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From McKinsey To Wellness Visionary
Vishal Amin
UNTIL
Episode 126: Amardeep Parmar from The BAE HQ welcomes Vishal Amin, CEO and Co-Founder of UNTIL.
Vishal Amin, CEO and co-founder of UNTIL, shares his journey from aspiring to join McKinsey to creating a workspace and community for health and wellness professionals. Despite initial setbacks, his vision for UNTIL took shape by focusing on the needs of health practitioners, allowing them to concentrate on their expertise while Until handles the logistical aspects. The conversation also delves into Vishal's personal motivations, the challenges faced during the pandemic, and his aspirations for expanding UNTIL globally.
Show Notes
00:00 - Intro
01:55 - Vishal discusses his early ambitions and the influence of his upbringing.
02:25 - Reflections on family background, work ethic, and the influence of parents' focus on financial success.
03:03 - Further insights into Vishal's personal motivations and early career decisions.
04:00 - Discussion on the impact of university experiences and career aspirations.
04:39 - Vishal recounts a pivotal moment of doubt from a friend and its impact on his determination.
05:36 - Exploration of Vishal's mindset and the challenges of breaking stereotypes.
06:18 - The reality of working at McKinsey versus expectations and the value of practical experience.
07:24 - Lessons learned from startup experiences and the importance of implementation over solution.
08:02 - Insights into the startup mindset and the transition from corporate to entrepreneurial ventures.
09:49 - The decision to leave McKinsey for a more fulfilling role and the search for a new challenge.
10:29 - The development of UNTIL's founding idea and the partnership with co-founder.
11:32 - Challenges in marketing and finding the right co-founder dynamics.
12:22 - The growth of Until and the strategic focus on health and wellness practitioners.
13:52 - The journey from concept to realisation of Until and overcoming startup challenges.
14:29 - The evolution of UNTIL's proposition and its impact on the health and wellness industry.
15:10 - Scaling up, securing investment, and the broader vision for UNTIL's future.
16:18 - Reflections on personal growth, the importance of self-belief, and the challenges of fundraising during COVID.
17:41 - Overcoming initial challenges with UNTIL's launch and building community among practitioners.
19:33 - Lessons learned from running people-oriented businesses and the importance of having the right team.
20:42 - Vishal's approach to building a successful business and the crucial role of passion and purpose.
22:12 - the hardest challenges faced in building Until and the strategies for overcoming them.
23:56 - The significance of location selection for UNTIL's sites and future expansion plans.
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Full video of episode
Vishal Amin: 0:00
McKinsey doesn't hire people like you. So when I started the second business, the consulting firm, I knew that whenever you go on a startup journey, you have to work hard and you have to make sacrifices. And I realized at that point that if I didn't start to think about my health and wellness and that I wouldn't be able to sustain the volume of work until it's a business that helps the people that help you. We exist to unlock the potential of the health and wellness practitioner community.
Amardeep Parmar: 0:35
Today on the podcast we have Vishal Amin, who's the CEO and co-founder of Until. They're the first members and workspace for health and well-being professionals. Vishal grew up with an idea at university. They wanted to join McKinsey. Initially it didn't happen for him. He joined a startup, did incredibly well there and then he did join McKinsey.
Amardeep Parmar: 0:56
He learned so much but he realized that actually he wanted to be more involved in different things. This took him down the path of consultancy outside of more in the innovation space, and he was incredibly successful here, growing different organisations and also becoming an investor himself in other start-ups. Then, as time went on, he realised there was a gap in the market for something he was really passionate about with Until, where it could really help health and wellbeing professionals to start their own companies and to launch their own organisations without all of the hassle that comes with that. And today they're thriving and they've got lots of different angel techs in and they've got central London locations. Hear his story and how he went about that and all the different ups and downs along the way too, of which there are many. We're the BAE HQ and I'm Amar, and this podcast is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. So really interesting what you're doing today, Vishal, but when you're growing up, what was the dream? Did you ever think one day this you'd be?
Vishal Amin: 1:55
I think, as an Asian growing up in this country, you always have various journeys of what you want to be, and you know, I grew up wanting to be a doctor, then realized that medics don't get paid brilliantly in this country, and so then decided I wanted to go into like tech, because that was where the money was. I got an E in GCSE IT, so that didn't quite work out. But yeah, look, I've had like business in my blood for a long time. My parents, like a lot of Gujaratis, owned corner shops.
Vishal Amin: 2:25
I grew up standing behind the counter doing the paper rounds, uh, you know, taking the penny sweets and selling them at school. So it was always kind of in my DNA to some extent. And so, yeah, I mean I suspect I always wanted to build a business. But, yeah, and and is it building a business that we're building today? No, I mean I had no idea that I'd be back in the world of, of health and wellness. But uh, yeah, I guess my vision was always my parents always focused on money. As a kid right like that's, that's what you were I was quite anchored on how do I make the most money I can?
Amardeep Parmar: 3:00
Where do you think the anchor came from about that money vision from a young age?
Vishal Amin: 3:03
Yeah, I, I think that my parents worked hard. They ended up. You know it was a seven-day-a-week job, it was 35 years and part of my I think part of the reason I do what I do today is because my dad went to university. He went and studied chemical engineering and then bought a shop, and that's not to take anything away from him, but he didn't have the options.
Vishal Amin: 3:24
And so, you know, growing up there was 11 of us in one flat and my parents worked really hard to kind of then build our future and, you know, send my brother to private school and so, but, but money was always the thing right. You always wanted, you know, the cool clothes or the trainers, or you know, when dad bought his first mercedes, it was like such a big thing, and so I think that was just kind of part of our dna. And you know, parents were working, so my grandparents were often the ones that were looking after us and and they were, you know, it'd come over from india, they'd come up, they'd grown up in very poor environments, and so money was just always a currency of conversation.
Amardeep Parmar:
Was there for that idea that you'd take over the family business or you you go into the shops, or was that never something really on the cards?
Vishal Amin: 4:06
I mean, yeah, there's definitely moments, I mean, uh, where I thought about going and building a network of shops, but uh, you know it never. It never was what I dreamed of becoming. In fact, going through university, originally I wanted to go into banking. Uh, tried it, didn't love it. And then, going to LSE, you kind of become a banker, a lawyer or consultant. I didn't do law, so consultancy became my thing and I always envisaged, you know, joining McKinsey and that was always my plan and.
Amardeep Parmar:
You didn't go straight to McKinsey, right, you were somewhere else?
