The BAE HQ Q2 2023 Announcements Including First Partner!

Amardeep Parmar: [00:00:00] I can look like straight down the camera and like, this is going to the moon and I'm gonna make sure it goes to the moon. Like, we've got Gurvir, we've got the board, we've got these other people joining us. Like, this is gonna go exactly where we want it to go. They had a few people call it the event of the year, lots of people kept in touch afterwards.

Amardeep Parmar: Is we've got our first official partner. What you'll see is a situation, which it might have changed by the time this comes out, but it'll be Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And that's where we're looking at the moment, right? This is, uh, we're still in the first year of what we've been doing. And that's crazy, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Think about it. What I would say is that the genuine people are reaching out because they care about what we're doing. That's what I want to hear from. Right. So let's go. Hello.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello. And welcome to the BAE HQ quarter two review of 2023. I've got a bunch of exciting announcements for this episode. So make sure you pay attention and there's lots of different ways you can get involved. And we're doing a lot more with the community now. And I'm really excited about where we're heading.

Amardeep Parmar: If you're joining us for the first time, you don't even know what the BAE HQ is. We're an organization designed to inspire, connect and guide. The next generation of [00:01:00] British Asians. Let me quickly give you a quarter to review, right? So before we get into all the exciting things, we'll call it a three. So what have we had in these three months?

Amardeep Parmar: That's from April to June. You can see, I should have prepared this beforehand. So we had our launch event at borders and capital. Which had 70 people, like, which is all lots of podcast guests, lots of people who've really scaled their businesses. And the feedback we got from that was amazing, right? Like I think they had a few people call it the event of the year.

Amardeep Parmar: Lots of people kept in touch afterwards. It was very curated because every single person in that room, even you meet or go of it, which meant that we could vouch for every person. And that's so important because as you guys know, you go to a lot of networking events, people are a bit slimy, people are a bit, it's not fun, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So because we had that connection, what we could do in that room is connect people together. And that was private and the reason for that is just to make sure that everybody got value from that, right? Because we could, like you said, creators, we can make sure that everybody is helping each other out and are there for the right reasons too.[00:02:00] 

Amardeep Parmar: So that was huge for us. It was with, it's at Bulletin Capital with Future VC helping us out as well. And yeah, it was very important milestone for us just to see all those people in that room. Me and Gerva got up on stage and gave a presentation about what we're doing and just, it was a night of a lot of like, we felt the love a lot, so thank you to everybody who came to that event.

Amardeep Parmar: We've also done a live podcast episode with Asad Hamir, which should be out by now I'm hoping, and that was at the British International Franchise Exhibition. Bit of a tongue twister name, but I think I got it right. And that was a new experience for me, right? Because I've done lots of talking to the camera.

Amardeep Parmar: It's also funny now, so like, I'm just literally sitting in a room with a bunch of cameras here, but I'm now used to it. But this sort of freaked me out a little while ago. It was an interesting event because you had the people there in the room. who we're all trying to learn and is in the middle of this massive conference centre, the Olympia.

Amardeep Parmar: So there's like thousands of people walking through and it was just a very overwhelming experience for me sitting on the stage with Asad to look out and to see so many people. But it went really well and we should be at the event as well in Birmingham in October. So [00:03:00] if you're a Brummie, keep an eye out for that.

Amardeep Parmar: What else did we have? So we've had, of course, incredible podcast guests coming on. We've had so much stuff behind the scenes which we're going to announce. So that's going to be in the announcements. You know what, let's get to the announcements now. The first one and most exciting one I'd say is we've got our first official partner, which is Desi City run by Tani Atwal.

Amardeep Parmar: And he's been on the podcast before and he's one of those guys, obviously I meet so many people and I interview them and all those different podcast guests, but here's somebody who, as soon as he met you, met us, straight away went for a hug. Like he just had this warmth about him. He really backs us. He's always been supporting us for like what we've been doing.

Amardeep Parmar: And there's actually a funny story, which He likes to tell a lot, so I'll tell it on his behalf and own up to my mistakes. So the first time we contacted each other, so Tiny messaged me off his private account and he's got like, he doesn't have a full face in his picture. So I was like, I don't know who this guy is.

Amardeep Parmar: And he was like, Oh bro, we'd love to like get involved. And I was like, cause [00:04:00] I don't, I couldn't see any details. So I was like, I don't know who this person is. So I was like, Oh, like give me a bit more detail and things like that. And at that point, we weren't really ready for a partnership yet. Cause what we wanted to do, we've been very clear about this is make sure we built up to a stage where we are now, where we're already what 50 episodes in 60 episodes in, which means that we've got a true bank of like, we're here to stay.

Amardeep Parmar: We've been doing this solidly, we're fully committed and it's different. Something at the beginning, right? It's like, maybe somebody gives up, maybe I don't. This isn't going anywhere. This is going to be here for the next 30, 40 years, as long as I'm around. And it should be carried on by more and more people where it's not just dependent on me and Gervir.

Amardeep Parmar: He always brings it up because he wanted to come on the podcast and I didn't really know who he was and he didn't really give me much to go off. Then I talked to him properly later on and like the guy's amazing. He's been on the podcast. You can listen to the episodes. If you search for. If you go to a website and search for Destiny City, where you search for Tarn Beer, you'll be able to find the episode.

Amardeep Parmar: But it was his first ever episode and like, you can tell he's nervous, right? He's like, his [00:05:00] brother Kenny was in the room too, but he smashed it. And that's what he's been doing, right? He hasn't had the traditional path to entrepreneurship through grit, through hard work, through making good decisions, through just being a good person as well, like a people person, right?

Amardeep Parmar: He's building out that business. They've raised several million to like, expand across the world. Should take what they do as well. So It's very good alignment with us as well. So Desi City, what is an e commerce platform for like Asian, South Asian in particular brands, where sometimes people know you have to go to certain streets and certain areas.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's always accessible for people, especially people from like other areas. People have got busy lives. people who are maybe not physically able as well. And they didn't really exist online where people could get these goods easily. And that's what DestinyCity does. So they've got thousands of different businesses signed up to the website.

Amardeep Parmar: So make sure you check it out at DestinyCity. com and you can find everything all about them. For us, obviously, we're talking to lots of different people about partnership, [00:06:00] but what we really wanted is somebody who's got the same alignment, right? Who actually cares. About uplifting the community and bringing people together and like tiny is that guy.

Amardeep Parmar: So that's first big exciting news is that we have a first partner. It's people who really care about what we're doing, care about the mission, because I'll be honest, like I'm having a lot of conversations, different people who only care about. They return on their investment. They pretend to care about helping others.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's quite disheartening to British, right? When you think everybody got on their website about how diversity and how they want to see other people succeed, then you talk to them a bit more. It's like, well, how am I going to make money out of this? And it's like, that's not the brand you're putting forward.

Amardeep Parmar: But Tan is the guy of his word. And I'm never going to forget. Well, me and Gav, we're never going to forget that they're the ones who backed us first and they're the belief in us. And that really does mean a lot. So tiny's obviously listening to this, like massive thank you to you. And for everybody else listening, make sure to check out the website, make sure to check out what they're doing because they're going to go places.

Amardeep Parmar: And I'm glad that they're involved with us. Second big announcement. So as this podcast has grown, right? So now [00:07:00] we have a huge backlog of people wanting to come on people who we want on. And then it's difficult to manage, right? This reality of it, right? Recording in this studio, this obviously costs money.

