Suneera Madhani
Appearances
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Like I think all of those things also play into account of how you show up as an entrepreneur or as a business leader and how you take care of your mind, your physical body and like your home even is a reflection of like your execution ability as a CEO, right?
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Yeah, so the fintech space, I mean, I think it's really sexy, but it's not a consumer product. It's software. We have a personal credit score that determines our financial kind of well-being or standardizes our financial health as a consumer. As a small business, you don't really have a standardized business credit score.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So when we are as small business owners applying for a loan, opening up a business banking account, getting a credit card, if I pull up my phone right now, all of us can go and get an Apple credit card on our personal device. And by the time this conversation's over, I can walk down the street and tap my phone and take a transaction under Sneramadani.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
But if I do the same process under Sneramadani LLC, I can't complete this application. I have to submit three years of tax returns. I have to submit my PNL. I have to connect my banking. I have to do a bank verification letter. I have to go get all of this stuff. And now like as a small business, I need so many financial tools.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
The reason why that experience for a consumer, even though it's the same scenario, because there's standardization of how there's like a North Star. They're like, okay, here's her credit score. Here's her W-2 approved. Versus in the business front, we haven't standardized the way we look at businesses. And so we're building, you know, for a credit worth, we're building the worth score.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So we're building, you know, the business credit score so that we can create standardization on how a business should be viewed as a business, not just like the human that runs the business. So even when I submit my application, it's still on my personal credit. It's still on my personal name. And so there's a huge gap right now in just onboarding for customers.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Like it's just a bad onboarding experience as a small business owner. When I go to a bank, when I go get a loan, when I go get whatever, that's the premise of what we're solving is this underwriting solution. But the big thing that I'm solving for though, is the fact that right now we have humans making decisions about other humans. That shouldn't be the case.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So they came here for economic opportunity and And, you know, I was born in Chicago. They met in Chicago and got married in Chicago. And it's a beautiful love story, but they worked, you know, extremely hard, just like most immigrants do. And their story is, you know, it's so inspirational of just not being educated, not having family, not having the resources to really then
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Humans are taking a look at the application and they're like, oh, this is Suneera Madani. Where is she from? They're not thinking it. There's subconscious and there's unconscious bias that exists. We need to standardize the way financial health of a business is told, not based on the human behind them. And so...
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Although we're solving a really awesome software way to go help all the banks and Chase Bank and Bank of America and all the big guys to help them onboard their customers faster, do it where a lens of like, it's a more consumer-like experience. It's accurate. It gives them the 360 profile. The guys, they love it, right? Everyone that controls it, they want that better experience.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
But in our hearts, what we're solving for is if we solve for that, we create an equal playing field for everyone. We create an equal playing field for every small business to actually have credit worth based on the worth of their business, not on who they are individually or what they look like or what their socioeconomic past is.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And so that's really what worth is about and why I'm so excited to go build again and our team and just to go solve this problem. And although it's an enterprise solution or solving for the big FinTechs and the financial ecosystem, the deep mission... when we solve for it, not if, when we solve for it, we'll create a much more equitable landscape. And that's what we're all about.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
No, it's really cool. I'm really excited.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I feel like CEO school is my heart. I love supporting women. It honestly, in 2020, I launched a podcast called CEO school because I didn't go to CEO school. And I learned the stat that less than 2% of female founders ever break 1 million in revenue. I was probably at the point where I was north of like 12 million in the business at that time. I'm still scaling the business.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I had never looked up or ever thought to myself like, oh, I raised venture capital. I did the things, but I didn't know that I was truly this anomaly in this ecosystem. I truly was clueless in that because I was so heads down in what I was building. And when I looked up and with my network, I started to meet so many other awesome like women and business owners and entrepreneurs.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And they're like, I kept getting invited for coffees or for like to fermenter chats. And there's only so much how many, you know, where, where I can share, here's how I did this. Here's where my knowledge is. Here's how I was able to go meet the investor. Here's how I applied to pitch competitions. Here's how I like skirted into that network room that I wasn't invited to.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And then I ended up getting this deal done. Right. So there's this, like, there's this, business playbook and conversation that I think men naturally have had for so long, whether it's on the golf course or whether it's at stadiums or at the games or at poker nights, women, I mean, we're new to the workplace. Let's be honest, right?
