Picture this: You’re making six figures on Wall Street, green card in progress, climbing the corporate ladder. Most would call it the American Dream. Anish Malpani called it his personal nightmare.
“I didn’t like myself,” Anish admits in our recent conversation. “I thought that I was making rich people richer while making myself richer, but I wasn’t doing anything of value.”
Today, Anish runs Without, a social enterprise that’s doing what everyone said was impossible: turning multi-layered plastic waste (think chip packets) into dignified jobs for India’s most marginalized workers. But the path from Wall Street to waste management wasn’t just about following passion—it was a masterclass in patient, deliberate entrepreneurship.
The 5-Year Preparation Nobody Talks About
While most founders rush to start, Anish spent five years preparing. After leaving finance, he didn’t immediately launch a venture. Instead:
15 months in Guatemala working with local nonprofits
6 months in Kenya embedded with social enterprises in slums
15 days on a train circling India with other social entrepreneurs
“This is a very patient game,” Anish explains. “I had to immerse myself and be patient because this is a long-term game. I have to think in ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years, I can’t think in one, two, three, four, five years.”
This patience paid off. When COVID hit just months after he returned to India, Anish was prepared. While volunteering in relief efforts, he discovered the problem nobody wanted to solve: multi-layered plastic packets that couldn’t be recycled.
“Nobody wants to solve this problem because there’s not enough money in it,” he realized. “So I was like, I’m solving this problem because I want to solve problems and not maximize profit.”
Operational excellence isn’t optional for social enterprises—it’s survival.
$ where Anish’s finance background became his secret weapon. While most social enterprises struggle with the tension between impact and sustainability, Anish approaches it differently:
“Every experiment was like—is this gonna scale? Is it gonna be economically viable?”
This made Anish efficient where most startups fail. Instead of trying to scale profitless models, Anish would intensely analyze every new experiment to see if it coils scale to profitability. “There have been times that we’ve done experiments that have been successful from an engineering perspective. But for one kilo of material, you need 10 kilos of chemicals. That’s gonna cost me $8 to make $1. That can’t scale. We did this analysis early to be really efficient in deciding what would get investments.”
The hard truth: With the same budget Ashaya uses to hire 15 formalized workers at living wages, they could hire 30 people at market rates. “That’s twice the labor. That’s what I’m competing against,” Anish explains. This is why operational excellence isn’t optional for social enterprises—it’s survival.
The Pivot That Saved Everything
Originally, Ashaya’s business plan was to collect plastic ship packets and turn them into plastics that could enter into circular products. But the pathway to producing enough of this material would take too long and we didn’t have enough money.
When Ashaya could only produce 5 kilos of recycled material daily, Anish made a decision that horrified his advisors: instead of selling the material, they’d make products.
“Most people I know were like, ‘You’re an idiot, why are you doing product? It’s so complex,’” he recalls. But the math was clear: “Selling 500 sunglasses, which require 20 grams each of material was much more realistic.”
This pivot didn’t just solve the volume problem. It became:
An R&D sandbox for improving their material
Proof of concept for skeptical buyers
A marketing vehicle that went viral
Revenue that bought them runway
The lesson? “Nobody really knows what the right answer is, and there’s power in execution.”
The Uncomfortable Truths About Social Entrepreneurship
Anish doesn’t sugarcoat the journey:
On starting a venture: “Do not be an entrepreneur. It’s the hardest thing. Would you get on a plane that had a 90% chance of crashing?”
On getting advice: “Nobody really knows anything for sure. You are the best person to make the decision.”
On doing hard things: “You have to be comfortable doing things you don’t like. In fact, you have to be good at things you don’t like.”
On finance knowledge: “There’s no excuse if you’re an entrepreneur to not get finance... It can’t be, like, hire somebody else to do that.”
Reduce the Risk of Failure
Throughout our conversation, Anish returns to a core principle: reducing the probability of failure. This isn’t about avoiding risk—it’s about intelligent risk management:
Have unfair advantages: Anish started with $200k in capital. “Most entrepreneurs do not start off with that.”
Master the details: “The answer is in the details... For communication purposes, you have to simplify it for sure. But if you’re an entrepreneur, you have to be like, it’s the complex messy stuff.”
Think in systems: From chemical costs to electricity usage to attrition rates, everything connects through economics.
Hedge constantly: “We only have patents for investors because they don’t take you seriously otherwise... technology allows us to raise funds.”
What’s Next for Ashaya
After years of preparation and pivots, Ashaya is at a crucial juncture. They’ve:
Closed recent funding
Nearly completed their pilot plant (delayed but progressing)
Proven their technology at initial scale
Built a team that includes PhDs being trained by former waste pickers
“I feel like it’s our ball to drop,” Anish says. “We have nobody else to blame but ourselves, mostly, if we fail.”
The Real Bottom Line
Perhaps the most powerful insight from our conversation isn’t about business models or pivots. It’s about motivation.
“I’m not doing this to be the hero,” Anish clarifies. “I’m doing this for my sanity, and I think it’s the most selfless kind of selfishness.”
For aspiring social entrepreneurs, the message is clear: Don’t start unless you’re solving a problem that matters more than your comfort, your relationships, or your bank account. Because in social enterprise, purpose isn’t just your North Star—it’s your only sustainable competitive advantage.
As Anish puts it: “Before starting, you have to make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons and you’re ready for it. Your family, your wife, your friends are ready for it. Because it’s hard. And then you’re doing everybody a disservice if you’re not ready for it.”
The journey will demand everything from you. But in return, it offers something profit alone never could—the ability to look in the mirror each day and genuinely like the person staring back.
As Anish reflects: “Every day I get to look at myself in the mirror and say, my family would be proud, if there’s future generations after me they would be proud... And that purpose is not just profit.”
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For more on the concepts discussed:
Living Wage Calculator - Understanding fair compensation
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb - Building ventures that gain from disorder
The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz - The book that inspired Anish’s journey
Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows - Essential reading for complex problem-solving
Full Transcript
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:01:16):
Welcome to the Helping Billions Podcast, where we explore the entrepreneurs who have aspirations to help a few billion people not make billions of dollars. My name is Mark Kovski and I am so excited about today’s episode. Today we’re featuring Anish Ani, who is the founder of an organization called Aya, as well as the product line that they’ve developed called Without. Anish is an amazing entrepreneur we met over seven years ago at a conference, and I’ve been following his journey every day since. And when you listen to this episode, you will immediately understand why what Anish does today is take previously Unrecyclable plastic, employs previously unemployable people and turns these into product that are helping keep plastic out of supply chains. Anish is inspiring, he’s insightful. And in this episode we get into foundational tips that anybody trying to build a social innovation needs to know.
(00:02:11):
How do you go find and talk to the right investors? How do you use the power of financial modeling to decide what experiments to do and what not to do? And super important for social entrepreneurs, how do you manage the inner dialogue in your head when you’re getting advice from people that’s different to what you think you should be doing? So without further ado, let’s jump into this episode. You’re going to love Anish, maybe even as much as I love this guy. And you’re going to be totally inspired by how he’s building this world positive business that prioritizes people and planet above profits. Thank you for joining us. Can’t wait to see your comments about this episode. Enjoy learning from Anish. Anish, welcome to the Helping Billions podcast. I am so excited that you’re here. I’m so excited for this conversation. How are you doing
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:02:59):
Today? Thank you for having me. Mark. Excited about this as well. I’m doing all right. It is been a peaceful day in some ways. Things have moved in the right direction at work, so that means that I am also feeling good.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:03:13):
I love those days. I know it’s late your time. So that’s saying a lot. It’s early my time and that’s the joys of global work here. Anish, we’ve met over eight years ago. I might be off plus or minus a couple of years, but you were on the research journey. You didn’t yet have the idea that is now with that, and we’re, we’re going to get into all the incredible work that you’re doing, but your journey was so thoughtful. You spent so much time thinking about, I have these skills. What’s a problem I can solve? And I want to hear about those early days of I’m back in India, I’m researching a problem and now I’m going to take the leap. What was that like? What did you do and how did you ultimately end up on the concept of Asaya?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:04:05):
I think to go further back, I have to go back to when I was working in corporate America. I thought that there was, I was pretty depressed. I had this perfect job. I was working in finance, I was making a lot of money as a foreigner. I was trying to get a green card application in, and the company had applied for my green card. I was moving up the ladder, but I didn’t like myself. I thought that I was making rich people richer while making myself richer, but I wasn’t doing anything of value. And at the same time, the work environment was a bit toxic. It was very cutthroat. We had 20 billion of debt when I was working for that company. So I felt like I was becoming a worse person, and I just didn’t understand what was the point of working so hard and not liking yourself and being in the greatest city in the world, et cetera.
