Raising $1M to Fix Global Supply Chain Risks w/ Mandeep Soor | Bendi

00:00
Mandeep Soor
Most of the things that you kind of set for yourself are totally achievable.

00:03
Amardeep Parmar
That's Mandeep Soor, co founder and CEO of Bendi. They just raised a million dollars to help companies to deal with risk.

00:09
Mandeep Soor
We look at like a hundred different variables and we're helping companies to figure out if that's in their supply chain. Along that it's what. We don't just want to be the bearer of bad news.

00:19
Amardeep Parmar
She's not had a simple journey and there's a lot you can learn from her experience.

00:22
Mandeep Soor
It was very working class. It was like, my parents wanted me to do well at school, but they didn't know how. You don't know the rules.

00:28
Amardeep Parmar
She's worked at places like British Business bank and Lehman Brothers, too.

00:32
Mandeep Soor
Taught me a lot about, like, how to think really positive to giving you those skills. Yeah. Have the audacity to be like, yeah.

00:40
Amardeep Parmar
We cover big mistakes.

00:41
Mandeep Soor
It was a really amazing tech product, but it wasn't useful.

00:46
Amardeep Parmar
And Mandy gets unfiltered on topics like hiring and fundraising, too.

00:50
Mandeep Soor
I shouldn't say these in public. We're just going to be really candid here. Right. So the first thing I wanted to do when I was little, I wanted to be an artist. I think I just, like, enjoyed drawing and painting things. But like most Indian parents, mine were like, no, don't take that. They spent quite a lot of time assuaging me of that particular kind of avenue of life. Yeah.

01:22
Amardeep Parmar
Have you ever, like, picked up again later in life any art bits and bobs?

01:26
Mandeep Soor
Yeah, probably more music than arts or maybe a bit of writing. And I think actually being a founder is really creative, not in the. In a very different way. And you get to be creative with other people. So I think I'm not lacking in creativity in my life. Probably the idea of sitting somewhere and just painting something for like hours and days actually doesn't excite me as much anymore.

01:54
Amardeep Parmar
We've been told up from our hand, artwork in the office. So if you want to draw something for the office or paint something, we'll take it. So obviously you didn't then go to study art. Where did you go and study? What did you then go down?

02:05
Mandeep Soor
I studied economics. I did my undergrad in economics at soa, so it was like economics with a kind of a real focus on developing economics and Southeast Asia. So I didn't. Instead of writing essays about New York, I was writing essays about the Meiji Restoration in Japan, which is fascinating. Or like the Chinese kind of Cultural Revolution and Mao and. Yeah, it's just a fascinating perspective on how the world works and how different economies develop and grow and where growth comes from and how you manufacture growth and yeah, it was a really great place to study that. And then I went on and did philosophy at the lse, which was also really great. Yeah.

02:56
Amardeep Parmar
And so obviously you didn't. You then went from philosophy and to the Southeast Asian. No, philosophy didn't. To Lehman Brothers, which was very famous for their philosophy and their deep thinking.

03:08
Mandeep Soor
No, I did the philosophy a bit later. So I. My original degree was in. I did, I did, yeah, Economics. An undergrad and a masters. And I went to Lehman Brothers because it was a really lucrative role. And, you know, my parents were like, go and go get, go and get paid. Also, I'd funded myself through university, so I was pretty skint by that point. And it was a really fascinating experience. Right. So I was there just before they went down for the credit crisis.

03:44
Amardeep Parmar
So nothing to do with that?

03:45
Mandeep Soor
No, I did. Yeah, I did in my tiny little insignificant way. Like, one of the first things I had to do was structure some mortgage books from Ireland. I didn't know what a mortgage book was. And yeah, reflecting back on it, I'm like, that wasn't great. But it's so interesting when you're surrounded by people who everybody's doing it, you kind of normalise so much of what you do. And yeah, it was just like, oh, well, how do we price the risk? Oh, this makes sense. Okay, I priced it. I've made some models that seems reasonable. You know, 10 months later it's like, okay. I mean, Ireland completely crashed. Much of the world's economies went through like a horrific credit crisis.