Amardeep Parmar: There's a limited amount of time I have. And what we've got to do in that case is just keep upping the bar, right? Because I always tell people this as well. This podcast isn't about helping the guests so much, right? We want the guests to come on because they care about helping you. And what he said in a lot of other podcasts, and like I've experienced so much myself, is that people want to come on to promote themselves, make themselves look good.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's all about them, them, them, them, right? I don't want those people. I want the people who've made it. The people who've been through the hardships. They've got some battle scars, and they can come on here without really having anything in it for themselves other than then paying it forward. Right.

Amardeep Parmar: And we've had people on such as like a Sesh Sarkar whose company has raised hundreds of millions of pounds. He doesn't need this podcast, but he cared about helping people. And like, that's the people that I care about. That's the people we want on this podcast. Right. We've up there like levels of people coming on the podcast [00:08:00] and it's.

Amardeep Parmar: Going more towards people who've scaled like major businesses, right? And we've got like about 30 or 40 people lined up. So that takes us into towards the end of the year, right? And some incredible people coming on soon. We've had some incredible people on. But what that obviously means is that we can't showcase everybody.

Amardeep Parmar: And this is obviously a challenge. One of the hardest thing about what I do is that people message, want to come on and often have to say no. With that, what are we doing now? So. So we're making it three episodes a week, right? And this, by the time this episode comes out, you'll have had the first of the creates.

Amardeep Parmar: So what you'll see is a situation, which it might have changed by the time this comes out, but it'll be Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So Monday will be what we call labs. And those labs will be people who are Either C suite, VPs, or like head of divisions at startups or scale ups or major companies where they're not necessarily a founder, but they've got a lot of value to add to people who want to start their own business.

Amardeep Parmar: So let's say [00:09:00] somebody who is the head of people at a major startup, right? They can tell people, founders, other people listening right now about how to really nail down the area, how to get the right people into your company. Somebody's a. CMO, somebody who's a chief marketing officer, they can give their advice for somebody who's trying to grow their business as well.

Amardeep Parmar: Right. And it will say for you guys, right? Not all of you want to become founders. We appreciate that. And being an entrepreneur, being a founder, isn't the only path. It's just a path that often isn't talked about very much that we want to just share, particularly in the British Asian community. But if you're excited by hyper growth, by people doing these really innovative things.

Amardeep Parmar: You can still get involved in those companies without being a founder. So the labs are based on that. They will be on Monday lunchtimes. The basis of this is that we know that a lot of people working from home on Mondays and Fridays at the moment. So that means that while you're working from home, you can sit back, relax in your lunch hour, listen to somebody who's done incredible things and give you really practical advice and tactical advice that you can actually [00:10:00] implement and use in your own career, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Because let's say you're a product manager, right? You can listen to a chief product officer. and other company and hear their advice, which helps you in your career. And it's just that whole thing about paying it forward, right? Getting these incredible people on to pay it forward and see all of us succeed together.

Amardeep Parmar: Wednesday will be the podcast that you're used to. So this kind of thing right now, where it will be those guests have scaled. So it's also very crucial thing where I talk about Wednesday scale as opposed to success. So Success is very subjective, right? And if you look at some people who are coming on soon.

Amardeep Parmar: So we've got a guy called Saranga coming on, who's a venture capitalist who has 6 billion assets under management. Then we have other people who've won TV shows. We've had all these people who've done very good things in their own niche. And we're trying to get the top and the cream of the crop of all those people.

Amardeep Parmar: And what will also be released by this time as well as a quiz. So you go through that quiz and that can tell you, like you put in your different details and it'll tell you where we could potentially share your story. But that podcast will be focusing on that, [00:11:00] that cream of the crop, the people who made it to the very top, who are mainly coming on to, like I said, give it back to be able to help you.

Amardeep Parmar: From my perspective, that's super exciting. I'm gonna get to talk to some incredible people and some of the best things about what I do, right, is. I get to speak to these people, meet them in real life. And also I get to understand their values and their mission because some of these people, like most of them, to be honest, they've got such good hearts and they are trying to help.

Amardeep Parmar: But what we can be is the conduit to actually, they can help through us rather than having to organize all themselves. So that Wednesday episode, that'll be the podcast you're used to. Friday will be what we call Create. And I'm calling it Create with an eight, just as a shorter in the podcast title.

Amardeep Parmar: That's the reason behind that. So you've got lab Monday, create on Friday. And when you look for the podcast in like Apple or Spotify, and if you're listening as well, give us a five star review if you've made it this far. What you want to do is you can see like which kind of thing you're interested in.

Amardeep Parmar: If you're interested in the more lab side, you can watch the lab episodes and you'll be able to see it in the episode name. So create will [00:12:00] be with creators. You can see what I did there. And those episodes will have, what we're saying is 25, 000 followers minimum. And the reason behind that is not that people have got less than 25, 000 followers or any less valuable.

Amardeep Parmar: It's just the sheer amount of volume of people we have, right? There's so many people who want to come on and we want to showcase. But it's very difficult for us to manage so many people, right? We can't like, we'll have a backlog of months worth of episodes right at the very start. So if we start with, say people got 25, 000, it indicates they've been working at it for some time.

Amardeep Parmar: They've really hit a chord somewhere. And that means that like, they're not just like had a lucky beginning or anything like that. And you can see that people are resonating with their message. And again, it's an arbitrary line, completely appreciate that. But from our perspective, we've got to manage it somehow, right?

Amardeep Parmar: We're a small team. We've got to manage that and that could change in the future. But if there's anybody you want us to get on for any of those episodes, let us know. Right. Because a lot of people ask on themselves, but if we're getting from different people in the audience, being like, Oh, [00:13:00] into that person, that'd be amazing.

Amardeep Parmar: And we keep getting that. That's the feedback we want, right? Like, who do you look up to? And that comes to other points in terms of, say, like, charity work and things like that, is that we're growing. At the moment, I focus on entrepreneurship. And again, it doesn't mean that there's other people aren't doing great work.

Amardeep Parmar: It's just that we can't be everywhere at once. So there's other things we can launch in the future. In different verticals as we scale the team, as we get more funding on board, but at the moment, we're focused on those three verticals as in a way to enable us to grow. The more we grow, the more impact we can make.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's, we're looking at the moment, right? This is a, we're still in the first year of what we've been doing. And that's crazy, right? Think about it. This time last year, the Bay HQ name didn't even exist, right? So we're on, I'm recording this in June 17th, no June 19th. And this would be released, I think, July the 5th.

Amardeep Parmar: So July 27th. In 2022, I went to an event. At that event, I was very bored and that's where we came up with the BHQ name. If you put that trajectory of like who you've been able to [00:14:00] interview, who you've been able to get in touch with, it's been like a rocket ship and there's so much more coming, which is why I need to announce now and stop rambling.

Amardeep Parmar: Another grouping of announcements now is around the team for the BHQ. So, most of you probably know me if you've been listening for a little time because I'm obviously in the podcast. I'm not the BHQ by myself, right? It does feel like my life and BHQ is very much squished together a lot, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Amardeep Parmar: So there's my co founder Gerva. So at the beginning of this journey, both of us were full time on this, but at the moment for like financial responsibilities and different things going on in his life, Gerva has also got a day job now, right? So it doesn't mean it's any less committed to the cause. But it does mean that things have changed in terms of how we work and things like that.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's why it's just me today, right? Recording this episode. What Gerver can then do is leverage that experience he's getting at his company and open up different doors in different ways. And for me, it's been such a great thing to have him along this journey too. And even though you might not see his face as much during the daytime, it's because that's the reality of it, [00:15:00] right?

Amardeep Parmar: Is co found relationships are interesting. And we've had to manage different things because we both have this. Deep passion to do what we're doing right and working out that scaling aspects and like how which bits were both best form things like that has been really interesting. So Gervais stepping more into a CFO sort of role, whereas I'm going more into a CEO role now, right?