(00:04:55):
And I think that was a really important point because it gave me perspective. I have everything but nothing, which is, it sounds very cliche and comes from a place of extreme privilege. And I feel like that was very important to be like, look, I am super lucky. I’m super fortunate to have what I have, and that means that I should use that privilege to do something more meaningful. I think that’s where the journey started. And then I was like, okay, great. But now I don’t know anything about impact. I don’t know anything about working in India because I wanted to come back to India and solve problems there. And I think that’s where also I came across Moving Worlds. My sister recommended moving worlds to me eight, nine years ago. Look, you’re trying to understand more about impact. You’re trying to understand about how to make change happen. I was looking for volunteering opportunities because I felt like the best way to learn is by doing. And I wanted to spend time in the developing world outside of India before I went back to India. And I think Moving Worlds was one of the places where, which helped me find options to work in different parts of the world. So I think that’s where the journey started. And I’ll pause now. I dunno if you want me to continue expounding on that or move back to India, but
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:06:01):
There’s one thing I’d love to clip on because I think by virtue of the work that I do, I get to talk to corporate professionals all the time, and we do often talk about different ways that they can utilize their skills, utilize their privilege, help unlock access to some of the assets that they have at their disposal. But you kind of took this extra leap. What was that? Was there a book that you read that got you on that journey? Was it something ingrained from your parents? Where did that
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:06:34):
Go from? Yeah, good question. That’s a good question. I think there are two parts to it. There’s the more rosy part to it. And then there’s also another part to it that I’ll explain both. The rosy part to it was that I wanted to go to a place where I can maximize the impact that I can have. And that part mean that it couldn’t be in the US didn’t make any sense. It had to be in the developing world. It probably had to be in India because I’m more Indian than I’m anything else. So that was very clear. That was a rosy part. But the part that I don’t talk about very often, but I think was a competitive advantage, was that I had no strings that were holding me to any one place. If I was, let’s say married, if I had kids or if I had a sick father in the country, that would’ve been guardrails, that would’ve prevented me from if I had debt, if I was, it came from a place of extreme privilege, but I could literally be in any part of the world.
(00:07:30):
And it allowed me to be like, look, I can take this leap. And I remember when I went to my parents and I was like, oh, I’m thinking of quitting and doing something more meaningful. Their response was amazing. I’m looking forward to what you’re doing next. So I’ve had so much support from everybody around me. It’s been no drama, no. Like, oh, I have to fight against this person to get there. And that has actually compounded the moral obligation, right? I mean, okay, I’m so lucky to have all of this support system gives me even more of an obligation to use the privilege I have to solve real problems. And I think that isn’t, many people don’t get this right. So I think, yeah, that’s what made me see, I have to go to the place where I can make the most impact and I have to be, it was like a pursuit of truth, which again sounds corny and cliched, but where is that impact? It’s not in the us I feel, at least for me. So yeah, it was very obvious to me.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:08:28):
I’m even thinking about the journey that I had, which as we’re talking, there’s quite a number of similarities of being in a comfortable spot, feeling like this broken contract with corporate America, seeing these workplace cultures just becoming more and more toxic in the pursuit of wealth at the cost of everything else. What’s the point? And then kind of taking this leap, and I know for me, there were a couple books, there were a couple people that really followed and sparked me on the journey.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:08:58):
There were a bunch of I, so I came across Jacqueline N’s Blue Sweater, and I think that was a really seminal book for me because it showed me the power of social enterprise. I didn’t believe, I wasn’t excited about the nonprofit model. I thought that it was very hard to scale. But yeah, this blue sweater and Jacqueline Novogratz and Acumen was a big inspiration for me. So I think that was one. I remember reading Miha something, the book called Flow
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:09:28):
KY High.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:09:29):
Sorry,
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:09:31):
I still probably got it wrong. But yeah,
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:09:34):
You have a hard second name as well, so you know how it feels. But yeah, I think that book about flow was really important because I was very nihilistic. I was very much like there’s no point to existence. And the book talks about many other things. But one thing that it talked about that was really powerful was that you got to accept the fact that maybe it’s nihilistic and that acceptance was like, oh, wow, yeah, maybe I could just stop fighting this. Maybe this is what I need to accept. And the third book that played a big role, and I think you’re familiar with this one as well, is Angela Duckworth Grit. And again, grit is talks about hard work, and I think she’s her own research maybe now after years. But there was one part of the research that really stuck, which was you got to find your big goal between the ages of 25 to 35, and this big goal can’t be too specific and it can’t be too vague.
(00:10:23):
And I think her goal was how can she use her life and to maximize the potential for children? And so she’s like, when you have this big goal, you can chisel it onto a board and then all of your small goals can help contribute to this big goal. So she’s like, okay, maybe me learning how to do ballet dancing is not a good use of time because it doesn’t necessarily contribute to the big goal. So yeah, maybe I can do it for fun, but if I try to become a professional ballet dancer, that’s probably not, or an ice skater, I think is what she was saying, probably not the best use of time. And that really stuck with me. I felt like I found what my big goal was, and then it allowed me to make decisions, and it also was very easy to communicate. So yeah, I think those three books had, I mean, I learned a lot during that time. I was down of deep, dark and bright hole.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:11:08):
Yeah, gosh, many of the same concepts I kind of remember in the early days and even pre-day of Moving worlds. So I love this idea of creating this goal. It it’s not too specific, it’s not too broad. Did you write one down? Did you put it someplace public? Was it in your head?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:11:31):
Yeah, I think so. And I feel like the goal was to spend the rest of my life trying to reduce the amount of multidimensional poverty in the world. And multidimensional was by not to vague, not too specific kind of thing where I feel like poverty is more complex than that. And then the way that evolved was this whole climate change thing kept looming when I was in my journey. I was like, okay, care about there being more fairness in the world. That’s what I dedicate my life to. But there’s this climate change element to it as well. And I think one of my mentors, she said something that was really interesting. I was like, listen, I went to her, I’m like, look, I care about people and I obviously care about the planet, but climate change is this looming thing seems to be a big problem.
(00:12:11):
How do I reconcile the two? And she said something very obvious in retrospect, but I was like, oh, it was like a light bulb moment. And she said that Anish, these problems are very interconnected. The people that are going to be the most impacted by climate change are the poorest and they’re the least prepared and they care the least because they have too many other problems that matter. You and I are probably going to be fine and we can afford air conditioning. And I think that really struck a chord. And I was like, oh, how do I look at things more holistically? You can’t just look at things in isolation. And I think that helped me over how do you solve complicated social and environmental issues around the unfairness.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:12:50):
Very cool. Okay. That is such a great natural lead into where we’re going to go, which is now let’s talk about the venture and how you got there. But I just want to recap a couple quick things here and we’ll drop some of these resources into the show notes. So you’re working, you’re working in corporate America, you feel this disconnect with values and also just a workplace culture that on a more principled level didn’t resonate. You knew you wanted to do something else. You were dealing with your own and brave of you to label it and share that depression at the time. And so you go out, you start reading. It also sounds like you had at least a mentor, if not mentors that you were talking about these things with. And then ultimately you got to the state of saying, okay, I’m going to put a goal out there.
(00:13:33):
I’m going to write it down, not too broad, not too specific, and I’m going to put it up there and then I’m going to go and pursue to that. And your way to pursue that was to go spend time with people experiencing poverty. And you did that globally, but then ultimately you ended up coming back to India. So let’s go to that point. You’ve had experience around the world, you’ve learned a ton, you’ve done different fellowships to learn about social impact. You’ve volunteered with different sides of the impact startup ecosystem, and now you’re in search of an idea. How do you go from searching for an idea into starting a business?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:14:13):
Yeah, I think that was a very uncomfortable moment, especially before I came to India. I spent after New York, I was in Guatemala for 15 months working with local nonprofits. Then I was in Subsaharan, Africa, I was in Kenya for half a year. Again, working with social enterprises close to the problem in slums to be like, Hey, how do you solve these problems? And there was this imposter syndrome in the back because I’m like, I’m going to go to India and start something. And people were like, what? Are you going to start? I’m like, I don’t know, because I got to go there and I have to get deeper into the problem and I need to understand the country better. I haven’t lived there in 20 years. I’ve visited a lot. So when I came in December, 2019, there was some eye rolls. And I mean throughout the time there was some like, oh, okay, sounds like a good plan, bro, but what are you actually going to do?