04:29
Amardeep Parmar
So what came next? What did you go spins philosophy or did you carry on work?

04:32
Mandeep Soor
No, I carried on in the corporate world. Many of the people that I'd known who'd worked there had gone to become consultants who were then advising banks. So I went, became a consultant. So I moved to bcg. I joined their kind of banking function and I spent almost half a decade there. Really, I think, you know, I think worked with some of the smartest people I've ever met. Also really helpful, just given the kind of background that I'd had. It was kind of an incredible experience. You kind of have somebody who has very little life experience finding ways to recommend how other people should run their business because of, like, well established models. Taught me a lot about, like, how to think.

05:21
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah.

05:21
Mandeep Soor
But eventually I was like, well, I. I care about shareholder value, but I don't know if that's the only thing I care about. And there's a lot of the work that was doing was like cost cutting. So I really wanted to be a lot more involved in growth. I thought that I also really kind of believed in like positive change and I thought the government would be a wonderful place to go and do that. So I moved to the British Business Bank. I was probably the second person to join their strategy team and they just started. I think when I joined it was like less than 100 people.

05:53
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah.

05:53
Mandeep Soor
And when I left it was like 300. They were really like it, you know, doing a huge amount to create, grow venture and early stage funding in the uk. And so I did a range of different stuff there, including working on a co investment fund. And that's where I got the bug for startup, I think. I think when I graduated people weren't like starting companies, especially not so much like from my socioeconomic backgrounds. But yeah, this time like it was like 10 years later or something. It was like I was just meeting all these founders and they were full of so much energy and inspiration. I thought great, I want to do that. I didn't realise I hadn't been to sleep for like five years.

06:32
Amardeep Parmar
I think it's interesting that you said as well because I think a huge part of the startup revolution in the uk, why are more people interested in it now? It's okay, is the incentive has changed and I think now that's why there's been that shift in the last 10 years or so, more great people going to the tech world as opposed to just going straight into finance.

06:49
Mandeep Soor
But also in tech you get to drive change in a way or feel like you're driving change. Whereas when you're in a large corporate, it's really hard to feel like you're moving the needle on something. And when you're at a startup, even if your share of equity is small, you've got something and you've got skin in the game.

07:07
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah.

07:07
Mandeep Soor
And I think that's a wonderful incentive really.

07:09
Amardeep Parmar
And you mentioned about people from your socioeconomic background going into this space.

07:13
Mandeep Soor
Yeah.

07:13
Amardeep Parmar
Tell us a bit more about that. Give us some more context.

07:16
Mandeep Soor
So my parents are pretty working class. I grew up in southeast London which was like very predominantly working class, white. At some point my parents moved to Southall, which anybody who knows is the polar opposite. I think they just had this experience of, I think 70s and 80s in the UK in a white predominant location was quite racially challenging and there. And so they really wanted to move into something that felt like community. So we moved to Southall. It was kind of this interesting realisation for me of like suddenly moving from a white majority environment to a kind of Asian or Indian majority environment. It's almost jarring, actually. It was like, I don't listen to body music and. Yeah. Or just like other things.

08:08
Mandeep Soor
I just didn't have the social capital for that and I didn't have the social capital for the kind of Western world in which I'd grown up in as well. I also spent, like the first few years of my life living india because my mum and my aunt didn't have UK status. So there was a lot of like. I think my parents basically wanted to move back to India back in the day and eventually they just realised that there was no moving back for them. And so then they were like, let's set up shop in. In the closest thing to what is India in the uk, which is south. That if you've been there, it's like you can get by without speaking any English. Like my grandmother, bless her right to the end of her life, didn't speak any English.

