WEBVTT
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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and I've been so excited to have this guest on, because this is someone who not only do I think that he has a few really cool businesses, but I love the fact that he just goes where his passions lead him, and that has led him to extraordinary results in life and in business.
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This is someone who loves building, who extraordinary results in life and in business.
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This is someone who loves building, who loves scaling, who loves growing.
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You're going to hear so much about this entrepreneur's journey and we're going to learn a lot from him today, so let me introduce you to Shardul Mehta.
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Shardul is a 30-year veteran of the tech industry, having co-founded multiple startups and small businesses and served in executive leadership roles at several growth-focused companies.
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He's launched products, he's scaled products, he's grown complex enterprise-grade platforms and multifaceted portfolios to literally hundreds of millions in revenue and has led digital transformations at non-tech organizations.
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His career touches so many different corners and industries of the world.
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He has worked in the VC world and PE-backed growth companies, mergers and acquisitions, family-owned businesses, fortune 100 global enterprises and even a stint in the US federal government.
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He's built and scaled product management teams and operations, and many of his product managers have grown into leadership positions themselves.
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Five and a half years ago this is where I love this twist in his story he began a lifelong love affair with improv yes, improv comedy.
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He has taught improv to over 100 students.
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He's organized numerous improv shows and performed on stage and right here on the podcasting platforms that we all know and love.
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As an introvert, he enjoys spending time with his family, writing and watching way more YouTube videos than is probably healthy, which this extrovert also indulges into, and I love the fact that Shardul's businesses are.
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For example, he's got a free weekly newsletter where he gives so much incredible advice.
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He also owns Loudon Improv Comedy, which so much cool stuff that Shardul is into and so much that he's done up to this point.
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So I'm not going to say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Shardul Mehta.
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All right, shardul, I am so very excited that you're here with us today.
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First things first.
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Welcome to the show.
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Thanks so much, Ryan.
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It's exciting to be here.
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Heck.
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Yes, it feels fun even doing the intro for you, because you've touched so many different fun projects, businesses, things that you've worked on, from improv to technical stuff, to your newsletter giving value in the world.
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Shardul, I'm excited for you to take us beyond the bio, because I don't know how you tell this story of how you've started doing all this.
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But take us there.
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Who's Shardul?
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How did you get into all these cool things?
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Yeah, you know, brian.
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So I saw in your guide that you're going to start by asking me that question and I was thinking, gosh, I don't know where to start even.
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But I guess you know I think a lot of it has to do with my upbringing.
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So I was, you know, I was born in the US and I grew up half my life in the US and half my life, you know, I was born in the US and I grew up half my life in the US and half my life in India.
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My parents were originally from India, so it's sort of your, in a way, kind of your classic immigrant story.
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They came for their, for their master's degrees, and then they met, got married, had a couple of kids me and my brother and you know my dad was really into technology and I still remember he got one of the first PCs back in 1984, or whatever it was.
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It was an HP 8084 or HP 85, maybe and I thought it was like wow, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life and I just dived in and I think that really brought out the creator in me.
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And then from there, you know, I did a computer science degree.
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I don't know that I was really that good as an engineer probably.
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You know I had a chance to work with some really great programmers, software engineers.
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I just thought they were way better than me, but I loved the building process, I loved innovation, um, and I quickly realized that my career was going to be, you know, in that avenue.
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And so after, after graduating, I did a few um, um stints as a software engineer in different companies, but I always had a hankering to do my own business, um.
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So here's where, like, instead of, I did a few stints as a software engineer in different companies, but I always had a hankering to do my own business.
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So here's where, like, instead of actually doing a business, I actually went to business school because I figured I don't know the first thing about business, so I got to learn and so coming out of there, that was sort of the dot-com bubble.
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So maybe some of your older listeners might remember the dot-com era back in 2000.
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So I did a dot-com in healthcare which dot-bombed, but you know it just cemented my love for entrepreneurship, innovation entrepreneurship, if you will.
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And since then my career has kind of had I'd say two parallel tracks will and since then my career has kind of had, I'd say, two parallel tracks.