(00:14:57):
You have no idea what you’re going to do. But I’m like, that was important. If I pretended to know what I was going to do while I was not in India, it might make me seem confident, but that was not the right thing. And looking back now five years, I feel like that was the right discomfort because I was like, no, no, I got to immerse myself and be patient because this is a long-term game. And I have to think in 10, 20, 30, 50 years, I can’t think in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years. So when I moved to India in December, 2019, I started just talking to people and seeing, and I started researching poverty primarily and found that there was not a lot of good data around who the poor are. There was a lot of data on how many poor people are, but who are these people? What are they occupations?
(00:15:45):
How much money do they make? How multidimensional is this? And while doing that research, and I found this data set from 2013, and while doing that research and talking to a lot of people and visiting and all of that, I came across the waste management problem in India, found that they were close to 4 million waste pickers who live Iraq pickers who live really poor lives. These are marginalized costs. Women, 90% of waste pickers in India, Pune are women. They have a very much lower life expectancy than you and I. Sometimes it can be as low as 39 years of age. They’re working in this waste without PPEA lot of times with their kids because who’s going to babysit? It’s pretty shitty. It’s not the worst occupation in India, but it’s one of the worst occupations out there. And then at the same time, I saw that there was environmental issue with waste.
(00:16:40):
It’s causing a lot of pollution. It’s causing the organic waste causes release of methane. It’s a breeding ground for disease, and this is a plastic problem. First, there was an environmental issue around it had some degree of impact on the climate, and then there was an economic issue. I’m like, Hey, this is materials. There’s value here. There’s a loss when you just throw something that’s perfectly nice, a bottle of plastic, there’s value there. So I was like, oh, there’s something interesting there. But then again, I just didn’t start. I was like, okay, I want to understand and learn about this. And I mean, a couple of things I did right when I came, I did this thing called, which was basically you are on a train for 15 days with other budding social entrepreneurs that goes all the way around India, visiting different places and companies that are doing social enterprise work.
(00:17:32):
So it’s a very interesting way to, you’re living on the train for 15 days. It’s not comfortable, but it’s very interesting. So I mean, I’ve got a glimpse of India like that. So I was doing a bunch of these experiences and then COVID happened as well at the same time. And yes, it sucked. But the silver lining for me was that I got immediately involved a bunch of relief efforts. I had time, I was like, okay, I’m going to offer my time and skills to help with COVID relief. And I was volunteering for a nonprofit in a small city. So we had local activation, so we were doing food distribution. And again, this became a really good way for me to learn about the country. It was all about learning, learning. Anyway, so when I found the waste was a problem that I wanted to work on, I volunteered to work for a nonprofit in a smaller city in India, supposed to be a two week project.
(00:18:18):
I’m still on the board five years later. So I’m still connected to them. They’re amazing, learned so much about them. And then when I was there, I learned you really find out the things that nobody wants to talk about. And I landed upon this MLP or multi-layered plastic or chips packet problem there because it was the black sheep of the family. Nobody wanted to talk about it. The manufacturers don’t talk about it, the brands don’t talk about it because they make a lot of money using this packaging. The recyclers don’t talk about it because there is no way to recycle these multi-year packaging packets. The collectors don’t talk about it because they can’t sell it to anybody, so they just throw it or dump it. And I was like, nobody wants to solve this problem because there’s not enough money in it. So I was like, I’m solving this problem because I want to solve problems and not maximize profit. So that’s what led, I mean obviously I talk a lot, so Mark just cut me off. But that was a long story long as to how we went.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:19:10):
I love it. I love it. And so in just a moment, we are going to actually go into that then how do you turn a crazy idea into something that produces revenue and impact? But there’s something that you said, and I want to actually dive a little deeper on this if you’re okay with it, because you mentioned that you’d gotten advice from people as you were going on this journey. So you spent time in Central South America, you spent time in Africa, and some people were just like, Hey, just go to India and do the thing. And then in India you’re like, Hey, I’m going to do the thing. And people are like, but you don’t even have the thing to do yet. What are you doing? And I don’t know if you would remember this, but I actually remember when we met, which was at the SOCAP conference, I think you had already participated on the Moving Worlds platform.
(00:19:57):
And I was speaking on a panel with another very successful Indian entrepreneur. And you would come up to us and you would ask him this question. You’re like, Hey, I have this experience. I’m thinking about going to Africa, or I’m going to go back to India. And his advice was just go to India and start it. So his advice was different. And I don’t know if he had already decided on Africa or not at the time, but you ended up doing, and he was a smart dude and he had success. And I can tell you one of our most successful ventures at Moving World, I went to somebody that was closer to the industry that knew more than I did, and I told him the idea and he told me it was a bad idea. And so this is one of the things that I think we encounter a lot, especially as social entrepreneurs, because you’re balancing not only profit, but impact and your impact on your employees and your end product. And you get advice from people who know more, who are very smart, who have more experience, who have more success. And then there’s this internal dialogue that you have to go through that’s like, I don’t think they’re right, but that person’s smarter than me.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:21:07):
It’s crazy you remember that because I do talk about that incident. Oh, funny. And it messed with me because I kept poking him. I’m like, Hey, please give me some feedback. And he was trying to be nice. I was like, no, no, no, cut the crap. Just give me, tell me the truth. He’s like, you know what? If you really want to solve problems in India, Fri, go to India. What are you doing here in Guatemala? Why are you going to Africa? And it really hurt because it felt like, oh, I’m just messing around or just kind of delaying the inevitable. But five years down now having started and seven years after that, so and yeah, it was your panel. I remember it was your panelist when I met you for the first time as well. So five years now, seven years down from that day, I think he was wrong, but at that moment he wasn’t doing it. He wasn’t saying it from a place of spite or anything. He was saying it from a place of what he thought was
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:21:57):
Correct.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:21:58):
But I think, and I can say this with confidence now, because back then I was like, no man, I dunno that maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m just being an imposter, but this is a very patient game. And five years into this, I have no regrets about should I have learned more about this space? Should I have talked to somebody else? I wonder what’s happening in Nairobi. I wonder what’s happening in Sub-Saharan Africa. Maybe it’s worse in Sub-Saharan Africa than it’s in Southern Africa, than it’s in India. Maybe it’s better. And I feel like I got a lot of these things out of my system. So when I came to India, I was super prepared. I’m so dedicated and committed to my work. And I also felt like I learned so much from other people’s experiences. And I think the social entrepreneur I worked with in Sub-Saharan Africa was going through her own journey.
(00:22:44):
And she opened up to me in a way that I would’ve not gotten a chance to. If I just interviewed somebody, they’re not going to open up. They’re not going to tell me that. Or because if I’m volunteering my time with them for six months, for three months, she is opening up. So that kind of experience you don’t get. And so when I was in India, I felt a lot more prepared. Small things, how do you organize your files? How do you make sure that you’re keeping track of things? How can you be holistic? Don’t make the same mistakes that everybody else is making. Don’t be so dependent on grants because then you start making decisions that are not financially viable, but you’re doing them because you want to get a grant.
(00:23:20):
And I met him, I met this gentleman recently in India at an h and m Foundation event, and I told him, I’m like, eight years ago you told me to just go to India and do it. And here I’m doing it. It’s like a full circle of sorts. But yeah, and this is another thing I learned that what he had said was important because it made me question my assumptions and then be like, no, let’s stick. I mean, I think I know what I’m doing. And I think it worked out. I think in the long run it’s worked out way more. And I was in Nairobi recently for a fellowship and I spoke to some of the friends I’d made there when I was there. And I feel like when without has to grow to Nairobi, I already have somebody I know would be interested in multiplying this. And I feel like I have an understanding of taste of the idea that obviously it’s not perfect and there are 150 countries in the world, but it really prepared me to start. And I feel very prepared. And I feel like I’ll find out in the next year if we’re going to be successful or not because we’re in a very crucial part in our life. So all of this could be maybe he’s still right all these years later and I fail in next year. So I don’t know. We’ll see.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:24:27):
We’ll find out. Yeah, I feel like that’s the social enterprise journey is this. Next year is always the most important year. This is where we decided we make or break. But I think you said something, and I just want to highlight it because I think it really resonated is it made you check your assumptions. And I know I’ve kind of felt this way on the entrepreneurial journey where I’m like, I’m at a low point or I’m having this real hardship or something and I’m going to this person, and I just, my wish is I just want them to solve the problems. Right now I’m raising a 2-year-old. It’s like he comes to me and he’s like, I dunno, crying. And you’re like, he comes to you because I am going to solve his problems. I’m going to put food into his belly and everything is going to be better.