08:54
Mandeep Soor
And you can just do that because you can speak Hindi or Punjabi to any shopkeeper and do all the things that you need. But it was very. Was very working class. It was like I. My parents wanted me to do well at school, but they didn't know how. So you'd come home with this, like, problem and they'd be like, okay, work hard on it, but nobody would see how to fix it. So it kind of just like. So there's a lot, I think a lot of that. And I think having mentorship, as I've grown older has been like a really amazing part of, like, growth and support to kind of access different parts of, like, social capital in my life.

09:30
Amardeep Parmar
And you mentioned that as well. So you obviously been a Lehman, you've been a British business bank, which are quite big institutions. Right. And do you feel like that working class background affected you at all in that environment or did not really have any effect there?

09:43
Mandeep Soor
I think sometimes I think one of the greatest, like, dividers that we have is class actually more than race and sometimes. Right. And I'm not saying. But for me it's felt like class has been a bigger divider than race and it. What it gives you is access to. I've said it so many times already, but like, you know people, you have network, you understand concepts, you. You have kind of confidence around things and I think that is a function of lots of stuff. But I think class really becomes One of it. But actually those environments were really positive to giving me those skills that have allowed me to then go and become an entrepreneur and try and build something of my own and yeah, have the audacity to be like, yeah, I reckon I could do it.

10:31
Amardeep Parmar
It's what it is. So I grew up in Ilford originally, right?

10:33
Mandeep Soor
Okay.

10:34
Amardeep Parmar
And it's the whole thing of like how I speak now is very different to how I spoke growing up. And my co founder is from Southall. Right. Because we're basically the most like obviously Asian areas in London we're both from. Right. And coming from that background, I think as I said it's where it's both an advanced and a disadvantage because yeah, you might not have the network growing up and things like that, but it also just means you see things from a different lens and it just like you said, it's like, well, I can do it. And it's just you sometimes have that different environment. You're not as put into the boundaries as maybe other people are because you're not. You haven't grown up with those rules in the same way they have.

11:08
Mandeep Soor
You don't know the rules.

11:09
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah, exactly. I still don't know the rules. Yeah, no, it's like it's part of the reason why BAE HQ works is that we're not, I think so many organisations like us, they're trying so hard to be so kind of uptight and posh which I think is actually quite off putting to a lot of people. Whereas like I'm always probably looking rough and whatever. But it's just that it means that it's just a bit more we're just normal. Right. And that helps people who maybe they feel like belong in other spaces. They'll come to our events but like, okay, these are people who are like me, who I can get along with.

11:38
Amardeep Parmar
And they said it's one element of race based element is that I think class as well of just like I feel comfortable, I don't feel like I need to put on something to be in this room .

11:48
Mandeep Soor
And there's a lot of just like fake it till you make it right. And then you suddenly realise that you're not faking it anymore. This is like where you're at, this is what your life is like. And most of the things that you kind of set for yourself or I'd set for myself, they're totally achievable.

12:04
Amardeep Parmar
And so you mentioned your ideas. Well, the idea is become a founder came British business bank.

12:09
Mandeep Soor
Right.

12:09
Amardeep Parmar
And did you have an idea of what that idea was going to be or you more looking for an idea of what's the problem I want to solve. How did the idea for Bendi come about?

12:18
Mandeep Soor
So the idea for Bendy took a while. I worked at a couple of startups. One was a data science consultancy slash platform. I got to be chief of staff there for the CEO, which I think is a great entryway into learning about all of the parts of a business, right? Everything from hiring to fundraising to firing to kind of, you know, people management to operations and everything. The stuff that I think I don't know if they teach this at school, but certainly when I was there it wasn't something. And maybe they teach you this at business schools, but certainly wasn't something that I knew about. And I love the tech, so I think my perspective was like I was inspired by the potential for growth and I was inspired by the technology.

13:08
Mandeep Soor
And I think I've always been really interested in the tech and so. But were building tech tools for retailers mostly to kind of help them be more profitable with maybe some of their customer data or helping them figure out like where their complaints were. So they're like cutting their costs and that's, it's a pretty interesting problem. But I also wanted to do something with a social agenda and impact and my kind of heart was really into that. And so one of my first co founder Ben, I'd known him from university, from my days at soas, he'd gone and done really different things. He'd worked in climate change policy in Brussels, he'd worked at large carbon accounting companies like cdp and he was at the time working for the supply chain team at Burberry.

