Clarity Talk with Rupesh Malpani Founder PikkC & tobrand.biz - EP57

This is the young generation, who are ready to make  a dent in the universe, this is the young generation, who will become the next Elon Musk.

He is Rupesh Malpani,  he is the youngest guest on my podcast, he is just 25 years old, who is working from last 9 years, who is a drop out from college, who is a tech junkie, who runs 2 companies, PIKK & tobrand.biz, I was blown away by the clarity he is having regarding money, business, regarding the future of technology, regarding the human connection between businesses. This is young generation.

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Pikk Website - https://www.pikkc.com/

Tobrand.biz

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Transcript

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I did it. Great. Yeah, that would be the title and you know what the sentence would be like. See, my dream has always been to walk out of a Mayback and buy a Forbes magazine with my picture on it. This is youth, the young generation who are ready to make a dent in the universe. This is the young generation who who will become the next Elon Musk. Welcome to another episode of let's Talk Clarity podcast. This is yet another amazing journey of career transformation. From businesses to businesses, products to products, and from employee to employer. He is Rupesh Malpani. He is the youngest guest on my podcast. He is just 25 years of age, who is working from last nine years, who is a dropout from college, who is a tech junkie, who runs two companies, Pick and Brand to build. I was blown away by the clarity he's having regarding money business, regarding the future of technology, regarding the human connection between businesses. I was so charged after recording this podcast. The vibes, the energy, the confidence is worth witnessing. So without further ado, let's jump straight into the conversation. Hello everyone. This is Rakesh, your coach, author, speaker, and career transformation expert. Welcome to my podcast. Let's talk clarity. Let's Talk Clarity in which we discuss about career transformation, productivity, and life fulfillment. Let's start the episode and talk Clarity. So Rupesh, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me on Rakhee. I work to brand my and your biz, which is going to be picco in a way. And this was just a sly way of me saying I'm kind of trying to build two companies, which is one of them is to brand your business and one of them is Pick. Okay, so what these both of companies do we can briefly share here. Essentially what we do is we help businesses and individuals with digital marketing. We make some money there and we spend that money at Pick doing experiments in software and tech. That's essentially all we do. So experimentation with software, which I didn't understand. We are trying to build an AI company. So, like all the software, the software we want to build, how it should be built, what things are necessary. Then the data collection, which is to be done and whatnot what not what not what to base the use. Case of the AI on what to base the user experience of the user on, then what will essentially do. And all that process is fun and it's fascinating to me. I also have a podcast on this which is around artificial intelligence. It's called AI remix. It's a video podcast on YouTube. Okay, great. And so represent when I introduce you. You did so many jobs in the last 910 years and you are just 25. So what is driving you to this so many careers and what is pushing you to change career after career? I'm not changing career after career. I'm trying to build one career as a business builder. To be that one good business builder, you got to try different types of businesses. It is essentially just that. What is pushing you to change from aquarium and then from t shirts and computers and then meet up? Muffin, what is pushing you to do this? Curiosity. Honestly. See, it fascinates me why we buy things and whatever things we buy. So if we are on the other side of where we buy things, we might get a perspective on why we buy those things or why we try to sell those things. Maybe that's why it has always fascinated me on and how a decision making is different to spend, let's say, Rs1000 on three different types of products from three different places. Like, you buy a small table for Rs1000, you buy a piece of clothing for Rs1000. You can buy a fish tank for Rs1000. Right? So why and how we decide to spend that Rs1000? That point kind of always fascinates me. Great. So you started when you were in school and then in college. Can you briefly tell us what's your journey from school then job and then yeah, okay. There's two parallel journeys. One is the official journey, which is good, good, good. And then there's that one unofficial journey which I have kept kind of personal to myself and I've worked on it. The official journey being the general school, go into tuition and whatnot what not whatnot and all that. I dropped out of that race in my BBA. I have 12th past like that. And I only have a graduate diploma in business Administration because the college guys just handed it to me. After my event, I dropped out of my BBA. But while all of that was happening, my first job, which I've never told about this job to anyone, was at a grocery store. So this was around the time when my grandpa, my mother's uncle had passed away and he had a grocery store. So my uncle took over that shop and all of his cousins were there on Rs10 a day. Like our salary was Rs10 a day. That was my first job. That was around 7th eight standard, I guess, right? And then seeing so many different type of people coming to that store grocery store has people coming. Like, you see people who walk there. There are people who cycle there. There are people who superbike there. There are people who come in Mercedes. There are people who come in bus