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
It's been less than a hundred years that we've actually been in the workforce and Less than 50 years that we've been able to even open up a bank account that we don't have to sign. Like we don't have to have somebody else sign for us. We are now entering this arena. Right. But without that support, without the team, without the network. And so.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
you know, deciding that entrepreneurship is the path to success for them. Because if you're not educated, there's not that many options for you to really have the American dream. And so I feel so grateful for their journey, the risks that they took. And my brother and I were for the beneficiaries of that. And their American dream was for that
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I felt like that was really needed in the conversations around success. Like it wasn't, there's not gatekeeping. It's just, how do we get more information to say, this is how we do it. This is how I was able to learn from somebody else or somebody else doesn't have to make those mistakes that I made. And so that was really the start of where CEO school came about was it started as a podcast.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I was bringing the community. These conversations were happening on LinkedIn and on Instagram and on social. And we're like, let's bring these conversations. and learn from actual women who have made it to what we call the 2% club. So women who have not the, how I built this.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And we've, we have some amazing stories of like the biggest successful entrepreneurs, but what about the woman who has crossed that $7 million point in her business? And she's a service-based agency. What about that e-commerce shop that like, how do we actually take tactical advice from women who've been there? And to be honest with My entire career, I was, I call myself a man in a skirt.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So I was like always trying to fit in to the boys club and it's not my fault. It's just what was there. And I wanted to just not with human tendency to want to be at the table. And I realized that I lost so much of my authentic femininity. I my like natural instincts, my empathy, how I lead is different.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And I have two male co-founders and I felt like I was trying to be something that I wasn't just to kind of fit into this mold. And really when the success of the company took off was when I was, after I became a mother, after I leaned into my own leadership and who Sanera was not what Sanera was trying to be and emulate. And so I feel like with the armor off, I feel like I was able to
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
When I could show up authentically as myself and lead in my energy, things really started to shift for me and for the company. And so I've just really encouraged that for women to not try to fit the molds. And those are the conversations that weren't taking place. And so CEO School started as a podcast. It's going to be five years this March. of 2025. So it started during the pandemic.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I'm super proud of it. We have the best conversations with the most genuine women, mothers, entrepreneurs, leaders, just movers and shakers. And it's vulnerable. And if you're an entrepreneur and you're a female entrepreneur scaling your business, you're not alone. And you've got an awesome community there that you can tap into. And so it's a podcast.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And then with the demand of the podcast, they wanted more. And then the digital community forum. So we have a digital community that gets together every Tuesday. So we have like sessions every Tuesday at lunchtime. And so we've got Founders Club and then we have Millionaire Founders Club for the seven figure and above. So it's an incredible space and it's filled with heart.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
my brother and I would have an education, something that they didn't have, that we would have opportunity to be anything that we wanted to be and to live our lives to our best. And so that was the American dream for my parents. And I feel so grateful for that. We did both go to University of Florida. I was the first in my family to graduate from college. I got...
