Episode 317: Scaling Up a Business with Shalini Khemka CBE

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The journey of an entrepreneur comes with its fair share of challenges, but with the right mindset, support, and determination, success is attainable. This holds true for Shalini, who began her career in banking and later chose to embark on the path of an entrepreneur.

Shalini Khemka, founder of E2E, shares her journey from banking to entrepreneurship and offers valuable nuggets for businesses looking to scale up. She emphasizes the importance of having a clear business plan, finding the right support network, and managing cash flow effectively. Shalini also highlights the need for businesses to embrace technology and adapt to the changing landscape of marketing and work. She encourages entrepreneurs to take advantage of available grants and support programs to fuel their growth.

It is evident that entrepreneurship requires a unique set of qualities, including tenacity, risk appetite, and the ability to adapt to a rapidly changing business landscape. By surrounding themselves with the right people, developing clear business plans, leveraging technology, and seizing opportunities for support, entrepreneurs can navigate the challenges of scaling up and achieving long-term success.

Show Highlights:

• Having a clear and articulated business plan for the next two to three years
• Surround yourself with a trusted support network of experienced individuals
• Importance of utilizing part-time and outsourced resources to fill skill gaps in your team
• Staying updated on technology advancements and leverage them to improve efficiency
• Embrace a hybrid work model and adapt to changing work dynamics
• Take advantage of grants, tax credits, and government support programs
• Develop tenacity and risk appetite to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship

Links Mentioned:

Check out Shalini’s company at https://www.e2exchange.com/

Get your Business Growth Secrets SUCCESS PLANNER for FREE and profit like a pro: https://adamstottplanner.com/free-book47315172

Adams website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod

Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod

Connect with Adam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamstottcoach/?el=Pod

Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod

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Transcript:

Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.

[00:00:00] Adam Stott: Hello everybody. And welcome to a very special episode of business growth secrets. I’ve got an amazing guest on with me today, which I’m really excited to talk about. He’s got a wide array of experience in business. I’m sure this is going to be a content packed episode, which you can feast on and really get some golden nuggets.

[00:00:20] So with me today is Shalini Kemka, who is the founder of an amazing company called E2E. Which helps businesses is also an advisor on the Mayor of London’s advisory board for business growth within London and business policy. She’s got a wide array of experience from venture capital to place in non executive directors, helping financing businesses and so much more.

[00:00:46] Welcome on Shalini. I’m really Looking forward to having a great chat with you about business today and business in the UK. Welcome. How are you doing?

[00:00:53] Shalini Khemka: Thank you very much, Scott. I’m doing very well, and it’s a pleasure to be joining you and doing a podcast with you and a chat with you.

[00:01:01] Adam Stott: Fabulous. Fabulous. Well, look, you’re at a stage now where you’ve built this amazing business in E2E, you’re helping thousands and thousands of businesses. I think you said 28, 000 in your network, which are really helping them to scale up. And that is what you specialize in. And on the way of building that business, I’m sure there’s been quite a journey to get into the stage you’re at.

[00:01:27] So where did this start from for you and what got you excited about business, wanting to get into business? Where does this all go back to? So you’ve achieved some amazing things. It’d be really good to understand where did you start from?

[00:01:41] Shalini Khemka: Oh, that’s a very good question, Adam. So, I have to go back a really long way, actually, back to university as my interest in business started at university.

[00:01:49] I started economics, I was at the University of Essex and I led something called the Student Industrial. Policy for University of Essex. And it was a a small group of people initially, which became big over the three years I was there. And what I ended up doing was, as a fun part time thing, is trying to place students into, The business environment.

[00:02:12] And this whole society that I ran, the Student Industrial Society people as they graduate get placements into jobs. And that’s where I got a love for business, I think, and studying economics helped me in terms of my immediate family. My father’s a surgeon, my mom as an educationalist. So in terms of my immediate family, we don’t really have much.