also there. So that was kind of triggered to wanting to learn how we spend money. Because I made RS20 in two days from the job, I still have that 110 rupee note out of the two. And I spent the other ten rupee note. I don't know how I did that. And then after that, my side hustle was selling BOOKMARKS, then was selling computers. While all these three things were happening. There were parallels on trying to sell sarees, SIM cards, food items, medical equipment, because those are family businesses. And then I guess college happened. And then I got into solar rooftop installation for electricity. So like electricity generation, we put those solar panels. I got into that. I had an online ecommerce store on which we flipped a lot of t shirts, all those graphic printed t shirts. Then there was a Meetup application called Muffin I worked with. Then there's this lead generation company, then there's a furniture company, then there's an aquarium store, then there's coupon agency, ad agency, a marketing agency. And then all of that triggered me to start my own marketing agency and a software company because before I got my first job selling computers, I should program and programming is the ability to create things from scratch is always fascinating. And I'm here trying to do marketing from things I've learned and trying to learn new things, programming, view things and new products. Wow, that's such an amazing journey. And at such a young age, you have done many things. From marketing, from selling means everything from saris to SIM card to so many things. What are the top three highs of this journey? The biggest high of let's go rank three. Rank three was the first salary which I used to pay my first rent. And that was fascinating. Salavi pocket money, that was one high. Second high, I would say was going on foreign trip, like starting to networking across the globe where I have started to travel from over resources I've collected by working hard. That was another high because then it felt real. It wasn't just trying to negotiate with mommy, papa, Kim, but then also planning all those things and actually spending for them. Oh, dang it's asset. That's the second time. And the most thing which is always going to be there is I get to meet so many fascinating people across the journey who like having conversations with a tupperware to a sophisticated company executive also. And I'm blessed to be able to hold a conversation with everyone. So yeah, that's it. That's the top high. I get to meet new people, I get to learn from them. And the curious nut head that is me gets a lot of times to say where, hey, this is fascinating. What is this? Let you go find out. So that was such an amazing journey. When we meet in Vietnam and we discussed so many things and the retreat and the activities, we got to know each other and you are my angel. we had this activity. So we were a group of 1015 people who were traveling together on a brain vacation. I'm sure Rakaji said about that. Before there we all had to pick up chits and then we had to kind of do something nice for the guy whose name comes in that chip. So you are a secret angel to the guy whose name pops out of the chip. So we are out of those three weird nuts where who bring their own name out and then again we have to drop that chit and get together. Great how you got so much clarity about life, about business and about all these things about money. So what could be the one reason that from there you got so much clarity? See, I've always had a knack for math and facts are facts when it comes for money, everything is accountable. There's no doubting on what we learn when it comes to all these number. But like keeping that part aside, see that we follow a set rule of things we do and that sorted because other 7 billion people are also trying to do that. So there will always be someone trying to help you with that, at least the other things I've just been blessed and lucky to have people who have had exposure in life. Like, see, as humans, what do we do? We got to learn something. There's only three ways to learn generally go ask someone else, go try to figure it out ourselves or go read something about it and then doing all these three things we eventually pinned down to trying something but now we have a cheat sheet to it. At least our generation does. We google it before anything else. Like we spoke about this even when we are in Vietnam there's a gazillion things to learn from but we don't know what applies to us and that we can only learn by seeing what other people learn for themselves. So like, I can see some other human living his life and trying to understand why that guy does that for himself then I kind of might figure out what I have to do for myself. That's a general notion on the thought, right? That's how we learn from elders. Like if you keep the construct of your relatives aside and just entities, that is like I am a human, there's another human who's older than me, there's another human who's younger than me. If you think from that aspect, then there's always observation and things to learn. And I've just been blessed to be around good people who have corrected me when I've messed up on things. Kind of been tough on me whenever it was necessary, exercising or assuming that authority they have on me based on our relation all the time. Whoever it is, it has been close friends, it has been family members and then see, there's so many things happening and for us, the world is not just the city we live in. For us, the world is the world and we have to start navigating that world from where we live because the people older than us have done a damn good job connecting it. Like they got from a point where if we go 100 years back, there are no phones, people had to communicate that to travel or send someone to travel or send some animal to travel and whatnot whatnot? Whatnot? We did not know worlds existed. We did not know