are currently experiencing homelessness. And I think there's a piece on yes, there's craziness that comes with lots of fentanyl, that's a very big problem.

Rohit: And other drug use. But I think there's proven models across the world of decriminalizing drugs that will help somebody get to a better place or build the right services for it. I don't know if everybody agrees with the way. I don't know if there's any perfect model for this, but I think it's a thing that we can solve if we put the right effort into it.

Rohit: It's just never the highest on any agenda. And I think caring for your fellow man is [02:05:00] hard in this aspect because you inherently you see what you could become. And you don't wanna do that, and it just, you have this weird ick against it, when you see somebody that's experiencing homelessness. You're like almost less likely to help them because you see like what could be you. And it just seems like irritating for that.

Rohit: This is an area I do think about a lot. I'm not sure where everybody agrees because it also builds into the multiple splits of suburban ism, versus like cities. And where that's all going and like where, people's lives are going as far as when they get older and their maturity level.

Rohit: But it's a tough one. I think that's a whole aspect we should spend a little bit more time thinking about and actioning on.

J.R.: That's a good take. Okay, we're gonna transition into a little bit more lighter stuff. So do you have a favorite recent purchase? Relatively cheap. I say 50 to a hundred dollars, but it doesn't really matter. That has impacted your life in the last six months. Consumerism question.

Rohit: I actually thought about this one because this is gonna be weird to say. And I don't mean to sound tone deaf, but the last things that I've really been buying are consumable [02:06:00] goods. So a Spotify subscription, which is hugely valuable. I think the ability to have your music on demand, because that's sets the mood for a lot of atoms or can help you focus. I think that is one of the most important things. A Gmail subscription for your business. I think that's incredibly important stuff. Lyft or Uber. A ride share that will help to get you from one place to another. I think is one of the most valuable things that anybody can use. I think there's a problem with the corporation piece of it, and I think there's a problem with our dependency on it. But I think it is like a hugely valuable piece of life along with public transit.

Rohit: These are the items that I've spent on that are like under a hundred dollars because the other items I've spent on in the last couple months that are above a hundred dollars are like. The wedding, which is amazing. I wouldn't, regret that in a second. The flight tickets to Vienna, flight tickets to Scotland. Experiences, hotels, whatever.

Rohit: Necessary pieces of life that I think are important. Technology wise, a MacBook Air has made my life so much easier because before that I was running on a 10-year-old MacBook. And so over time just the speed difference has changed and my ability to inherently do work. [02:07:00] Other than that, like splitting the difference, AirPods, AirPods are the, I think, or like the right headphones for you, whatever you want that can help you in your career or your music or just working out or whatever to help you focus. I think headphones are incredibly powerful tool that I don't know if people are investing the right dollar amount in but you can go anywhere between over the year in the year situation. Mm. That's I thought about this a lot. I was like, I don't know what I bought that is under a hundred dollars that's not not like food, like an experience. Right? Yeah. Which I think is also there's so many of those things and I don't think anybody should regret spending on food. I think there's maybe your expectations against certain things. But I think going for a night out with drinks with friends is almost an invaluable experience. People should do more of that. And tip well. 

J.R.: I like it. That was a good take. All right, last rapid fire questions. You made it to the end almost. Any favorite books, movies, videos, articles, media, or anything that you share or recommend the most? 

Rohit: Okay, this is [02:08:00] very nerdy. This came out maybe two days ago for me, but I have a project that is working with Agentic ai. I'm not fully up to date on how all that works. Like I have an understanding of generative artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence. But when it came to Agentic AI and subagents, I wasn't sure how to understand this. There's an article from Anthropic, which is what the entity that made Claude ai that has an incredibly good diagram and understanding of how they built their subagent.

Rohit: And I would recommend that to anybody. I think that is like actually an incredible incredibly useful thing for just the common man to understand how agentic AI is built. I think that's one thing. And I think the other thing for my own gain, this is not in any I don't think this would be outwardly useful for anybody, but it was, it helped me, which is my crippling again, anxiety of, or hesitation of putting myself on camera or like talking to the phone.

Rohit: I think all got solved because I saw the new CEO of Nova Nordisk just do that at a conference for that him to document. And I was like, that's the peak of peak [02:09:00] of C-suite. Like at the biggest company right now in pharma. And I was like, fuck it. If you can do it, I'm gonna do it. It's it's not worth sharing that particular thing. 'Cause he is at a conference specifically for a certain therapeutic. But I'm like, that helped me tremendously. Mm-hmm. It was big different, these are like two articles just in the last two days that I've been like, damn, that really helped.

J.R.: Cool. We made it the end. Rohit. Congrats. Awesome. Yeah. Dang. It's been damn, almost two and a half hours but. That's awesome. Time flies, man. Kept talking it up. It was, no, it was good. I learned a lot. Yeah let's just go into ending questions real quick and then we can wrap up.