(00:25:15):
And I mean, it’s an extreme, but I think sometimes as an entrepreneur it could just be such a hard journey. And you go to these people and you’re like, I’m going to tell you this thing and you’re going to give me the answer and my problems will be solved. But you said you used the word assumptions, and I just love that and I want to highlight it because I think it’s super important that as entrepreneurs, every part of the journey that we are helping understand what is an assumption versus what is fact. And we’re validating that. And there’s lots of ways to validate that through conversation, through experiments, through research. And just in hearing you talk the amount of curiosity you have about self, about industry, about entrepreneurship. But it seems like, and I imagine there’s a lot of inner turmoil probably in your head, thinking about these things a lot. But that also I think is what’s leading to success here is this very analytical view of developing a hypothesis. I’m getting different facts to validate and validate it and go forward.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:26:24):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:26:25):
Yep. Okay, let’s go forward in the journey, you decide this is the problem and now you’re going forward and you’re figuring out a business model. What was that like? How did you go from, okay, this is the problem to, and my understanding of the solution here is in order to solve this, you had to rely on some chemistry and engineering that you yourself dunno how to do. So tell us more. How did you go from this is a problem to here as a business?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:26:58):
So I think by starting the problem for so long, you kind of try to understand it. And it doesn’t happen overnight. You can’t just read a book. It takes time. And while when I found the problem, I also found why it was a problem. The multi-layered packaging or MLP or chips pack was a problem because it had multiple materials stuck together and that’s why it was really hard to recycle and also had a layer of aluminum on the inside. So then I was like, okay. And they’re like, the reason why we don’t collect this, some of the waste because I spoke to said is that because we don’t get any money for it. So I was like, oh, interesting. So if I could fundamentally increase the value of this waste that nobody wants, then we could create the right incentives to collect the waste and then maybe deal with it and also bring it back into the economy.
(00:27:46):
So that became our goal and that was our mission five years ago. And it’s the mission right now. How do you increase the value of waste ethically? And then we also were like, okay, there’s a big population of waste pickers. How do you formalize and incorporate them into the supply chain? Make sure that you’re being socially inclusive and socially empowering because that’s really important as well to what we do. And then I was like, it’s technology that’s going to be able to do this. It’s not some nonprofit model or some special system. It’s like, no, it’s frigging hard chemistry technology that needs to do this. So then you’re like, okay, how do I solve the problem? So again, very first principles thinking, right, what’s the best way to increase the value of this waste? It can be magic, it can be anything, right, as long as it’s ethical and legal.
(00:28:36):
So that’s how it started. And the first person, and I didn’t, so I think as an entrepreneur you said, so I have so many things to say about entrepreneurship. I’m like, my number one advice to most people is that do not be an entrepreneur. It’s the hardest thing. Why would you do that? Would you get on a plane that had a 90% chance of crashing? No, it’s dumb. So please make sure that when you get on this plane, you know what you’re getting yourself into and you’re not getting in there just to be an entrepreneur. You’re getting in there to solve real problems. And you feel like the current solutions that are out there, the current people that are trying to solve it have not figured it out or they’re not doing it the right way. And also whether you have the ability to handle a plane crash.
(00:29:14):
And guess what, this is not a fair race. So people have unfair advantages. Some people are scientists, so they don’t need a degree, they don’t have to hire a scientist. My unfair advantage was that I had capital that I could invest in this and I had $200,000 of mine and my parents’ money, I could invest into this risk free. Most entrepreneurs do not start off with that. And that’s why we also chose to be like, look, the first thing I did was hire a chemist with a whole ambition hopefully that he would a co-founder of sorts. But most importantly, I was like, how do I hire somebody? And I wanted a big pool of applicants, so I didn’t want to convince them of the vision. I was like, I’ll pay you a fair salary, de-risk it for you, whereas, and I can do that, but many people can’t do that. So that’s what I did, found somebody who could help me with that. And then the two of us got into a room literally with two desks, two chairs and a packet of chips and we’re like, how do you increase the value of this waste? I think that’s how it’s, it always became how do you marry economics and chemistry? Because just because it works doesn’t mean that it’s economically viable.
(00:30:18):
My background is in finance. I kept balancing those two things.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:30:22):
Okay, I want to come back to business model, but you hit on something else about this kind of failure. And I think that’s actually something that when Caroline and I were talking about the podcast and the concept here, that’s what you said is one of the reasons why we want this podcast to exist, why we’re having this conversation is because the hardship and the toil of this journey is real. And to your point, 90% of entrepreneurs fail. And I know different data sets, different funding mechanisms. People might be like, no, it’s not this. But the point is the majority of these initiatives fail. And I have seen personally, I live in Seattle, it’s a hotbed for startups. The people that have started their startups to make money and have raised huge series A and have been heroed in the news for that, their journeys through entrepreneurship and how it impacts their friendships and their family and their own self, I do believe is fundamentally different than how it picks on social entrepreneurs.
(00:31:32):
And I actually think that emotionally social entrepreneurs carry more weight because it’s not just the success of the business venture, but it’s the care for their employees. They care for their communities and they care from the stakeholders. And with just this growing heaviness about the intensity of the climate issue waste in our ecosystem and more, and yet this sense of purpose that is just so much more valuable than profit where the sense of every day I get a look at myself in the mirror and say, my family would be proud if there’s future generations after me, they would be proud. I can go around and people can say, you’re solving a problem that needs solving if you’re getting onto that plane with a high chance of failure. Maybe that’s the thing that I have the virtue of layering on here from our work supporting thousands of entrepreneurs in that make sure it’s also going to a purposeful destination. And that purpose is not just profit. Right?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:32:35):
And I think you’re right. So right about this, I feel like sometimes, and I joke that if our goal was to only maximize profit, it would be so much easier because it would be so narrow and you just do that. But at the same time, I would never want to do that. I wouldn’t like myself, I wouldn’t be happy with who I am. Also, I feel like social entrepreneurs definitely, I think we have the beauty of purpose, but even I think if you look at the top entrepreneurs in the world, most of them have not chased profit. They’ve chased problem solving. It’s a different kind of problem. Maybe it’s not as socially relevant, but it’s still problem solving. And then money has been, I mean Bezos says this, right? If you’re a missionary founder, that’s where change comes from. I mean, that’s where wealth comes from.
(00:33:18):
So it’s very much a side effect. But yeah, I think even for me, social entrepreneurship is a tool for me to be able to achieve. My big goal of being able to try to make the world fairer at the heart. What want to do is want to reform capitalism to be something that takes people and planet into consideration and not just profit and actually use profit as a tool. I think the best way to do that is obviously policy, but I feel like changing policy is really hard. It takes a while. So I feel like if we can build an organization that does that against the tide in many ways, then it becomes a case study look. Because I don’t want to say capitalism is great, it has helped us to do this. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without it. It has a lot of positives, but nothing is perfect and we should be able, I think it’s come to a time where we can be a bit more sophisticated about it and we want to, and I think it’ll inevitably, it’ll happen, but somebody has to push the needle. And I think that’s where I see my long-term vision as well. But yeah, that purpose, I so much more, it’s super hard. I don’t have a life outside of work, but I’m very content. I like myself, I like what I do, and this is also really important and this is a last side ramble
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:34:28):
That great, I’m not
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:34:29):
Doing this, I’m not doing this. And I don’t know how you think it was, but I don’t think I’m doing this to be the hero. I think this happens a lot to social entrepreneurs because you get so many pats on your back, so doing such amazing work that it sometimes can get to you. Look, I’m doing, I’m so cool, I’m doing such amazing work. But the truth is that I’m doing this for my sanity and I think it’s the most selfless kind of selfishness, and that’s important. I feel like the problem has to be much bigger. The solution, the work has to be much bigger than me as an individual and how can I be a vehicle to get that? So yeah, I think that’s really important to keep, keep it sane because very hard to get negative feedback also Mark, because everybody’s like, oh, you’re doing good work. I don’t want to be the asshole who’s going to tell you that all this, that it’s much easier to critique a digital gold platform than it is
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:35:18):
To
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:35:19):
Critique a social enterprise. Right.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:35:23):
Well, there’s lots that you just said there that resonates. And I actually think I’ll mess up the quote a little bit, but it’s a Gandhi quote, and it’s like the most selfish thing you can do is lose yourself in the service of others. Something kind of along those lines. And I think, but you hit on a really, really important point that just resonates with me a lot, right? Is finding that purpose motive, putting that front and center, staying on that and staying committed to that. I think that’s where we see that. We see successful entrepreneurs make it through the challenges of the times as well. And it’s some of the research that I know I’ve conducted as well is the mental health toil on social entrepreneurs is indeed higher, but this sense of fulfillment is just way higher than profit motivated. And it’s like you hit on an interesting thing there too around, I dunno, let’s call it the ego.