Amardeep Parmar: And that doesn't mean it's always going to be like that, but it's just what makes sense at the moment because I have more time available and I'm able to give more of myself at the moment, whereas Gervais, there's other responsibilities. But it can really use this skill that's built up through the private markets and being at Kindred Capital, Pantheon Ventures, wherever he's been, that he can really own that part, especially with people looking to get investment, for example.

Amardeep Parmar: So us two there as the co founders, then we've also got the board, right? So picking a board when you've got. Such incredible people on the network as we have is really difficult. So what we did is both of us looked at who's the people that we got along with really well, who brings something a bit different and who kind of shown like they keep supporting us.

Amardeep Parmar: And they're even before like they'd get on calls with us and things like [00:16:00] that. So it's also trying not to have too many people because it gets confusing. So there's tons of people who've been on the podcast. People on the network have been really helpful. But just for the board aspect, we wanted to keep it to.

Amardeep Parmar: A small number of people who we can be in touch with regularly was if you've got too many people, it just becomes really hard to organize. So that's my caveats there for any podcast guests who've been offended. So first we have, let's go for Dimple Patel, right? So we're doing a live podcast. We would have, by the time this has come out, we've done the live podcast with her on June 26, but Dimple came on the podcast.

Amardeep Parmar: She's an amazing guest and her story is just nuts, right? She came from a council of states being the CEO. of a major company that's raised like tens of millions. She brings in the aspect of, because she was, she's really good at the operational side of things. So she was the COO of Truva. She turned around things and her depth of experience and also just the manner in which she delivers it, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So she'll listen, give advice, give guidance. She's like fully behind us. And that's [00:17:00] such a privilege to have someone like her on our board. Who really cares and has really got, she does like 20, 50, 000 times more than I do. And it really helps like it from our perspective to have something like her there is like amazing.

Amardeep Parmar: We also have Dr. Vinita Ratan. So she's also been on the podcast and she brings something very different to Dimple, right? It's very successful in her own right, but in a different kind of field. So she brings in that one massive, such a lovely person. I, I can say this. She's probably going to listen to this as well.

Amardeep Parmar: Before I met her, I was a little bit worried because sometimes people who've got big followings, they can be a bit, you know, you don't know, right? You're not sure what to expect from them in real life. She's 10 times nicer than I could have ever expected. Right. And I felt bad for like thinking, Oh, maybe she's going to be a bit funny.

Amardeep Parmar: She's so lovely, like really supportive. And she's been like, just giving a whole heart to what we're doing as well. So she obviously has the aspects of like very good speaker, very good charisma, very good at building a connection with the audience, [00:18:00] understanding the audience. What people forget as well is her business is actually really thriving.

Amardeep Parmar: Like I can't give you the numbers because that's not my place to do it. It's a very good business that's built herself. There's no funding. There's nothing like that. It's not a venture scale business. They're doing really well. So she brings that different aspect. Think about as. Dimple Patel has coffee shop background that she grew out.

Amardeep Parmar: Then she then had the venture scale business that she then had got acquired. Whereas Vinita brings the other side of the audience building side that and also a business that's thriving from being like profitable and making money the old fashioned way, right? Then the final person is Jay Goodrell. So again, he's been on the podcast too.

Amardeep Parmar: Really great guest and I didn't actually know this but he grew up quite close to where I did. So we've got quite a few friends in common. Very warm and if you look at his CV, if you go and look at his LinkedIn, it's nuts. Who he's worked with and the different Responsibilities is taken on. So at the moment, here's the managing director of Blockdojo, [00:19:00] and they're one of the UK's biggest accelerators.

Amardeep Parmar: An accelerator for people who don't know what it means is that people join the accelerator and it accelerates them, right? It makes them grow faster, helps them get funding, helps them really take it to the next level. And Just seeing him on stage and going to some of his events and the network is built.

Amardeep Parmar: The is also his style. I really like as well. So he's like, no BS. He gets down to it and he's, you can see where, why he's got to where he's got to, but they all bring something different. Each of those different people we have. Right. So Jay has helped so many other people, the businesses and taking that leadership role and very good mentor in that way.

Amardeep Parmar: So really, really privileged to have them on board. I'm hoping they're listening to this and thank you all for supporting us. It really means a lot. So. So you've got me and Gav here as the co founders, the board is Dimple Patel, Dr. Vinita Ratan and Jay Goodrell. Then we've also got a wider team, which is being built up as we speak.

Amardeep Parmar: So Amir, who's going to be editing this [00:20:00] podcast, so he's going to be listening to this right now. He's been our video editor. So at the beginning, I was doing all the editing myself, which is obviously very time consuming, but it's also a skill that I can teach and what I've been doing with Amir, he's Already had video experience, but I've been working with him to hone it into the way that we like the episodes to come out.

Amardeep Parmar: Taking on a lot of feedback. So one thing about me is like, obviously I have very high standards. So we've been training him up, getting him better and better. And you can see that improvement, right? And it's also working together in a small team where it's difficult, right? Cause there's a lot of responsibility too.

Amardeep Parmar: Great to have Amir on board and hopefully he goes with us too. Then we also have Naeem. Naeem is from, he works at HSBC innovation banking at the moment. And what Naeem is going to do is organizing the sports side of things, right? So we're probably gonna have somebody else join him pretty soon. So we have like a mix of people with that.

Amardeep Parmar: And what he's going to do is like he's organizing the football, but there'll be other stuff in the future too, he can get involved as well. Then we've got a bunch more people I've interviewed recently. So we've had about 10 interviews. They're all coming on board and [00:21:00] I can't, can't quite announce that yet At the time of recording, I haven't formalized anything with them, but we'll be posting them on page two and like giving you an insight into who's helping us out there.

Amardeep Parmar: From our perspective, we sent out a call for volunteers and interns and the response is really good. Yeah, that's been amazing. So really happy with that. Really had some great conversations, some up and coming people who have that hunger and want to help run the community. So like my heart feels very fair at the moment with those people.

Amardeep Parmar: Another announcement is our book club. So what we're doing as well now, so obviously a lot of people who listen to this podcast are also likely to be readers, right? Because you'll care about growth. You care about learning, care about getting better. And what we're doing on that front is we've now got a book club.

Amardeep Parmar: So it's a five or six people in at the moment where we're going to do is each of these people, we're going to send them Books are free by British Asian authors, especially in the personal development, business and memoir categories. So we're not boiling the ocean here, right? There's no fiction because it's [00:22:00] got to be related to what our mission is, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Our mission is to help people grow businesses and to believe in themselves. So our focus is there. I know some people were listening like, Oh, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? But you've got to remember resources wise, we've got to really focus on what our mission is. And later on we can expand and do different things, but our book club right now is focused on that area.

Amardeep Parmar: What they're going to do is they're going to get us in the book, they're going to write up their lessons on it, and their favourite quotes. And then we're going to publish it on our website and like share it on our LinkedIn and like across our social media. What that's doing is one is getting a group of people together who are ambitious, who care about growth, making them into a little circle of people who can grow together.

Amardeep Parmar: But for you, it means that you can't always have the time to read every book, right? But you can read the lessons from people who are like you from a similar background and a different stage of their career to get those lessons. And you can decide then whether or not you want to actually read the full book or not.

Amardeep Parmar: I always advise you because I want to support the authors, right? I want you to buy their books. And that way you can like share it around. And what we'll also probably do [00:23:00] and get people to do is. If they, if we buy them the book, they can also share it with their friends. So you get more and more people reading these stories by these great British Asian authors.

