In today's Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, we're diving deep into the world of Asha Sarode, founder of Uniquity Consulting. Her company, born from personal pain points in the workplace, now offers a fresh perspective on employee engagement and team management. Through Uniquity Consulting, Asha is revolutionizing how managers understand and leverage the unique characteristics of their team members, ultimately boosting innovation and productivity in organizations worldwide. Get ready to explore the mind of a woman who dared to leave the comfort of a steady paycheck to make a meaningful impact on workplace dynamics and employee satisfaction.
Hi, Asha! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?
We are each shaped by unique characteristics and pivotal experiences that impact how we see ourselves, what we value, and how we interact with the world.
Uniquity Consulting offers training sessions and one-on-one consulting to help managers maximize employee engagement and innovation by developing a better understanding of the individuals on their team and their UNIQUE skills, needs and interests.
Our training course is geared at managers of ALL levels and is focused on companies who are experiencing the symptoms of low engagement, (such as high absenteeism, high employee churn, low productivity, low quality, and low innovation) OR who are looking to increase engagement and innovation in their organization.
Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.
I created a product based on a personal pain point and whenever you create a new product based on your own problem, you always wonder whether it's just YOU who thinks it's valuable. For me, the shift came when I found someone with 30 years of experience in corporate training to tell me the work I was doing had value. That validation helped me see that I really was onto something and it wasn't just ME. It was the catalyst that helped me stop doubting myself and making decisions based on fear (what if?) and instead put my efforts into creating more value for the customer.
Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.
I always tell people the decision to start my own company was like leaving a bad relationship. (I don't know if I'll find another one, but I'd rather risk being alone forever than doing what I'm doing now).
A little more than 2 years ago I had just finished a 15-page PowerPoint that took 8 weeks and I couldn't help but look at all my previous jobs and think about what my future would look like if I kept going down the same path. I didn't want to be working for someone else, doing meaningless work, and feeling drained with the only upside being a nice paycheck. Sure I'd be comfortable, but at what cost? Is this what I wanted for the rest of my life? So I decided no matter the consequences, I was going to leave and put the same effort I put into work into something I genuinely cared about.
There were problems in the workplace I wanted to fix and I had the desire and motivation to do something about it. So I left.
I also knew if I was lying on my deathbed, I would regret it more if I kept doing what I was doing, than if I lost it all doing something I found meaningful. I always think back to something an old boss told me once: "I want to die with nothing in my bank account." I asked him why. He said, "Because you can't take anything with you when you die so do as much as you can with what you have."
Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?
Trello - It's a simple project management tool and it's free up to a certain number of users.
I love it because there are so many parts of a business that I need to keep track of (legal, finance, marketing, product development) and they are all often moving at the same time. A project management tool like Trello has allowed me to keep track of various parts of my company without losing all the important details. I move tickets from columns to column to show where they are in my process: backlog, up next, currently working on, pending outside action, and complete. It's also great if you take time off and you need to pick up right where you left off. If you put everything in Trello you know what you need to do next. You can add deadlines, documents, notes, checklists, etc.
I was also able to get an add-on to use it as a CRM. So that allows me to add contact information for valuable contacts, track conversations and recall what we discussed when it's been a while since we've talked.
We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.
When I left my job, I didn't have a clear plan of what I wanted to do next. The only thing I knew was that I felt called to conduct interviews with other people about their work experiences because I knew they were experiencing similar problems to my own. I just wanted to take a step back and listen and learn for a while.
At that point, I thought I was going to move into the Diversity Equity and Inclusion space because it was the only thing out there that seemed to address some of the problems I was seeing in the workplace at the time.
But as I continued to conduct more and more interviews, I started to learn about the complexity of individuals' characteristics, the unique lens of their experiences, and how the impact of both went far beyond what was being discussed in the DEI space. That led me down a rabbit hole of doing more and more research into other topics including identity, psychology, management best practices, organizational systems, neuroscience, innovation, and so much more.
I never anticipated the extra work. I just thought I'd start working at another company and do some consulting work. So the detour added a lot of time (and money) to my journey, but it led me to a place where I feel confident that the message I'm delivering is valuable.
And the best part was, it didn't FEEL like work. I was enjoying every minute of it. That feeling also helped me know I was on the right path even though I knew it was going to take longer.
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?
I got my MBA at University of Chicago and the advice I got from many of my colleagues (who hadn't started their own companies) was to figure out "sales first" and once you sell, you can figure out how to improve your product and your strategy. In other words, they had a sales-led growth strategy - sell first, product later. The alternative strategy is product-led growth - use your product to help you get customers. Most large companies can use sales-led growth because they have a product that people already trust. That's not the case for new companies so if your customers have a bad first experience just because you're trying to sell first, good luck finding more customers.
Having been a product manager and from what I've seen from other entrepreneurs - I believe more in product-led growth: build a product that meets the needs of your customers so well that they want more of it and will evangelize it to other customers. What that has meant for me is more time developing the product and making sure it's polished before customers have a chance to experience it.
It also means giving some customers a taste of the product for free in the hopes that it will bring in more business. This strategy is a bit more time-consuming and risker financially (because you're donating time without any guarantee of revenue) - but since my goal is to share valuable messages with the world - it's a risk I'm willing to take, even if product sales and adopting takes a bit longer.
What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?
Some people want to know whether to leave your job or to try to work on a side business while you're working. I don't think there's a perfect answer to that question. It really depends on how time and energy-intensive your business is vs. how much time and energy your job is taking away from you as a person each day. And that will vary from person to person.
For some people, work isn't that intense or isn't so emotionally draining that you have extra energy to put towards a side hustle and once it gets off the ground you can leave your full-time job.
For me - I was so drained from work - not because it was too hard, but because it wasn't the right fit and that drains your energy too- so I didn't have much left to put towards a side gig. I also don't think I would have had the mental space necessary to be creative if I tried working and building my business. So I decided to leave and had saved enough money to support my basic needs for 1.5 years.
My recommendation is if you are planning on leaving your job to start a company, make sure you have something to keep you disciplined because it's easy to lose time when you don't have work to give you structure. And whatever you think your financial runway is- I would double it. My runway wasn't sufficient because I didn't anticipate losing time and progress due to several unexpected life events (I broke my dominant wrist, my father had a heart attack, and I lost my brother). So I ended up needing help from family to keep going. I was lucky, but you don't want to give up on all your hard work because of immediate cash needs.
Want to dive deeper into Asha's work? Find more info on the links below.
- Visit Uniquity Consulting's website uniquityconsulting.co
- Follow Uniquity Consulting on Instagram @uniquityconsulting
- Find Uniquity Consulting on LinkedIn