Vishal Amin: 4:39
No, it's funny actually. You know, it was definitely at university. I was definitely not the most studious person and I remember well, I remember one of my friends at the time. I was giving him a journey, a ride home, because I used to do the night shift. I'd get to uni at 7 pm and work until 7 am. I mean at the time I thought that was cool. It definitely was not. And so I remember giving him a lift and telling him oh, I'd love to work at McKinsey. And I remember him saying McKinsey doesn't hire people like you. And that really stuck with me.
Vishal Amin: 5:13
I think it became a bit of a chip on my shoulder.
Amardeep Parmar:
What did he mean by like you?
Vishal Amin: 5:36
I mean, I don't know if he was referring to the fact that I was Asian, but he was definitely referring to the fact that, you know, I was probably considered more of a rude boy in the community. Like you know not, I didn't go to as many lectures as I should have. It wasn't like I was seen as the the brightest person in the room. Yeah, I definitely related to your post around language and and how you position yourself, because at that time that growing up it was all about. You wanted to be the guy. You, you know you were much more worried about what other people thought about you. And so, yeah, I suspect he had an impression of me which was like, uh, McKinsey, when I went, when I eventually started working there, the first question was always oh, what college did you go to go to? Because it was predominantly Oxford and Cambridge grads. And so it, I mean, in some ways he was right, Mckinsey didn't hire from other universities. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, somehow, with a bit of luck and a bit of hard work, I managed to get in there. But yeah, I'd say that was probably my dream job.
Amardeep Parmar: 6:20
Once you got there, was the dream, what you imagined?
Vishal Amin: 6:24
The dream was not what I imagined. No, I mean, look, I remember interviewing and I was I was effectively the CFO of a startup at the time which, um, which is what I did straight out of uni and my CEO was ex McKinsey and he was like which is not, it's not what you think it is. And I remember sitting there going, yeah, you would say that because, uh, you don't want me to leave. But he was absolutely right. I mean not to take anything away from it. It is an incredible institution. You meet some great people, they do some great work, and almost it was like for me it was an alternative to business school.
Vishal Amin: 6:56
I thought I was quite smart, going I'll skip business school and I'll go to McKinsey and I'll get paid for it. What I didn't quite think about is business school is quite fun and you meet some really cool people. Mckinsey was a lot of a lot of powerpoint, um, it was a lot of late nights, uh. And look, I think ultimately, for me, McKinsey is a, is a is a great brand to have on my resume. It means that people give me five minutes and listen to what I have to say before dismissing me.
Vishal Amin: 7:24
Um, but I think, I think it was a grounding the opportunity I got to build a startup straight out of uni that kind of set me on the path that I'm on um, I think, and it's why I'm such a big promoter of like cousins and friends and when they're starting to think about what they want to do, I'm like, go and join an early stage business, do it for a few years, because you just learn a lot very quickly. And I think being at McKinsey was interesting because you're surrounded by MBAs who are whip it smart. But there's a difference between being super smart and then having the practical experience of what it takes to run a business.
Amardeep Parmar: 7:57
What do you think you learned from that practical experience in those early days? That maybe that people at McKinsey didn't learn and didn't know?
Vishal Amin: 8:06
The reality is you can sit there and you can analyse a problem and if you're as smart as the people were there, you could come up with a solution. But the problem is not the solution. Actually, the solution is the easy bit. It's implementing it. It's really going.
Vishal Amin: 8:17
How do I make this happen? Because people have to make that happen and people are not robots and they don't do what you think they're going to do. And so I think that was for me. The kind of difference was going sure, I can, I can write a fantastic deck, I can do some numbers and I can. You know, make out like this is a great idea.
Vishal Amin: 8:35
But actually it's the work comes in doing it. The work comes in then going okay, how do I I get Sally, who sits on the counter in a retail store, to actually engage with the customer in a different way? Because Sally's got 50 other things in her head. She doesn't care about what you're trying to tell her in training. That's the difference, and I think when you're in the startup world, you have to make stuff happen. You can have all the great answers and all the great solutions, but the reality is, when you're on the front line and you're make stuff happen.
Amardeep Parmar: 9:10
I see that a lot with people who are in the corporate world and want to advise startups or quit their jobs to become startup advisors. But it's just like I said, it's a very different reality because in a corporate you've got teams who do stuff for you, teams who've got a hierarchy, whereas in a startup, you're hiring somebody new. You've got to make them believe in your project. There's so much more work that goes into that and each individual employee can have such a dramatic impact on the business, whereas at McKinsey, as one of 10,000, 20,000, however many consultants there are, if you have a bad day, it doesn't really matter to the overall business. And what then made you leave McKinsey? So you had that dream job. Obviously, it wasn't quite what you imagined.
Vishal Amin: 9:49
I just wasn't loving it. I was feeling like my learning had slowed down. I remember at the time I wanted to do more private equity work and the partner who ran that practice had just left and gone to a competitor. And I was being encouraged to do funnily, actually more people and culture work and I just didn't enjoy it. I remember doing a big project with a you know big British telco business and I just lost the love for for what I was doing and I wanted my next challenge and was fortunate to come across another consulting firm which was like the opposite end of the spectrum.
Vishal Amin: 10:29
You know, McKinsey was an organization where I wore jeans to the office and an email went around to the whole entire office about you know whether jeans were appropriate attire. Whereas on the first day of this, this agency that I joined, what if I walked in and there was a guy and girl swapping clothes in the main client area? I mean, it was so different, but those were like. You know, I went there because I felt like I'd got commercial ops finance knowledge. I was like, let me go learn marketing and then I don't need anyone, right that classic you know. I can then go and build whatever business I want. So I joined this business called W hat If and spent three years building businesses for people and actually learning that I'm not very good at marketing and learning that. It's just a different skill. And actually it's where I met my co-founder for Until and he's brilliant at that and I just realized it's a different brain. It's a very different brain. I'm known in our business as the Excel guy and he's known as the marketing and brand guy, and rightly so.
Amardeep Parmar: 11:32
I think it's always interesting with marketing where everyone thinks that it's easy to do it and then when they start doing it, then they don't get the results they want. Then it's everybody else's fault.
Amardeep Parmar: 11:40
It's like, maybe you're just a beginner at it and you've got to learn a bit and you've got to improve right. And, like I said, it's quite interesting that you found a co-founder and they feel that the gap you have right. And when you met each other, how was the initial relationship? Do you think at that point, you did you know at that point you want to start a business someday when you met him?
Vishal Amin: 11:59
Sure, I mean, look, I I think I was always pretty entrepreneurial. I was always doing little things on the side, um, random businesses which, uh, very few of them were good ideas. They made some money, but I wouldn't describe them as great ideas. But actually, Alex, um, he was on my first project and, uh, it was working for a big hotel group, designing, I think we were.