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I'm so grateful, Mick, that you have the show and that people are listening to be a better version of themselves. If we can have a world of that, this is exactly what the world needs. Wherever you are in your journey, just that, taking that action to listen, put yourself in positivity, surround yourself with like-minded individuals that are here for growth.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Those are my people and those are the kind of people that I want to be around. And so thank you for all that you do. That's what our little corner of the internet is too. So come find me, come say hi. I'm on social media. So you can find me at Suneera Madani. So first name, last name, S-U-N-E-E-R-A, Suneera Madani. And I'm sure you'll link everything. So you can find me on socials.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And then you can find me through my social. You can kind of find CEO School. You can find Worth. You can find all the things. So follow me on social and come say hi. If you listen to this episode, I'd love to hear your biggest takeaways and have a conversation with you.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
All right. Thank you so much. Bye, everyone. Bye, Mick.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
two degrees in finance and marketing, minor in leadership. So education was so important in our family that we were going to succeed. And I would have all the opportunities through that. And so my parents were just a huge influence in our lives, but I got to see my parents work really hard. We had small businesses from convenience stores, so very traditional businesses. And
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
We had convenience stores, but, you know, my parents worked their way from, you know, working in the convenience store to owning the convenience store to then building their small business empire. And it was, you know, we were a middle class, upper middle class family, but we just had this value system of family, hard work. We're at the dinner table every night.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And I'm just so grateful for this opportunity. And I think a lot of kids of immigrants, We don't take, you know, that for granted. And so you kind of have this pressure without like, it's not that my parents ever pressured us to become entrepreneurs, which I'll share with you, like how my story ended up, but it was that feeling of like, I didn't want to let any opportunity go to waste. Right.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Like I felt privileged to have opportunity. And so I think with that, naturally, it was just ambitious as a kid. Naturally, I got to see I worked with my like in my parents' businesses every weekend. You know, after school, my dad taught me how to do payroll at the age of 14. Like I was stocking shelves like we had such an integrated work life family. dynamic.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And so I learned a ton and I look back as an entrepreneur now and I got my MBA, like growing up, I got my MBA and post-college, I did go down the corporate path. I did go down the finance corporate path and ended up finding myself just
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
seeing things in a way of like just through entrepreneurship and just wanting things to be better and wanting to solve problems and leading teams and being able to, you know, collect people around ideas to go solve big challenges. And so I was in the payments industry after college financial services, and I decided that there had to be a better way. I launched my first company at the age of 26.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I took that company from just an idea to to exiting north of a billion dollars. And we were the first, I keep saying we, my brother, my brother ended up joining that, like we ended up building the company together and scaled our first business together to over 400 employees. We raised from seed round capital to series D, we sold to private equity.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
We were the biggest exit in Orlando, let alone, you know, in Florida and became unicorn founders. But it really, at such a young age, but we worked like we had this like work ethic. We had this like the one team value system that we had as a family. And so it's just my why has always been my family. And I'm in a family business because I work with my brother.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And then after I became a mother and I have two young daughters, I'm wearing a shirt that says girls can do anything. It was real for me to ensure that my daughters have every opportunity. So my parents gave me the opportunity to have an education. but there were so many setbacks in my career. There was raising capital, but we're minority founders.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I'm a, you know, less than 2% of capital goes to women founded companies still today. And so there were so many challenges and I got to experience things on all sides of this equation. And so that's where I got very passionate around supporting women and women in business and ensuring that we all have equal opportunity to do what we are worthy of doing. And so that's
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
being a girl mom is also my why. So it always goes back to my family.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Yeah, so I launched the first subscription-based credit card processing platform. So it's like, it's fintech, it's technical, but it's not payment processing is like you take credit cards at every business. 15 years ago, we were becoming more and more cashless as a society. And we didn't have a lot of options for payment processors.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
The banks primarily controlled your, like wherever you banked is the credit card terminal that would go in. And there wasn't a lot of innovation and technology around that piece of hardware. And software had such a boom in, you know, what can we do with all of that data? So it really stemmed from, I had a financial background, like from university floors. I did do finance.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I also understood small business. I understood how heavy these costs were for a small business. And I'm like, there's so much data that's sitting in this black box. How do we empower the business to do more business versus being a commodity for the small business?
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Or here's just like, I have to pay this fee in order to accept credit cards, but how do we actually take that data and help them earn more? And so that's really where the premise came from and the simplicity around it. There's a lot of, in financial services, it's a big black box. The same guys at the top control it all and control the entire ecosystem.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And once you learn it, I just saw so many ways that we could save small businesses money, that we can cut out so much of the middlemen. And so I went direct to Visa MasterCard to strike a deal to give... subscription-based payments to all small businesses. So it was flat monthly subscription.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I'm doing great, Mick. Thank you so much for having me. And I loved the intro. So I wish you could be my hype man, like always just hanging out wherever I, every room I walk into.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And instead of the banks and everyone taking percentages on top, the small business just paid the direct kind of like a wholesale rate with Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. So they saved a lot of money by not paying the extra percentages. And instead, we charged a flat monthly subscription based on their volume. So if they did...