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One has been in sort of your, let's call it traditional product management, and product management is one of those things where I kind of realized after the fact that, oh, what I'm doing is product management and I did that in startups and large companies and whatnot.
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And then the other parallel track was in entrepreneurship, whether it was doing my own businesses or joining someone else's startup, either as a co founder or, you know, one of the, let's say, early employees, and helping grow and scale that, and it was always on the product side.
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So that's kind of where things have gone, um, and then the yeah, the improv thing.
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You know, I've always been a fan of comedy.
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I think I get my sense of humor from my mother, um, you know, we, I I remember just growing up watching sitcoms with her, um, snl, all kinds of comedy shows and, um, you know, my dad used to, when he retired or somebody retired, used to, participate in community theater and even growing up they would take us to like community theater productions and you know um large theater productions, and I absolutely loved it and he would always encourage me.
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You know you should, uh, you should do theater, um, but I never had time.
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You know, career, family, all that kind of stuff came in the way.
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But then he, when he passed away about now, six years ago actually, just to deal with my own grief I said you know what I've got to do this?
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And I googled improv near me, found reflex improv, which was founded by Dan Brown, took the first class and I was like Found Reflex Improv, which was founded by Dan Brown, took the first class and I was like, oh my God, where has this been all my life?
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And I not only enjoyed it for improv's sake and comedy's sake, but it really unlocked a lot of creativity.
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I met some amazing people through that journey and it's really even helped me in my sort of business and professional life just to be more open-minded the power of yes and professional life, just to be more open minded the power of yes and to do to continue being being innovative and open and receptive to ideas.
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So yeah, that that really has has helped tremendously.
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So yeah, that's kind of where I've I've been.
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And then I always had a goal to sort of maybe not have a real job, I suppose, which is kind of what I'm doing now.
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Years ago I started an organization called Product Camp DC when we had moved to the DC metro area, washington DC metro area and I didn't know anybody, so it was really the driver band that was just to meet other people, other product managers in the area, because it was way outside of Silicon Valley, way outside of the tech hub, and I started ProductMTC, grew that membership pretty large, was pretty successful with it with a couple of other co-founders, and then, through that journey, I started blogging when people were doing that sort of thing and it was called Street Smart Product Manager and, amazingly, it had got a few subscribers and I shut it down a few years ago just because I couldn't keep up.
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But I would get pinged every now and then people asking me hey, do you have any of your old blog posts still or do you have any of your old videos?
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I had a couple of online courses and so about a year ago or so, six months or a year ago, I thought, okay, well, let me, let me actually do this deliberately.
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And that led to the current newsletter, speed smart product manager, which is a once a week.
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I thought, okay, well, let me actually do this deliberately.
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And that led to the current newsletter, street Smart Product Manager, which is a once-a-week publication for product managers to help them grow, and there was not a huge, there was not an amazing business model behind it, it was just, you know, let me just help people.
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People can even book time with me.
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My calendar is right there in my LinkedIn profile.
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They can grab 30 minutes with me and I get to talk to product people all over the world about their challenges and it's been amazing.
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And then through that, I resurfaced and relaunched one of my courses called One Week Product Roadmap, which launched just last month to help product managers with their challenges, with product road mapping and dealing with stakeholders.
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So let me stop there, because I could keep on going, but it's probably a lot.
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Yeah, I really appreciate that overview, Shardul, because, like you said, it absolutely is a lot and there's so many fun branches that we could go on.
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But what I really want to pick on right now is that product manager mindset.
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It just seems to me like you've taken that not only through your professional career but also to the way that you run your businesses and the way that you start your businesses.
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I feel like a lot of people in society and just colloquially, we've heard that term of a product manager, but I would argue that few people outside of that world know what it actually means.
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And I will say from my perspective as a lifelong entrepreneur I'm 16-ish, 17 maybe years into my entrepreneurial journey and it seems to me, like you called it out, actually it's the rise of a new word that I love, which is intrapreneurship, doing that within a company.
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Because when I see the product manager role, I actually view it as you essentially are launching and scaling a business within a business, a product line that really succeeds on its own and serves customers.
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These are the very words that we use when it comes to growing a business.