14:03
Mandeep Soor
And the kind of challenges that he was having there or that were like, okay, there's something here. And I started like an accelerator while I was still working at Pivigo at the data science place. And then lockdown happened and I think that's when I really started working on this side hustle thing until it became the full hustle. And that first idea was really a consumer facing product. It helped people to choose their products that would be more ethical in some way. But really the data is not that great. So you are using kind of averages and you're not really able to say something very concrete about products. It was a really amazing tech product, but it wasn't useful. And I think that was the first kind of thing.

14:51
Mandeep Soor
It's like you can make a beautiful, elegant product, but if people aren't going to pay for it and it's not really that useful. Then you don't have a business. So that was lesson number one and there's been a lot of lessons ever since. And I think, you know, drilling down to the problem, like really solving something that's painful has been an ongoing journey. I think in some ways I feel like we're doing Bendi 3.0 because we pivoted a couple of times and we're learning every step along the way, you know. And then Oli joined us. We knew we needed someone who was technical, so the third co founder and you know, we've learned. So in fact since he joined we started becoming a lot more successful. So I think that said something for his contribution as well.

15:33
Mandeep Soor
And he'd worked with like, you know, big data at the Economist. He'd worked Circle CI, which makes like dev tools for Deliveroo and Meta. So it was really comfortable in that enterprise SaaS and tech space. So that along with a real, you know, somebody who experienced the commercial problem, hopefully some of my kind of learnings from consultancy and just working with large corporates and what Oli was doing in terms of like enterprise together were like, okay, we can get closer and hone into the problem a bit more.

16:05
Amardeep Parmar
So what is Bendi 3.0? What is it? What if you had to tell people listening right now online what you do?

16:11
Mandeep Soor
So we're helping companies to source and make their products safely. And by safely I mean from suppliers that are don't have risks around environmental and governance and social. So social could be anything like human rights abuses, it could be issues around forced labour and the kind of environmental space we found things around, you know, like a dump of chemicals, for example. And then in the governance space it's, you know, is there something in the corporate structure where actually one of the parent companies or one of the people involved in there is like on a banned entity list, like you know, politically exposed people. So these. We look at like 100 different variables and we're helping companies to figure out if that's in their supply chain. And I think that, you know, along that it's what.

17:03
Mandeep Soor
We don't just want to be the bearer of bad news. Sometimes there's opportunities within that. So if you're not working with this supplier, you could work with this other one. If you're looking to change your supply chain and work in new areas, how can we help you figure out what the risk looks like in that? And risk isn't a bad thing, right? Like Risk is just, I'm willing to take this much risk for this much return and that's what it is like. You might be willing to work in a country with higher risk if the price is low enough and sometimes you might not. So it varies by company, what they're willing to take and what their price point is. Sometimes it's based on quality, sometimes it's based on something else.

17:42
Mandeep Soor
But effectively we're helping them to make and source their products in a safe way.

17:48
Amardeep Parmar
Hello. Hello. Quick introduction to let you know about BAE HQ. We're the community for high growth British Asian entrepreneurs, operators and investors. And you can join completely free at thebaehq.com/join. There you get our CEO pillars. So that's content, events and opportunities direct to your inbox every week so you can get involved and it can help you to further your business and your career. We also have a free startup course called BAE Startup Foundations where if you think about starting a business someday or at the early stages, it gives you all that information to help you hit the ground running and to thrive in this new world. Back to the show. It's one of these things, I think it's one of the scariest things about owning a business, right, is that there's always these random tail risks you don't think about.

18:35
Mandeep Soor
Right.