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
million dollars in volume this was your subscription so it was like a capped subscription and our exchange was that we were going to provide awesome software and tools to help grow their business so that was the founding of a company it was stacks uh was my first business i mean there's so much to unpack to share kind of 10 years of the how right like i didn't i didn't go to ceo school i
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I had never raised capital before. I was 25 years old with no money in my bank account to go talk. How do I even get a meeting to go get a sponsor bank? So a lot there that we won't be able to cover in 30 minutes here today. But the thing that I always share with every entrepreneur is... why not? Right.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So I think that like, there's so many barriers to like, when we have big ideas and we're like, we can do the things we, our mindset is what stops us from even putting our first foot forward. And so the success over the last 10 years only came from me showing up every day, putting one foot in front of the other and then solving today's problem.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
We overcomplicate, you know, we have to be there at the end, but if you just bite that elephant, like one bite at a time, that's how I was able to, to go build it. And I know it's, it's very easy to say post it's done. It was a lot of hard work. I didn't have the network. I didn't go to an Ivy league school.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I'm not pale male or still, and I'm at a golf club or like, I have this network that I can rely on. And so if I can do it, I really do believe that like anyone can have a big idea and go execute. And even if it's a small idea, even if it's just whatever the idea is, just uncap yourself. I didn't know I could go build a million dollar business, let alone a billion dollar one.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And if I had thought about it, that is going to be a billion dollar business. I don't know if I would have gotten started. I just wanted to go solve a problem. And I got really excited about solving the problem for my customer. And every day I put the right people around me to help me solve that problem. And so that was the journey with stacks and it was beautiful.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I've learned so much in, in my own self and my own journey as a leader and my own journey as an entrepreneur and a CEO and And I'm at it again. So my brother and I are building our next FinTech called Worth. And so we're building the business credit score now, which I'll share with you in a minute, but we're back at it because we love solving problems. And there's so many problems in our space.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And I do believe in an equitable financial landscape for everyone. And now that I've been on both sides, I can't unsee what I see. And so someone's got to go solve it and it has to be us. Like, so if you have something you're passionate about and then you have to go, like, you see a problem, don't be the one that's complaining about it.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Be the one that's doing something about it and be that action taker.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I love this question. And I do believe like you can't manifest your way to success. Like you have to take action every day. So I fully support that. But I do think that the mindset part is that that's a huge part of it too, especially as a woman. I think that women and men just have different natural thinking tendencies. And we are very much in our head as a species.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Like we are very much in our head. We stop ourselves. We're huge perfectionists. I'm going to reread an email a hundred thousand times before I hit send, right? in. And so I do really emphasize that the mindset part of it, like we do have to, I think men are more prone to trying and failing and it's okay. And they'll get back up. We are very afraid of failure and it's definitely a mindset shift.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So the first thing I think is also just taking action, but knowing that it's okay to fail. So you're not going to get it right on the first try. And it's a series of actions and that's the consistency part of execution. a huge part of what every message that I share, you know, there's no such thing as a billion dollar idea. It is a billion dollar execution.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Every day is execution and steps to take action. I think you have to make a decision. You like draw a line in the sand and you're like, am I an action taker or am I not? Okay. And you have to mentally, if you're getting ready to like, are you ready to play? Or are you not? Are you going to sit on the sidelines?