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What is that product manager role?
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How does that play into the way that you view not only your professional career leading up to this point but, of course, your many entrepreneurial ventures.
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What are those similarities and differences there?
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Yeah, you know, brian, you put it really well actually, and it's one of the things that I kind of realized early in my journey that holy cow like product management and entrepreneurship have so much similarities, and though there are obviously fundamental differences, entrepreneurship is also about company building, which is which is which has got a lot more to it, but at a product or innovation level, fundamentally it's very, very similar.
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Right, you are trying to serve customers, so it's all about understanding customers and their pain points, their worldviews, the jobs that they're trying to get done, the outcomes they're going for, whether your customers are business, consumers, whatever and then figuring out profitable solutions, and that's the key thing.
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A lot of product managers then get into the tech and the technology and the operational aspects and those sort of things.
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Agile became a big thing a couple of decades ago, but ultimately it's really about delivering monetizable customer value, right In terms of, if you're running a commercial business, it's got to generate some kind of return, some kind of ROI, some kind of profit at the end of the day, because simply, if you don't, there is no business right, can't make payroll, turn the lights off, that's it.
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And so most product managers get involved once there's already a product in the marketplace and you're essentially trying to grow it.
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There are a few exceptions to that.
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A lot of it is entrepreneurial Absolutely, if you will, which is not a term, by the way, that I coined.
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It's from a book that I read many, many years ago about, essentially, how to be an entrepreneur within an existing company, and so, yeah, it could be anything from we have an existing business and we want to launch a brand new product, right, and it's very similar to a startup.
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That way, who's the customer?
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How are we going to get traction in the marketplace?
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What's the right way to build that product?
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What's the pricing, what's the go-to-market, all those sort of things, right.
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Or it could be about okay, I'm coming into a company hired as a product manager and I'm going to take over this product and my job is to grow it.
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Right, it's at whatever stage it's at maybe it's an MVP, maybe it's a million dollars, whatever is the stage of the product and I need to make it.
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I need to grow it and make it bigger, and along the way, I need to be able to generate some kind of a return and I need to be able to demonstrate a path towards that.
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And so, yeah, there's a lot of those, those aspects.
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You know another huge aspect of product management is dealing with stakeholders.
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I mean, you talk to any product manager and they'll talk to you about the trials and tribulations of dealing with stakeholders, because one of the things that's unique with product management is you have a huge amount of responsibility but nobody ultimately reports to you.
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You can't just go and declare and dictate this is what we're going to do and that's it.
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It requires a huge amount of influence.
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It requires a huge amount of leadership, a huge amount of strength of character as well.
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Imposter syndrome, I found, is also.
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You know, a lot of entrepreneurs talk about imposter syndrome.
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It's very true among product managers as well, and so you know that's essentially what product management is all about.
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Management is is all about, you know, you're trying to create a process, a scalable process, to deliver what I call monetizable customer value.
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Right, it's not just enough that, like I could develop a solution and people love it, users love it, but nobody's gonna pay me for it.
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Right, I love to give this example.
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It's kind of stupid, but like I hate.
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Anybody who lives in the US knows you have to take your trash can right out out of the driveway onto the curb, right, so it can be picked up.
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You know, it's probably once a week, twice a week, something like that.
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I hate doing that, I really do.
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It sounds silly, it's not really that big a deal, but I hate doing it.
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And if somebody came and offered me to do it for me, you know I've got to put it out every Monday, monday night and every Thursday night.
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I've got to do it every week.
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If somebody came and offered me to do it, I'm like, yeah, great, if they said, okay, then pay me.
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I'm, you can develop a product, but if nobody's going to pay you for it and pay you at a price where you can actually make a return, make a profit, then you just you just don't have a business for that product.
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That's one of the things that entrepreneurs are trying to figure out, right, um, and it's, it's.
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It's the thing that product managers are trying to figure out as well.
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Yeah, shardul, you're right, it actually.
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I mean, no one would know if they just tuned in midway through your answer.
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They wouldn't tell the difference between talking about product management versus launching an entrepreneurial endeavor, and I think that's where there's so many lessons in your past experiences as well.
