Tag Archives: Entrepreneur

Business

A 39-year-old who makes $160,000/month in passive income shares his best advice

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When starting a business, it’s sometimes hard to know what to prioritize, and going at it alone can be overwhelming. But there are strategies you can use to avoid common pitfalls.

My mission is to teach people how to earn money from their passions. It’s what I did: I went from living on food stamps to building two online businesses.

Today, I run a music blog, The Recording Revolution, and a entrepreneurship coaching company. I work just five hours a week from my home office and make $160,000 a month in passive income.

Here’s what I tell my 3,000 clients to think about in the first 30 days of starting a business:

1. Be clear about how you want to spend your time.

Many new business owners I meet know only one thing: how much money they want to make. 

While that’s a great starting point, it’s incomplete. Your business should serve your life, not the other way around. So make sure it aligns with your hopes, dreams and goals.

To get clear about the type of business and life you want, ask three questions:

  1. What does a perfect day look like to you? Don’t just think about your typical workday. Consider other life activities you want to fit into your day, like exercising or spending time with family.
  2. How many hours do you want to work a week? You don’t have to follow the standard 40-hour workweek. Knowing exactly how many hours you want to work will help you better prioritize tasks.
  3. How important is time off? Some people don’t care much about taking time off, as long as they love what they do. Others value extended time off. In order to have money flowing in when you’re not working, you’ll need to have some sort of passive income stream.

2. Simplify your business model.

When I started my music education business, people told me I needed to test my sales pages, throw launch parties and pre-record a bunch of ads in order to grow.

Rather than stretching myself thin doing things that didn’t make sense to me, I kept it simple and focused on three things: creating weekly content for my blog and YouTube channel, growing my email list from that audience, and promoting the paid products I created to that list.

If you’re just starting out, develop content around your expertise to grow an audience. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can iterate as you go and design new products based on what your customers want more of.

3. Cut out unnecessary daily tasks.

Identify what daily activities will help you earn more. Don’t waste time or burn yourself out focusing on unimportant tasks.

It might feel good to get to inbox zero or change the color of the buttons on your website, especially in the early days where you want to feel like you’ve achieved a goal. But neither of those things will make you money.

Before you start a new task, ask yourself three questions:

  1. What’s the expected outcome for doing this task? 
  2. Does it lead to more money?
  3. Can I point to a direct link between doing that task and earning income?
  4. What’s the cost of doing this instead of something else? 

4. Prioritize having fun.

People can tell if you’re just doing something for the money or if you actually love what you do. That authenticity will connect you deeper to your customers and it will sustain you for the long haul. 

You don’t want to burn out because you spent all your time doing things that weren’t meaningful to you.

I always give my students this framework when they are beginning their entrepreneur journey: Build a business around something you see yourself doing and enjoying for the next 10 years. 

Graham Cochrane is founder of The Recording Revolution and author of “How to Get Paid for What You Know.” He has helped more than 3,000 people launch and improve their own businesses. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter.

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Business

Millennial’s beauty startup Social Bella raised over $225 million

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When the Covid pandemic was raging in 2020, much of the world was in lockdown and more turned to online shopping.

But Chrisanti Indiana did the unexpected: she expanded her e-commerce business — offline.

Her beauty and personal care e-commerce startup, Sociolla, had just two brick-and-mortar stores in Indonesia in 2019. By the end of 2021, that number grew “10 times” more, she said.

“A lot of people actually told us that it’s a very bold move to actually open an offline presence, while everybody was closing their offline stores [during the pandemic],” she added. 

But that was a “well-calculated” move for Social Bella, which operates Sociolla. 

We know that this is the time for us to actually prepare … to make sure that after the pandemic, we can serve more and more consumers.

Chrisanti Indiana

Co-founder and CMO, Sociolla

“We know that this is the time for us to actually prepare … to make sure that after the pandemic, we can serve more and more consumers,” she added. 

Looking far ahead turned out to be the right move for the 31-year-old. Her online and offline approach transformed her e-commerce startup into a multimillion-dollar beauty conglomerate.  

Since 2018, it has raised around $225 million, and drawn an impressive list of investors that include East Ventures, Jungle Ventures, Temasek and Pavilion Capital.  