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So there's two kinds of people in this world that the ones that are going to be in the arena and the ones that are going to sit and watch from the seats. And I know the kind of person that I am and I want to be, and I want to play. I want to be in the arena. I know I'm going to go down. I know I'm going to have to get back up.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I might not win, but it is a decision that you have to make to say, am I in it or am I not? So that's step number one, I think of taking action. And then once you've made the commitment, now you're in the game, baby. Like now you can't, you can't go and like call it quits and go back and like sit on the seat. You're not sitting on the bench. You've made a commitment to play.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And so with that, I really do think there's a huge conversions between sports and business. And although I'm not like, I'm the worst athlete physically, I'm five feet tall. I have no athletic ability, but I do feel like from a mindset standpoint that Right. Like it's playing the game. Like you have to take the shots. You have to put in the time to practice.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
Oh my goodness. I'm going to give you like the most basic answer is, I wish it was so much bigger, but truthfully, it's my family. Like it's as simple as that. It's my family. I grew up as, you know, daughter of immigrants. So my parents are Pakistani. They immigrated to the States in the, in the seventies and, you know, just didn't have opportunity back home. My, both my parents weren't educated.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
You have to show up like all of the world's greatest players. They're waking up early. They're grinding. They're putting in the work and they're working as a team. They're taking care of their body nutrition. Like it's all of the things. And so it's deciding like. I'm in it. I'm going to take action. And then deciding what is that course? What is that path for you for success?
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
And every single day, I'm super proud. Even after exit, what's interesting is like, you kind of decided the person that's why entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs. So it's not, we're not motivated by the money because if it was the money that we could have been done. Right. So I could have been done at the first business.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
I could have been done and I could be retired and I could not be doing that and do whatever I want in my day. I've chosen to be in that arena. I'm ready to solve the next problem. I'm not motivated by the money or the ego or the six. I'm motivated to play. That's what is exciting. I want to win. I want to win championships. I want to be the best. I want to solve these problems.
Mick Unplugged
Suneera Madhani: From Immigrant Roots to Unicorn Success
So I'm showing up even every day with action, even when I don't have to be. That's part of your DNA that it becomes, and it's part of your natural core. So... I think it starts with good habits of truthfully waking up, right? Like how do you wake up? What your morning routines are like, how you take care of yourself physically.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And then their negative self-talk, because of how the world looks, because of the inequities that are plainly there, we start to form those conversations in our own head. And so I'm so grateful that I had super cheerleaders that I didn't even know that I was rolling my eyes at that really carried me through where I was like, no, I am different and I do have it and I can see things differently.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So I was that bad employee. I would challenge the status quo. And then I had this really amazing idea to go start a subscription-based processing system. And I took it back to my male bosses. And I was pretty much laughed out of the room. Like it was, you know, little girl, great ideas, but this is not going to work. And so I came back home and I flew back from Houston with family dinners.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
That was always something. We always were around food and family. And my dad looks to me and, you know, so disappointed in how the conversation went. And he said, Sonny, he goes, why don't you just go start the company? And I said, Dad, where do I go find Mr. Visa? Yeah. Like, how? I'm 25. Like, where do I go build a FinTech? I don't have, I don't know. And he said, you'll figure it out.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so that's exactly what I did. And I moved back into my parents' house. And he's like, and if you don't, in six months, you'll get your MBA. Like, that was it. That was it. It was as easy as that.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I was always brought in on all the conversations. I think something that my parents did, we had struggles, and we had challenges, and we had to move, and we had to various businesses. But we were always at the dinner table having the hard conversations. If there were hard things that were taking place about money or about business or about family, we were solving problems together.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So my parents would always ask our perspective. That is something that I do feel is very interesting. Just as a child, I try to do that with my daughters at the dinner table now is to ask them what they think. So thinking about solutions versus how they would think about solving it. So I feel like I was really involved in hearing my voice felt heard.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I think that's important because as women, I do feel like our voice isn't heard. And so I grew up in a place where my voice was not just heard, it was really valued. And my perspective was valued. And there's like so many memories that I can think of. I had such an amazing, amazing childhood. And I know a lot of people don't have that. On my 17th birthday, this is really crazy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So we went to Atlantic City for a Bollywood concert. It was like a Shah Rukh Khan concert when they would come out and do the shows. We went to Atlantic City for this concert. And there was a casino. I'm not even of legal age to gamble. And my dad takes me to the blackjack table. And he definitely had not the best habits as well. And it's important to see. You can see both sides of your parents.