18:35
Amardeep Parmar
So we've got work experience coming in. Right. Okay. So then we had people come in to assess our workspace and do we have all the sufferers? Like I feel like this, like never heard of that before. It's like all these things but it's like it's really important and I think what you're doing now is obviously there's going to be people, all these businesses or potential clients who are going to missing, like, yeah, I'm really worried about stuff, I have no idea how to go about it. And it's sometimes those things which you don't know are really big opportunities that people miss out on sometimes and they don't look for those problems as much. But when you realise, okay, for these different companies, obviously they're going to want to know this information, then that's where like there's a big market.

19:11
Amardeep Parmar
And I think sometimes people get more obsessed with the consumer side because it's what, I guess what's natural as a consumer. You notice that and that shift towards working more with businesses. How has that been for you in terms of like that initial idea and the evolution?

19:24
Mandeep Soor
I think yes, one bit of advice that someone told me or one of my mentors told me was businesses are people too. You're not selling to the business, you're selling to a person. And before you're even selling to them, you're building some sort of connection is, do you have a problem that you want to solve? And so you're figuring out, are you the person who has the problem that we could help you with? And so, you know, we've talked to lots of different people around that, whether it's like the sustainability person or the procurement person. Recently, we're starting, you know, we're talking to risk managers. It's a multi, you know, it's a multifaceted problem, but it requires lots of different people and you're building connections with those individuals rather than looking at it like, does this company.

20:12
Mandeep Soor
Of course, if the company's like, goal and agenda is completely not aligned with what we're doing, then yeah, sure, that makes sense. But I think you have to treat in each individual as a person and connect with them and their needs and what is it they're trying to achieve in their job and can I help them do that?

20:32
Amardeep Parmar
And obviously you have to do it at the beginning. Right. You're talking to different people at different companies to work out who's the right person to talk to. Is this a problem that needs solving? Are people willing to pay for this? How did you go about that as well, of getting the research about this side of things?

20:46
Mandeep Soor
I was still doing, it is the real truth. And we've gotten much better at it. Like, I think we had a phase where we had a third party go and do a bunch of interviews with us, and they're for us because we thought, okay, if we do the interviews, people might lie to us. And so we had other people test drive the product, but also do a bunch of interviews. But the things when you're not quite, you're not there, you're sort of removed and you're not able to ask maybe the questions that you might have or ingesting it in the same way. So, yeah, you can have all these. There's all sorts of pros and cons around this. Like, one of the things that I'm recently learning is when you're talking to customers, especially before you know they're your customer, it's less about a.

21:35
Mandeep Soor
You're kind of using the techniques that you do almost like an interrogation. You're trying to dig into the thing that they really care about and just give them lots and lots of space to be able to talk about it every single person we speak to are like, hey, can you introduce us to two more people? That has been really fruitful because you have a bunch of assumptions and you're building credence for or against those assumptions constantly. And that helps you then define your next feature, your product roadmap, everything comes from that.

22:05
Amardeep Parmar
And obviously you mentioned there about bringing Oli on and you've been going the team quite significantly in the last couple of years as well.

22:11
Mandeep Soor
I mean, we're still only 10 people.

22:13
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah, I mean from two people.

22:15
Mandeep Soor
Yes, that's by that. Yeah.

22:17
Amardeep Parmar
So how's that experience of being a chief of staff been able to help you there? And like, what do you look for when you're trying to grow the team and find the right people?

22:26
Mandeep Soor
Yeah, I think being like the co founder, leader of a small startup is super tough because you basically need people who will, I think in a normal environment. And I definitely did this when you just could be really candid here. Right. I think in the beginning of Bendy, I really wanted to help people grow. And we still do that. We take interns and I think, as you were saying, giving people job experience and I think that's, you know, it's a fantastic thing to do. But you're taking away from some of the kind of bandwidth that you would have about growing the business. Especially the person has to be like almost carved perfectly to help grow the business. And that's what you're looking for.

23:12
Mandeep Soor
You're like, are you the kind of person that's going to like, is it going to take me a huge amount of effort to help you grow or are you going to hit the floor running and help the business grow? And that's it. You just figuring that out. And if they ask lots of really smart questions like how does my role fit in with the big agenda? How does this help you achieve X, Y, Z? You know, I've had people who like barely 20 ask me, well, if I do this, you know, how does big. How does high level decision making work with that? And I'm like, okay, great, you've got the right attitude, right?