Vishal Amin: 12:22
We were pitching for some, uh, for their food and beverage project and I, what happened was the director was an ex-marketing agent, marketing person, and she, she asked me to go away and write some copy, and so I took it away and we're taught to write in a very specific style at mckinsey and it was not the style that they wanted in the market.
Vishal Amin: 12:43
So I remember her reacting and, and you know, I was joining this agency from McKinsey. So there's all this expectation and she was working very hard to bring me down a few pegs and I think Alex probably saw that and took me a bit under his wing and that's where we started working together, I mean 10 years ago, 11 years ago, and I think if it hadn't been that director on my case, he probably would have shied away from me because we're so different, but, um, it just worked. But we x different. He would wake up at 5 am, I'd work until you know midnight, and so we just it was so synergistic from day one, and I think that's part of what makes the business that we're building today work.
Amardeep Parmar: 13:38
At that stage you said where almost that weird environment of can I tell them what the stuff I want to do outside of work, because they could then go and tell my manager or something like that, and it's that weird relationship. When did it start happening with you guys to start thinking about ideas of what you could do together?
Vishal Amin: 13:52
I mean to be honest, it didn't really happen, right? I subsequently left that consulting firm, started another consulting firm with the CEO, the European CEO of What If at the time, and would stay connected with Alex because he was just, you know, he was the best at what we call insight that I'd met and he's just. Did you try to poach him? Well, no, he would not have joined. It was definitely not his thing. So I didn't even broach his topic. But what I would do is, anytime you know, I was working with startups, I was investing in startups, and anytime I'd have a need or they'd have a need to do some real, proper insight work, I'd go.
Vishal Amin: 14:29
Why don't you talk to Alex? And he was living the good life. He moved to France and bought a castle in Bordeaux and well, he was doing it up himself as well, and we stay connected. And one day he called me and said hey, vish, I'm thinking about moving back to London. What are you working on? Because I always had like random projects and I told him about what, what we're thinking about with the Until proposition, um, and he liked it. When he went away he thought about it, called me back and went this is quite exciting, and that's you know, that was in 2019 or 2018, uh, and it grew from there.
Amardeep Parmar: 15:10
So I want to come back to investing ins startups later on. But for the people who don't know, what is the Until proposition? What was the initial idea?
Vishal Amin: 15:14
Yeah, so Until is a business that helps the people that help you. So we are. We exist to unlock the potential of the health and wellness practitioner community. So that's you know everyone from trainers to treatment practitioners, to coaches, to dental and medical.
Vishal Amin: 15:33
Now, and you know, if you look at those people, they have opted to follow a career not for money, typically, or at least not in this country. They do it because they want to help people and but they're massively underserved by today's world, right, and they're expected. If they want to be an entrepreneur and they want to earn more money, they have to go and build a physical space, manage a team, do finance HR, all these things, which is not their core skill nor their interest. And so we thought that that was broken and we wanted to build a business that helped them grow their businesses, allowing them to focus on what they do brilliantly, which is service their client, and spend their time learning how to get better at that, and we take care of the rest. So that was the proposition.
Vishal Amin: 16:18
We launched our first site two years ago in Soho in London, built this physical space because, for them, their biggest issue was rent, and then we've gone from there right, and we now have three of those sites. We have over 400 practitioners and full of like PTs, physios, osteopaths, chiropractors, medical practitioners, psychotherapists and we've built a space where they can not only build their business, but they can hang out right, they can build relationships, they can learn from each other, they can connect and so and they can work in a space that they're proud of, and so that's that's what we're trying to create.
Amardeep Parmar: 17:00
We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC innovation banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got the deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true. So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbankingcom. What was it? Because, obviously, with your background, what was it that made you really care about that problem?
Vishal Amin: 17:43
So when I started the second business, the consulting firm, I knew that whenever you go on a startup journey you have to work hard and you have to make sacrifices. And I realized at that point that if I didn't start to think about my health and wellness and that I wouldn't be able to sustain the volume of work, the hours, um, and you know, I might build a business that's really successful, but I'm not gonna be healthy at the end of it. So I started to invest in in a PT and uh, then in physio, and then kind of got the bug. Basically, and I think that is the experience that kind of showed me that you've got these individuals who you know and one of them's now my, one of my co-founders who who love what they do and but just not paid very well.
Vishal Amin: 18:30
You know, I'd be paying the PT uh studio that I was in at the time 80, 90, 100 pounds an hour. He'd be getting paid 20 and really for me he was a value, he was my relationship. Tomorrow, if he got up and left, I was going to be following him and that's where we had kind of had that aha moment and at the time I was investing in people. Right, like what I realized as an investor, it's all about talent and I get excited about helping talent build businesses. And so initially it was me and Dan going let's build a little PT studio with a different model, which was the kind of basis of the Until idea. And then, as we grew the team, we realized that the problem that PTs had existed across the entire sector and that's why it came about.
Amardeep Parmar: 19:17
Do you mention there about how the idea changed from the initial looking at PT? Was there anything else that once you started this business, which is a bit different to other ones, that surprised you and you learned as you went along the way?
Vishal Amin: 19:33
Yeah, if you think about the businesses I'd uh, been part of, historically it'd be it was it was much more about selling human capital, right?
Vishal Amin: 19:36
So the first business was all about using onshore and offshore clinical labor to provide services to insurance companies. The consultancy firm was literally selling people's time, um, and I think the reason I wanted to get away from that is those business models, whilst they can be successful, are hard right and can be challenging, and I wanted to build something that was more like a product business, a bit more service-based, and I think what I, but ultimately what I learned, was all businesses are people businesses. I remember my old CEO saying Vish, you just don't want to run a people business and actually, you know it's not true. You know, you, you, people are the most important part of every business you can. You know people are sat there waiting for ideas or to come up with a product or, um, you know, have that aha moment. It's not really about that. It's about finding something you love and then putting brilliant people around you and that that, for me at least, has been the thing that's made the difference.
Amardeep Parmar: 20:32
And like you've said you've now scaled up and got different locations. But in order to do that, you have to have initial investment and to get other people to believe in you. How did you get that? How do you get people to believe in your mission and what you're trying to achieve?
Vishal Amin: 20:42
I think it comes back to one of my core beliefs, that is is easy to say, hardest to do. Um, and it's all about you have to believe in yourself if you're going to expect other people to believe in you. And you know, I often describe it as irrational self-belief and I always had an element of it, and I think that's what's made me believe make stuff happen and so that that self, irrational self-belief and hard work I think the combination of those two things, um, have meant that along the way as I've been doing things, people have bought into me. Investors have have believed in, uh, what I'm doing.