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Things weren't perfect. I look back and I think about mostly the positive. But sitting at this blackjack table, so I'm all dressed up to go to this concert. I'm sitting next to him. My parents were also really young. They had me when they were like 20. And so people are probably assuming I'm like his girlfriend or something.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But I'm sitting at the blackjack table next to him and he hands me a pile of chips. And he's like, bet. And in my head, I'm like, how much is this? Like, am I going to lose the money? You know, what's the value? And his response, he goes, just feel it. He's like, if you feel like you're going to win, bet more. If you feel like you're not going to win, pull back.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
My ability to now take risks and listen to my gut and not worry about, you know, like scared money doesn't make money as well. Right. So my ability to be able to say, OK, I feel better. I'm going to win. I feel like looking at the hands or learning blackjack and I was great at math and I can get this concept. That was one of my, like a core memory that I can think of.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But I was always involved in the conversation. I feel like it was more tactical with action, not just being told that you should go do this. I definitely feel very blessed that I did have that. And now my mom lives literally across the street from me. She's like one rock away and we get to, she gets to raise my kids with me. So it's wonderful.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I actually ask myself, would I do it again? And I think that it also depends on, like it's the risk-taking ability, right? It takes courage to take risk. One of my favorite, most favorite books that I've recently read is Die With Zero. It is such an incredible book. It's this crazy concept of just taking risks and you have your golden years of your life.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Like we should be spending our money, doing our things in our prime. And that makes complete sense. And the risk tolerance that you can take also changes with your age. Would I take these risks if I had two daughters at home? And maybe if I was a sole breadwinner or where, I don't know. And so I can look back and say, I didn't have much to lose. And it was a level of risk. I had a steady job.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I was on a career path. I could have totally miserably failed. I think you have to think about not what is the risk in doing it. I think you have to think about what is the risk in not doing it, right? So what is the risk if you don't do the thing? And that's kind of how I try to make the risky decisions today.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I think it starts with, don't just do, know where you want to go. So if you know where you want to go, and this can be for your company, this can be for your personal goals, this can be for a hobby or an athletic goal, you have whatever it is, you have to define what that end goal looks like so that you can work backwards. And I'm a huge believer in the rule of three for everything.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I know we're going to talk more and this journey is going to come full circle in 10 years. I left my company at the most record high of the company, but the risk of me staying
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
was a detriment to my health and my burnout and my all the things that i had left to go accomplish and so it's really about the risk of not doing the action but at that time i think it was i was young and i could and um you do have to take take a step back and i would say i think social media does a horrible job of showing us success there's so much saturation of success
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
There's not enough failures that are being shown. It's not enough. It is hard to build a business. Less than 2% of female founders ever even break a million in revenue. That is the most insane statistic. Men are eight times more likely to achieve that. Venture capital, right? I'm going to go build a FinTech. Currently, 2023, less than 3% of capital goes to women founders.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Less than 1%, it's in the decimals, goes to minority founders. What was I even thinking trying to go raise capital out of Orlando, Florida, not even Silicon Valley, right? And so I think there's a naivete when you're young and I think it's beautiful. I think that it's the most amazing thing. Like I even think about parenting, like, oh my God, now if I knew all the things that I knew, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
When we're young and doing the things, I think that having a little bit of not knowing what's on the other side is actually really beautiful too. Like embrace that. Now that I know I'm building second time again and I'm building from experience, which means I can catapult faster and do things differently. But I also know what's ahead. I loved when I didn't know what was coming.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So I didn't know that I could go build that billion dollar business. And all I did was focus on putting one step, one foot in front of the other every day. I showed up for a job. I always say this. That was harder than the one I had yesterday. Every day I had a job that was hard because the company was growing. Something else was happening. That's a pretty cool thing.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