a lot of the countries we have we live and share the planet with did not exist. And today we are all connected literally on a digital level where we can have a digital glue and zoom into people's houses and see how their houses look from a .1 hundred years back in history where we did not know there is this one whole different country which could exist. We are still trying to master glasses or utensils which have existed for 5000 years as tools, as humans. You know, the communication barriers which have gone have sparked like the world in such a way we all have to move past. That's what I think. Yeah, we have to push push ourselves and to be with the world and that's also a choice. You want to go live in a mountain? Live. How this the love for technology started for you? I've had an email since UKG and first tender. So like UK? Yeah, UK and first I have used a 286386. I have used devices which weren't even windows. Okay. It is just second nature to me now. It is second nature to me. They say right, we guys love our toys and tools. So what you are thinking that you have been exposed to technology at the very young age. You put a curious nut head in front of things which are fascinating. This is what is going to happen. Great. We are at a point where we are touching things in air now there's this one digital image which is floating in air and we want to interact with that. Come on. It's just that isolated. I like those fascinating things and I can see myself bettering them or like bother and I have always had that eye for giving a feedback wherever it has been necessary because I've seen all the people older than me do that and it is work to wonders. So why not? Got it? Yes. Great. So let's take the decision forward and let's discuss the moment you decided that now from today I will start my own company. How that has happened and what was the trigger points. We go back to tech connected days when I used to work that late night job doing stupid shit and trying to get calls and never get on calls. It was just a sheer waste of time trying to dial numbers on which you're never going to find people. What we do, we know we give those numbers which we're never going to pick up in all those lists and there's people dialing those lists and trying to make a living on it. There's nothing bad about it, but I didn't want to do it. Okay. And then there's this one day my dad calls me and he scolds me for all my bad habits I'm like, Dude, I got to do something about it. And then I got so angry that day, but I knew there's no point in getting angry. So I opened my diary and then I was like, Chalo, if I were to start a business today, what would it be? There's not just one thing I want to accomplish with that business. That is money. I want to accomplish a lot of other things, and I sell a lot of other messages. There's a lot of multiple things. Business is a resource which can be utilized for multiple things. So it pinned down to a point where I business modeled the whole pic ecosystem. I was talking about the IoT ecosystem around Tuppers and software and whatnot, whatnot, whatnot all of that. 2 hours of work, ten pages of writing. And I had a business model. I had all 99 steps in front of me in two and a half, 3 hours. But then when you start taking step one, you realize all the 98 steps, I use this. So, like, this was around 2019, the start of before September of 2019, where I wanted to start working on pick, but I had to get other jobs to keep myself afloat. 20 18 18 was the idea time. But then after that, I worked at the furniture store, I worked at the aquarium shop. Then I worked at an ad agency. And then what happened at that ad agency was like, I was the chief marketing officer and there's the CEO. We both had a very big fight over what to do next. And that fight resulted in either him stepping down or me quitting. But then code happened. Luckily, we both didn't have to do either. The company only went to ship. Sorry. But yeah, that's what happened. And in that time, I ended up starting a podcast. And then I've always kept a mind on how to start this idea because the whole 99 steps said, I need like 200 Kuros to start this plan. somewhere. And then it started with a podcast. So the thought process there was, I want to work in AI, IoT and Big tech, so let's start talking to people there. Let's connect to people there over social media. Then I came across a lot of people from which the podcast happened. From the podcast, I got my angel investor to whom I told this idea, and he is like, Start executing, Rupees. This is your first check. Let's go. Let's try this out. And then we are here where our company is bootstrapped. We don't have a single penny of loan on our company from anyone. We broke even two years back. In a year only we broke even the $8,000 we had raised. We are profitable to a point. Now from that $8,000 next year, I can send my investor a dividend of that much. And we haven't raised any outside funds, but we are serving customers and we are building a business which is based on facts then just assumptions and hypothetical plans which never work because we don't have experience executing the case. What a journey you had. It just begun. To be honest, all the fun things I left. I can imagine my life flipping apart differently the day I get a jet. It will take time, but we'll get there someday. How you means process your ideas? Because I can see there are a lot of ideas going on into your head. So how you process those ideas and is there any framework you do? You write on the pile and talk is notebooks. They all written by me. So you write your ideas on a piece of paper and that's when they will go out of your head. There's two things to do. Our brain works on action reaction. We have a thought. If we have some action, there's going to be some reaction to it. If the action is only a thought, it is only going to be an infinite loop of thoughts and it will lead