(00:36:28):
Why did we do this? And then why did we get on a podcast and talk about it? And it’s like you said something that is so important. So I just want to amplify this, is if we want to shift the capitalist system to prioritize people and planet above profits, I’m still of the belief that we need more case studies, we need more proof points. And I see that, and I think that’s the importance of the work that you’re doing. Honestly, it’s a big motivator here for this podcast is we want to show how profit is a tool to protect people and planet, and we need more case studies with that. Let’s get even into more into your business. So I’m going to fast forward us a little bit. So you hire a chemist, you’re thinking through, eventually you find a way to turn MLP. So these chip packets into a product, and please correct any misunderstanding of the business at that time.
(00:37:25):
I know it’s a little bit different now we’re going to talk about the shift, but what you decided is there is a way that we could pay fair wages and give benefits to people that were picking waste. So previously, these are all informal economy workers. As you mentioned, a majority in marginalized caste. You said, we can actually pay you a fixed salary and give you benefits. And so we can collect now these unrecyclable packets that are used for chips and other things. And the reason they’re unrecyclable is there’s multiple layers of plastic and oftentimes some type of metal layer in there, let alone different colors and everything. We can take that using the power of chemistry, we can turn that into a product that is now essentially like a reusable plastic. And you have a vision, if I recall at the time of being able to then take this and say, Hey, anybody that is now manufacturing things with plastic here is recycled plastic that creates really dignified jobs, that gives employment opportunities and fair wages to people that otherwise have access to it, and it doesn’t totally work. The mass adoption isn’t there. So then you made a really brave decision to say, okay, then I’m going to create my own products from this to show that it can work. So I want to talk about that moment because that’s a pivot and there’s a lot of things into that, but do we need to correct my understanding?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:39:00):
Yeah, yeah. There one thing I want to correct, most people get confused about this because we say informal waste pickers and former waste pickers, but from fundamentally, I don’t think waste picking or rack picking should exist as an occupation. So I don’t want to just tell them, continue to pick waste and I’ll pay you better. I think that’s not necessarily the answer for me. So what we do is we take these former waste pickers with informal workers sweepers because also a waste picker doesn’t have one job. Generally a waste picker has many jobs. They’re cleaning houses, they’re doing this, they’re running errands here, they’re doing, they’re half an hour, they’re going to a different company to make try. So they have multiple jobs. We’re taking these informal workers and we are formalizing them into a supply chain. We are upscaling them out of waste, picking into machine operators, quality control specialists.
(00:39:47):
The other one, it’s so funny, we have some cases where we have these formal informal workers training PhDs, how to use machines because I mean, it’s a machine that this PhD isn’t used to. So that’s a really important part where we are graduating them out of this occupation into dignified labor that you and I would be okay doing. So at the same time, we also try to buy our waste directly from waste pickers so that they can get as much value, and we try to pay a fair price for it as much as possible. But for me, the long-term game is not to just continue the status quo of waste pickers as a, oh, you continue picking and I’ll continue paying you. It’s like we are already having better collection systems.
(00:40:31):
The jobs are going to be taken away, they are going to be formalized, and they’re not good jobs. So instead of squashing them, how can we include them? And I think that’s the difference that we are trying to do. And I think that’s a really important distinction in the work. So they are part of when you come and visit us, hopefully in the near future, my goal is that you won’t be able to easily distinguish between who was a former waste picker and who wasn’t. Right? And I think that is game changing versus just trying to be maintain any sort of status quo or slightly improve the status quo. It’s also hard because you can just hire somebody who can do that. And so we pay two and a half times and we don’t pay two and a half times just because we want to be cool because we think it’s the living wage.
(00:41:15):
So that’s a clarification. And then the other part is, yeah, I think the point is how do we choose to go to product and not stick at material? Yeah, I mean, I can talk about that. Everything is so complex and there’s so many decision points before you make a decision, but it was just volume mark. Even if we could sell the material, we were only producing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 kilos a day, and that was just not enough material to be able to sell to anybody to survive. So it became the obvious choice for me to go vertically up because selling 500 sunglasses, which require 20 grams, each of material was much more realistic. Most people I know were like, you’re an idiot. Why are you doing product? It’s so complex, dah, dah, dah. And these are not the haters because you don’t listen to haters because they have bad intentions.
(00:42:14):
It’s the people who love you who are like, you’re being an idiot, right? That’s the part where you’re like, it’s really, really interesting because they’re coming from a place of goodness. They’re just telling you what they don’t, not saying they’re an idiot, but this doesn’t make sense. You’re just entering into a different world. But it turned out to be one of the best decisions because not only did we able to make the product, which is really hard, the hardest thing we’ve done, but it also became an excellent sandbox for r and d for our material because we realized that if you’re just selling somebody material, they are molding into products. So they will. And because this has come from the worst possible waste they have, they’re not going to be comfortable using this material very easily. And we learned how to improve the material because we were our first buyers essentially. So as you said, it became a proof of concept and it just made us so much better at what we do. And then it also started to be excellent marketing because we went a little viral and it became all of these other positives, and it became some sort of revenue for us, some sort of oxygen also to be like, oh, look, this works.
(00:43:11):
So that kind of validation was really, really helpful. But again, nobody really knows what the right answer is and this power and execution and you got to really have to make, and I think that’s one of the questions you’ve sent me is that what is one of the big mistake you really hope future entrepreneurs won’t make? I think it’s around this where you feel like you listen to people who are experts and you’re like, oh, they’re right. But then nobody really knows anything for sure. And there’s so many parameters and there’s so many variables that they don’t have the context of you are the best person to make the decision. And so you have to be grounded and make sure you’re being very honest with yourself and taking as much information. And sometimes I felt like I was swayed by what people thought, and that was not necessarily helpful. But I will get to that.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:43:57):
Yeah, no, it’s so interesting. And I turned turn to a lot of both articles, essays, readings, research people for advice and guidance as we grow. And I think one of the other challenges of being a social entrepreneur is if you go read like Paul Graham, like the founder of Y Combinator, if you go read his essays, they’re very applicable to every entrepreneur. If just becoming a billionaire in profit is the focus. But when you’re a social entrepreneur, I think it’s harder to get advice because the answer true north is way more complicated, right?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:44:37):
Amen.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:44:39):
Because not just the profit motive, it’s this, and there’s more complex stakeholders and there’s more quality that you think about from a payment perspective. You mentioned living wage. I want to highlight that and add that to the show notes. It’s one of the big things. How do you pay people fairly what is fair? And so being able to find some of those tools like living wage calculators and creating pay equity systems across teams, these are things that you are doing don’t exist in a lot of the other advice that we’ve been given. But I do want to come into, I want to get even more in your head of how did you end up going from, okay, I’ve got this idea for essentially a B2B sale of product. You’re probably starting to realize earlier than you wish that it’s not going to get you to the cashflow that you need. And so then we’re going to go into product. Is there a framework that you used? Is there a mental model? How did you end up realizing that the current path wasn’t going to get there? And then as importantly, out of all the different ways that you could go, how did you end up choosing the one that you chose?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:45:53):
I mean, it’s first principles, right? It was just economics where we would have to be producing a hundred thousand tons of whatever, a hundred thousand tons a year of material to be able to really be viable. And that’s not going to happen overnight. So it was an obvious choice for me to be like, look, because the only detriment was that it’s too hard. And when someone says It’s too hard, that is not a detriment for me. I’m like, oh, well, you’re saying it’s possible, but it’s just hard. Okay, that’s different. You tell me it’s not possible at all. Then I’ll be like, so for me it’s like, oh, if it’s hard, then let’s try it. Or how can we simplify this? How do we break the problem down? So it was very much from that perspective, and I think to that made sense then. And I think now we’re going to the point where we can try to go further behind where we sell B2B products or B two B2B components, and then eventually hopefully sell materials because that’s what will solve this problem at scale.
(00:46:47):
But it’s a long-term game. That was the other thing that was really helpful. It was a long-term game and we weren’t looking at five year exits or six year exits, which a lot of people are looking for. And if I was thinking about five years, then I probably would’ve made different decisions. And also still, we are not profitable right now where nowhere even close to being breakeven. But we found the right believers because of the decisions and difficulties we’ve made. We’ve raised a bunch of grants, we’ve raised really, really good patient capital that is very hard to get at the stage that we are and found believers in the work that we do to buy us that runway now to be like, let’s get to a financial breakeven. And I think that’s what I say, that the next year is really important because I feel like the flight has taken off, but we going to make sure it doesn’t come crashing.