Indiana, the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Social Bella, tells CNBC Make It how she took her Jakarta-based startup to the next level.

Tackling counterfeits  

The idea for Sociolla came about in 2015, when Indiana returned home to Jakarta, after studying in Australia.  

The makeup junkie realized that in Australia, she had easy access to a wide range of beauty products from international brands. That was a stark contrast to Indonesia.

“There was lot of options for me, but then I came back and there’s basically none,” said Indiana. 

“There wasn’t a platform that had it all — I had to find specific sellers on social media, ask friends who can help purchase the product for you [when they are] overseas.”

What made matters worse for her was the online proliferation of counterfeit makeup products that were sometimes selling at “a fraction” of the original’s price. 

I still remember vividly in my mind that there’s a lot of like sellers online, especially on social media, that claim their products are 99% authentic. What does that mean, 99% authentic?

Chrisanti Indiana

Co-founder and CMO, Sociolla

“I still remember vividly in my mind that there’s a lot of like sellers online, especially on social media, that claim their products are 99% authentic. What does that mean, 99% authentic?” 

Indeed, locally made counterfeits in Indonesia are rife, thanks to cheap labor costs and materials. According to a local report, Indonesian authorities seized illegal cosmetic products worth $9 million in 2018 — twice the previous year’s amount. 

Seeing friends buying these products left Indiana perplexed. 

“It’s skincare, it’s makeup. It’s something that you put on your skin. It’s just bizarre for me,” she said. 

Sociolla has expanded into brick-and-mortar shops. It now has 47 stores in Indonesia and 16 in Vietnam.

Social Bella

Determined to build a space where consumers can get products that are safe and authentic, Indiana teamed up with her brother and friend to launch Social Bella, with a starting capital of $13,000.

“Since we started, we ensure that we only work with authorized distributors or brand owners,” Indiana said. 

Building an ‘ecosystem’

Sociolla may have started off as an e-commerce platform, but the trio had bigger dreams. 

Social Bella has since gone beyond offline shops — it’s also a distributor for beauty and personal care manufacturers worldwide.  

“We become an associate partner for a lot of global brands in Indonesia. We help them not only to distribute their products to Indonesia, but we also help them understand the market,” said Indiana.

On top of that, the business also operates Soco, which Social Bella says is Indonesia’s largest online review service for beauty products. Soco has amassed more than 2.5 million reviews for around 36,000 products, the company added. 

Social Bella was founded in 2015 by Chrisanti Indiana, her brother and president Christopher Madiam (left) and CEO John Rasjid (right).

Social Bella

The “beauty journey” for customers goes beyond putting something in their shopping carts and checking out, said Indiana. 

“We realized that there’s a lot of touch points that are really important … finding the right products for yourself is not just about going to the store and picking it up. You will make sure that you read the reviews, talk to your friends, or Google first,” she added. 

“Soco makes sure that they can access tons of product reviews before they purchase products.”

On top of that, Social Bella also runs Beauty Journal — a lifestyle website, and Lilla, an online retailer for mothers and babies.

That’s all part of building the business “ecosystem,” as Indiana calls it.

We want to make sure that we are scaling up and reaching more and more consumers. If Social Bella becomes a unicorn, it’s a bonus.

“We want to … to serve more and more women, not only in beauty and personal care, but also in other industries.”

The startup appears to be on the right track — it now boasts more than 30 million users across all its business units, said Social Bella, selling an inventory of 12,000 products from 400 brands worldwide.

Indonesia’s next unicorn? 

Over the last two years, Social Bella expanded aggressively, growing from just three Sociolla stores in Indonesia in 2020, to 47 stores there and 16 stores in Vietnam today.

While much of the expansion took place during the pandemic, Indiana said that had always been part of the plan for the e-commerce platform, lockdowns or not.

“It’s actually to create a seamless omnichannel experience … because we believe that we are serving the same customer whether she shops offline or online,” the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia honoree said.

“They can choose to do click-and-collect or … she can also deliver the purchases to her home. It’s making sure that she can shop the way she likes.” 

Social Bella aims to serve more female customers.

Social Bella

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Business

‘I work just 3.5 days a week’

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In 2017, after I graduated from college, I started working as an engineer at an oil company. I was 23 and making $98,500 a year.