23:43
Amardeep Parmar
Yes.

23:44
Mandeep Soor
Whereas the person who's like, I don't know even, who even has an MBA, frankly? And then I've interviewed them and they said, okay, well what do you think of this? Do you think this is what you're looking for? It's like, oh, it's probably not the right fit. I don't know, it's. I need you to come in and be like, I think this is what we should do. And here are my three reasons why. And then I'm like, okay, let's do it. Yeah. It's ruthless in that way.

24:08
Amardeep Parmar
I think a huge part of me, like you said, is, are they making an effort to understand how things fit together?

24:12
Mandeep Soor
Yeah.

24:13
Amardeep Parmar
Or is it this? I need to take this box. Because in a corporate you can tick a box, right. And it's like, okay, this is my job, I need to do this. Right. But when everything is moving so fast, you've got some, you need somebody who's going to think, okay, in three months time, I'm going to be there. Is what I'm doing. How is it relevant to what, where we're going to be, not just where we are today. Yeah, because it is that constant growth and the change. Right.

24:32
Mandeep Soor
Yeah.

24:33
Amardeep Parmar
And obviously in the last year, I think it's what October was it when you did your race. Right. And how is that experience as well? Because that was the first time you've done that, right? To that larger extent.

24:44
Mandeep Soor
Yeah. So when were raising, that was predominantly what were doing. Like before that, I would say research laboratory. We're building a product and you're taking lots of information and we're kind of trying to do a few pilots and get enough like validation for that to go and do a raise. Then it was like full guns blazing. All I did was raise once the raise was done higher. So all I did was like interviews upon interviews for several months while also trying. And now predominantly all I do is sales. So every three months my job has completely changed.

25:20
Amardeep Parmar
What's your favourite season of that?

25:24
Mandeep Soor
I'm quite enjoying the current season, actually. I, I, I've never done it before.

25:30
Amardeep Parmar
Probably should. We can cut there.

25:32
Mandeep Soor
But I'm no, right. I say, I think not in this way. So I think in consulting, yes, some extent. But you walk in and people don't even care what my name is. They're like, where did you work? And you say these like, few initials or like the letters and then they open the door and now it's like, oh, hi, I'm Mandeep from Bendi. And they're like, who? From where? Like, it's like you really have to justify yourself and you just really, I thinking about so much empathy around what it is that you're trying to do and who you're trying to help. And that's super interesting. And it's also quite, I would say tactical as well, which I quite like.

26:12
Mandeep Soor
And you're reinventing who you are, which I think given where I started from in my life, I'm like, there's a bit of me that really enjoys this reinvention.

26:20
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah.

26:20
Mandeep Soor
So now it's like, okay, sales head of sales. Okay, that's the new me. Great. Let's, let's figure out what that looks like and let's try and be good at that.

26:28
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah. Because I see it a lot with pitch decks, for example, right. Of somebody starting a business like X Goldman Sachs or X this, X that. And it's like you've got to work out how is that relevant to like the next bit of the story. Right. And you see all the time and it's when somebody's come from that corporate background, sometimes like you said, they've been able to rely on, they can get a door open just because of those initials. Whereas when it's a startup, it's like they're not just going to invest in you just because of somewhere you worked for two months 10 years ago. And I think it's quite a good learning process. Right. You then got to, like you said, understand, how do I actually show what I'm doing is valuable or is making a difference here?

27:02
Amardeep Parmar
And what was obviously for you when you were doing that at the beginning, what was some of your biggest learnings that you found got more effective at pitching later on? Like, how did you hone that pitch over time?