(00:47:38):
And I think the next six months to a year, it’s not like the end of the game. I don’t think we’re, it just collapse. I think it’ll be a slow burn. But that’s why this next year is really important because all the pieces of the puzzle are there. I see a path, but it’s got to be walked. It’s going to the Olympics, we’re ready, but we still have to go and perform at the Olympics. You can’t just be ready. You have to actually perform. That’s why I feel like the next year is really hard, but maybe you’re right. Every year I want to feel like the next year is more important, but this one is more like, can we, the case study, I see the path and I need to walk it. And I feel like no explanation is going to do it justice besides just showing it and there’s enough skeptical skeptics and rightfully so because it’s hard.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:48:27):
Yeah. Well, one thing I want to hit on what I was asking you of, okay, but how did you realize this wasn’t going to get there? And then how did you get there? And you’re like, well, it’s economics, but I want to add an emphasis on that point because your background’s in finance, so economics, finance, for you, that’s probably, it’s nothing, right? But I think that is an area, again, we support thousands of social entrepreneurs. It is an area where we do see consistent gaps of, even though we exist for impact, and we’ve talked about impact the majority of this episode, there is this fundamental understanding of the core business model. And when I say business model in this perspective, I mean actually like a profit model is how do you get to a break even? And it’s a hard thing to do as a social entrepreneur, like purpose, impact, and you’re like, and getting to profit margins and actually understanding how to get into the black is so pivotal and that analysis, it seems like you were doing that analysis probably more than you’re doing all the time. All the time, all
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:49:34):
The time. Every day, all the time you have. Every experiment was like, is this going to scale? Is it going to be economically viable and things, it’s not a definite answer. You’re like, well, it might not, but we can continue to optimize it. But there’s a parts to it even now. Right now we think we’re there, but still we’re not a hundred percent certain. But no, I think you hit the nail on the head. And when I worked with many nonprofits and for-profits and social enterprises across the world, I saw this. The problem was not purpose. The problem was not passion. The problem wasn’t care and heart. The problem was just, I don’t want to say the head, but the problem was the basics of how to run businesses and how to build organizations. You don’t have to call them businesses. This was big, and finance was a big thing. That’s why I felt like I was valuable because I was like, I’ll give you this for free. Just I want to learn what you’re learning and finances, looking at the blood of a person, nobody can bullshit you. A story is not going to convince me. I’m going to look at the numbers.
(00:50:34):
I feel like people forget finance, and it’s like operations. And here’s the catch that I think social entrepreneurs need to know is that because you’re a social entrepreneur and because purpose is first, because you’re taking other risks and burdens of caring about the people and the planet, it’s much harder than running a normal. So you have to be almost better in operations and execution, and the heart is going to, so it’s like all the training. I tell people that the training it’s very easy for me to tell, teach people impact and purpose, but it’s really hard to teach people to be like, store your files correctly. Let’s use the damn CRM. Let’s use, let’s make sure our books are clean. Let’s make sure we’re looking at unit economics. Let’s make sure that you’re budgeting and forecasting. And I think these are the things that I see companies break because they’re not short of heart and this is expensive and nobody wants to do any marketing. Why are we so against that? If Coca-Cola is allowed to do a lot of marketing, our stories matter as well, and where do you get the budget from? And it’s just be that much better and it’s that much harder. It sucks. It’s really, really tough.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:51:44):
But you nailed it from the operational excellence. Having that in a social enterprise I think is so much more important. And I think we forget that sometimes because if you think about what you do, you are actually competing with other organizations, other people making now different materials from plastic, some of them even arguably recycled or be captured. But if they don’t pay their workers the same, if they don’t have an upskilling focus, so they don’t have these broader visions, their cost structure is actually lower. Right? So they,
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:52:16):
I am literally, I, sorry, I want to interpret you here because you’re hitting a very important point. We have 15 people in our manufacturing team who are former waste pickers who we’ve formalized with the same amount of budget. I could hire 30 people and I would still be paying them a premium than what they were getting paid before. I would still be giving them health insurance. That’s twice the labor. That’s what I’m competing against. Technology, AI, computation, all of this has to help me cover that gap. That’s the burden that I’ve taken because I don’t have to do that. Then here’s the catch. Here’s where it’s interesting. In the short term, there’s no business case for this. It’s my morality or our morality at without, in the long term, there’s potentially a business case for this because we think that there should be low attrition rates, there should be higher loyalty, there should be higher knowledge transfer and consistency, and that will make, but then nobody’s thinking five, 10 years down the road and my runway is in five years, it’s like 10 months. It’s 12 months. So it’s tough. Sorry,
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:53:21):
I’ll
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:53:21):
Stop.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:53:23):
No, I’m so glad that you jumped on it because I think it’s something that we forget about from just a finances perspective. Social entrepreneurs add more costs to that heavy expense area of their income statement, and then they’re competing in an open market with groups that aren’t. And the payoff of that is, and I think a lot of people believe in that, but your success is measured by what happens next quarter or next year if you’re lucky. And so I think it’s a real challenge. And so this ability to be extra operationally efficient, to be extra in the details, especially for builders, it’s hard to think about optimization early, but it’s a trend that I’m seeing in these conversations is that the entrepreneurs that take operations seriously from the very, very beginning are the ones that are still in business years, years later. And it’s hard, but it’s critical. I dunno, in terms of operational excellence, no worries if nothing comes to mind. But I dunno, is there a book, is there a resource? Is there a thing that you’ve been like, oh, the thing that’s helped me get operationally excellent is blank.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:54:38):
I think that by and unfair advantage, one of them besides having capital was understanding finance. And I think there’s no excuse if you’re an entrepreneur to not get finance, there’s no way you have to understand it. And not accounting. Accounting is basic. Finance is looking at the numbers and then knowing how to project and knowing how to think six, 12 months in advance, budgeting, forecasting. And I think because that’s all operations are based on numbers, they’re based on how, and if you don’t collect data, then you’re not going to be able to be efficient on it. And then finance just connects everything because finance, in the end, all of your inventory, all of your sales, all of that comes into your books because that’s where everything is. So understand that, don’t shy away from it. And it’s as, it’s not as complicated as people think it is.
(00:55:34):
It scares people. It’s not as hard. It requires a little bit of work, but it’s totally worth it. And it can’t be like hire somebody else to do that. That’s not the answer. You have to understand it because nobody else is going to be as motivated as you. Because it’s so funny because I remember I was building financial models for other people in my previous life. Even when I was volunteering for nonprofits, everyone I worked with, I built a financial model for. And I was talking to these entrepreneurs and they were always like, this is just too complex. Dumb it down for me, dumb it down for me, dumb it down for me. At some point. It’s not helpful if it’s too simple.
(00:56:09):
And now I’m building a model for myself and I’m like, oh, I don’t have to simplify shit I can use because I’m building it to be useful to me in making decisions. So yeah, I mean, okay, everyone can build a model but understand it at least and don’t shy away from. That’s the other thing I’ve learned that is super important is that the answer is in the details. And everyone keeps talking about, oh, if you can’t simplify it, then oh, then it’s done. No, for communication purposes, you have to simplify it for sure on a podcast. But if you’re an entrepreneur, you have to be like, it’s the complex, messy stuff. And if somebody’s telling something you don’t understand, better try to understand it and you cannot run away from it. And I think simplify. Simplify. It’s like the death of solving problems. I make it more complex. Get into the details, tear it apart, break it down, maybe break it down to simple pieces. But you have to open up.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:57:05):
Yeah. Oh gosh, so many areas we could go on this one. The point I want to emphasize is the finance piece. And you said something of all these other organizations are like, oh, can somebody else do this? And you’re saying, no, you as the leader of a social enterprise, you really need to understand finance. And I feel like this is one of the things, I think every entrepreneur has a thing that they really don’t like doing. A, they might not be good at it. B, it just drains them, whatever it is. And that can be sales, that can be finance, that can be internal people, operations. It can be any of these things. And what you’re saying is don’t outsource it. Get into the details. And I think the data supports you here. The statistic is, I’m blanking on, but the number of startups who hire and then have to fire their first sales person is like, I dunno, 80, 90%.