Amardeep Parmar: And to me, that's quite exciting because it's a nice, easy way for us to get people to, it's a win win situation, right? If that the people writing the content, they get a free book, they get to learn. We get content for helping you guys and the authors get promoted as well. So that's a nice, a nice circle of wins there that I'm pretty happy about.

Amardeep Parmar: Another announcement is the mentorship program. So this is going to be a big thing of what we're doing in the future, right? So we're starting off with beta, which is just 25 people. And those 25 mentors will be previous podcast guests, people have expressed like people that we know really care about actually helping, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So obviously, it depends on different people's careers, right? Some people, they're still very, very busy in what they're doing. So it's difficult for them to be a mentor and to give their whole heart for it. Whereas other people just want to start giving back more, right? They're in a different position in their careers.

Amardeep Parmar: And what we can [00:24:00] do is With like, all of you listening, we can share, okay, get you to apply to like, say what you're into, like why you want to be mentored, what your dreams are, and also get a good idea of like, how much you help out in the community yourselves, or like, what are you doing to put good out into the world, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Because at the end of the day, we want to help. Good people. We also want to help out people who maybe don't have the same advantages other people have. So mentioned dimple. There's a lot of other podcast guests who have been on and they came from nothing crime. They've had to do all of themselves. And those people don't want you to have to do it yourself.

Amardeep Parmar: Right? So we want to build that supportive network. It will start off with just 25 people. Just so we can get from the business for those, make sure the admin is all in place. Cause the last thing you want to do is get a hundred mentors. And then we don't organize it properly. We, we then failed to deliver what we wanted to.

Amardeep Parmar: So start small and then expand it bigger. And I can also say like, I wanted to start big, but the advice we got from other people was correct and pulled it back a bit. So that's thanks to [00:25:00] Neda Sahiblem and Dimple Patel who advised Star Smaller. So they, they reigned in my exuberance there, but very excited about that.

Amardeep Parmar: And that would be a way again, for some of you at the early stages to really get these top level experts that people had on the podcast to be a guiding hand, right? So we'll have a minimum requirements of like X amount of calls per six months. Let's say, depending on how much you strike up a relationship person, you're meant that's mentoring you.

Amardeep Parmar: It could be a lot more than that. And other things can be happening. This summer as well is when we start doing a lot more in person events. So, at the time of recording this, I can't confirm anything else just yet. But we've got a deal coming up with somebody who's got great social space. That means that we can do events very regularly.

Amardeep Parmar: And for the moment, we are focusing in London. The plans are towards the end of the year. To start expanding to other areas of lots of Asian people, such as the Midlands and like up north as well. So that's all coming, but we're really now pushing into like getting more and more events done. So keep an eye out for that.

Amardeep Parmar: So I've had some fun in this room talking to [00:26:00] myself, but let me give you just some updates from like my personal perspective as well, right? Of other things we're doing. So as you notice, I'm now organizing TEDx Chigwell. I've also brought back the entrepreneur's handbook podcast. So that's a podcast which came before the Bay HQ where I've interviewed the founders of Netflix, the founders of Twitter and people like that.

Amardeep Parmar: So if you're interested in business, that's also an interesting podcast for you. And it's a different group of people, right? So it's not depreciation, it's global people. And The benefit for me and why do, why do I do both of those? Why? Why don't I just do one? Why, why am I doing three separate brands at once?

Amardeep Parmar: Plus my personal brand and what is, is I can cross pollinate, right? From TEDx Jigwell, I'll meet a bunch of interesting people who I can then introduce to people from the BHQ, from the BHQ, same thing. From Entrepreneur's Handbook, it gives me a global network of like hyperscale entrepreneurs that when somebody from the UK wants to expand.

Amardeep Parmar: I can help connect them. What that means is that network and building is so powerful and like it's all interrelated that it gives me greater power to be able to help. And to me, that's what I'm optimizing [00:27:00] for, right? And I can be quite open about this, right? In the last, so if you've been, if you watch some, some of the earlier episodes, you'll know about my dad or if you've been following me.

Amardeep Parmar: So obviously my dad passed away August last year and that leaves a bit of like, it leaves that void, right? Of. What's the point of any of this and that's why I've been essentially trying to feel for this last year. And it's been really interesting in the way that like obviously me myself as a person, I've been needing support from friends and family and things like that.

Amardeep Parmar: What I'm doing here, this is my comfort zone, right? So why am I able when yesterday was Father's Day, right? How the hell am I able to come up here and do this, talk to this camera for an hour? Because this is my comfort zone. Easy to me and I can get into a zone dealing with all the other motions of what's going on is hard.

Amardeep Parmar: So what i'm trying to channel my energy into is to try to help and by doing the multiple different brands That enables me to help more people and make a bigger impact say for the bhq because i'm doing the other [00:28:00] things I can help asian entrepreneurs more than if I only had asian people And that's one of the important things that people might not necessarily realize is that this isn't about like only Asians winning.

Amardeep Parmar: It's about how can I connect people from our community with people from other communities so that everybody wins and they can help raise you up, right? And like I said on a personal note, it's the challenge now is Scaling this up right and we're getting people on board getting more and more help and it's just for example, like you listening, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Like say it's like straight straight looking at the camera if we're just on YouTube, like if you guys can support in terms like telling your friends about us, right? That's you don't need to do anything more than that. If you just get more people involved in our community and involved in helping out.

Amardeep Parmar: That would be incredible, right? Because it's the stuff that's going on, like all the complexities, like running what we're doing is, isn't easy, right? Like people don't quite understand like how we're able to do all the different things we're doing. We're doing it like a full chess run. I can look like straight down the camera and like, this is going to the moon and I'm [00:29:00] going to make sure it goes to moon.

Amardeep Parmar: Like we've got girth, we've got the board, we've got these other people joining us. Like this is going to go exactly where we want it to go. The Bay HQ in 30 years time, there's going to be entrepreneurs who founded businesses that have changed the world. because of what we're doing. And that is the goal, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Not the following, not the views, not that kind of stuff. It's like, how much impact can we make? And the podcast is one aspect of that, but it's not the only aspect. And the drive behind this, I can say on my part, I can say on Gervais part, I can say on the board's part is to really do that impact, right?

Amardeep Parmar: This isn't the fluff of like, Oh yeah, like, let's make it. No, this is going places. And this conviction that we have. And it's not just the conviction, right? It's the skills to back it up. And that's the thing. You've got to have that level of confidence, but also the skills to back it up. And that's what we've got.

Amardeep Parmar: And when we haven't got those skills, we're getting people to help us putting the advisory in place. So you're listening right now, you're listening and we're what, eight months in, nine months in, right? You're so early in this journey. There's still so much more to [00:30:00] come. And if you can back us now, if you can come to our events, if you can tell your friends about us, so you can leave us a five star review or like get involved and like check out the other stuff we're doing, then you're part of that journey too.

Amardeep Parmar: And thank you so much. It genuinely means so much like have, if you're still listening right now, thank you. So I'm getting a little bit emotional now. So I'm going But look forward to meeting some of you in person, look forward to hearing more from you, send us an email, like what I would say is like the genuine people who are reaching out because they care about what we're doing, that's who I want to hear from, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So let's go.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. It means a huge amount to us. And we don't think you realize how important you are. Because if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you leave us a five star review, it makes a world of difference. And if you believe in what we're trying to do here, To inspire, connect and guide the next generation British Asians.

Amardeep Parmar: If you do those things, you can help us [00:31:00] achieve that mission and you can help us make a bigger impact. And by doing that, it means we can get bigger guests. We can host more events. We can do more for the community. So you can play a huge part. So thank you so much for supporting us.