27:13
Mandeep Soor
It's a never ending honing of learning new things and learning how to talk differently to different people. I think that's probably one of the best learnings that I've had. Don't try and use the same thing on everyone. That doesn't work. Maybe some people would disagree, but I feel that this whole experience has made me a much better listener. When I started, it was like, hey, I've got this thing to offer you. Are you interested? Whatever. I've had 30 people do the same thing to me in the last like two months. So that's not great. Instead, if I, you know, offer myself as that like therapist at work, so what is, what's the challenge for you? What's painful about that? You know, how badly do you want to fix it? What have you tried? And, and that's a really different approach.

28:07
Mandeep Soor
And I find that is working much better. And the goal is not to just like get in there and sell. Our goal is to really understand. So it's just a completely different perspective. I think sales has got a bad, like rap. Right. But if we change that to empathy and understanding of a problem deeply. Then I think the thing, once you can get to that, the next bit is pretty straightforward.

28:37
Amardeep Parmar
So looking at the next bit, right. So what we're saying to people now. So we're over 200 episodes in for this podcast. Right. So we started to now get the people in right at the very beginning.

28:45
Mandeep Soor
Yeah.

28:46
Amardeep Parmar
And like some of them ask like, oh, where are you going to? Where do you want to see yourself in the future? Where do you see your company going? So now it's going to be in 200 episodes time. Let's say you're sitting here again. What do you hope that you could say, okay, Bendi's achieved this?

28:58
Mandeep Soor
I mean, I think there's a few different things, but one thing that I would really like for us at Bendy is to have product market fit. Right. We're trying a bunch of different things and it's about seeing which one sticks, which one fits perfectly because that allows you to scale. So I think if there was a two in two years time, I would hope that we would have done the next round of raise with something that looks like clear product market fits from a kind of Bendi perspective on a personal perspective. I hope that my role changes again. All right. I think what I'm doing now will probably be redundant in some way. It'll be a completely different group of people who are then running the kind of, I would say sales momentum for us. Yeah. Which also feels kind of exciting.

29:50
Mandeep Soor
I think the really exciting thing about startup.

29:51
Mandeep Soor
Right.

29:52
Mandeep Soor
Is you're constantly changing and you're growing. So growth.

29:57
Amardeep Parmar
Because now we're going to try and do is like so in two years time we'll show you that little clip.

30:02
Mandeep Soor
Okay.

30:02
Amardeep Parmar
And you can then see like, okay, did I get it or not get it?

30:05
Mandeep Soor
Yeah.

30:05
Amardeep Parmar
Like what went differently to what you expected as well.

30:08
Mandeep Soor
Yeah.

30:09
Amardeep Parmar
But what would you say today is like you most proud about with Bendi?

30:13
Mandeep Soor
It's really, actually really good point. I'm just going to go back to this other point around the two years because I did something like that for one year where I wrote an email and then it sends you the email in the year. And that was. Was equally fascinating the thing. Yeah. So I was, I keep thinking that I'm gonna do like something like with me and my partner, we should do that on annual basis. But it's a good idea. So I think we're a really humble team who as a group of founders, I think we've learned a huge amount together and we're really able to kind of take on learnings and be resilient.

30:49
Mandeep Soor
I think some of the things that we've been through, I've seen others completely crumble and you know, there's something about building a working kind of relationship where no matter what, you can kind of see the other person's point of view and you can learn from each other constantly. And we're so different, I think, both as people but also as our backgrounds, which that diversity can be a accelerator of growth, but it can also be quite a source of friction at times.

31:24
Amardeep Parmar
Right.

31:24
Mandeep Soor
Because if you all agree on the same thing, then you never had any problems. But if you disagree, then people can see different things and that can really build in opportunities, which I think has been our absolute strength. And we've never let it get to the point where we're like, no, I disagree with you so much, I'm walking away. Which I've seen. I think it's one of the top three reasons why startups fail. And I've seen it sadly, many times.

31:49
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah. And it's one of those funny things we always tell people, you should get a co founder agreement, but me and Gurvir don't have one ourselves. So as I say, not as I do. Yeah.

31:58
Mandeep Soor
Yeah. We never got one until our investors asked for one in the last round and the lead investor was like, you've.