Vishal Amin: 21:20
And you know, when you're raising money for any business in the early days, people are backing you. You know we write these beautiful powerpoint decks to kind of investor pitches, but really that investor or at least the seasoned investor knows that they're focused on, on, on you and they have to like the idea, they have to be passionate, they have to buy into it, but really they're going. I'm giving you my hard-earned money. Go and do what you're going to do with it.
Amardeep Parmar: 21:47
The phrase I love and I can't remember who said it is. The only difference between a madman and a visionary is one gets lucky and one doesn't. And it's the whole difficult thing, because you don't know which one you are until you get lucky right and it's really hard for people to know when to continue and when to quit. And you mentioned about everything being a people business and you've obviously grown and go out and have people on board. What do you look for people when you're hiring as well and make sure you have the right people?
Vishal Amin: 22:12
I mean, I'm a huge believer in work ethic and mindset. You know, occasionally, and in some businesses, you need skills, but I think if you've got people who have the right work ethic and the hunger and the drive to learn, they figure it out. And sometimes if someone has too much you hire someone too much for their skills. They just take those skills and apply them versus and the reality is, is that doesn't lead to innovation, that doesn't drive any newness. So I really value those two things. And then I guess the other thing for me is around purpose. And look, I think purpose has become a bit misused.
Vishal Amin: 22:54
I think sometimes people are going I need to find my purpose, but I think having a sense of what gets them out of bed is important and making sure that the business or the role or the business that you're building is somewhat aligned with that, because if it's not, it becomes really hard. It becomes really hard for them to deliver their value, to be at their best, because they're not excited by what they're doing. And I think in order to do anything groundbreaking, you need people to be rationally bought in. So that is the logic, the numbers, the messaging to get people to go. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But the bit that people often forget is the emotional buy-in, and that's them. They've got to feel connected, they got to feel excited, they got to feel passionate, because without both of those things, you're not going to provide the discretionary effort that's needed to do crazy things right or to to to, to push things further, um, and I think you can't be successful without it.
Vishal Amin: 23:56
Amardeep Parmar: You mentioned about how things are really hard and what's been some of the hardest things that you've had to overcome to get to where you guys are today? I mean funding, funding is always a challenge, um, particularly when, remember, we were raising money to build a physical space in the middle of a city during covid, and so I remember being sat on calls. I mean mean, the benefit of COVID was you could get meetings with investors instantly. But the thing that was hard was trying to explain to them that sure, covid has meant, you know, some people might not come back, but naturally there's always going to be a requirement for physical spaces in city centres, and so what? Some of that was just getting over that hump. And then the second thing was we were building this brilliant idea and you build an echo chamber in your team around. Oh my god, this is going to be amazing and everyone's going to love it. And we spoke to a lot of practitioners. We spoke to almost 500 practitioners as we were building the business and as they understood it, they love the idea. And so then we opened the space in February of 22, just post Omicron.
Vishal Amin: 25:05
It was a very quiet charring crossroad which was quite nerve wrecking, a lot of the. You know we just we did that thing of we'll open it and they'll come, and they didn't come and we were sat there going don't you want to be part of this community? It's incredible, and what we realized was A we were selling community to people that never had community and so they didn't value it. And secondly, our proposition made no sense to them because you know they were out there going, going well, it's a co-working space, and you had PT saying I'm a PT, why do I need a co-working space? And so the biggest challenge for us was educating our practitioners or our customers on what are we doing and why is it going to help them. And so that took some time right and and and getting enough of them through our space using it. It just took a lot longer than expected. And you know, we still had our salary costs, we still had our rent costs, we still had all of those expenses to manage, and so those first 12 months were tough.
Vishal Amin: 26:12
But then you got to the stage where now the community communicates, the community shares what they're doing. You know there's enough awareness of until amongst uh, amongst them, and that's driving the value. And I guess part of now the push that we're trying to do is is is share what we've built. Because, as an individual consumer, you know, I, like me naive consumer, knew nothing about health and wellness. When I had an issue you're often like where do I go? How do I find a good pt? How do I find a good therapist? How do I find a big, a good uh physio? Do I even need a physio? And so now we're trying to raise the profile of our business to help build uh clients for for our practitioners.
Amardeep Parmar: 26:56
You mentioned there as well about the city center location. How have you pictured different locations? What's the logic behind that?
Vishal Amin: 26:59
So I'd say we've got more sophisticated over time. Um, I'd be lying if I said there was a. There was loads of data in the first site, um, but let's subsequently, if you think about what we're doing, it's pretty obvious. We're just taking existing demand across our practitioner set and just consolidating and making it easier for them to operate. So we we're quite, we're very, very data-led now, um, but it's obvious, right, it's obvious where our businesses will be successful. For us, we're now able to get down to a pinpoint, a location on a street where we want to be, and that's kind of the level of data that we're now using.
Amardeep Parmar: 27:35
So, so before we go into quick fire questions, you obviously done very well in the time you've been going so far. But what's the dream? Where do you see Until going?
Vishal Amin: 27:44
So I think we're changing the industry. I think, uh, I now believe more than ever that in the future, this is how the industry will operate. It doesn't make sense for these practitioners to necessarily build their own facilities when we can basically provide a platform which allows them to do what they focus on, what they do best. And so, you know, I think we'll, we'll build a global business, um, you know we've got big plans to get into the us pretty quickly, um, but I think every major city in the world has these problems and, and I think until has the solution well.
Amardeep Parmar: 28:15
So thanks so much for everything you've shared. I think the insights will really help people. We're going to move on to quick fire questions now, so the first one is who are three British Asians you think you're doing incredible work and you'd love to spotlight, for the audience to pay attention to?
Vishal Amin: 28:26
I think the the first person I'd like to highlight is uh is an old school friend, um, so you know we'd be on the bus going home back in the day and, and now he's building a brilliant business in the dental space. He, you know, he did go down the route and became a dentist and but he's passionate about business and so loving ganshwaran um, him and his team building something called chairside, which I think is going to be an incredible business, um, over time. I think the next person is uh, one of our members, one of our practitioners. So Anisha Joshi is she, she built an interesting community of osteopaths and her and her sister are building something called Osteo Allies and I think she's got big plans and she's a big personality and, uh, you know, uh, I think she's going to do epic things and so I think, definitely one to watch.
Vishal Amin: 29:15
And then one of my good friends is Nishi Shah. She recently realized that she's got two twins, sorry, well, obviously two twins. She's got two daughters and her passion is building, helping children start thinking about leadership from an early age and self-leadership, and so she's building Happy Little Humans, which I think is a really powerful proposition in the world. It's something that I wish I had growing up, and I'm sure a lot of people who are in my shoes wish that they had, and so, yeah, I think that's going to be pretty epic.