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I wanna ask you because, as entrepreneurs, we talk about both mindset as well as I want to ask you because, as entrepreneurs, we talk about both mindset as well as the strategies and tactics that get us there, and it seems like that's such a core part of your messaging as well.
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Talk to us about the mindset and the strategic differences between that zero to one phase, which we all experience and probably all of us entrepreneurs have experienced multiple times, versus the one, two, whatever.
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For a lot of entrepreneurs, the number I hear most frequently is that 10K a month, that elusive 10K a month.
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For a lot of entrepreneurs, the number I hear most frequently is that 10k a month, that elusive 10k a month that a lot of people are looking for.
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Maybe it's a hundred thousand dollars a year, maybe it's a million dollars, maybe it's it's big aspirations beyond that.
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But talk to us about the differences between those very distinct phases, or are they not so distinct, after all, between zero to one and one to whatever.
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Yeah, no, I do think of them as different in terms of the difference in the challenges, right.
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So I think you're spot on there.
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I mean, you know, I akin it to like zero to one is the hill climb and one to end is the mountain climb, right, Everything is just an X factor more complicated.
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You know, the zero to one is about trying to get to that first customer, trying to figure out did we build the right product, the right solution?
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A lot of iteration.
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Trying to figure out also okay then, even if we built the right product, what's our sales model?
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You know, what's our go to market model, Did we get our pricing right?
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So there's a lot of iteration with that.
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There are obviously differences, you know.
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Not to get too in the weeds, but, like you know, are you doing a mobile app or are you B2C versus B2B or enterprise?
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You know, obviously there are differences Are you building a large platform or are you just trying to build an app?
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But generally speaking, that's what's happening a lot in zero to one, right, and a lot of it is also like how can we sustain things and get to the point where we can get a paying customer?
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So you get into things like funding.
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If you're an entrepreneur, of course you might.
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You might get VC money, you might take a loan, you might sell fun.
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You know lots of different avenues and, as you know, like we entrepreneurs talk about that stuff and we worry about that stuff all the time.
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Right, how do we keep things going until I can get that first customer or I can recoup my initial investment From a?
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From a product management standpoint, if you are pursuing a brand new product, it gets into budgeting.
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Right, how can I sell to the senior execs this business case to fund this initiative in some fashion to the point where we can actually get some traction in the marketplace?
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So that's a lot of zero to one stuff.
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What's the right team to be able to get us to that point?
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Then, when you get to one to end, at that point you've kind of figured out okay, got it.
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We think we know the product now.
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We know the customer.
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Some people like to talk about ICP, your ideal customer profile, whatever you end up calling it, but we know what it is, we know the job we're trying to perform.
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We think we've kind of cracked the code on the commercial strategy for the most part.
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Now how do we grow Right.
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And then there's two aspects that come to that, or two or three aspects that come to that.
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You know, one is where you're certainly trying to scale, maybe, your sales and marketing operations Right.
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You're trying to kind of cross that classic.
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You know there's that crossing the chasm, the technology adoption curve.
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You're trying to get across that from those early adopters of those innovative customer, innovator customers, to the early majority adopters of this innovative customer, innovator customers to the early majority.
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There's product considerations, because the first version to get to zero, to one, you really built that product for those initial customers.
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Right Now you're trying to grow the product so that it's mass market, if you will available right to your broad excuse me, your broad customer base.
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So that might mean developing additional capabilities, features.
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It might be scaling the platform.
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Hey, right now the platform supports maybe up to 1,000 or 10,000 users.
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We've got to be able to support a million users.
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What is that going to take?
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That requires a different level of investment.
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And then that's the third part.
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What are the teams and the resources and the people we're going to need as a part of that?
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And so you start thinking about growing teams, you start thinking about growing operations.
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You need leaders who really understand that kind of stuff.
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So, as an entrepreneur, we talk about well, gosh, I got to get like a CFO who knows what to do, or I need to get a VP of sales or a CRO or somebody like that, etc.
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Right From a product management standpoint.
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We're thinking in similar terms.