[00:02:32] Entrepreneurship in the blood, immediate family, but my father’s broader family are entrepreneurs in India. And I think maybe some of that rubbed off on me. But my interest began at university just exploring what are the opportunities for students in business. That’s where it started and it grew from there.

[00:02:49] Adam Stott: And where did it grow to? What were kind of your next steps? Because if I’m right you went very much into the banking world. Is that correct? And you know, how did you sort of evolve from there?

[00:02:59] Shalini Khemka: Yes. So, obviously being from an Indian family, there was a little bit of

[00:03:02] I decided that I wanted to get more into the business world. I was actually very interested in something called international trade finance. So I applied for graduate roles in international trade divisions of banks. So my key career started at NatWest Bank in international trade finance where I started on their sort of graduate scheme and then ended up specializing in international trade.

[00:03:26] And that led me on. A few years later to work for Bankers Trust. Deutsche Bank and then I ended up leaving Deutsche Bank to set up with a few other people from Deutsche Bank and the world’s first company to trade finance instruments online. So at that time, it’s going back a few years now, there was the whole interest in the dot com booze boom and I began by setting up.

[00:03:53] Small internet company was one of four co founders, and we started with working with large corporate organizations and encouraging them to sell their trade finance. requirements to banks internationally using a platform that we built. So that was my first entrepreneurial venture, you could say. And how did that go?

[00:04:14] Adam Stott: So living in the kind of security of that corporate environment, large companies, you know, did you have some fears around that? Did you have some people telling you were crazy? Were you just excited? Were there some challenges? What kind of happened in that process?

[00:04:31] Shalini Khemka: I had a lot of people tell me that I was crazy.

[00:04:34] A lot of people say, you know, why am I leaving a well known brand like a Deutsche Bank to set up a company that nobody had ever. Getting away from having a proper paid package. I actually invested in the company that I set up pretty much all my savings. So I did have a lot of people ask me whether I was doing the right thing or not.

[00:04:58] And I tend to listen a lot to my gut. My gut was saying, actually, this is the opportunity for me to try something different. Try to work with with some very interesting co founders to set up something which would be useful to the banking industry. And I think when I joined banking, I was a little bit surprised because I had seen bonds and equities and other financial instruments being traded online, but trade finance for some reason was not yet online.

[00:05:23] So I could see there was a gap in the market so that I had some level of confidence that there was a requirement. For the business I was about to set up so I didn’t go in without some level of research and knowledge, but at the same time it was a huge risk, and to go from earning a proper salary to earning nothing. And was difficult.

[00:05:48] Adam Stott: Did you have some fears yourself? Did you have some doubts? Were there some moments where you felt like, have I done the right thing? Did you doubt yourself? Were there moments like that?

[00:05:59] Shalini Khemka: Yeah, especially in the beginning every day for the first one. Yeah. Because you don’t know it takes time to realize whether your idea has mileage momentum.

[00:06:08] You get a sort of a set just a bit in the first few months as you start to sign up your first few clients, but it Every single day I was excited. It was nice to get out of bed and set up my own thing. And there’s an energy in me that kept wanting to grow the first business and play a very important role in its success which kept me going.

[00:06:29] But there was also the fear of this is our own idea. No one’s ever done this before. And we were the market leader in online trade finance. So we weren’t taking an already executed business model and record. There’s a lot of sense of taking a model that works and doing it in a different way and better way.

[00:06:48] But this was a brand new idea, so there was a lot of fear. And I did get a lot of people continually challenge me to say, why are you doing this? What’s the motivation? I think the motivation was to prove that trade finance could be done in a different way at the time. And that the idea that we had and that I had.

[00:07:13] Adam Stott: Yeah, and the reason I ask that question is there’s probably a lot of people on the line that are entrepreneurs in in the phase of Eva starting growing and also scaling, of course and that journey. There’s often a lot of beliefs. I just like. From people that have been through the journey, I think it’s important for people to understand that it is quite normal to have some moments of self doubt, to have some moments where, you know, they feel like and also people saying to them, Hey, you know, have you made the right move?