Amardeep Parmar: 29:52
Sounds like they're all doing amazing things there. Next question is how can people find out more about you? Find out more about Until?
Vishal Amin: 30:00
So I guess on me, Linkedin, Instagram, I'm definitely making more efforts to kind of talk about the journey on those two channels. On Until again Instagram account, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you want to, if you want to know more. Also Seema, who leads our membership team, she can also connect with you.
Amardeep Parmar: 30:21
And is there anything that you need help with right now that the audience could reach out to you, help you with?
Vishal Amin: 30:25
I mean, just spread the word. Yeah, If you're a practitioner and you're wanting to grow your business and you think until might be the right space to do it, get in touch. Or if you're a consumer and you've been looking for a dentist, or you've been looking for a health and wellness practitioner and you've not been able to find one, reach out and we'll find you one of our brilliant community.
Amardeep Parmar: 30:44
So thanks so much for coming on today. Have you got any final words for the audience?
Vishal Amin: 30:47
No, I mean well, just I guess for you, Amar, and the audience, I think it's an exciting proposition to be bringing together this community. I think there's tons of talent and yeah, I mean thank you for having me.
Amardeep Parmar: 31:02
Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.
Vishal Amin: 0:00McKinsey doesn't hire people like you. So when I started the second business, the consulting firm, I knew that whenever you go on a startup journey, you have to work hard and you have to make sacrifices. And I realized at that point that if I didn't start to think about my health and wellness and that I wouldn't be able to sustain the volume of work until it's a business that helps the people that help you. We exist to unlock the potential of the health and wellness practitioner community.
Amardeep Parmar: 0:35
Today on the podcast we have Vishal Amin, who's the CEO and co-founder of Until. They're the first members and workspace for health and well-being professionals. Vishal grew up with an idea at university. They wanted to join McKinsey. Initially it didn't happen for him. He joined a startup, did incredibly well there and then he did join McKinsey.
Amardeep Parmar: 0:56
He learned so much but he realized that actually he wanted to be more involved in different things. This took him down the path of consultancy outside of more in the innovation space, and he was incredibly successful here, growing different organisations and also becoming an investor himself in other start-ups. Then, as time went on, he realised there was a gap in the market for something he was really passionate about with Until, where it could really help health and wellbeing professionals to start their own companies and to launch their own organisations without all of the hassle that comes with that. And today they're thriving and they've got lots of different angel techs in and they've got central London locations. Hear his story and how he went about that and all the different ups and downs along the way too, of which there are many. We're the BAE HQ and I'm Amar, and this podcast is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. So really interesting what you're doing today, Vishal, but when you're growing up, what was the dream? Did you ever think one day this you'd be?
Vishal Amin: 1:55
I think, as an Asian growing up in this country, you always have various journeys of what you want to be, and you know, I grew up wanting to be a doctor, then realized that medics don't get paid brilliantly in this country, and so then decided I wanted to go into like tech, because that was where the money was. I got an E in GCSE IT, so that didn't quite work out. But yeah, look, I've had like business in my blood for a long time. My parents, like a lot of Gujaratis, owned corner shops.
Vishal Amin: 2:25
I grew up standing behind the counter doing the paper rounds, uh, you know, taking the penny sweets and selling them at school. So it was always kind of in my DNA to some extent. And so, yeah, I mean I suspect I always wanted to build a business. But, yeah, and and is it building a business that we're building today? No, I mean I had no idea that I'd be back in the world of, of health and wellness. But uh, yeah, I guess my vision was always my parents always focused on money. As a kid right like that's, that's what you were I was quite anchored on how do I make the most money I can?
Amardeep Parmar: 3:00
Where do you think the anchor came from about that money vision from a young age?
Vishal Amin: 3:03
Yeah, I, I think that my parents worked hard. They ended up. You know it was a seven-day-a-week job, it was 35 years and part of my I think part of the reason I do what I do today is because my dad went to university. He went and studied chemical engineering and then bought a shop, and that's not to take anything away from him, but he didn't have the options.
Vishal Amin: 3:24
And so, you know, growing up there was 11 of us in one flat and my parents worked really hard to kind of then build our future and, you know, send my brother to private school and so, but, but money was always the thing right. You always wanted, you know, the cool clothes or the trainers, or you know, when dad bought his first mercedes, it was like such a big thing, and so I think that was just kind of part of our dna. And you know, parents were working, so my grandparents were often the ones that were looking after us and and they were, you know, it'd come over from india, they'd come up, they'd grown up in very poor environments, and so money was just always a currency of conversation.
Amardeep Parmar:
Was there for that idea that you'd take over the family business or you you go into the shops, or was that never something really on the cards?
Vishal Amin: 4:06
I mean, yeah, there's definitely moments, I mean, uh, where I thought about going and building a network of shops, but uh, you know it never. It never was what I dreamed of becoming. In fact, going through university, originally I wanted to go into banking. Uh, tried it, didn't love it. And then, going to LSE, you kind of become a banker, a lawyer or consultant. I didn't do law, so consultancy became my thing and I always envisaged, you know, joining McKinsey and that was always my plan and.
Amardeep Parmar:
You didn't go straight to McKinsey, right, you were somewhere else?
Vishal Amin: 4:39
No, it's funny actually. You know, it was definitely at university. I was definitely not the most studious person and I remember well, I remember one of my friends at the time. I was giving him a journey, a ride home, because I used to do the night shift. I'd get to uni at 7 pm and work until 7 am. I mean at the time I thought that was cool. It definitely was not. And so I remember giving him a lift and telling him oh, I'd love to work at McKinsey. And I remember him saying McKinsey doesn't hire people like you. And that really stuck with me.
Vishal Amin: 5:13
I think it became a bit of a chip on my shoulder.
Amardeep Parmar:
What did he mean by like you?
Vishal Amin: 5:36
I mean, I don't know if he was referring to the fact that I was Asian, but he was definitely referring to the fact that, you know, I was probably considered more of a rude boy in the community. Like you know not, I didn't go to as many lectures as I should have. It wasn't like I was seen as the the brightest person in the room. Yeah, I definitely related to your post around language and and how you position yourself, because at that time that growing up it was all about. You wanted to be the guy. You, you know you were much more worried about what other people thought about you. And so, yeah, I suspect he had an impression of me which was like, uh, McKinsey, when I went, when I eventually started working there, the first question was always oh, what college did you go to go to? Because it was predominantly Oxford and Cambridge grads. And so it, I mean, in some ways he was right, Mckinsey didn't hire from other universities. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, somehow, with a bit of luck and a bit of hard work, I managed to get in there. But yeah, I'd say that was probably my dream job.