At first, I thought I had my dream job. But after seeing senior leaders work 60-hour weeks with routine travel, I realized that it wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted. My father passed away when I was three years old, so having family time was always very valuable to me.

Josh works less than four days a week and spends his much of his free time with his family.

Photo: Danny Mizicko for CNBC Make It

In 2018, I started experimenting with side hustles. I set a goal to make $3,450 a month (after taxes) from my hustles in order to support my lifestyle. As soon as I’d achieved that, I decided, I would quit my full-time job.

Today, I’ve accomplished my goal of being my own boss, and more. I left my engineering job in February 2021 to work on my side hustles full-time.

Last year, I made a little over $189,000 from my seven income streams:

  1. YouTube (Google AdSense): $82,349
  2. Fulfilled by Amazon: $13,886
  3. Patreon (coaching): $33,114
  4. Fiverr (product research): $29,014
  5. Affiliate marketing: $29,496
  6. Rental property: $1,272
  7. Taxable dividends: $639

Now I work just 22 hours a week. I take off Thursdays, Friday afternoons, and weekends. Whether it’s golfing with my grandpa, cooking family dinners or starting new business projects in my community, I have plenty of time to invest in the people and things that I care about most. 

Here’s my best advice for turning your side hustle into your full-time gig, all while working less hours:

1. Don’t be afraid of trial and error.

With my early side hustles, I tried acquiring rental properties, then started placing ads in the backseat of Ubers and renting out my three-wheeled Polaris Slingshot motorcycle on Turo, an online car-sharing platform.

But none of those businesses were successful. It wasn’t until I began selling products on Amazon, using the Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) service, that I started making real passive income.

All I had to do was find a generic product that was in demand and ship it to Amazon. My first product was $1,000 worth of headphones, then I moved to iPhone cases and sports equipment.

I grossed more than $25,000 in 2019 through my Amazon store. I wanted to share with others what I learned from my trial and errors, so I started a new project, which would later turn into my biggest income stream: starting my own YouTube channel.

2. Build a community around your expertise.

I launched my YouTube channel, Debt To Dollars, in February 2020. I committed to posting at least two videos per week at first. Over the next eight months, I gained 14,000 subscribers and 871,000 channel views.

Josh’s most lucrative income stream in 2021 was his YouTube account, where he made almost $83,000 from advertisements.

Danny Mizicko for CNBC Make It

While growing my audience, I realized that I wanted to connect more with my subscribers and build a real community. So in October 2020, I began mentoring students one-on-one for $50 a month on how to make money selling products on Amazon.

I currently use Patreon, a platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service, to host my coaching sessions.

In February 2021, I started my product research service on Fiverr, in which customers would pay me to find high-demand, low-competition products — trending toys, pet supplies or travel accessories — that they could sell on Amazon.

These community-based businesses helped me reach my long-awaited income goal of $3,450 per month.

3. Prioritize tackling debt.

I was able to quit my full-time job when I was making less than $4,000 per month because I had paid off all of my debts, except for my house and car.

There are plenty of methods you can use to pay down debt, but I personally like the “Debt Snowball” method because it helps you see your progress.

Here’s how it works:

  1. List all of your debts from smallest to biggest.
  2. Make the biggest payment on your smallest debt and the minimum payment on the rest.
  3. Repeat until you pay off the smallest debt, then continue on with your next smallest debt.

4. Set up the legal side of your business early.

It’s important to incorporate your business with your state for practical reasons, like asset protection and tax advantages. But I also believe there’s a psychological benefit.

I attribute some of my past failures to treating my side hustles like hobbies instead of businesses. Once I formed a Limited Liability Company (LLC) in Texas in 2019, I took everything more seriously and professionally. It’s not a coincidence that all of my businesses failed until then.

An LLC has some of the best features of a corporation or partnership, two other business structures that are also used by companies in the U.S. LLCs protect their owners from being held personally responsible for the business’ debts or liability, like a corporation.

But like a partnership, LLCs income “pass through” the business and are taxed the owner’s personal income, which makes filing taxes simpler.

You can form your own LLC by filing a certificate of organization in your state, which normally costs anywhere from $50 to $300. Many states list filing information on their Secretary of State website.

5. Find a schedule that works for you and stick with it.

When I was working my full-time job, I lacked motivation to work on my side hustles.