Amardeep Parmar: [00:00:00] I can look like straight down the camera and like, this is going to the moon and I'm gonna make sure it goes to the moon. Like, we've got Gurvir, we've got the board, we've got these other people joining us. Like, this is gonna go exactly where we want it to go. They had a few people call it the event of the year, lots of people kept in touch afterwards.

Amardeep Parmar: Is we've got our first official partner. What you'll see is a situation, which it might have changed by the time this comes out, but it'll be Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And that's where we're looking at the moment, right? This is, uh, we're still in the first year of what we've been doing. And that's crazy, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Think about it. What I would say is that the genuine people are reaching out because they care about what we're doing. That's what I want to hear from. Right. So let's go. Hello.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello. And welcome to the BAE HQ quarter two review of 2023. I've got a bunch of exciting announcements for this episode. So make sure you pay attention and there's lots of different ways you can get involved. And we're doing a lot more with the community now. And I'm really excited about where we're heading.

Amardeep Parmar: If you're joining us for the first time, you don't even know what the BAE HQ is. We're an organization designed to inspire, connect and guide. The next generation of [00:01:00] British Asians. Let me quickly give you a quarter to review, right? So before we get into all the exciting things, we'll call it a three. So what have we had in these three months?

Amardeep Parmar: That's from April to June. You can see, I should have prepared this beforehand. So we had our launch event at borders and capital. Which had 70 people, like, which is all lots of podcast guests, lots of people who've really scaled their businesses. And the feedback we got from that was amazing, right? Like I think they had a few people call it the event of the year.

Amardeep Parmar: Lots of people kept in touch afterwards. It was very curated because every single person in that room, even you meet or go of it, which meant that we could vouch for every person. And that's so important because as you guys know, you go to a lot of networking events, people are a bit slimy, people are a bit, it's not fun, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So because we had that connection, what we could do in that room is connect people together. And that was private and the reason for that is just to make sure that everybody got value from that, right? Because we could, like you said, creators, we can make sure that everybody is helping each other out and are there for the right reasons too.[00:02:00] 

Amardeep Parmar: So that was huge for us. It was with, it's at Bulletin Capital with Future VC helping us out as well. And yeah, it was very important milestone for us just to see all those people in that room. Me and Gerva got up on stage and gave a presentation about what we're doing and just, it was a night of a lot of like, we felt the love a lot, so thank you to everybody who came to that event.

Amardeep Parmar: We've also done a live podcast episode with Asad Hamir, which should be out by now I'm hoping, and that was at the British International Franchise Exhibition. Bit of a tongue twister name, but I think I got it right. And that was a new experience for me, right? Because I've done lots of talking to the camera.

Amardeep Parmar: It's also funny now, so like, I'm just literally sitting in a room with a bunch of cameras here, but I'm now used to it. But this sort of freaked me out a little while ago. It was an interesting event because you had the people there in the room. who we're all trying to learn and is in the middle of this massive conference centre, the Olympia.

Amardeep Parmar: So there's like thousands of people walking through and it was just a very overwhelming experience for me sitting on the stage with Asad to look out and to see so many people. But it went really well and we should be at the event as well in Birmingham in October. So [00:03:00] if you're a Brummie, keep an eye out for that.

Amardeep Parmar: What else did we have? So we've had, of course, incredible podcast guests coming on. We've had so much stuff behind the scenes which we're going to announce. So that's going to be in the announcements. You know what, let's get to the announcements now. The first one and most exciting one I'd say is we've got our first official partner, which is Desi City run by Tani Atwal.

Amardeep Parmar: And he's been on the podcast before and he's one of those guys, obviously I meet so many people and I interview them and all those different podcast guests, but here's somebody who, as soon as he met you, met us, straight away went for a hug. Like he just had this warmth about him. He really backs us. He's always been supporting us for like what we've been doing.

Amardeep Parmar: And there's actually a funny story, which He likes to tell a lot, so I'll tell it on his behalf and own up to my mistakes. So the first time we contacted each other, so Tiny messaged me off his private account and he's got like, he doesn't have a full face in his picture. So I was like, I don't know who this guy is.

Amardeep Parmar: And he was like, Oh bro, we'd love to like get involved. And I was like, cause [00:04:00] I don't, I couldn't see any details. So I was like, I don't know who this person is. So I was like, Oh, like give me a bit more detail and things like that. And at that point, we weren't really ready for a partnership yet. Cause what we wanted to do, we've been very clear about this is make sure we built up to a stage where we are now, where we're already what 50 episodes in 60 episodes in, which means that we've got a true bank of like, we're here to stay.

Amardeep Parmar: We've been doing this solidly, we're fully committed and it's different. Something at the beginning, right? It's like, maybe somebody gives up, maybe I don't. This isn't going anywhere. This is going to be here for the next 30, 40 years, as long as I'm around. And it should be carried on by more and more people where it's not just dependent on me and Gervir.

Amardeep Parmar: He always brings it up because he wanted to come on the podcast and I didn't really know who he was and he didn't really give me much to go off. Then I talked to him properly later on and like the guy's amazing. He's been on the podcast. You can listen to the episodes. If you search for. If you go to a website and search for Destiny City, where you search for Tarn Beer, you'll be able to find the episode.

Amardeep Parmar: But it was his first ever episode and like, you can tell he's nervous, right? He's like, his [00:05:00] brother Kenny was in the room too, but he smashed it. And that's what he's been doing, right? He hasn't had the traditional path to entrepreneurship through grit, through hard work, through making good decisions, through just being a good person as well, like a people person, right?

Amardeep Parmar: He's building out that business. They've raised several million to like, expand across the world. Should take what they do as well. So It's very good alignment with us as well. So Desi City, what is an e commerce platform for like Asian, South Asian in particular brands, where sometimes people know you have to go to certain streets and certain areas.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's always accessible for people, especially people from like other areas. People have got busy lives. people who are maybe not physically able as well. And they didn't really exist online where people could get these goods easily. And that's what DesiCity does. So they've got thousands of different businesses signed up to the website.

Amardeep Parmar: So make sure you check it out at DesiCity. com and you can find everything all about them. For us, obviously, we're talking to lots of different people about partnership, [00:06:00] but what we really wanted is somebody who's got the same alignment, right? Who actually cares. About uplifting the community and bringing people together and like tiny is that guy.

Amardeep Parmar: So that's first big exciting news is that we have a first partner. It's people who really care about what we're doing, care about the mission, because I'll be honest, like I'm having a lot of conversations, different people who only care about. They return on their investment. They pretend to care about helping others.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's quite disheartening to British, right? When you think everybody got on their website about how diversity and how they want to see other people succeed, then you talk to them a bit more. It's like, well, how am I going to make money out of this? And it's like, that's not the brand you're putting forward.

Amardeep Parmar: But Tan is the guy of his word. And I'm never going to forget. Well, me and Gav, we're never going to forget that they're the ones who backed us first and they're the belief in us. And that really does mean a lot. So tiny's obviously listening to this, like massive thank you to you. And for everybody else listening, make sure to check out the website, make sure to check out what they're doing because they're going to go places.

Amardeep Parmar: And I'm glad that they're involved with us. Second big announcement. So as this podcast has grown, right? So now [00:07:00] we have a huge backlog of people wanting to come on people who we want on. And then it's difficult to manage, right? This reality of it, right? Recording in this studio, this obviously costs money.

Amardeep Parmar: There's a limited amount of time I have. And what we've got to do in that case is just keep upping the bar, right? Because I always tell people this as well. This podcast isn't about helping the guests so much, right? We want the guests to come on because they care about helping you. And what he said in a lot of other podcasts, and like I've experienced so much myself, is that people want to come on to promote themselves, make themselves look good.