[00:07:42] And it’s really cool that you had the mentality, you were committed to the mission and you pushed it through. So as you were growing that business and you went in every day and you’re excited and you’re pushing forward and you’re overcoming the fear. What were some of the moments where you felt like, you know what, this is going to work?

[00:07:58] Were there, was there a moment, a turning point or something for you that you felt, we’re really getting somewhere now?

[00:08:06] Shalini Khemka: Yeah. So when we signed up large corporate organizations to use our technology, then we started to get those golden nuggets of proof. So, when we, when those companies started to pay us.

[00:08:21] To license the technology. In the beginning, we were giving it away free to test the concept, but then when that converted to paid clients, then we knew we were onto something that could work. And also, when the banks started to use the technology to trade finance assets, we knew that the concept was working and the concept started to work very well after the first one year.

[00:08:41] And we ended up in a period of four years, having sort of 356 banks,

[00:08:49] It became overly competitive. It’s like an eBay auction platform, and then the banks, the bigger banks didn’t like seeing their margins come down, their pricing come down when they were doing deals with larger corporates. We were also ahead of our time. So it’s a great question. And I think you get validation from client feedback when it becomes monetization.

[00:09:11] People are willing to pay for the service.

[00:09:14] Adam Stott: Absolutely. So you gained that proof of concepts, you know, which is so important that you felt, it felt that could work in terms of the skills, obviously working in a banking environment, going to uni, working for Deutsche Bank, and there’s certain skills that you need in that area.

[00:09:29] But now starting your own business with the founders, what new skills did you feel? that you had to build? How did you have to change as an individual and what sort of things did you have to cultivate? Were there new things to learn? You know, were there things that you needed to focus on that you hadn’t focused before?

[00:09:44] What skills did you build upon?

[00:09:46] Shalini Khemka: Yeah a lot of different things. I thought there was a fundamental shift in, in me as a person. I was going from being an employee to an employer and Learning how to do first of all, things like payroll. I’d never had to look at those sorts of things. They were handed to me in a corporate organization, things like marketing, getting your brand out there, finding clients, origination.

[00:10:10] Of business. These were things that although in my corporate career, you know, in origination sales marketing, it’s all very important. You tend to have divisions that support you when you’re running your own business. You have to write this marketing language yourself. You have to come up with your vision and mission statement yourself.

[00:10:30] You have to come up with all of the digital assets because even at that time, you know, it was still e shots and marketing literature, etcetera. So there was a huge learning curve for me and from leadership skills to core skills. Being super organized, I think became a crucial part of how I operated and having my own plan of action of what I had to achieve at the beginning of the week to the end of the week, how I would go about it because I didn’t have a team.

[00:11:00] There was just us co founders to begin with. And often a co founder is on their own. They don’t even have fellow co founders. So I was actually in a privileged position that was more than one of one person. In my current business that I’ve set up, I am the single co founder, single founder, I’m not a co founder.

[00:11:18] So when I was a co founder, in a way, you had people to talk to, but for a lot of your listeners, I think they’ll have started businesses from scratch on their own without co founders. And that’s where I feel that you need to have a lot of good people surrounding you, advisors, experts. close family that you can have very open and honest frank conversations with.

[00:11:40] But one of the key fundamental shifts, I think is the paychecks no longer coming in and you have to plan how you’re going to spend money, where you’re going to spend money. And be very considered around all of that which wasn’t a problem in my Deutsche Bank and NatWest and Bankers Trust and Cooper’s and Librand where I was in those environments, there was plenty of cash to do a lot of things.

[00:12:04] But not in my own business. Absolutely.

[00:12:07] Adam Stott: So as this business started to 2004, is that correct? Correct, yes. So what was the, had you planned to exit? Was it an offer that was too good to refuse? Where did that come from and how did that?