to procrastination or whatever it is. But if you take one step towards whatever your idea is, it just feels like a domino effect to me. Like the curious nut brain is like it becomes. So how you keep your calm mind calm and composed? Because there are a lot of ideas and there are a lot of things to do. So do you do some exercise, some meditation or something? So what do you do for keeping calm this mind? Okay, there's a lot of bad things I do. Let's not talk about those. But I prefer gaming. See, I like to get something. See, when our mind is in a thousand things of chaos, put some chaos which you like in front of it, it'll organize all those thousand things from that one chaos which you like and you can navigate through that. That's what I think. What I do is I just open scrabble, I just get cards, I play a game on my computer. Something which the things I like to do and I like to game like I am a game head. I play board games with you. I try to play anything. Video games, playing cards, playing cards. Okay. It is interesting that meditation is all about doing one thing and don't thinking about anything else. So in gaming, what you do, you are playing a game and you're not thinking about anything else. Yeah, it's your way of meditation. Now, honestly, for me, I have kept my meditation as doing the chores of my house. Like Jadu Maroochamaru meditation is genuinely see the whole point of me sitting, keeping our head calm and not thinking about things. I just find that a little useless because I can do two, three things in that same time. That's my perspective to it. It doesn't have to be like for others. I am just a hyperactive knuckle. so that's why I find my peace in chaos. So whenever there's nothing and if my mind is blank, that is the time they say, right, empty mind is a devil's workshop. Rupees, let's discuss how you manage your time. What is your schedule and how you process. Do you use Google Calendar or any other app or a lot to do? And we are just having 24 hours in a day. then start doing that and then that kind of pace away or wherever you start, just keep going ahead and then take two steps back also, if necessary. That's my way to look at it. But I use all the calendars. I have Microsoft calendar, I have calendar, I have all the apps. Like, how do I say this? I'm on every platform there can be, which is generally general, but that's not the point. The point is it is through communication. But I have Rudy who helps me manage everything that's My, who keeps me up to date about things. And I don't miss and forget on things. That's how I manage it. But yes, it is a bunch of all of that in the brain and it just happens. You have been working for so many companies and then now you are working in your own company. So what has changed from working in a company to now having your own business? So what is the difference? People say life gets easier after starting a company. It doesn't. I'm so sorry, guys. That's a misconception. Go work nine to five, come home, get your money, leave. That's easy. it was like signing up for hell. In my last podcast, she's my mentor, also Barthi. She also told that if you are starting any company or any startup, sign up for the discomfort and sign up for the awesomeness. There will be some things which would kind of be discomforting, but there'd be some things which are so fascinating you just forget about the discomfort. Like think about it. When the moment when you are having a child let's just say you are having a child in rain. Do you think you're feeling cold? No. Right? That's a discomfort. That's what I'd like to say. Great. So how you have learned your communication means this podcast will be listened to many students from school, college. So how you develop your communication? So let's talk to people, mess up talking to them, make mistakes while talking to them, make a fool out of myself while talking to them a hundred times over and over. And then you get here. Wow, that's a powerful thing. And you are told that everything comes down to practice. It does come down to practice everything in this world. You do it for one time, then 50 times and other times and you are there. Yeah, right. Like to try something out once or twice. And doing that and doing that for so many redundant cycles of her life. There are two different ball games helps to people who live in all of them. Great. So Rupesh, let's discuss about what was your top three learnings from the time when you are doing working for someone else. Okay. Don't think of your job as a job, think of your job as a business in which you are trading your time. Wow. Because till the time you get to a point you can trade something else, we need to skill up and in those skills only we can trade our time. And like getting paid, let's say Rs10,000 a month, but also learning something new. Salad college me up and to learn something new. Here we are getting paid, but we don't take that opportunity because it pays us less sometimes. And then it's like you're getting paid to learn something from an expert, not just someone who's reading the thing. You can read yourself sometimes sound very rude and very narcissistic on these things. But here I remember one story from Mbhiwala Prafal Bilaure. You might be knowing him. So what he used to do is he used to work in Magdi Magdi and he used to be waiter than at the counter. Also for three, four months maybe or six months. And then what he was telling that he was learning the business. Until date, he has not taken the salary from McDonald. The check is still there. He was going for six months. He was just going to learn the art and craft of the business. McDonald's is a food manufacturing factory put in a restaurant. Like if you see that's how organized McDonald's is. That's why you have the same crispy fries everywhere in the world you go, right? Isn't it great? Rupees, let's have some quick questions. And so what brings you