Amardeep Parmar: And it's all about them, them, them, them, right? I don't want those people. I want the people who've made it. The people who've been through the hardships. They've got some battle scars, and they can come on here without really having anything in it for themselves other than then paying it forward. Right.

Amardeep Parmar: And we've had people on such as like a Sesh Sarkar whose company has raised hundreds of millions of pounds. He doesn't need this podcast, but he cared about helping people. And like, that's the people that I care about. That's the people we want on this podcast. Right. We've up there like levels of people coming on the podcast [00:08:00] and it's.

Amardeep Parmar: Going more towards people who've scaled like major businesses, right? And we've got like about 30 or 40 people lined up. So that takes us into towards the end of the year, right? And some incredible people coming on soon. We've had some incredible people on. But what that obviously means is that we can't showcase everybody.

Amardeep Parmar: And this is obviously a challenge. One of the hardest thing about what I do is that people message, want to come on and often have to say no. With that, what are we doing now? So. So we're making it three episodes a week, right? And this, by the time this episode comes out, you'll have had the first of the creates.

Amardeep Parmar: So what you'll see is a situation, which it might have changed by the time this comes out, but it'll be Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So Monday will be what we call labs. And those labs will be people who are Either C suite, VPs, or like head of divisions at startups or scale ups or major companies where they're not necessarily a founder, but they've got a lot of value to add to people who want to start their own business.

Amardeep Parmar: So let's say [00:09:00] somebody who is the head of people at a major startup, right? They can tell people, founders, other people listening right now about how to really nail down the area, how to get the right people into your company. Somebody's a. CMO, somebody who's a chief marketing officer, they can give their advice for somebody who's trying to grow their business as well.

Amardeep Parmar: Right. And it will say for you guys, right? Not all of you want to become founders. We appreciate that. And being an entrepreneur, being a founder, isn't the only path. It's just a path that often isn't talked about very much that we want to just share, particularly in the British Asian community. But if you're excited by hyper growth, by people doing these really innovative things.

Amardeep Parmar: You can still get involved in those companies without being a founder. So the labs are based on that. They will be on Monday lunchtimes. The basis of this is that we know that a lot of people working from home on Mondays and Fridays at the moment. So that means that while you're working from home, you can sit back, relax in your lunch hour, listen to somebody who's done incredible things and give you really practical advice and tactical advice that you can actually [00:10:00] implement and use in your own career, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Because let's say you're a product manager, right? You can listen to a chief product officer. and other company and hear their advice, which helps you in your career. And it's just that whole thing about paying it forward, right? Getting these incredible people on to pay it forward and see all of us succeed together.

Amardeep Parmar: Wednesday will be the podcast that you're used to. So this kind of thing right now, where it will be those guests have scaled. So it's also very crucial thing where I talk about Wednesday scale as opposed to success. So Success is very subjective, right? And if you look at some people who are coming on soon.

Amardeep Parmar: So we've got a guy called Saranga coming on, who's a venture capitalist who has 6 billion assets under management. Then we have other people who've won TV shows. We've had all these people who've done very good things in their own niche. And we're trying to get the top and the cream of the crop of all those people.

Amardeep Parmar: And what will also be released by this time as well as a quiz. So you go through that quiz and that can tell you, like you put in your different details and it'll tell you where we could potentially share your story. But that podcast will be focusing on that, [00:11:00] that cream of the crop, the people who made it to the very top, who are mainly coming on to, like I said, give it back to be able to help you.

Amardeep Parmar: From my perspective, that's super exciting. I'm gonna get to talk to some incredible people and some of the best things about what I do, right, is. I get to speak to these people, meet them in real life. And also I get to understand their values and their mission because some of these people, like most of them, to be honest, they've got such good hearts and they are trying to help.

Amardeep Parmar: But what we can be is the conduit to actually, they can help through us rather than having to organize all themselves. So that Wednesday episode, that'll be the podcast you're used to. Friday will be what we call Create. And I'm calling it Create with an eight, just as a shorter in the podcast title.

Amardeep Parmar: That's the reason behind that. So you've got lab Monday, create on Friday. And when you look for the podcast in like Apple or Spotify, and if you're listening as well, give us a five star review if you've made it this far. What you want to do is you can see like which kind of thing you're interested in.

Amardeep Parmar: If you're interested in the more lab side, you can watch the lab episodes and you'll be able to see it in the episode name. So create will [00:12:00] be with creators. You can see what I did there. And those episodes will have, what we're saying is 25, 000 followers minimum. And the reason behind that is not that people have got less than 25, 000 followers or any less valuable.

Amardeep Parmar: It's just the sheer amount of volume of people we have, right? There's so many people who want to come on and we want to showcase. But it's very difficult for us to manage so many people, right? We can't like, we'll have a backlog of months worth of episodes right at the very start. So if we start with, say people got 25, 000, it indicates they've been working at it for some time.

Amardeep Parmar: They've really hit a chord somewhere. And that means that like, they're not just like had a lucky beginning or anything like that. And you can see that people are resonating with their message. And again, it's an arbitrary line, completely appreciate that. But from our perspective, we've got to manage it somehow, right?

Amardeep Parmar: We're a small team. We've got to manage that and that could change in the future. But if there's anybody you want us to get on for any of those episodes, let us know. Right. Because a lot of people ask on themselves, but if we're getting from different people in the audience, being like, Oh, [00:13:00] into that person, that'd be amazing.

Amardeep Parmar: And we keep getting that. That's the feedback we want, right? Like, who do you look up to? And that comes to other points in terms of, say, like, charity work and things like that, is that we're growing. At the moment, I focus on entrepreneurship. And again, it doesn't mean that there's other people aren't doing great work.

Amardeep Parmar: It's just that we can't be everywhere at once. So there's other things we can launch in the future. In different verticals as we scale the team, as we get more funding on board, but at the moment, we're focused on those three verticals as in a way to enable us to grow. The more we grow, the more impact we can make.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's, we're looking at the moment, right? This is a, we're still in the first year of what we've been doing. And that's crazy, right? Think about it. This time last year, the Bay HQ name didn't even exist, right? So we're on, I'm recording this in June 17th, no June 19th. And this would be released, I think, July the 5th.

Amardeep Parmar: So July 27th. In 2022, I went to an event. At that event, I was very bored and that's where we came up with the BHQ name. If you put that trajectory of like who you've been able to [00:14:00] interview, who you've been able to get in touch with, it's been like a rocket ship and there's so much more coming, which is why I need to announce now and stop rambling.

Amardeep Parmar: Another grouping of announcements now is around the team for the BHQ. So, most of you probably know me if you've been listening for a little time because I'm obviously in the podcast. I'm not the BHQ by myself, right? It does feel like my life and BHQ is very much squished together a lot, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Amardeep Parmar: So there's my co founder Gerva. So at the beginning of this journey, both of us were full time on this, but at the moment for like financial responsibilities and different things going on in his life, Gerva has also got a day job now, right? So it doesn't mean it's any less committed to the cause. But it does mean that things have changed in terms of how we work and things like that.

Amardeep Parmar: And that's why it's just me today, right? Recording this episode. What Gerver can then do is leverage that experience he's getting at his company and open up different doors in different ways. And for me, it's been such a great thing to have him along this journey too. And even though you might not see his face as much during the daytime, it's because that's the reality of it, [00:15:00] right?

Amardeep Parmar: Is co found relationships are interesting. And we've had to manage different things because we both have this. Deep passion to do what we're doing right and working out that scaling aspects and like how which bits were both best form things like that has been really interesting. So Gervais stepping more into a CFO sort of role, whereas I'm going more into a CEO role now, right?