[00:12:20] Shalini Khemka: No, we hadn’t planned to exit there because it happened because effectively we found that we were ahead of our time.

[00:12:27] And some of the banks of the 356 banks, some of the larger banks said actually they didn’t want to use our technology anymore because we were eroding trade finance margins. Let me just explain it in a way. So let’s say you have a bank or it’s selling commodities to a country. They have different banks who they work with to provide the trade finance.

[00:12:48] Security payment security. So let’s assume their banks, the Deutsche Bank, Citibank and Standard Chartered. If all those three banks say we don’t want to compete with the other 350 banks on the platform, they come off. So we found that some of the bigger banks didn’t like the openness we were creating, and we realized we were ahead of our time.

[00:13:08] So we decided to try and sell to make as much money as we could, because we knew that we would go through a dip for a few years.

[00:13:17] Adam Stott: Absolutely. So you went and found that that buyer. What was that like when you exited? How did you feel? Was there, did you feel like you were walking away too soon?

[00:13:26] Were you excited? What was the situation there for you?

[00:13:30] Shalini Khemka: No, it was a very tough time actually because we, you know, we’re in an uncertain environment, not showing, not 100 percent sure it’s the right thing to do or not, but felt that this was the only way to keep the business going and also to make some good money out of it.

[00:13:45] So it was a very difficult decision. And actually I got less involved in the exit because I was offered a role by Lloyds Bank to run their trade finance, plain vanilla trade finance division during the exit. So I took the opportunity to. Take on a different role during exit, and it was the first time someone had invited me to work for them, rather than…

[00:14:06] me usually putting myself forward, Adam. So when that happened, I felt in a very privileged position when you had the head of international trade finance and financial institutions from Lloyds asking me to come and run their plain vanilla division, I took that opportunity.

[00:14:21] Adam Stott: Fabulous. So as you grew, you now run E2E and you started, so how long was it before you started that business?

[00:14:28] How long, you went back, you started working for Lloyds? Did you have an entrepreneurial itch? What kind of happened for you there? And, you know Yeah. Tell a little bit about that.

[00:14:38] Shalini Khemka: Sure. So, basically I joined Lloyd’s in 2004 and I ran the plane, vanilla Trade Finance division until around 2008, beginning of 2008.

[00:14:51] And I did what I could and really enjoyed my time. In international trade finance, but I also wanted to get back into something entrepreneurial. So I was very fortunate because I had a very good group of people around me, and one of my advisors or mentors was a guy who was on the board of Lloyd’s his name’s Truett Tate, and he was on the board of Wholesale and International Banking, he suggested to me to try private equity within Lloyd’s, and there’s a division within Lloyd’s called Lloyd’s TSB Development Capital, LDC, so, chief executive at that time, his name’s Darryl Eales, He gave me a secondment into LDC to try me out on trade on on private equity.

[00:15:34] So, it took him one year. I made the role to work, whether I would be good enough or not. And then I took a transfer into LDC and LDC packed companies like GHD, they’ve done companies like more recently they’ve done Fevertree and those sorts of organizations. So I could see that LDC was a very interesting part of the group.

[00:15:55] And I went in as an investment director. I worked in LDC for a few years and it’s there that I came up with the idea to set up E2E Because I had the opportunity to meet some amazing entrepreneurs, and I could see that they were going through similar struggles to what I had gone through, but I didn’t have the support infrastructure in my first business.

[00:16:15] So I asked LDC to back me. And that’s what happened. And I set up E2E whilst I was working for LDC. It was my idea. I spent most of my evenings, weekends working on this business plan during 2010 and launched it in 2011.

[00:16:34] Adam Stott: So you launched in 2011. You’ve been working on the business plan behind the scenes.

[00:16:39] Yeah. What did the business plan look like at that stage? How much has it changed? I mean, now that you’re doing a… A tremendous amount of variant variance in your work. So what did it look like at that time food for you.

[00:16:54] Shalini Khemka: It was a lot. It was very simple business plan. And I mean, compare it current comparison to what the business does now.