But once I put pen to paper and committed to a schedule, working on my business was part of my weekly routine. I chose to focus on my side hustles each weekday evening after work and every Saturday morning.

I still stick with a weekly schedule. I work Monday through Wednesday and a half day on Friday. Each day I’ll work four to six hours, with each hour blocked for a specific task.

One of the benefits of setting his own schedule is getting to play golf with his grandfather on Thursday mornings.

Photo: Danny Mizicko for CNBC Make It

If you don’t set aside specific times to work on your side hustle, your business may get lost in daily priorities.

6. Set up systems that will save you time in the future.

I invest in business models that require as little of my time as possible. It is the only way I am able to work 22 hours per week and still grow multiple income streams. But remember that automating things, and creating the most effective systems, can take time at first.

Every month, I reflect on where I spent most of my work hours and find ways to make those processes more efficient. For example, I used to spend four to eight hours per week editing videos.

I decided to outsource my video editing, but that also required some time up front to run the numbers to see where it fit into my budget, and find a great editor to do the work. But now that I already put time into doing that, I spend those hours growing my business in other ways, or working less.

7. Identify what makes you different.

Marketing is more than just advertising your product or service; it’s separating yourself from your competition by making your customer feel something. They’ll come back or, even better, tell their friends about you.

When I first started selling on Amazon in 2018, I used stock photos my supplier gave me for my product listings. Unsurprisingly, they blended in with every other product. And if someone did buy, they got their product in a boring, clear bag. There was nothing that made my customer experience special.

Once I learned the importance of providing something special, I started to take my own product photos, and I designed custom packaging. My sales spiked.

No matter what your business is, decide what makes you memorable and invest in it.

Josh Ellwood is the founder of Debt To Dollars. Follow him on Instagram and YouTube.

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Technology

How a Jazz Musician and Entrepreneur Spends His Sundays

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The jazz bass player Matthew Garrison doesn’t like to slow down. “I’m always thinking, doing,” he said.

As a performer, he has toured with Herbie Hancock, and as a producer, he is helping to organize upcoming shows with the pianist Jason Moran, the drummer Jack DeJohnette and others. But most days, he is focused on producing music events through ShapeShifter Lab and its nonprofit arm, ShapeShifter Plus. He also created the app Tunebend, which facilitates virtual collaborating and recording among musicians.

Mr. Garrison, who is the son of Jimmy Garrison, the bassist for John Coltrane, seems to like pushing boundaries in the jazz world. “I’m really tired of the stagnant music scene, where this club only books a certain type of band and that club only books musicians that play this genre,” he said.

For a decade, Mr. Garrison ran a performance space in Gowanus, Brooklyn, also called the ShapeShifter Lab, but it closed last year. Soon, he will open a new venue. “My new space will be a place for performers, those genius rejects, who would not otherwise be able to play in the city.”

Mr. Garrison, 52, lives in Park Slope with his business partner, Fortuna Sung, 51.

DARK AND QUIET Time has been wonky post-pandemic. It sounds horrible, but sometimes I wake up as early as 4 a.m. I get a lot of work out of the way. I code for my apps, including Tunebend, and organize things on my computer for a few hours because everyone is asleep. There’s no one around calling, texting or bugging you.

CAFFEINATED NAP I might have some coffee and a light breakfast. I have a weird relationship with coffee these days. It doesn’t keep me awake. I now use coffee as a sleep aid. I don’t know how that works. So after I work for a few hours and drink some coffee, I often go back to sleep.

WORKING WEEKEND I wake up again around 9 or 10 a.m. and I’ll have another cup of coffee. The music industry is a 24-hour thing. I communicate with folks in Europe and Japan all the time, so my weekends don’t count as a day off. I have to divide my work hours and devote certain days to my three ventures to get everything done. On Sundays, I try to get to the stuff I couldn’t do during the weekday. But I make a mess if I multitask too much.

STEPS Then I might compose for several hours. Or I go take a walk in Prospect Park or zigzag through neighborhood streets. Sometimes I venture out into Gowanus and Carroll Gardens. Fortuna says I walk too fast, but I need to get my heart rate up. My body is telling me I need it.