(00:58:02):
And I firmly believe a lot of people are like, I don’t want to do sales. You do it, you get in here. But until you’re in the details, until you know how things work and operate until you can almost create some standard operating procedure of that. And that’s true for sales and creating a better culture and your finances. And I think that’s a really important highlight. And to your point around simplify, simplify. I feel like investors, customers, different levels, supply, everybody’s like, oh, simplify it more. And you’re like, AI can do that now even easier. But for the nuances of our organizations getting in the details, I love that feedback. I think it’s super germane and critical for the growth of organizations.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:58:49):
I’m sorry, second thing. The one thing, so first of all, I’m okay with you outsourcing it, but understand it can’t just rely on somebody else. You need to understand it from a finance protect of sales. You shouldn’t I get that. And the other thing that I feel like I tell entrepreneurs is that you have to be comfortable doing things you don’t like. In fact, you have to be good at things you don’t like because it’s easy to do things that you like to do, but you have to be. And as an entrepreneur, you’re always doing the things that nobody else wants to do or nobody likes to do. So if you don’t like doing that, don’t be an, it’s simple. It’s a default. You have to be good. And that applies to any employee. I think even in life, it applies even more to entrepreneurs because it’s doing the not fun things that makes you good at, gives you the right to do the fun things. Because if you don’t do not fun things, the fun things, there’s no place for.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (00:59:39):
Yeah, yeah. Just out of curiosity, do you have any rituals or things that you do where you’re like, okay, I have to do this thing that I don’t like doing. It’s this not fun thing. Do you have a ritual or anything you do to psych yourself up in order to work through that task?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (00:59:54):
I mean, CRM entries, right? I’ll have a meeting, I need to, who freaking likes doing that, right? Nobody likes doing that. So I mean now obviously with ai fireies stuff, it’s helpful. So you can automate a lot of it, but then it’s like getting into the zone. Listen to music. It has to be instrumental techno, it cannot be have words in it, and it’s just like suck it up and do it. Then it becomes a habit itself. But then you just have to, you’re constantly learning how to find the right time to do things. When is your mind the sharpest organizing time is the most important then? Okay, when I’m not, I also know that at 10:00 PM at night, I’m not going to do certain things. I’m not going to analyze my cost structure. I’m not going to be able to ideate on what the strategy is going to. That’s dumb. You’re setting us up for failure. You have to find time in the morning or whenever you are the brightest to be like, I need to focus. I’m not going to, maybe at 9:00 PM I can do a CRM entry because I’m just going to bad English. But knowing that is really
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:00:58):
Important. Okay. Yeah. So being really thoughtful about the big tasks ahead for the week. When am I going to do some of these things? When I do deep think things, when I do some of just the maintenance things, that’s really helpful. Okay. There’s another thing that I want to dive a little bit deeper in the details on, which is something that you mentioned earlier. And here I’m generally curious, I imagine you’re quite a bit different here than me, especially give me your business model, but you said that anytime you’re running an experiment or thinking about a business model, pivot finance is there. Can you bring me into the office? So you design, you’re thinking about different products, you’ve probably got some ideation space happening, whether that’s, I dunno, whiteboards or documents or team meetings or something. So you were coming up with the different ideas of how you could do it. When did you refinance into that conversation and how did you do it? Did you get team inputs on the different ideas? And then did you go into a hole and do the finance and then declare what you were going to do? Was it group? Yeah. How did that work?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:02:08):
That’s a really good question. I think most people understand it if they spend time on it. For instance, for us, when we’re doing experiments, we use chemicals. And so the chemicals cost money and we know what the rate for the chemicals are when you buy them in small quantities and buy them in large quantities. And we have a high level unit economics in our or detailed unit economics in our head, but we know what the high level costs are. So then you’re like, okay, if this material is to sell for a hundred rupees a kilo or let’s say $1, if the raw material itself costs me 60 cents a kilo, I’m kind of screwed. If one of the raw materials cost me 67, it’s just like there’s no point even attempting that. There’ve been times where we’ve done experiments that have been successful. This was in the early days where they’re like, oh, it’s successful.
(01:03:06):
And then I’m like, okay, but for one kilo of material, you need 10 kilos of chemicals. That’s going to cost me $8 to make $1. It’s like, guys, this is a pointless experiment. And then it clicks, then you have a baseline then keeps getting reinforced, and then your team gets it and they’re doing calculation, and then they’re going one step ahead. They’re like, well, we should take into electricity. And I’m like, well, no electricity, we can add that. Let’s not do that right now. It’s more complex. So it’s like it’s it. Somebody has to get it right. And again, this is as a founder, and most founders, I think I’m sure you also know you’ll get this, is that you just have to know your business inside out. There’s no part that you can be, you might be able to outsource it, but you need to understand it.
(01:03:54):
Especially what we are doing, we’re doing something across the entire supply chain from collection to making sunglasses to website, to marketing, to design of the packaging, the Shopify cart, the chemistry to the molds, to the molecule, to the pump sizes and the vent sizes and the valves. It is all of these things. And as a founder, the value that I bring I think to some extent is you’re connecting the dots from across the board. So if you don’t know inner workings of all the dots, then it’s an issue. And I think economics, again brings all of that
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:04:31):
Together. Yeah, yeah. It’s such a good thing. And you’ve mentioned details a few times in the podcast, and I know it’s something that I think is super important. I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs not like the details like that somebody else’s problem and they escape too far out of it. But there’s also hardship of being in the details. It means you really have to be involved in a lot of people’s different workflows. And sometimes team members kind of bristle at like, no, I own this thing. And so it’s finding that balance, but I think the importance of it is paramount.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:05:05):
You’re constantly, you’re zooming out, zooming and zooming in a day you’re doing, I’m having a conversation because one of my workers is in the ICU and the next minute have a conversation about a new logo design, right? And then one time I’m having a conversation about, with an investor, about strategy. And the next time you’re talking about this colorization catalyst that we found, which is super micro, right? So you just have to get, and it’s like it’s the first pushup you do. If you’ve ever done pushups in your life, the first pushup is really hard.
(01:05:37):
So you’ll be like, oh, I’m never going to do pushups again. But then by the time you get to the 10th pushup or the 20th pushup, it becomes, and I think the mind is that as well, even in something as abstract as this, because I think I used to feel like, oh, I should get this instantly. But it took time. And I think that’s called building work stamina. I think that tells a lot. Other people who come here said, it’s like pushups, man, your first pushup is really hard. Your first pullup is really hard. So
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:06:01):
You actually beat me to a follow-up question. I was going to ask, oh, what do you do to prepare yourself to get better at going and switching from these tasks? And that’s how you view it, is exercise like, Hey, I just got to get better at it. I just got to get stronger. I got to keep doing it and train for it.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:06:16):
It all goes back to your motivation. So that’s why when you start what you do, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. You want to solve the problem. I feel like I’m very strongly motivated towards the problem that I want to solve. And that drives me to be particular about things, drives me to care. And then if I care, I have to be involved. It’s like I have to jump off the plane, get on the plane, I have to keep doing that. And so it becomes a necessity. But if I feel like if I didn’t care about my job or if I didn’t care about this work, I fuck, who cares. So it all comes down to motivation. So before starting, you have to make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons and you’re ready for it. Your family, your wife, your friends are ready for it because it’s hard. And then you’re doing everybody a disservice if you’re not ready for it. And the biggest person doing disservice to is yourself, because I’ve seen so many friends end up in debt and end up with broken marriages and end up with, and it’s just like, you’re like, yeah, dude, that’s the game. You knew that now. It’s like there’s no excuse, right? I mean, obviously it might still happen, might still happen to me, but how do you minimize the probability of failure? I think that’s
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:07:26):
Really identifying the failure points. It seems like you do quite a bit of analysis on the economic side to bring more, and you
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:07:35):
Said something, I remember talking to you once, you’re like, Anish, I was asking you about a question and you were like, Anish, regret minimization is a thing. And I really hold onto that and I think I remember that was a mock coat. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. But
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:07:49):
Well take it. I stole that from Bezos. But look, we are just about to get to our very inspiring impact round where I’m going to ask you some rapid fire questions. But before we do that, I want to just Anish, where’s Aya? And without, where’s it going? What is bringing you hope in the coming six months? Are you most excited about? Yeah, tell me.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:08:19):
Yeah. I mean the pilot plant, right? We’ve closed around funding recently. I feel like we’re very lucky as an organization, but we also worked hard to get to, so Shane Parish says this, which is really interesting, which is that put yourself in positions where you’re not going to fall. If you stand at the edge of a cliff or every day, the chances of you falling off the cliff are much higher. So just stand 10 feet away. And that’s not sexy, unfortunately. The story of like, oh, he went into a drug addict situation and then came back and became a hero, that’s glorified. But the person who’s steady and stable and not making mistakes is not glorified. And I think that is where the secret is. And I think Shane Paris talks about this a lot, is that put yourself in positions. Don’t end up with so much debt and then start up.