[00:17:01] So the business plan was around how to get founders connected to the right people to help them make their decisions and actually I felt there’s a need at the time for founders of scale up businesses to meet one more investors. Thank to help them raise money. And I felt also having access to people who were in this same profession, I entrepreneurial background also very important because I realized in my first business, although when we had co founders, we kept very much to ourselves, we didn’t actually talk to a lot of people, didn’t have a non exec board.

[00:17:35] We didn’t talk to a lot of other entrepreneurs to make our decisions. So I started it with just. basic business plan of how to get founders together on a regular basis to have those sorts of confidential conversations that you don’t have. The right people to talk to necessarily at home.

[00:17:55] Adam Stott: Absolutely.

[00:17:55] And you work mainly with scale up businesses. So the size of businesses that you’re working with tell us a little bit about that. So what do you scale up? Yeah.

[00:18:04] Shalini Khemka: So, what we like to do is we like to work with founders who are scaling their companies, who are wanting to grow their companies. So the majority of our members, they have companies of half a million plus of revenue.

[00:18:18] They have three to five employees or more and some of them are very big businesses and some of them are, you know, the earlier stage. And because I was working for LDC, LDC backed proper scale up businesses, it kind of made sense for me to set up the organization to support scale up founders.

[00:18:37] So, in the UK. Yeah. Sorry, Adam.

[00:18:42] Adam Stott: You’ve worked with 28, 000 of them now you must have some common traits and I think obviously this, you know, this podcast is all about helping people to grow. There’s no doubt. There’s probably a lot of people on those stages and I train a lot of people scaling their businesses is something that I do a lot as well.

[00:18:58] Yeah. What for you are some of the important elements? What should somebody that wants growth in their business what would the advice that you give, the kind of guidance that you would give, what would you say to those businesses?

[00:19:09] Shalini Khemka: I think firstly, make sure that you’re very clear on your business plan.

[00:19:15] Where are you trying to take it? If you don’t have an expert to help you and you’ve got a little bit of money that you can invest in having somebody who’s been there and done it before, having somebody external to be that sounding board that you meet with maybe once a week for a few hours or twice a month, whatever you can afford.

[00:19:32] I think it’s worth making that small investment or as much investment as you can to have an experienced person. help you with the business planning. So one is very clear, articulated business plan. And I don’t mean a five to 10 year business plan. I mean, for the next two to three years, if possible, or even for the first year.

[00:19:51] Secondly is when you’re early, you don’t necessarily have the funds to have a big team or to recruit a proper solid team is to try and find people that can help you on a part time. basis using interns, using people that can support you on the various functions that you need, whether it’s outsourced marketing, whether it’s outsourced finance,

[00:20:20] because as brilliant as we are, we can’t be a great marketer. We can’t be a great accountant and everything in one ourselves. You need that sort of support structure. So to find the most cost effective ways. To make that happen, I think is very important. Thirdly is I found a lot of business plans that we look at people who’ve made the time to investigate what competition is, what does the competition look like, and how will you be a little bit different?

[00:20:48] How will be you being unique? Maybe it’s not even in the proposition, but it’s in the execution. of how you do things. That’s key. Managing, I think I’ve mentioned about cash flow, and I always talk about managing cash very carefully. We see, especially during COVID, we’ve seen too many businesses run out of cash because, you know, they haven’t kept a long enough runway.

[00:21:13] So being close to the mark on managing a cash flow runway, I think is important, very important. And then it’s often easier to retain your clients and find new ones. So, you know, treat your customer as a king. That’s really important. And we’ve seen great businesses do really well because they’ve got that right.

[00:21:35] They know who their client is, and they look after their client very well, so not to forget about that, because they end up being your big ambassadors, and that’s how you get the viral marketing growing. So, I think those are some of the key things, and I think in yourself is I always say this, I don’t know if I apply it enough to myself, is don’t take life so seriously that you can’t enjoy it.