Amardeep Parmar: And that doesn't mean it's always going to be like that, but it's just what makes sense at the moment because I have more time available and I'm able to give more of myself at the moment, whereas Gervais, there's other responsibilities. But it can really use this skill that's built up through the private markets and being at Kindred Capital, Pantheon Ventures, wherever he's been, that he can really own that part, especially with people looking to get investment, for example.

Amardeep Parmar: So us two there as the co founders, then we've also got the board, right? So picking a board when you've got. Such incredible people on the network as we have is really difficult. So what we did is both of us looked at who's the people that we got along with really well, who brings something a bit different and who kind of shown like they keep supporting us.

Amardeep Parmar: And they're even before like they'd get on calls with us and things like [00:16:00] that. So it's also trying not to have too many people because it gets confusing. So there's tons of people who've been on the podcast. People on the network have been really helpful. But just for the board aspect, we wanted to keep it to.

Amardeep Parmar: A small number of people who we can be in touch with regularly was if you've got too many people, it just becomes really hard to organize. So that's my caveats there for any podcast guests who've been offended. So first we have, let's go for Dimple Patel, right? So we're doing a live podcast. We would have, by the time this has come out, we've done the live podcast with her on June 26, but Dimple came on the podcast.

Amardeep Parmar: She's an amazing guest and her story is just nuts, right? She came from a council of states being the CEO. of a major company that's raised like tens of millions. She brings in the aspect of, because she was, she's really good at the operational side of things. So she was the COO of Truva. She turned around things and her depth of experience and also just the manner in which she delivers it, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So she'll listen, give advice, give guidance. She's like fully behind us. And that's [00:17:00] such a privilege to have someone like her on our board. Who really cares and has really got, she does like 20, 50, 000 times more than I do. And it really helps like it from our perspective to have something like her there is like amazing.

Amardeep Parmar: We also have Dr. Vinita Ratan. So she's also been on the podcast and she brings something very different to Dimple, right? It's very successful in her own right, but in a different kind of field. So she brings in that one massive, such a lovely person. I, I can say this. She's probably going to listen to this as well.

Amardeep Parmar: Before I met her, I was a little bit worried because sometimes people who've got big followings, they can be a bit, you know, you don't know, right? You're not sure what to expect from them in real life. She's 10 times nicer than I could have ever expected. Right. And I felt bad for like thinking, Oh, maybe she's going to be a bit funny.

Amardeep Parmar: She's so lovely, like really supportive. And she's been like, just giving a whole heart to what we're doing as well. So she obviously has the aspects of like very good speaker, very good charisma, very good at building a connection with the audience, [00:18:00] understanding the audience. What people forget as well is her business is actually really thriving.

Amardeep Parmar: Like I can't give you the numbers because that's not my place to do it. It's a very good business that's built herself. There's no funding. There's nothing like that. It's not a venture scale business. They're doing really well. So she brings that different aspect. Think about as. Dimple Patel has coffee shop background that she grew out.

Amardeep Parmar: Then she then had the venture scale business that she then had got acquired. Whereas Vinita brings the other side of the audience building side that and also a business that's thriving from being like profitable and making money the old fashioned way, right? Then the final person is Jay Goodrell. So again, he's been on the podcast too.

Amardeep Parmar: Really great guest and I didn't actually know this but he grew up quite close to where I did. So we've got quite a few friends in common. Very warm and if you look at his CV, if you go and look at his LinkedIn, it's nuts. Who he's worked with and the different Responsibilities is taken on. So at the moment, here's the managing director of Blockdojo, [00:19:00] and they're one of the UK's biggest accelerators.

Amardeep Parmar: An accelerator for people who don't know what it means is that people join the accelerator and it accelerates them, right? It makes them grow faster, helps them get funding, helps them really take it to the next level. And Just seeing him on stage and going to some of his events and the network is built.

Amardeep Parmar: The is also his style. I really like as well. So he's like, no BS. He gets down to it and he's, you can see where, why he's got to where he's got to, but they all bring something different. Each of those different people we have. Right. So Jay has helped so many other people, the businesses and taking that leadership role and very good mentor in that way.

Amardeep Parmar: So really, really privileged to have them on board. I'm hoping they're listening to this and thank you all for supporting us. It really means a lot. So. So you've got me and Gav here as the co founders, the board is Dimple Patel, Dr. Vinita Ratan and Jay Goodrell. Then we've also got a wider team, which is being built up as we speak.

Amardeep Parmar: So Amir, who's going to be editing this [00:20:00] podcast, so he's going to be listening to this right now. He's been our video editor. So at the beginning, I was doing all the editing myself, which is obviously very time consuming, but it's also a skill that I can teach and what I've been doing with Amir, he's Already had video experience, but I've been working with him to hone it into the way that we like the episodes to come out.

Amardeep Parmar: Taking on a lot of feedback. So one thing about me is like, obviously I have very high standards. So we've been training him up, getting him better and better. And you can see that improvement, right? And it's also working together in a small team where it's difficult, right? Cause there's a lot of responsibility too.

Amardeep Parmar: Great to have Amir on board and hopefully he goes with us too. Then we also have Naeem. Naeem is from, he works at HSBC innovation banking at the moment. And what Naeem is going to do is organizing the sports side of things, right? So we're probably gonna have somebody else join him pretty soon. So we have like a mix of people with that.

Amardeep Parmar: And what he's going to do is like he's organizing the football, but there'll be other stuff in the future too, he can get involved as well. Then we've got a bunch more people I've interviewed recently. So we've had about 10 interviews. They're all coming on board and [00:21:00] I can't, can't quite announce that yet At the time of recording, I haven't formalized anything with them, but we'll be posting them on page two and like giving you an insight into who's helping us out there.

Amardeep Parmar: From our perspective, we sent out a call for volunteers and interns and the response is really good. Yeah, that's been amazing. So really happy with that. Really had some great conversations, some up and coming people who have that hunger and want to help run the community. So like my heart feels very fair at the moment with those people.

Amardeep Parmar: Another announcement is our book club. So what we're doing as well now, so obviously a lot of people who listen to this podcast are also likely to be readers, right? Because you'll care about growth. You care about learning, care about getting better. And what we're doing on that front is we've now got a book club.

Amardeep Parmar: So it's a five or six people in at the moment where we're going to do is each of these people, we're going to send them Books are free by British Asian authors, especially in the personal development, business and memoir categories. So we're not boiling the ocean here, right? There's no fiction because it's [00:22:00] got to be related to what our mission is, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Our mission is to help people grow businesses and to believe in themselves. So our focus is there. I know some people were listening like, Oh, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? But you've got to remember resources wise, we've got to really focus on what our mission is. And later on we can expand and do different things, but our book club right now is focused on that area.

Amardeep Parmar: What they're going to do is they're going to get us in the book, they're going to write up their lessons on it, and their favourite quotes. And then we're going to publish it on our website and like share it on our LinkedIn and like across our social media. What that's doing is one is getting a group of people together who are ambitious, who care about growth, making them into a little circle of people who can grow together.

Amardeep Parmar: But for you, it means that you can't always have the time to read every book, right? But you can read the lessons from people who are like you from a similar background and a different stage of their career to get those lessons. And you can decide then whether or not you want to actually read the full book or not.

Amardeep Parmar: I always advise you because I want to support the authors, right? I want you to buy their books. And that way you can like share it around. And what we'll also probably do [00:23:00] and get people to do is. If they, if we buy them the book, they can also share it with their friends. So you get more and more people reading these stories by these great British Asian authors.