SONG LAYERS I listen to music on Tunebend while I walk. I listen to see how all the bits and pieces that were recorded can become layers in a song. You can swap out different performers for the same part, so I do a lot of listening and rearranging. But I’m also interacting with the app as a user to see if anything needs to be tweaked. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but this is how I decompress.

PIECING IT TOGETHER When you’re coding or composing music, you’re problem-solving. You’re in continuous research mode to figure out why something is done in a particular way. In the jazz world, there’s so much that you have to know and be able to play in a fraction of a second. In coding, you also have to remember all these bits and pieces to build something. The only difference between the two worlds is the pay!

NEW SPACE I finally got the keys to a new performance space that we’ll open by the end of the year. So far I’ve done a livestream workshop on how to use the Tunebend app, but I’m gearing up for a lot of fund-raising so we can put on shows and events for all types of musicians here.

SUSTENANCE We get our errands done in the neighborhood, including groceries from the Park Slope Food Co-op. Fortuna, whose family is from Hong Kong, is the better cook. Her artist parents also owned and operated a restaurant, so she knows her way around a kitchen. When we eat out, it might be Japanese or Thai. Today we had dinner with my mom at Littleneck.

OLD-PEOPLE TIME After dinner, I’ll watch TV or read. I’m news-centric: There’s so much stuff to keep up with, which makes me understand how I can make this world a better place. I also like tech stuff, like articles about the newest plug-ins for music software. My mom still scolds me that all my reading is done on a screen. Now I’m on old-people time: I’m in bed by 9 or 10 p.m.

Sunday Routine readers can follow Matthew Garrison on Instagram and Twitter @garrisonjazz.

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Business

Stanford dropouts’ startup worth millions, could be India tech unicorn

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“When we started this 12 months ago, every conversation we had was, ‘You’re totally out of your mind, this is never going to work,'” said teenage CEO Aadit Palicha. 

Yet, Palicha’s company has managed to prove those doubters wrong — it’s now nearing unicorn status and is one of India’s fastest-growing quick commerce apps. A unicorn is a startup valued at more than $1 billion.

Zepto is a startup that promises to deliver groceries in less than 10 minutes. Despite being just one of many businesses to join the instant commerce wave, it has already caught the eyes of investors. 

Its latest cash injection of $200 million in May 2022 valued the business at $900 million, just nine months after its launch. 

We figured that was just a more exciting opportunity than studying in an elite university.

Aadit Palicha

Co-founder and CEO, Zepto

Driving its meteoric growth are Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, two 19-year-olds who dropped out of Stanford University to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. 

“At that point, we had already scaled to a couple million dollars of annualized revenue. We said here’s an opportunity to raise a large amount of capital, it’s got clear product market fit,” Palicha told CNBC Make It. 

“How many people in their lifetimes get an opportunity to build a potential generational company? We figured that was just a more exciting opportunity than studying in an elite university.” 

From 45 to 10 minutes 

The idea for Zepto came in July 2021 — when the childhood friends were stuck in their homes in Mumbai, right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and a nationwide lockdown. 

At the time, demand for delivery services surged as many stayed home.

“Online groceries [would] take six, seven days to deliver, offline options were practically shut down or unavailable. It was incredibly difficult for us to get groceries,” said Palicha, who is Zepto’s CEO. 

“We had sort of similar conversations with our neighbors that complained about pretty much the same problem. That’s when we said … why don’t we try building a solution for the folks in our neighborhood?” 

If you look at all the other major categories of e-commerce … you take all of them and combine them, they’re a fraction of the grocery market.

Aadit Palicha

Co-founder and CEO, Zepto

But Palicha and Vohra were no strangers to the instant grocery delivery business. In 2020 — at just 17 years old — they started KiranaKart, which they said delivered groceries in Mumbai in under 45 minutes.

“Some people were getting their deliveries [within] a 10-15 minute timeframe,” Vohra said. 

“In terms of their retention, how much they liked the platform and how frequently they were referring to their friends, [it] was significantly higher for those people who got the deliveries in that timeframe.”

“Which is why we said, ‘Look, maybe there’s some value in exploring that.'” 

Zepto isn’t the only quick commerce startup in India, and competition is heating up both domestically and globally. The country’s online grocery market is set to be worth around $24 billion dollars by 2025, according to Redseer.