[00:21:55] You’ve got to step back and enjoy. Otherwise, you will find that you burn out and get too tired, so keep it in perspective.

[00:22:05] Adam Stott: Yeah, all of that absolutely nailed on advice. I love the fact that you put some emphasis there on, you know, finding those experts as well, finding the right people to mentor you and help you because a lot of the time people waste so much time trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together on their own.

[00:22:20] And really a person of experience could guide them so much faster, so much quicker. To get a great result. I love the fact you talk about the fractionalized part of the team, you know, looking at how can you get people part time outsourced in these different ways, which is really important as well.

[00:22:36] And then of course, keeping an eye on the cashflow. And I think the balance actually, when somebody wants to grow, yeah, is that cashflow balance. Balancing that with risk tolerance is always something that people generally quite find quite challenging, because you do get people that are like mad on growth and they’re just willing to go to the bone to get the growth.

[00:22:57] But then you get other people that are so concerned about the cash flow that they never make the investments that they need to make to grow their business, and they typically kind of stay stuck so it’s always a. A balancing act and be getting that balance right in that you are making the investments to grow, but you are keeping an eye and you are protecting your runway and making sure you don’t run out of cash.

[00:23:18] There’s some really great things there and you do awesome stuff, right? So you’ve got lots of networking events. You do introductions, I believe you do investment meetings, debt financing, lots of different things now. And the business has been running, he says it’s 2011. Is that right?

[00:23:34] Shalini Khemka: Yes, it’s been nearly 12, 12 years now.

[00:23:36] Adam Stott: So 2011, what have you seen change since 2011 to 2023 in business? You know, what are some of the key changes that you’ve noticed and things that people need to be alert for in terms of being a modern business?

[00:23:50] Shalini Khemka: Again, great question. Thank you for asking it. So, I mean, one of the big shifts I think we’ve seen is the need to be technology enabled.

[00:24:00] Every company that’s. Whatever you do, you need technology backing it. And I think it’s more important today than it was 10 years ago. The other thing is because of social media, there’s been a fundamental shift in how you market. And understanding how social media works and how you can use social media to promote your brand is very different today than it was 10 years ago because there are more platforms, you know.

[00:24:28] TikTok is the latest thing, whereas TikTok didn’t exist when I started my business. So, I think there’s been a huge amount of change in technology advancements. We’ve got chat GTP, we’ve got AI being aware and knowledgeable about what’s happening in these sorts of developments, I think is very important.

[00:24:48] Things are changing faster than we’d ever expected and understanding how things are going to change in the future and keeping abreast of that helps you be creative, innovative, agile in the way that you develop your business. Let me give you an example. So, because we run a lot of events, we have to write biographies.

[00:25:07] on the people that are coming to the various dinners and receptions, et cetera. Some of our receptions have 300 people. So, you know, writing 300 biographies, I needed a small team to write those biographies. Now you can use ChatGTP and it’s there. It’s not a hundred percent correct, but it’s sort of 60 percent there and then you can tweak it.

[00:25:26] So, you know, there’s ways of saving money by using technology and new advancements. So it’s not necessarily seen as a bad thing always, it’s actually can be very helpful to a business. So I think that, that is different. I think the way that we’re working is also very different. We work much more hybrid than we used to 10 years ago.

[00:25:44] So, you know, some of my team are working from home. Some of my team were in the office, some of my team are hybrid working. So I’ve had to adapt quite a lot as a leader to. Be much more goal orientated. They’re not always in the office and you can’t always see what everyone is doing. So I think there’s a lot of change in the way that we work, how we work and the platforms that we use to grow our brand, to grow our name.

[00:26:07] I think we can also use today. There’s more room for cross fertilization. Because of various platforms not just in terms of social media, but, you know, if you have somebody who works with you two days a week, they may be working in a different organization another two days a week. But actually, that can be very helpful to your own growth and your own business, because they’re learning different skill sets, where they are.