J.R.: So ending shout out to my mom, we always end with gratitude. What are you grateful for?

Rohit: The same, honestly. My mom has been tremendous driving force in my life and in everything. Honestly, my parents and my brother. They each have their one thing I can think about. But overarching right now I enjoy how stubborn my family it is because we get to challenge ourselves.

Rohit: Not flex on things that could come to bite us later. It's actually really interesting how this all works out, where it's, my mom's like [02:10:00] very adamant that we need to be like spa focused. But also consumer focused. And that challenges us to focus the brand. My dad is like very adamant and very conservative on like spending or like the way we grow our business, but he helps us keep track and not run away and get hustled, right?

Rohit: My brother is like very focused and very stubborn on doing things his way, but that keeps us from having challenges when we like send products to Amazon or whatever. It's it's so interesting that these things all come together, but I'm incredibly thankful for my family and then from Melissa.

Rohit: I think like meeting her and knowing right away that we were gonna get married. Like I think that signal, thankfully, I don't know where that came from. From whatever higher power, like really helped because it kept me focused. And Melissa's been a tremendous supporter just through life and she's even a supporter and keeps me from, running off to the wrong thing all the time. And I'm really excited for our future together. I think that's gonna be a like, just a joy, and part of what makes life, life, you know? 

Rohit: Yeah. 

Rohit: And obviously like the network friends and family, just huge, hugely grateful for everybody. I think that's the joy of life.

J.R.: Fantastic, man. [02:11:00] All right. Do you have a final ask from the audience or any final takeaways you would like them to have from the show? And you can plug too. 

Rohit: Yeah, I think there's a couple things, which is one, the plug. Please go check out belfiore herbal.com. See if you like anything, you purchase something, please review. At the most important thing right now is just trying to build the credibility. So shares, product reviews, the whole thing, and start to build that organically. And you can see how the company builds truly from zero, right?

Rohit: And then other pieces, like your network. I don't I don't like this term, but like your network is your net worth. That's okay. But one thing that's important is give respect to your friends that are doing things that you might not think are cool, but are their hobbies and their like side hustles. Like for instance, yeah. Okay, I get it. Some people really like, I don't know, investing or like training credit cards or have their own hobby.

Rohit: You should give respect to like, some people do that as that's their side hustle. That's their hobby. And you should let people have their space because there is a [02:12:00] community now more than ever you can find online.

Rohit: And that's how you find these like niche communities that are good for you. Respect to that. Let people be productive in their own way. And sometimes you shouldn't shame somebody from having downtime or just chilling. Or just enjoying life because that's also what life is, right?

J.R.: I like it. Last question, Rohit, where can people find you if they wanna check out what you're up to or connect or anything you wanna throw out there? 

Rohit: Yeah, as much as we've talked about it I am always on LinkedIn and I'm very responsive on that. I try to answer my messages very diligently there versus any other social. So check me out on LinkedIn. And then I also monitor all of our Belfore socials and our hello email. So feel free to reach out any of those. 

J.R.: So if you wanna chat, just email him through Belfiore and be like, Hey.

Rohit: Exactly it. 

J.R.: I like it. Cool. Alright, Rohit, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. I love this episode. I'm gonna listen to it a ton of times because I have to, 'cause I have to re edit it. But also [02:13:00] because it was, I don't know I don't know how it is for you, but for me, when I have conversations with people like yourself, it energizes me that after two and a half hours, I actually feel more energized.

J.R.: So thank you for sharing everything. And again, thanks for being a good friend. I wanna also throw this out there for my own, I guess manifesting in the universe. I've always thought of this idea that you're one of the people who I look up to and respect the most because of your journey, the type of person you are, our friendship and everything.

J.R.: And you're a man of integrity. But I've always thought, man, it'd be so cool to work with Rohit on something. And I don't really care what it is, but I think it'd be fun. Obviously we're in different spaces in life, but I'll throw it out there into the universe, so if it ever does happen, at least now it's planted in both of our heads.

Rohit: Yep. 

J.R.: Happy that you're working with your family. That's also another manifestation of mine. I think it'd be super fun for me to work with my brothers. I've mentioned this before to my mom on her episode. I'm like I don't care what we do. I think it would just be fun and it doesn't have to be for some sort of commercial purpose but.

J.R.: Before I stop the recording, I [02:14:00] will sign off our audience. Thank you guys for being here. I really appreciate it. Hopefully you guys got something out of this extra long conversation.

J.R.: Reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself. Oh yeah, like follow us, subscribe, all this other cool stuff. Leave us love in the comments. And reminder that you can always learn something from someone if you take the time to listen. So thank you guys for being here.