Amardeep Parmar: 6:20
Once you got there, was the dream, what you imagined?
Vishal Amin: 6:24
The dream was not what I imagined. No, I mean, look, I remember interviewing and I was I was effectively the CFO of a startup at the time which, um, which is what I did straight out of uni and my CEO was ex McKinsey and he was like which is not, it's not what you think it is. And I remember sitting there going, yeah, you would say that because, uh, you don't want me to leave. But he was absolutely right. I mean not to take anything away from it. It is an incredible institution. You meet some great people, they do some great work, and almost it was like for me it was an alternative to business school.
Vishal Amin: 6:56
I thought I was quite smart, going I'll skip business school and I'll go to McKinsey and I'll get paid for it. What I didn't quite think about is business school is quite fun and you meet some really cool people. Mckinsey was a lot of a lot of powerpoint, um, it was a lot of late nights, uh. And look, I think ultimately, for me, McKinsey is a, is a is a great brand to have on my resume. It means that people give me five minutes and listen to what I have to say before dismissing me.
Vishal Amin: 7:24
Um, but I think, I think it was a grounding the opportunity I got to build a startup straight out of uni that kind of set me on the path that I'm on um, I think, and it's why I'm such a big promoter of like cousins and friends and when they're starting to think about what they want to do, I'm like, go and join an early stage business, do it for a few years, because you just learn a lot very quickly. And I think being at McKinsey was interesting because you're surrounded by MBAs who are whip it smart. But there's a difference between being super smart and then having the practical experience of what it takes to run a business.
Amardeep Parmar: 7:57
What do you think you learned from that practical experience in those early days? That maybe that people at McKinsey didn't learn and didn't know?
Vishal Amin: 8:06
The reality is you can sit there and you can analyse a problem and if you're as smart as the people were there, you could come up with a solution. But the problem is not the solution. Actually, the solution is the easy bit. It's implementing it. It's really going.
Vishal Amin: 8:17
How do I make this happen? Because people have to make that happen and people are not robots and they don't do what you think they're going to do. And so I think that was for me. The kind of difference was going sure, I can, I can write a fantastic deck, I can do some numbers and I can. You know, make out like this is a great idea.
Vishal Amin: 8:35
But actually it's the work comes in doing it. The work comes in then going okay, how do I I get Sally, who sits on the counter in a retail store, to actually engage with the customer in a different way? Because Sally's got 50 other things in her head. She doesn't care about what you're trying to tell her in training. That's the difference, and I think when you're in the startup world, you have to make stuff happen. You can have all the great answers and all the great solutions, but the reality is, when you're on the front line and you're make stuff happen.
Amardeep Parmar: 9:10
I see that a lot with people who are in the corporate world and want to advise startups or quit their jobs to become startup advisors. But it's just like I said, it's a very different reality because in a corporate you've got teams who do stuff for you, teams who've got a hierarchy, whereas in a startup, you're hiring somebody new. You've got to make them believe in your project. There's so much more work that goes into that and each individual employee can have such a dramatic impact on the business, whereas at McKinsey, as one of 10,000, 20,000, however many consultants there are, if you have a bad day, it doesn't really matter to the overall business. And what then made you leave McKinsey? So you had that dream job. Obviously, it wasn't quite what you imagined.
Vishal Amin: 9:49
I just wasn't loving it. I was feeling like my learning had slowed down. I remember at the time I wanted to do more private equity work and the partner who ran that practice had just left and gone to a competitor. And I was being encouraged to do funnily, actually more people and culture work and I just didn't enjoy it. I remember doing a big project with a you know big British telco business and I just lost the love for for what I was doing and I wanted my next challenge and was fortunate to come across another consulting firm which was like the opposite end of the spectrum.
Vishal Amin: 10:29
You know, McKinsey was an organization where I wore jeans to the office and an email went around to the whole entire office about you know whether jeans were appropriate attire. Whereas on the first day of this, this agency that I joined, what if I walked in and there was a guy and girl swapping clothes in the main client area? I mean, it was so different, but those were like. You know, I went there because I felt like I'd got commercial ops finance knowledge. I was like, let me go learn marketing and then I don't need anyone, right that classic you know. I can then go and build whatever business I want. So I joined this business called W hat If and spent three years building businesses for people and actually learning that I'm not very good at marketing and learning that. It's just a different skill. And actually it's where I met my co-founder for Until and he's brilliant at that and I just realized it's a different brain. It's a very different brain. I'm known in our business as the Excel guy and he's known as the marketing and brand guy, and rightly so.
Amardeep Parmar: 11:32
I think it's always interesting with marketing where everyone thinks that it's easy to do it and then when they start doing it, then they don't get the results they want. Then it's everybody else's fault.
Amardeep Parmar: 11:40
It's like, maybe you're just a beginner at it and you've got to learn a bit and you've got to improve right. And, like I said, it's quite interesting that you found a co-founder and they feel that the gap you have right. And when you met each other, how was the initial relationship? Do you think at that point, you did you know at that point you want to start a business someday when you met him?
Vishal Amin: 11:59
Sure, I mean, look, I I think I was always pretty entrepreneurial. I was always doing little things on the side, um, random businesses which, uh, very few of them were good ideas. They made some money, but I wouldn't describe them as great ideas. But actually, Alex, um, he was on my first project and, uh, it was working for a big hotel group, designing, I think we were.
Vishal Amin: 12:22
We were pitching for some, uh, for their food and beverage project and I, what happened was the director was an ex-marketing agent, marketing person, and she, she asked me to go away and write some copy, and so I took it away and we're taught to write in a very specific style at mckinsey and it was not the style that they wanted in the market.
Vishal Amin: 12:43
So I remember her reacting and, and you know, I was joining this agency from McKinsey. So there's all this expectation and she was working very hard to bring me down a few pegs and I think Alex probably saw that and took me a bit under his wing and that's where we started working together, I mean 10 years ago, 11 years ago, and I think if it hadn't been that director on my case, he probably would have shied away from me because we're so different, but, um, it just worked. But we x different. He would wake up at 5 am, I'd work until you know midnight, and so we just it was so synergistic from day one, and I think that's part of what makes the business that we're building today work.
Amardeep Parmar: 13:38
At that stage you said where almost that weird environment of can I tell them what the stuff I want to do outside of work, because they could then go and tell my manager or something like that, and it's that weird relationship. When did it start happening with you guys to start thinking about ideas of what you could do together?