fulfillment? Getting to do weird things and learning weird things from that? Maybe? No, but honestly, okay, this is very vague. It's more like see there's very few things which fascinate me now. And that's something I blame to spend 20 hours on a computer reading through everything and whatnot what not whatnot. That's why it fascinates me less. But whenever any practical thing fascinates me over what I've read that Delta is my favorite. Practically, when we experience something we have read the excitement which we think we would have. And when we practically experience something that excitement, that time is ten times more. And that is fun and that is what drives me. It is always going to be a mystery to me why I am the way I am. I want it to be a mystery. Right. Those are things we got to figure out when we are dying. Apparently I guess. So here, I want to share that. I coach people and they come to me and then they ask that I don't know what is my calling and what business I will do and what is my strength and like that. So I told them, if you know where you will end up at the age of 60 or 61, you will be you will be doing that. Yeah, you will definitely be doing that. If you know. But it is the vagueness of this journey which brings the joy to our life. Exactly, right. Who could have imagined we could we would run across people from local Vietnam and we could go to their place and have a meal at their place. See, that wouldn't have happened ever if we had thought about it, ever. Yes. Like if you think about it, that is just one experience. There's a gazillion different experience you can talk about like that. That Chinese fun. So that's the fun part. The vagueness of life is make it more fun. And it is like life is like going in a foggy road means the road ahead is foggy and you are not able to see after 100 meters, it is left or right, it is straight. But once you start walking, you will see another 100 meters and then you will see another 100 meters. And that's the way life it is. Okay, same story, guys, for the listeners. Okay, so whatever activity just said, I just want to make it a little more fun. Yeah, there's only two variables. There foggy road, something more in it. That journey we talk about where it is a foggy road and we cannot see things ahead. But if we don't ask a question, what is that? Why is that it is going to be a fog. You ask a question, why is that? Then you take that step to go that 100 meters and see, there's no far ahead. It's crazy that it's fun that I'm having on this podcast. Come on, you know I'm the most fun guy you came across. It's too early to ask you, but I'll still ask this one question which I asked to every of my guests. Maybe in a year or two years or five years or maybe 15 years, you are writing your autobiography. What title would you give to your autobiography? I did it. Great. Yeah, that would be the title. And you know what the sentence would be like. See, my dream has always been to work out of Mayback and buy a Forbes magazine with my picture on it. That's how I say where I want to be after ten years. So the first sentence of the day this happens, I'll start writing that book and then it will be like I walked out of my Mayback, I bought a Forbes magazine with my picture on it. I did it. And that is how my book would start, if at all. It would on. Autobiography perspective. That's great. And that's I think so this might change and all the mess from my side and I will definitely want to read that autopilography. I read it. How do I say this? I don't want to write it. So I live. Because you want to enjoy the journey also. He knows that is my piece to the world. That's why we write things like whatever we have learned till death, whatever it is just written by someone else. There's no settle. Someone else wrote something which you find relates to you and then that's how we base things on. We go back to 100 human lives living on earth to that point. Like if we go back to that point in the whole madness of our entire civilization, isn't it just this? If you think about it, yes, I got your point from here. I was just thinking that I see a lot of young people from school, colleges, and when I interact with them, they're always low on confidence. And so how to build that confidence? Because I can see the confidence which you are having during our trip in Vietnam also. And right now also at this age you are having so much confidence. So what has gone into this confidence and how people or students can build this confidence? The reason I have this confidence, I'm even getting goosebumps while saying this. I want to give an example to 100 times I've been through those things, okay? If I'm scared to jump in a pool, I've been lucky enough for someone to first push me in that pool for the first time. And that has happened a hundred times over and over again for 100 different things. And that is what I base my confidence on. It feels you're scared, but once you start doing it, it is quite easy. And then once confidence is also a practice, you got to keep on thinking that's easy, that's easy. While doing those things the way you do and actually finding those things easy. It builds on to it. Yeah, that's such an amazing answer to this confidence thing. And so guys, listeners, get someone who will push you into that pool again and again for 100 different things. Yeah, that's how you build your confidence and build it like a muscle practice every day. That is true. So, Rupesh, that was my last question and it's such an amazing time we had recording this podcast. So thank you for joining this podcast. Pleasure is always mind rakaji. Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure always made. Thank you for listening to let's talk clarity with Rakesh. Please subscribe or follow this podcast on your prefer platform so that you don't miss any important episodes. Have clarity, listen clarity and let's talk clarity. Let's talk clarity.