Zepto

They weren’t wrong. According to research from consulting firm Redseer, India’s online grocery market could be worth up to $25 billion by 2025 and that is an opportunity that was “too compelling to pass up,” said Palicha.

“If you look at all the other major categories of e-commerce — electronics, apparel, you take all of them and combine them, they’re a fraction of the grocery market,” he added. 

Building trust and reliability 

In order to fulfill grocery orders in under 10 minutes, the duo established a network of dark stores, or microdistribution hubs across cities. 

Dark stores are are closed to the public, housing goods meant solely for online ordering.

“We design our network across the city, to make sure that our points of pickup are very close to population clusters in a specific neighborhood,” Palicha said. 

In order to fulfill grocery orders in under 10 minutes, the duo established a network of dark stores, like the one above, across cities.

Zepto

“What ends up happening is that the average distances of our deliveries are so short, we’re able to get deliveries done consistently in 10 minutes.”

The startup added that the average distance for its deliveries ranges from 1.7 to 2 kilometers. Other forms of hyperlocal delivery, it said, could be “2 to 2.5 times longer than that.” 

Today, Zepto says, it operates hundreds of dark stores across 10 cities in India, with tens of thousands of delivery drivers at work. Palicha added that it is currently delivering “90 to 95%” of its orders between five and 20 minutes. 

But speed is not Zepto’s only secret to retaining customers and building loyalty. The startup, whose name comes from zeptosecond — the smallest unit of time — claimed it is adding 100,000 new users daily. 

“To really retain customers for the long term, what do you really need to build is trust and reliability. Reliability comes in many ways,” said Vohra, who is also the chief technology officer. 

“Yes, we deliver on time, but also reliability in terms of — if I ordered 10 things, I get those 10 exact things. And if I order fruits and vegetables, [they’re] the highest quality possible.” 

Keeping cash burn low

Investors are excited about Zepto’s popularity too.

To date, the company had attracted $360 million dollars from investors, including Y Combinator, U.S. health-care consortium Kaiser Permanente and Nexus Venture Partners. Its latest funding round puts the company on course for a likely $1 billion valuation. 

Palicha said one the key drivers of Zepto’s investment success is its “operating discipline.” 

“When we went to investors this time around, we showed very, very clear paths to profitability. We went from $0 in revenue roughly a year ago to today, we’re doing hundreds of millions of dollars in annualized revenue,” he added. 

“We’re still talking in terms of multiples and not percentages when it comes to our growth rate, and that’s something that we’re excited by.”

Since day one, we’ve been … forcing ourselves to be efficient to make every dollar last. 

Aadit Palicha

Co-founder and CEO, Zepto

Zepto claims it has managed to reduce its cash burn rate by 5 times on a per-order basis, while achieving a quarter-on-quarter revenue growth of 800%. 

Even so, the days of easy money for cash-burning tech companies are gone, as interest rates rise and investors demand more results. Nonetheless, the young founders remain unfazed. 

“We’re in a position where you look at the size of our balance sheet, we effectively got capital to last us multiple years, in the context of this downturn,” said Palicha. 

“Since day one, we’ve been … forcing ourselves to be efficient to make every dollar last. We’re able to do more orders with the same amount of cash, we’re able to acquire more customers with the same amount of cash.” 

Zepto’s founders may be young, but their conviction in their product is unwavering. “Whether it was in front of an investor, a senior executive, any government stakeholder and regulator, you realize what you’re building is on the right side of what customers want,” said Aadit Palicha (right).

Zepto

Keeping costs lower than its competitors in the high-growth tech category has given them an edge, said the duo. 

“That just puts us in a position where we are able to continue growing sustainably, where other folks have been forced to … induce layoffs, essentially pull back growth plans and contract to survive in a market like this,” Palicha added. 

Touching ‘the billion mark’?

Because of that difficult environment, Palicha and Vohra aren’t resting on their laurels despite the fresh funding that Zepto has in the bag.

“The key focus now is to just build the incremental scale we need to break even in key markets. Once we have a balance sheet that is now operating in breakeven, we can start expanding into new cities with a lot more confidence and clarity,” said Palicha. 

It was previously reported that Zepto is making $200 million to $400 million dollars in annualized revenue and the founders are now hoping to “touch the billion mark.” 