Vishal Amin: 13:52
I mean to be honest, it didn't really happen, right? I subsequently left that consulting firm, started another consulting firm with the CEO, the European CEO of What If at the time, and would stay connected with Alex because he was just, you know, he was the best at what we call insight that I'd met and he's just. Did you try to poach him? Well, no, he would not have joined. It was definitely not his thing. So I didn't even broach his topic. But what I would do is, anytime you know, I was working with startups, I was investing in startups, and anytime I'd have a need or they'd have a need to do some real, proper insight work, I'd go.
Vishal Amin: 14:29
Why don't you talk to Alex? And he was living the good life. He moved to France and bought a castle in Bordeaux and well, he was doing it up himself as well, and we stay connected. And one day he called me and said hey, vish, I'm thinking about moving back to London. What are you working on? Because I always had like random projects and I told him about what, what we're thinking about with the Until proposition, um, and he liked it. When he went away he thought about it, called me back and went this is quite exciting, and that's you know, that was in 2019 or 2018, uh, and it grew from there.
Amardeep Parmar: 15:10
So I want to come back to investing ins startups later on. But for the people who don't know, what is the Until proposition? What was the initial idea?
Vishal Amin: 15:14
Yeah, so Until is a business that helps the people that help you. So we are. We exist to unlock the potential of the health and wellness practitioner community. So that's you know everyone from trainers to treatment practitioners, to coaches, to dental and medical.
Vishal Amin: 15:33
Now, and you know, if you look at those people, they have opted to follow a career not for money, typically, or at least not in this country. They do it because they want to help people and but they're massively underserved by today's world, right, and they're expected. If they want to be an entrepreneur and they want to earn more money, they have to go and build a physical space, manage a team, do finance HR, all these things, which is not their core skill nor their interest. And so we thought that that was broken and we wanted to build a business that helped them grow their businesses, allowing them to focus on what they do brilliantly, which is service their client, and spend their time learning how to get better at that, and we take care of the rest. So that was the proposition.
Vishal Amin: 16:18
We launched our first site two years ago in Soho in London, built this physical space because, for them, their biggest issue was rent, and then we've gone from there right, and we now have three of those sites. We have over 400 practitioners and full of like PTs, physios, osteopaths, chiropractors, medical practitioners, psychotherapists and we've built a space where they can not only build their business, but they can hang out right, they can build relationships, they can learn from each other, they can connect and so and they can work in a space that they're proud of, and so that's that's what we're trying to create.
Amardeep Parmar: 17:00
We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC innovation banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got the deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true. So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbankingcom. What was it? Because, obviously, with your background, what was it that made you really care about that problem?
Vishal Amin: 17:43
So when I started the second business, the consulting firm, I knew that whenever you go on a startup journey you have to work hard and you have to make sacrifices. And I realized at that point that if I didn't start to think about my health and wellness and that I wouldn't be able to sustain the volume of work, the hours, um, and you know, I might build a business that's really successful, but I'm not gonna be healthy at the end of it. So I started to invest in in a PT and uh, then in physio, and then kind of got the bug. Basically, and I think that is the experience that kind of showed me that you've got these individuals who you know and one of them's now my, one of my co-founders who who love what they do and but just not paid very well.
Vishal Amin: 18:30
You know, I'd be paying the PT uh studio that I was in at the time 80, 90, 100 pounds an hour. He'd be getting paid 20 and really for me he was a value, he was my relationship. Tomorrow, if he got up and left, I was going to be following him and that's where we had kind of had that aha moment and at the time I was investing in people. Right, like what I realized as an investor, it's all about talent and I get excited about helping talent build businesses. And so initially it was me and Dan going let's build a little PT studio with a different model, which was the kind of basis of the Until idea. And then, as we grew the team, we realized that the problem that PTs had existed across the entire sector and that's why it came about.
Amardeep Parmar: 19:17
Do you mention there about how the idea changed from the initial looking at PT? Was there anything else that once you started this business, which is a bit different to other ones, that surprised you and you learned as you went along the way?
Vishal Amin: 19:33
Yeah, if you think about the businesses I'd uh, been part of, historically it'd be it was it was much more about selling human capital, right?
Vishal Amin: 19:36
So the first business was all about using onshore and offshore clinical labor to provide services to insurance companies. The consultancy firm was literally selling people's time, um, and I think the reason I wanted to get away from that is those business models, whilst they can be successful, are hard right and can be challenging, and I wanted to build something that was more like a product business, a bit more service-based, and I think what I, but ultimately what I learned, was all businesses are people businesses. I remember my old CEO saying Vish, you just don't want to run a people business and actually, you know it's not true. You know, you, you, people are the most important part of every business you can. You know people are sat there waiting for ideas or to come up with a product or, um, you know, have that aha moment. It's not really about that. It's about finding something you love and then putting brilliant people around you and that that, for me at least, has been the thing that's made the difference.
Amardeep Parmar: 20:32
And like you've said you've now scaled up and got different locations. But in order to do that, you have to have initial investment and to get other people to believe in you. How did you get that? How do you get people to believe in your mission and what you're trying to achieve?
Vishal Amin: 20:42
I think it comes back to one of my core beliefs, that is is easy to say, hardest to do. Um, and it's all about you have to believe in yourself if you're going to expect other people to believe in you. And you know, I often describe it as irrational self-belief and I always had an element of it, and I think that's what's made me believe make stuff happen and so that that self, irrational self-belief and hard work I think the combination of those two things, um, have meant that along the way as I've been doing things, people have bought into me. Investors have have believed in, uh, what I'm doing.
Vishal Amin: 21:20
And you know, when you're raising money for any business in the early days, people are backing you. You know we write these beautiful powerpoint decks to kind of investor pitches, but really that investor or at least the seasoned investor knows that they're focused on, on, on you and they have to like the idea, they have to be passionate, they have to buy into it, but really they're going. I'm giving you my hard-earned money. Go and do what you're going to do with it.
Amardeep Parmar: 21:47
The phrase I love and I can't remember who said it is. The only difference between a madman and a visionary is one gets lucky and one doesn't. And it's the whole difficult thing, because you don't know which one you are until you get lucky right and it's really hard for people to know when to continue and when to quit. And you mentioned about everything being a people business and you've obviously grown and go out and have people on board. What do you look for people when you're hiring as well and make sure you have the right people?
Vishal Amin: 22:12
I mean, I'm a huge believer in work ethic and mindset. You know, occasionally, and in some businesses, you need skills, but I think if you've got people who have the right work ethic and the hunger and the drive to learn, they figure it out. And sometimes if someone has too much you hire someone too much for their skills. They just take those skills and apply them versus and the reality is, is that doesn't lead to innovation, that doesn't drive any newness. So I really value those two things. And then I guess the other thing for me is around purpose. And look, I think purpose has become a bit misused.