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We don't have as direct control, but we are thinking about, you know, okay, well, how do we scale our product development operations?
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We're partnering very closely with the CTO, with our engineering team, but also any good product leader, and I'm talking like VP, chief product officer type level.
00:20:31.833 --> 00:20:34.963
You're thinking about the company at large.
00:20:34.963 --> 00:20:44.940
How do we scale the operations of the company so that we can continue to grow and sell the product and get to that, you know, from one to end, whatever that end may need to be.
00:20:46.109 --> 00:20:49.234
Yeah, I love the way you talk about these things, shardul, because you lay them out.
00:20:49.234 --> 00:20:52.497
Listeners, there's a rewind button on your podcast player for a reason.
00:20:52.497 --> 00:21:02.218
Go back and listen to that, because there are different considerations along the way and, shardul, I think that these constraints, when you give us that framework, they give us clarity, they give us focus.
00:21:02.218 --> 00:21:16.279
So there are different questions that we have to ask at different times along our journey and I think it's incredible the way that you've articulated that for us here, because obviously you are a master of improv and we're going to go there next, because I want to talk to you about the world of improv.
00:21:16.390 --> 00:21:19.579
Obviously, listeners know here on this show, we're always improvising.
00:21:19.579 --> 00:21:21.175
There are no pre-planned questions.
00:21:21.175 --> 00:21:27.001
We go where the conversation takes us, and I also know that the world of improv gives you a set of skills.
00:21:27.001 --> 00:21:35.029
I think that's what most people don't realize until they enter the world of improv or they have friends who do improv is they don't realize the skills that come along with it.
00:21:35.029 --> 00:21:39.912
You actually put in your bio that you're an introvert and probably, shardul, a lot of people won't realize.
00:21:39.912 --> 00:21:44.603
You know, an introvert loves being on stage, loves performing improv.
00:21:44.603 --> 00:21:52.457
Talk to us about some of those lessons you've picked up along the way in improv that you think also cross that bridge and apply directly to entrepreneurship.
00:21:53.769 --> 00:21:54.432
Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:54.432 --> 00:21:57.673
Actually, if you don't mind, I wanted to go back really quickly to one thing.
00:21:57.673 --> 00:22:03.298
Earlier you had said where you had asked about mindset, and I don't think I properly addressed that.
00:22:03.298 --> 00:22:27.479
And so one of the things that I've learned in terms of mindset, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're a product manager or product leader is there's a lot of similarity in terms of, like, being very solution oriented, um, but it does require also a lot of strength of character, um, because you will face a lot of disappointments, a lot of challenges.
00:22:27.479 --> 00:23:01.191
So, having not only that solution mindset and almost a mission mindset, but also, I think, being, you know, working on yourself, I've found that I've had to really work on myself mentally and emotionally to make sure that I can keep going, because you, you know, I know as entrepreneurs and I know there've been several on your podcast, I've talked about those troughs, right, those really dark, tough times, and even as a product manager, I've faced that.
00:23:01.191 --> 00:23:14.835
And so, yeah, from an improv standpoint, let's see, you know, I think one thing I'll say about improv and I'll dispel maybe a couple of minutes.
00:23:14.875 --> 00:23:22.776
A lot of people think improv is really hard and I will say there's probably a lot of bad improv out there in terms of bad teaching.
00:23:22.776 --> 00:23:28.739
I think Reflex Improv has done a fantastic job in how they teach improv.
00:23:28.739 --> 00:23:30.276
They sort of demystified it.
00:23:30.276 --> 00:23:31.291
You don't need.
00:23:31.291 --> 00:23:42.837
You know, most people think, oh my God, I've got to be clever, I've got to be funny, I've got to be able to think on my feet really quickly come up with a line and you really don't need any of that stuff.
00:23:42.837 --> 00:23:46.595
And the way we teach improv.
00:23:46.595 --> 00:23:55.861
We have demystified and simplified that whole thing and it really boils down to two very fundamental principles.
00:23:55.861 --> 00:24:04.549
There are many, many practices to get really good at improv if you want to get good at improv, but at a fundamental level, there's two simple principles.