Palicha added: “[Zepto] came out as a personal project between Kaivalya and [me] to see if we could solve a problem at a small scale in our neighborhood.”

“It eventually evolved into the company that we are today, which we’re incredibly grateful for.” 

Don’t miss: Here’s how you can recession-proof your career, according to one CEO

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Entertainment

Jamal Edwards, pioneering music entrepreneur, dead at 31

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His mother confirmed Monday that her “beautiful” and “inspirational” son died on Sunday morning from a “sudden illness.”

Brenda Edwards, who is a panelist on British TV talk show “Loose Women,” paid an emotional tribute to her son in a statement shared on the show’s social media accounts, saying she and her family are “devastated.”

“It is with the deepest heartache that I confirm that my beautiful son Jamal Edwards passed away yesterday morning after a sudden illness. Myself, his sister Tanisha and the rest of his family and friends are completely devastated. He was the center of our world,” the statement read.

She continued: “As we come to terms with his passing we ask for privacy to grieve this unimaginable loss. I would like to thank everyone for their messages of love and support. Jamal was an inspiration to myself and so many. Our love for him lives on, his legacy lives on. Long live Jamal Edwards MBE, MBA and PHD.”

Edwards was a pioneering figure in British rap and grime music. Raised in Acton, west London, he got into the music scene at the age of 15 when his parents gave him a video camera for Christmas.

In 2006, he launched SBTV (SmokeyBarz TV) as an online platform to showcase emerging artists. He gave early exposure and helped launch the careers of artists like Dave, Jessie J, Ed Sheeran and Skepta.

The SBTV YouTube channel now boasts 1.2 million subscribers and nearly 1 billion total views.

“Everyone in my area was an MC and I thought ‘Alright if everyone is doing MCing what else can I do that’s around the music?'” he told BBC Radia 1Xtra in 2017.

“I remember I was just sitting there and was thinking, ‘Why can’t I find these online?’ and if they were online it was just bad-quality versions, so I thought ‘Alright, cool, I’m going to try and film people in my area and upload it to YouTube.’ And from there it just started building and growing.”

As his success grew, Edwards turned his hand to philanthropy as an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, a youth charity run by the Prince of Wales that helps young people set up their own companies. In 2014 — at the age of 24 — he received an MBE (Member of the British Empire) award for his services to music.

Following the news of his death, tributes have poured in from music industry heavyweights, sports stars and political figures.

Singer Rita Ora shared a picture of herself and Edwards on Instagram, along with the caption: ‘My first ever interview was with you. Jamal, Our endless talks on music and the belief you had in me and so many of us before we even believed in ourselves.

‘I’m devastated. No words can describe how grateful I am to of been in your presence. Thank you for all you ever showed me. My heart goes out to @brendaedwardsglobal and the whole family. RIP.”

“RIP Jamal Edwards. Giving God thanks that you did what he sent you to do ❤️ So many of us owe our careers to you bro,” George the Poet s on wrote on Twitter. “Thank you for everything.”

Chelsea and England footballer Reece James added his condolences, tweeting: “Rest in peace Jamal Edwards. I’m lost for words.”

Edwards’ final Instagram post was a birthday tribute to his “brother,” Ed Sheeran. Sharing a vintage photo of the pair in Marbella, Spain, he wrote: “Happy Birthday to the OG, Ed. Blessed to have you in my life brother. You know you’ve been mates a long time when you lose count on the years! Keep smashing it & inspiring us all G!”



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Entertainment

British Music Entrepreneur & YouTube Star Was 31 – Deadline

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Jamal Edwards, an English music entrepreneur known for founding SBTV, a YouTube music channel dedicated to breaking emerging artists in the UK, died Sunday at the age of 31.

Edwards’ company confirmed his death to the BBC. No other details have been released about his death.

Edwards was born in Luton in 1990 and was raised in Acton, West London. In 2006, he founded SBTV on YouTube, a channel focused on the discovery of emerging artists. The channel would help launch the careers of high-profile artists like Ed Sheeran, Jessie J, Dave, Skepta, Rita Ora and Stormzy.

Many credit Edwards and SBTV for helping popularize grime music in and beyond the UK. The channel currently has over 1.2 million subscribers.

After news broke of the music figure’s passing, tributes have been pouring in.