Vishal Amin: 22:54
I think sometimes people are going I need to find my purpose, but I think having a sense of what gets them out of bed is important and making sure that the business or the role or the business that you're building is somewhat aligned with that, because if it's not, it becomes really hard. It becomes really hard for them to deliver their value, to be at their best, because they're not excited by what they're doing. And I think in order to do anything groundbreaking, you need people to be rationally bought in. So that is the logic, the numbers, the messaging to get people to go. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But the bit that people often forget is the emotional buy-in, and that's them. They've got to feel connected, they got to feel excited, they got to feel passionate, because without both of those things, you're not going to provide the discretionary effort that's needed to do crazy things right or to to to, to push things further, um, and I think you can't be successful without it.
Vishal Amin: 23:56
Amardeep Parmar: You mentioned about how things are really hard and what's been some of the hardest things that you've had to overcome to get to where you guys are today? I mean funding, funding is always a challenge, um, particularly when, remember, we were raising money to build a physical space in the middle of a city during covid, and so I remember being sat on calls. I mean mean, the benefit of COVID was you could get meetings with investors instantly. But the thing that was hard was trying to explain to them that sure, covid has meant, you know, some people might not come back, but naturally there's always going to be a requirement for physical spaces in city centres, and so what? Some of that was just getting over that hump. And then the second thing was we were building this brilliant idea and you build an echo chamber in your team around. Oh my god, this is going to be amazing and everyone's going to love it. And we spoke to a lot of practitioners. We spoke to almost 500 practitioners as we were building the business and as they understood it, they love the idea. And so then we opened the space in February of 22, just post Omicron.
Vishal Amin: 25:05
It was a very quiet charring crossroad which was quite nerve wrecking, a lot of the. You know we just we did that thing of we'll open it and they'll come, and they didn't come and we were sat there going don't you want to be part of this community? It's incredible, and what we realized was A we were selling community to people that never had community and so they didn't value it. And secondly, our proposition made no sense to them because you know they were out there going, going well, it's a co-working space, and you had PT saying I'm a PT, why do I need a co-working space? And so the biggest challenge for us was educating our practitioners or our customers on what are we doing and why is it going to help them. And so that took some time right and and and getting enough of them through our space using it. It just took a lot longer than expected. And you know, we still had our salary costs, we still had our rent costs, we still had all of those expenses to manage, and so those first 12 months were tough.
Vishal Amin: 26:12
But then you got to the stage where now the community communicates, the community shares what they're doing. You know there's enough awareness of until amongst uh, amongst them, and that's driving the value. And I guess part of now the push that we're trying to do is is is share what we've built. Because, as an individual consumer, you know, I, like me naive consumer, knew nothing about health and wellness. When I had an issue you're often like where do I go? How do I find a good pt? How do I find a good therapist? How do I find a big, a good uh physio? Do I even need a physio? And so now we're trying to raise the profile of our business to help build uh clients for for our practitioners.
Amardeep Parmar: 26:56
You mentioned there as well about the city center location. How have you pictured different locations? What's the logic behind that?
Vishal Amin: 26:59
So I'd say we've got more sophisticated over time. Um, I'd be lying if I said there was a. There was loads of data in the first site, um, but let's subsequently, if you think about what we're doing, it's pretty obvious. We're just taking existing demand across our practitioner set and just consolidating and making it easier for them to operate. So we we're quite, we're very, very data-led now, um, but it's obvious, right, it's obvious where our businesses will be successful. For us, we're now able to get down to a pinpoint, a location on a street where we want to be, and that's kind of the level of data that we're now using.
Amardeep Parmar: 27:35
So, so before we go into quick fire questions, you obviously done very well in the time you've been going so far. But what's the dream? Where do you see Until going?
Vishal Amin: 27:44
So I think we're changing the industry. I think, uh, I now believe more than ever that in the future, this is how the industry will operate. It doesn't make sense for these practitioners to necessarily build their own facilities when we can basically provide a platform which allows them to do what they focus on, what they do best. And so, you know, I think we'll, we'll build a global business, um, you know we've got big plans to get into the us pretty quickly, um, but I think every major city in the world has these problems and, and I think until has the solution well.
Amardeep Parmar: 28:15
So thanks so much for everything you've shared. I think the insights will really help people. We're going to move on to quick fire questions now, so the first one is who are three British Asians you think you're doing incredible work and you'd love to spotlight, for the audience to pay attention to?
Vishal Amin: 28:26
I think the the first person I'd like to highlight is uh is an old school friend, um, so you know we'd be on the bus going home back in the day and, and now he's building a brilliant business in the dental space. He, you know, he did go down the route and became a dentist and but he's passionate about business and so loving ganshwaran um, him and his team building something called chairside, which I think is going to be an incredible business, um, over time. I think the next person is uh, one of our members, one of our practitioners. So Anisha Joshi is she, she built an interesting community of osteopaths and her and her sister are building something called Osteo Allies and I think she's got big plans and she's a big personality and, uh, you know, uh, I think she's going to do epic things and so I think, definitely one to watch.
Vishal Amin: 29:15
And then one of my good friends is Nishi Shah. She recently realized that she's got two twins, sorry, well, obviously two twins. She's got two daughters and her passion is building, helping children start thinking about leadership from an early age and self-leadership, and so she's building Happy Little Humans, which I think is a really powerful proposition in the world. It's something that I wish I had growing up, and I'm sure a lot of people who are in my shoes wish that they had, and so, yeah, I think that's going to be pretty epic.
Amardeep Parmar: 29:52
Sounds like they're all doing amazing things there. Next question is how can people find out more about you? Find out more about Until?
Vishal Amin: 30:00
So I guess on me, Linkedin, Instagram, I'm definitely making more efforts to kind of talk about the journey on those two channels. On Until again Instagram account, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn if you want to, if you want to know more. Also Seema, who leads our membership team, she can also connect with you.
Amardeep Parmar: 30:21
And is there anything that you need help with right now that the audience could reach out to you, help you with?
Vishal Amin: 30:25
I mean, just spread the word. Yeah, If you're a practitioner and you're wanting to grow your business and you think until might be the right space to do it, get in touch. Or if you're a consumer and you've been looking for a dentist, or you've been looking for a health and wellness practitioner and you've not been able to find one, reach out and we'll find you one of our brilliant community.
Amardeep Parmar: 30:44
So thanks so much for coming on today. Have you got any final words for the audience?
Vishal Amin: 30:47
No, I mean well, just I guess for you, Amar, and the audience, I think it's an exciting proposition to be bringing together this community. I think there's tons of talent and yeah, I mean thank you for having me.
Amardeep Parmar: 31:02
Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.