(01:09:06):
That’s so dumb. You’ve already set yourself up to fail. Save if you’re not saving money, even if you don’t have a startup, and it’s like you’re putting yourself in a weird position and then the world will implode and you’ll be like, oh, my life sucks. Like, no, well, you didn’t for failure. So I think we feel, I could digress, but what I’m really excited about is that I think we’ve learned those at least so far. 10 months is really important, and this could all go, but we have all the resources, we have the team, we have the idea, we have the path. The pilot plant is almost built. It was severely delayed, like eight months, six to eight months delayed. But it’s still getting built. And we do parallel pathing, so still make steps forward. So I’m really excited about the plan coming to life.
(01:09:47):
We, I’m really excited about testing our technology at scale, initial trials have been successful, and then kind of start to scream and shout, well, my team, I prefer the word sing in harmony, sing the work that what are we doing? How can we start partnering with brands and how can we be a part of their story? So we’re coming up with this campaign where we’re going to be like, Hey, is that product? Are those headphones made without made, without what? Well made, without bullshit, without greenwashing. As we build a world without poverty, without waste, basically we want to stand for deeply, socially inclusive, deeply environmentally sound where we’re working with the hardest recycle plastic waste and also deeply transparent. Here’s all our financials, our financials available on our website. Here’s what we’re doing. Somebody called me out recently on Why do you have patents? Why are you trying to protect technology? I’m like, I only have patents for investors, because they don’t take you seriously otherwise.
(01:10:45):
But at the same time, we have to be careful not to get squashed. But it’s very easy in India anyway to hack patterns. So it’s not necessarily a good thing if I really want to be protective about myself, but we don’t really care if somebody copies us, like great, it’s a compliment. But we do get patterns because we get credibility and it becomes a hedge because maybe in 12 months we have to raise funds and we don’t have enough runway from revenue. So then technology allows us to raise funds. So it’s all about your hedging, you hedging being anti-fragile cental, one of the most important
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:11:18):
Things.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:11:19):
You’re constantly, constantly trying to do that. Super excited about the plant, and I feel like a lot of people don’t have that. I don’t know where you are, but I’m in control. I feel like it’s our ball to drop. So we have nobody else to blame but ourselves mostly if we fail. So it’s a lot of pressure, but also a good position to be in to some extent. So I’m very nervous and excited at the same time.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:11:46):
Yeah, those things kind of love in tension together. Look, and well look, you mentioned the concept of antifragile. I think it’s a great concept if listeners aren’t familiar with to dive into. Also, you mentioned something of reducing the chance of failure, and that was something for me personally that was also super helpful is just thinking more in probabilities than an absolutes and making decisions there. And so I love pulling probabilistic thinking into how we make decisions has been super helpful. So we’ll add some follow-up resources in the show notes. Here we go. Inspiring impact round Anish. Quick questions, quick answers. One mistake, you kind of answered this earlier, but one mistake you’ve made that you hope future entrepreneurs won’t make.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:12:31):
Nobody really knows anything for sure. So just take everybody’s advice with a pinch of salt. All advice is helpful. Make your decisions yourself. I think that’s something that I feel like somebody who is smarter than me, not just this person, but it’s scientists and stuff. You’re an idiot and you kind of listen to them and don’t do things. And I feel like I would be a bit more confident about being able to figure things out. Hard work goes a long way.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:12:58):
Love it. What is your biggest frustration point in talking to investors, and what is one thing that you wish all impact investors knew or at least internalized more when working with social entrepreneurs?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:13:10):
Well, in India, we want consistency. So you can’t call yourself an impact investor and then have five year drag along exit rights in your term sheet. So consistency is really important for me. If don’t say one thing and say to something else, that’s sometimes very annoying because, and then I think the other part about investors, I feel like if you’re a climate tech investor, make sure your LPs or try to make sure your lending partners have a higher, longer horizon than 10 years. Because climate tech is molecules, it requires CapEx. If you want to solve problems, we don’t require another digital platform to solve the climate problem, and that means that you need to have more patience. And then if your LPs don’t have patients, then you’re not going to have any patience. So I do know there’s a few funds, but there’s one in the Netherlands called Fair Capital, and they have an evergreen front where they have lending partners have a rolling capital thing structure so they can do patient investors, patient investments, and then your family offices that also do patient. So I think that’s my frustration as well, is that if you truly want to be a climate investor or a truly, or in fact investor, please walk your talk. And that basically means being a little patient and not that there’ll be no returns, but just we require more time. And I don’t want a gun against my head because then I’ll make different decisions that might not be beneficial.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:14:28):
Yeah, I was just reading a report from the, I believe it’s called Institute for Innovative Finance, and it was saying if you’re an impact investor but don’t have your own compensation and performance link to actual impact variables, you’re not an impact investor. So you’re kind of building on that one anymore. Yeah. Okay. What is one leadership or management skill that you wish you could turn on that would make you a more effective team leader?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:14:54):
Talk lesser and be calmer. I wish I can just do that. I feel like there’s some people who are calm and safe, less things and are more impactful. I just blabber in this podcast.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:15:08):
For me, blabbing listening to Anish Blob will not be the title of this podcast.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:15:15):
Why not? My Hits?
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:15:18):
Who knows? Maybe no, look, I’ve loved everything that you’ve brought up today. Okay, last question. What is a quote, a ritual or activity that you turn to for strength when things are super hard?
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:15:33):
I’m not a big quote person, but this one quote, and I pulled it up because it’s sent be the question that it really comes back to me a lot. It came across, I came across a quote in Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows, which obviously is a very seminal book in systems thinking, but there was a quote in the last chapter by GK Chesterton, and the quote goes, the real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it’s a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it’s nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality yet. It’s a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is. And this one just keep coming back to this because
(01:16:17):
It means that we, nothing is for sure, but there is progress that you can make, and there’s a lot of room for hope. And I think this also helped me personally, because I feel like I was very nihilistic, and I didn’t have any way to kind of get past that. But I’ve heard many enough alternative theories knowing that even the nihilists, I can get into philosophy, but physicalism and materialism might not be the prevailing theory. There are other ways to look at things. Things might not just be made from molecules and atoms. And I don’t know if that’s true or I still believe that. But the thing is that I don’t know anything for sure. And that gives me hope that there are things that they can be proven that can be improving the cab change where other people don’t see it.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:17:01):
Love it. Oh gosh, Anish, this has been incredible. The very, very last question from today is can we find you? Where can we follow you? If we’re inspired by the work that you’re doing, what can we do to support without enter all shameless plugs here.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:17:19):
Yeah, no, please follow us on Instagram at shop dot without follow us on LinkedIn without bio shya. That would be helpful. And yeah, we always look for people to join our journey, whether you are an investor, a donor, a volunteer, a customer. If you’re aligned, please reach out. We’re always open for a conversation. If you’re in India, please do reach out. But we hope to be global soon as well. So yeah, I mean, not a big fan of this plugs, but my marketing team would be like, Aw, come on.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:17:53):
Let me add one for you. Hold on.
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:17:56):
Oh, yeah, sunglasses.
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:17:59):
I should have been more prepared for this, but it’s coming. So yeah, for everybody else, these are actually a pair of the products that Anish and his incredible team make. And you can see we’ve actually got these branded with Moving worlds. So you get them branded, they’ve got a QR code on the side that tells the whole story of how they came to be really cool products. We’ve been loving giving these out. My teammates love getting them. So I’ll add a plug for you, Anish. If you run a business and you need cool merch for your organization, go buy some probably the most ethical product you could ever buy and get that onto your shelf. Anish, it is so fun talking to you. Thank you so much for the time. It’s late there. And even after a very, very full day, the value here that you’ve shared and just hearing your story again is really touching. So I’m touched by the work that you’re doing. I look forward to following in touch. And just so you know, I’m inviting you back here in some amount of time so we can hear about the most important here
Anish Malpani (Guest) (01:19:07):
Yet what happens, whether I’ve gone to depression again or not, but No, no, thank you, mark. And I’m not going to just, I know it’s like, oh, it’s the end and we love each other, so thank you, thank you. But no, honestly, thank you for having me here, but a bigger thank you for all the support you’ve provided. Also, if you’re a social entrepreneur to check out Moving Worlds, they have been very helpful for me before I started being an entrepreneur and after also being an entrepreneur, always looking out for you. They’re authentic and genuine, and I think that’s really important. I feel like Mark is one of the people that also has my back in some ways or the other, and that’s really, really powerful, whether I use that or not, but that’s really, really important. So thank you, mark, for all the things that you do, and as an entrepreneur who’s been a part, I really, really appreciate it, and I’m not just saying
Mark Horoszowski (host) (01:19:50):
That. Yeah. Well, my pleasure and glad that we got some great sound bites and tidbits today to share with more entrepreneurs. There’s lots of great advice in here. So Anish, thank you so much. And that’s the end of our show.