Lady Leshur wrote, “This man helped so many artists to become who they are today including myself. He gave me opportunity after opportunity to showcase my talent from Brum into London. We need to keep his name and brand alive. This is painful the good always go too soon.”

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, paid tribute and wrote, “British music and entertainment has lost one of its brightest stars. My thoughts are with Jamal’s loved ones at this terribly sad time.”

Dave, also known as Santan Dave, expressed gratitude for Edwards’ life and wrote, “Thank you for everything. Words can’t explain.”



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Technology

For My Next Presentation – The Entrepreneur Who Quit Microsoft To Develop A Powerpoint Rival

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“It’s hard to keep an entrepreneur in a big company,” says Berlin-based entrepreneur, Christian Reber. He’s talking about his decision to quit Microsoft and subsequently create a platform offering an alternative to the Powerpoint presentation tool. 

Reber – who began writing software in his teens – hit entrepreneurial paydirt in 2015, when the productivity app, Wunderlist, which he developed with partner, Frank Thelen, was sold to Microsoft for between $100 and $200 million.   

As Reber recalls, in joining Microsoft after the deal had been completed, he became an employee for the first time in his life and while his experience with the company was valuable,  he struggled to find a role that kept him satisfied. “I was looking at new projects, but I didn’t get the funding,” he says. 

Perhaps more importantly, he was motivated to explore new ventures.. “I had tasted success, but I felt I hadn’t really achieved success,” he says. “I was still hungry enough and young enough to pursue new ideas.” 

An Eye On Design

And one of those new ideas was Pitch. One legacy of his time with Microsoft was an awareness of just how widely used presentation tools such as Powerpoint were. Looking at the market, he felt he could build a next-generation alternative – a  software-as-a-service platform that would allow users to create and publish interactive decks. The key to success, he believed, was to make the software a pleasure to use while also offering enhanced functionality.  “Me and my co-founders have always loved well-designed software,” he says.

At which point, it’s worth pausing for breath. Arguably it takes a certain amount of chutzpah for an independent entrepreneur to enter a presentation tools market in which Powerpoint comes loaded with Windows Machine and Google’s Slides is available for free through browsers and Android apps.    

And as Reber acknowledges, Microsoft is a formidable competitor not only in terms of Powerpoint but also in the burgeoning collaborative software market. What’s more, Powerpoint may not be software that sets the blood racing with anticipation, but it works well and people – a whole lot of people – are familiar with it. So how do make a dent in the market.   

“The truth is, we didn’t think about Microsoft all that much,” says Reber. “Most people are willing to try out new tools. We did a survey with Bain which found that 90 percent of presentation users would be prepared to try Pitch.” 

So in marketing terms, Pitch wasn’t saying “throw out Microsoft.” Instead,, it simply invited users to try out the tool to see if they like it. “Today, users are tasting all the options and the best software wins,” he says. 

Going Interactive 

Nevertheless, any software that is new to the market needs some kind of USP,  Reber opted to focus on collaboration – perhaps not a big surprise these days – but also live slides.  Users can integrate real-time data – on say, employment figures or the stock markets – into slide presentations which will update as the information changes. Ultimately, the platform will offer advanced publishing features too, such as reports on the slides people are most interested in when decks are published online. 

As things stand, the marketing effort is aimed at smaller companies – teams of up to 250 people – with templates available for functions such as leaders, sales and marketing. Users can work with the software free to explore its possibilities and after that it costs $10 per month per seat.    

There is still some way to go. By last may, Pitch has achieved 125,000 workspaces and Reber says this has risen to 250,000. Following Series B funding, Reber expects 2022 to be a breakthrough year. “By the end of the year we will have a mature product. After that it will only get better,” he says.  

So how much market share does Reber expect Pitch to secure? Rather than talking figures, he prefers to emphasise his desire to create a company that will remain independent – perhaps Microsoft’s decision to close Wunderlist is a factor here – and sustainable. I’d like to create a company that will sustain and feed people for 100 years or more,” he says. That said, he sees $100 million in revenues as a milestone to aim for.  

So can a German startup compete in mature presentation tool market? That remains to be seen, but what certainly is true that in the SasS world, it has never been easier for corporaate buyers to check out new products in markets that might once have been dominated by big players.

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