Amardeep Parmar: And to me, that's quite exciting because it's a nice, easy way for us to get people to, it's a win win situation, right? If that the people writing the content, they get a free book, they get to learn. We get content for helping you guys and the authors get promoted as well. So that's a nice, a nice circle of wins there that I'm pretty happy about.

Amardeep Parmar: Another announcement is the mentorship program. So this is going to be a big thing of what we're doing in the future, right? So we're starting off with beta, which is just 25 people. And those 25 mentors will be previous podcast guests, people have expressed like people that we know really care about actually helping, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So obviously, it depends on different people's careers, right? Some people, they're still very, very busy in what they're doing. So it's difficult for them to be a mentor and to give their whole heart for it. Whereas other people just want to start giving back more, right? They're in a different position in their careers.

Amardeep Parmar: And what we can [00:24:00] do is With like, all of you listening, we can share, okay, get you to apply to like, say what you're into, like why you want to be mentored, what your dreams are, and also get a good idea of like, how much you help out in the community yourselves, or like, what are you doing to put good out into the world, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Because at the end of the day, we want to help. Good people. We also want to help out people who maybe don't have the same advantages other people have. So mentioned dimple. There's a lot of other podcast guests who have been on and they came from nothing crime. They've had to do all of themselves. And those people don't want you to have to do it yourself.

Amardeep Parmar: Right? So we want to build that supportive network. It will start off with just 25 people. Just so we can get from the business for those, make sure the admin is all in place. Cause the last thing you want to do is get a hundred mentors. And then we don't organize it properly. We, we then failed to deliver what we wanted to.

Amardeep Parmar: So start small and then expand it bigger. And I can also say like, I wanted to start big, but the advice we got from other people was correct and pulled it back a bit. So that's thanks to [00:25:00] Neda Sahiblem and Dimple Patel who advised Star Smaller. So they, they reigned in my exuberance there, but very excited about that.

Amardeep Parmar: And that would be a way again, for some of you at the early stages to really get these top level experts that people had on the podcast to be a guiding hand, right? So we'll have a minimum requirements of like X amount of calls per six months. Let's say, depending on how much you strike up a relationship person, you're meant that's mentoring you.

Amardeep Parmar: It could be a lot more than that. And other things can be happening. This summer as well is when we start doing a lot more in person events. So, at the time of recording this, I can't confirm anything else just yet. But we've got a deal coming up with somebody who's got great social space. That means that we can do events very regularly.

Amardeep Parmar: And for the moment, we are focusing in London. The plans are towards the end of the year. To start expanding to other areas of lots of Asian people, such as the Midlands and like up north as well. So that's all coming, but we're really now pushing into like getting more and more events done. So keep an eye out for that.

Amardeep Parmar: So I've had some fun in this room talking to [00:26:00] myself, but let me give you just some updates from like my personal perspective as well, right? Of other things we're doing. So as you notice, I'm now organizing TEDx Chigwell. I've also brought back the entrepreneur's handbook podcast. So that's a podcast which came before the Bay HQ where I've interviewed the founders of Netflix, the founders of Twitter and people like that.

Amardeep Parmar: So if you're interested in business, that's also an interesting podcast for you. And it's a different group of people, right? So it's not depreciation, it's global people. And The benefit for me and why do, why do I do both of those? Why? Why don't I just do one? Why, why am I doing three separate brands at once?

Amardeep Parmar: Plus my personal brand and what is, is I can cross pollinate, right? From TEDx Jigwell, I'll meet a bunch of interesting people who I can then introduce to people from the BHQ, from the BHQ, same thing. From Entrepreneur's Handbook, it gives me a global network of like hyperscale entrepreneurs that when somebody from the UK wants to expand.

Amardeep Parmar: I can help connect them. What that means is that network and building is so powerful and like it's all interrelated that it gives me greater power to be able to help. And to me, that's what I'm optimizing [00:27:00] for, right? And I can be quite open about this, right? In the last, so if you've been, if you watch some, some of the earlier episodes, you'll know about my dad or if you've been following me.

Amardeep Parmar: So obviously my dad passed away August last year and that leaves a bit of like, it leaves that void, right? Of. What's the point of any of this and that's why I've been essentially trying to feel for this last year. And it's been really interesting in the way that like obviously me myself as a person, I've been needing support from friends and family and things like that.

Amardeep Parmar: What I'm doing here, this is my comfort zone, right? So why am I able when yesterday was Father's Day, right? How the hell am I able to come up here and do this, talk to this camera for an hour? Because this is my comfort zone. Easy to me and I can get into a zone dealing with all the other motions of what's going on is hard.

Amardeep Parmar: So what i'm trying to channel my energy into is to try to help and by doing the multiple different brands That enables me to help more people and make a bigger impact say for the bhq because i'm doing the other [00:28:00] things I can help asian entrepreneurs more than if I only had asian people And that's one of the important things that people might not necessarily realize is that this isn't about like only Asians winning.

Amardeep Parmar: It's about how can I connect people from our community with people from other communities so that everybody wins and they can help raise you up, right? And like I said on a personal note, it's the challenge now is Scaling this up right and we're getting people on board getting more and more help and it's just for example, like you listening, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Like say it's like straight straight looking at the camera if we're just on YouTube, like if you guys can support in terms like telling your friends about us, right? That's you don't need to do anything more than that. If you just get more people involved in our community and involved in helping out.

Amardeep Parmar: That would be incredible, right? Because it's the stuff that's going on, like all the complexities, like running what we're doing is, isn't easy, right? Like people don't quite understand like how we're able to do all the different things we're doing. We're doing it like a full chess run. I can look like straight down the camera and like, this is going to the moon and I'm [00:29:00] going to make sure it goes to moon.

Amardeep Parmar: Like we've got girth, we've got the board, we've got these other people joining us. Like this is going to go exactly where we want it to go. The Bay HQ in 30 years time, there's going to be entrepreneurs who founded businesses that have changed the world. because of what we're doing. And that is the goal, right?

Amardeep Parmar: Not the following, not the views, not that kind of stuff. It's like, how much impact can we make? And the podcast is one aspect of that, but it's not the only aspect. And the drive behind this, I can say on my part, I can say on Gervais part, I can say on the board's part is to really do that impact, right?

Amardeep Parmar: This isn't the fluff of like, Oh yeah, like, let's make it. No, this is going places. And this conviction that we have. And it's not just the conviction, right? It's the skills to back it up. And that's the thing. You've got to have that level of confidence, but also the skills to back it up. And that's what we've got.

Amardeep Parmar: And when we haven't got those skills, we're getting people to help us putting the advisory in place. So you're listening right now, you're listening and we're what, eight months in, nine months in, right? You're so early in this journey. There's still so much more to [00:30:00] come. And if you can back us now, if you can come to our events, if you can tell your friends about us, so you can leave us a five star review or like get involved and like check out the other stuff we're doing, then you're part of that journey too.

Amardeep Parmar: And thank you so much. It genuinely means so much like have, if you're still listening right now, thank you. So I'm getting a little bit emotional now. So I'm going But look forward to meeting some of you in person, look forward to hearing more from you, send us an email, like what I would say is like the genuine people who are reaching out because they care about what we're doing, that's who I want to hear from, right?

Amardeep Parmar: So let's go.

Amardeep Parmar: Hello, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. It means a huge amount to us. And we don't think you realize how important you are. Because if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you leave us a five star review, it makes a world of difference. And if you believe in what we're trying to do here, To inspire, connect and guide the next generation British Asians.

Amardeep Parmar: If you do those things, you can help us [00:31:00] achieve that mission and you can help us make a bigger impact. And by doing that, it means we can get bigger guests. We can host more events. We can do more for the community. So you can play a huge part. So thank you so much for supporting us.

‍