[00:26:29] And I think today is also more about. A multichannel omnichannel approach. So depending on what your business is, you know, you can have your physical outlets, you can have your online outlets and you can have social media distribution, that kind of thing. So we’re a much more omnichannel today than we used to be.

[00:26:48] So those are sort of some of the key. Changes and trends, I think.

[00:26:52] Adam Stott: Which are really absolutely nailed on right, which is really important. And again, I think some really key points that he talks about, you know, traditional old business rules, you wouldn’t want somebody working in your business two days a week, it was working with someone else two days a week, and then another.

[00:27:09] In the old way, but now you’re right, it actually creates opportunity. You know, also it creates a multi skills and brings more value to your organization. So what might’ve been an old role is now something that we adapt to. And also chat GBT, right. And AI soft, it is I would say is my most used.

[00:27:29] I trained a lot on AI and I help people with AI and how to use it. And it’s something that is probably my most used. Asset right now and also training your teams on it, because getting them to produce better speed up more. Just keeps the wheels turning and, you know, squeezes more out of the squeeze the pips out right, which is really important.

[00:27:49] So that’s the most awesome.

[00:27:51] Shalini Khemka: Yeah. So now, one other thing I had to make add is and there’s also more access to grants available. So I don’t know how. You know, we have companies like Innovate UK providing small grants to businesses, especially high tech businesses. We have things like the government’s initiative on SIS, SEIS and EIS, the seed enterprise investment scheme, the enterprise investment schemes.

[00:28:13] I think these things were around when I started, but they’re probably a lot more advanced in terms of what they can give. To SMEs in terms of getting investment support from private investors. We have the r and d tax credits. We also have the knowledge-based r and d tax credits, so there’s also financial offerings that are more readily available from grants to government support to ways of government supporting investors.

[00:28:39] To help finance companies which I think has been helpful.

[00:28:43] Adam Stott: Yeah, and obviously you’re very exposed to that, being on the Mayor of London board. Yeah. And why, because there is a lot of opportunity out there, but you find a lot of small businesses don’t go and take that opportunity, don’t you? I don’t know, in your experience, what do you talk about in terms of doing more?

[00:29:00] To get people to take action on these types of things, because sometimes they feel it’s over their heads. Sometimes they feel like they don’t know where to start. How do you think that’s evolving? Is it becoming more simple for entrepreneurs? Is it a promotion issue? How do we get more businesses taking advantage of these initiatives?

[00:29:17] Shalini Khemka: I think the important thing is to actually do it, just do it, just apply for the grant. If you get rejected, it doesn’t matter because at least you’ve done the legwork to put in the grant application, which then makes it slightly easier to do the next one and the next one and the next one. And then you start to build a cadre of information on your own business that then can be used for other purposes as well.

[00:29:40] Giving a presentation, raising investment. Sorts of things. So it isn’t the initial grant application process is an investment of time, and it’s not something you should do quickly in Russia. You should do it properly, but there are also companies out there that charges small fee or a success fee to help you gain access to grants and to make applications for competitions, things like this.

[00:30:06] So if you’re struggling to do that yourself again, make that investment because You might get a…

[00:30:11] what I can do is if people write to us Adam I can then recommend because there’s different companies for different things.

[00:30:19] And therefore by naming one or two I might be recommending the wrong business. What kind of application you want to do. So, you know, for the innovate UK grants, it’s a more sophisticated process than perhaps. It’s going for a competition for a entrepreneurship award in a small company. So it depends on what it is, but I’m very happy to direct people as they need.

[00:30:41] Adam Stott: Absolutely. And where is, I mean, look I’ve loved the conversation. I love the fact that you’re out there helping businesses very aligned in, you know, the challenges and what the challenges are and how to overcome those challenges. Where can people find you, Shalini and connect with you? Where’s a great place for people to be able to go and connect with you?

[00:31:00] Is there a particular channel that you use?