32:03
Mandeep Soor
Got to do one.

32:03
Mandeep Soor
We're like, what's this? Yeah, okay, we'll do it.

32:05
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah. So obviously as well, like social impact is a big part of this view. Right. And how, by the technology you're providing and how that's going to help companies do things in a better way. Right. And what's the impact you've made so far and what some of the impact you hope to make?

32:19
Mandeep Soor
I think so far it's mostly, if I'm completely honest, it's mostly, you know, it's been a regulatory requirement. Right. So there are some companies who are, who really want to do it because they believe that this is the right thing. But it's mostly been driven by, I don't want my product to be stopped at border, I don't want, blah, blah. I need to complete this sort of assessment and I think that's the reality that we see in the future. Some of the things that we're really hoping to do is bring in some of the most. So far it's been a lot of, okay, this is something bad that's happened. But once we bring in something around, more about what positive things suppliers can do then it will hopefully bring flights to the best, but also allow suppliers to kind of improve conditions.

33:06
Mandeep Soor
One of the things that we're also quite interested in is the once you find an issue, this long term remediation piece, we haven't actually been part of that yet, but it's something that we've explored and I find really interesting. So you find a risk. Maybe there was some workplace issues, but you don't stop working with a supplier. You try to get a third party in. Maybe there's some management training, maybe there's some upskilling of staff and in that way you work with them six months, eight months to do better. And I think that actually really changes the playing field.

33:41
Amardeep Parmar
Okay, so we're going to jump into quick fire questions now. Okay, so first one which you're prepared for now is who are free British Asians or Asians in Britain you think are doing incredible work and you'd love to shout them out?

33:53
Mandeep Soor
Okay. Probably the Mayor of London, I think Sadiq Khan's amazing. I've always been a really big fan. Another would be  Shanika Amarasekara who is actually both a ex boss at the BBB and mentor and then also one of my first investors. You know when you're like is anybody going to invest IT assets? She say, oh, I'll invest you. That was that moment. We were like, maybe we're onto something. I shouldn't say these in public. Right. And she's just been a great supporter.

34:27
Amardeep Parmar
I think a lot of people have that worry in their heads, right?

34:29
Mandeep Soor
I, I think at the beginning it's amazing. I see this real split and I don't know how that division, I think it doesn't play out in the end. Now I'm like this is great. But asked me like four years ago, I was like, I'm not sure. And another person I'd love to shout out is a dear friend of mine but also an amazing writer is Shahroo Izadi . She's written a beautiful book called the Kindness Method. I can really recommend it. She's another one as well, like the last diet and she wonderful,  works in the space of addiction and self care. So big up.

35:05
Amardeep Parmar
And then if people want to find out more about you, more about Bendi, where do they go to?

35:09
Mandeep Soor
They can go on my website, they can contact me on LinkedIn, they can.

35:13
Amardeep Parmar
What's your website?

35:15
Mandeep Soor
www.bendi.ai. So B E N D I.

35:20
Amardeep Parmar
And is there anything that you need help with right now that the audience listening might be able to help you with.

35:24
Mandeep Soor
Yeah, I think always. Right. We doing lots and lots of interviews at the moment, as I was saying, with people in procurement, with people in sourcing. So if you work at or you know someone who works at a company and you have a sourcing role, you have a procurement role, we'd love to chat to you. That would be super helpful. If there's anything I can do in return. Really happy to do that as well. In fact, just at your events yesterday, this kind of conversation happens and then the guy was like, oh, I'm thinking of starting something of my own business and I would love to connect. So we already connected today and going to grab a coffee. So I think network is fantastic.

36:07
Amardeep Parmar
So really enjoyed having you on today.

36:08
Mandeep Soor
Thank you very much.

36:09
Amardeep Parmar
Have you got any final words?

36:11
Mandeep Soor
I mean, if I get to have a fourth person, then it could be you for sure. I think you're doing really fantastic work with the Asian community. And yeah, big shout out.

36:21
Amardeep Parmar
Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time. 

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