00:24:04.549 --> 00:24:05.019
One is yes, and which some of your listeners may have heard.
00:24:05.019 --> 00:24:05.681
There's two simple principles.
00:24:05.681 --> 00:24:19.077
One is yes, and which some of your listeners may have heard yes, and very simply is if you and I, brian, are doing an improv scene, if you say something, I'm going to accept it.
00:24:19.077 --> 00:24:25.015
That's the yes part, and I'm going to then add my own piece to it, add some information to it.
00:24:25.015 --> 00:24:46.130
I'm not going to negate, I'm not going to deny right, I'm not going to say but I'm not going to say no, I may not like the information, but I'm going to accept it and then I'm going to reciprocate by adding some other piece and if you're doing the same, then we can have kind of an improv scene back and forth.
00:24:47.340 --> 00:25:00.472
And really this is I found this a great lesson in life, because how many of us have been in those meetings where you know you start getting some tension right People don't feel heard, and that's the real thing.
00:25:00.472 --> 00:25:32.060
Most people it's not so much that they're looking for you to explicitly agree with them, they're just wanting to feel acknowledged that, hey, you've heard my point of view, and that's what Yesand really is about, right, just acknowledging that, hey, I've heard what you've said and I'm acknowledging that I might still especially in a business setting where stakes can be high I might disagree with that, I may have a different point of view, and that's okay, but at least I've heard you out and I acknowledge what you're trying to say.
00:25:32.060 --> 00:25:33.541
And so that's the power of BSN.
00:25:33.541 --> 00:25:36.766
And the second fundamental principle is got your back, and I really absolutely love this.
00:25:36.766 --> 00:25:46.116
And got your back is, very simply again, if, brian, you and I are in an improv scene, my whole goal is going to be to make you look good.
00:25:46.116 --> 00:26:09.421
Hey, am I being clever?
00:26:09.421 --> 00:26:09.801
Am I being funny?
00:26:09.801 --> 00:26:11.066
Is everybody looking at me and enjoying my performance?
00:26:11.066 --> 00:26:11.606
I'm not worried about that.
00:26:11.606 --> 00:26:12.769
I'm trying to do everything I can to make you look good.
00:26:12.769 --> 00:26:15.416
Whatever you're saying, whatever you're doing, the choices you're making, I'm trying to scene you and I will have a lot of fun.
00:26:15.416 --> 00:26:15.718
And guess what?
00:26:15.718 --> 00:26:23.134
If the performers are having fun, there's a really good chance the audience is gonna have a good time as well, and so if you kind of bring that to life.
00:26:23.134 --> 00:26:26.506
Oh, I should say one other thing I'm sorry I injured myself which is we.
00:26:26.686 --> 00:26:32.910
We begin every performance with this great ritual called got your back, which is we normally perform in troops.
00:26:32.910 --> 00:26:40.084
But before we get on stage and before we go and perform, we just lightly tap each other on the shoulder or the back and we say got your back.
00:26:40.084 --> 00:26:44.381
We explicitly say those words, make eye contact and say got your back.
00:26:44.381 --> 00:26:49.260
Um, you know, with now, with post COVID and all that, some people may not be comfortable with physical touch.
00:26:49.260 --> 00:26:50.042
That's okay.
00:26:50.042 --> 00:26:51.365
You can do a virtual got your back.
00:26:51.365 --> 00:27:00.730
Either way, it's incredibly powerful and we in our classes it's a six-week class, intro class, for example.
00:27:00.730 --> 00:27:04.243
By the end of week one, that first class end of 90 minutes.
00:27:04.243 --> 00:27:06.871
You're going to be doing an improv scene and we do that.
00:27:06.871 --> 00:27:15.403
Got your back and you can just see the transformation in people, the light bulb, and you think about applying that then and taking those lessons into real life.
00:27:16.165 --> 00:27:20.124
How many of us have worked on teams that are just not gelling, not working out?
00:27:20.124 --> 00:27:27.547
And if you kind of take that principle, you know we all talk about teamwork and being supportive and that's the power of Got your Back.
00:27:27.547 --> 00:27:31.280
We did a one of the last companies I worked at.