[00:31:03] Shalini Khemka: People just write in to me and my team. So my email ID is shalini@e2exchange.Com. S H A L I N I at e, and the number two, and then the word exchange. com. Our business is called e2e, but the actual company name is e2exchange, e2eexchange. So that’s where they can find me.

[00:31:23] Otherwise, communications. at e2exchange. com is our generic where people write in to us and our website address is www. e2exchange. com.

[00:31:34] Adam Stott: Oh fabulous. And in terms of you know, just to… To finish off, is there some favorite business tips that you want to give to entrepreneurs out there that want to grow just a couple of tips on the mindset aspect, you kind of mentioned that a couple of times you mentioned it with the co founders, you mentioned it being on your own.

[00:31:51] What, is there any things that you do specifically to keep your mindset in check, to keep you motivated, to keep you inspired? Is there anything you’d like to share on that aspect?

[00:32:00] Shalini Khemka: Yes, certainly. Thank you for the opportunity, Adam. I appreciate it. So one thing is to make sure you’re surrounded. When I say surrounded, you need four or five very good people that you trust you can talk to, have that conversation with.

[00:32:14] I think it’s important to have those close people who’ve got business skills, who’ve been there, done it. Have experience that can keep going. The other thing is, if you really believe in your business model and you can see it’s got mileage, you can see that you can monetize, then it’s important to have that tenacity.

[00:32:34] And unfortunately, the world of the entrepreneur is It’s hard every day. You know, I said it was hard when I started. It’s still hard, Adam. Every day is still not easy. And some entrepreneurs have it very lucky because they make a very successful business in two to three years. You know, it’s taken us 12 years and we’re still trying.

[00:32:52] And it’s not easy. So having that mindset to say, look, I’m not going to give up.

[00:33:00] It’s a big decision. It’s a big decision. So, make those decisions very carefully that you are, it is the right for you. Entrepreneurship isn’t right for everybody. You know, it’s right for certain sorts of people. And having that tenacity, I think is key. Because it’s much easier to give up than keep going.

[00:33:21] Adam Stott: Brilliant. Well, love that. You said two. It’s pleasure talking to you.

[00:33:25] Shalini Khemka: I could give you so many more if you’d prefer. That’s okay. . Is that okay too?

[00:33:31] Adam Stott: Oh, that was perfect. I think really important points. Surround yourself with the right people, you know, work on that tenacity and, you know, one, one other question I do want to ask because it’s a very relevant to what you just said when you said not everybody’s cut out for entrepreneurship.

[00:33:46] What quality can really help somebody in that area you’ve mentioned tenacity. Is there any other qualities that you think people should develop or look at developing in order to be able to be more successful in business.

[00:33:58] Shalini Khemka: I think you have to have an appetite to take risk. You know, you have an appetite to take financial risk, personal risk, and if For example, you’ve got a young family and you can’t afford to take that risk, make this decision very carefully.

[00:34:11] But having said that, if you start and it’s going well, there’s nothing better than being an entrepreneur.

[00:34:18] Adam Stott: Absolutely. And I think that’s the, you’ve got to look at the upside as well. Yeah. It’s amazing having you on. Go and connect with Shalini. Huge amounts of experience in this area and massive connections.

[00:34:30] So somebody you certainly want to connect with. I want to say a big thank you for listening today to a business growth secrets podcast. If you found this really useful, make sure you share this episode with another entrepreneur. Just go over to the three dots, click it, share it. Go and send that to somebody perhaps that’s looking to raise finance, somebody that’s looking for some motivation around entrepreneurship, and really spread that message.

[00:34:53] You know, we don’t run ads on this podcast. The only way that this grows is by you, the listener, looking to add value to other business owners just like you. So go and take this episode and share it around. And a big thank you for for Shalini. You’ve been absolutely amazing. Really enjoyed having you on today.

[00:35:10] Shalini Khemka: Thank you, Adam. Thank you for having me. I’ve enjoyed talking to you and I wish you all the success. Okay.