place to be in from a young growth perspective. So if you enjoy that, then entrepreneurship is for you because it doesn't get easier. You get better, but it doesn't get easier.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I can't remember more than three things, like everything is about threes for me. It's not just about... getting everything done. It's what are the three most important things that I'm going to get done that are going to be towards the goals that are going to get me there.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I think the goals have to be in line with why are you doing what you're doing? I think that the numerical success will come from it. But if that's what you're defining as your goals up front, you're not going to... That's where the mountain gets really high. Versus if you're really just showing up to go serve... the five audience members that you were like, hey, I just want to do this podcast.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I just, whoever listens, listens. Like, this is what I want to do. When I first started the business, I knew that there was a gap in what I was, what we were doing. I literally sold the first 100 customers out of the trunk of my car. This is when like payment terminals were like a real thing. And I would carry them in my car. I'd go around shopping plazas.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It was just a completely different, I had to go meet my customers where they were at. And every day my goal was, I just want one person to say yes. That was it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
That's it. And so if, and I knew what I wanted to serve small business, I had such a passion. I knew what I could help them with. And so it's really important to stay focused on that. And it's hard. Like I really, that empathy comes from a place because I find myself in that now. Cause I think social media makes it really, really difficult.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We see living in this comparison culture, living in, it's hard not to, when you see it and it's nice, it's also nice to see success because you're like, Hey, that's possible for me. There's, an amazing truth in that. And you should have, I have my, I make my vision board every year, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And if I'm not going to have big visions and big goals, like I do believe in the power of dreaming big, but you have to stay rooted in showing up for that one person or that one customer and building your product and solution set to really serve. I think that that's where most of the most successful companies come from. And that's why I love women in business.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Like I love, love meeting and I get an opportunity with everything that I do with a podcast and CEO school to just meet and mentor so many women. I never meet a woman who's just started the business or a business for the sake of it. Every woman I meet is building a business because somebody wasn't solving something for their kid's school. Somebody wasn't solving something for their industry.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
There is a technology that they see this world in a different way that no one's solving for. There's a greater purpose. And she's the last one. She's so exhausted from nobody solving it. She's like, screw it. I got to do it. I got to do it. And that's literally how women are starting businesses. We're not first to raise our hands to say, oh, yeah, entrepreneurship is where we're at.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We're solving real problems because we really care. And I think that's the the empathetic part, the nurturing part, the problem solving part of women. And women actually end up becoming the most successful investments for venture capitalists. Women actually end up becoming entrepreneurs. the most incredible leaders in organizations.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I do think that the world would look very, very different in the environment that we are in today if we had more women at the top across the world on a global standpoint. So it is important because women build with purpose. And I think that that's what you have to... You have to stay grounded. And nothing's going to take you there because...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
When you talk about those goals, Jay, as soon as you start to reach, if it's just the goal, before you even get to the goal, you're raising the goal again. Before you get to the next goal, you're raising that goal again. You have to check yourself on that. And I fell into that trap.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So once we started to get the success and we started to grow the business, our first year we did $5 million in payments through our ecosystem. Within year five, we did $5 billion. It was real. It was hard. It was fast. We were scaling. We were growing. And then I just became a product of living in this fintech boys club and defining success on everyone else's terms.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I stopped checking in with what I actually want. I stopped checking in with what my customers really wanted. I stopped checking in. I was just building because now there was this playbook of this tech playbook. This is how we, this is series A, B, C. Here's what's next. Here's how we're, it's all about value. It's all about this. It's about acquisitions.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I definitely have a lot of lessons from building in that way that I had to really check myself when we reached the top.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I would say the first thing is to build your network. Like that is the number one thing. I think what has made the Boys Club so successful is they do business on the golf courses and through relationships and through this college and they went to this school and there is a network. There is a Boys Club network. We haven't had an opportunity to build a network.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We've only been in the workforce, you know, since the 1940s, 50s, since post-World War. Like the business world has not been designed for women in mind. And so it is important to start building that network immediately. And so get out of the screen, get into the room. So that's like the number one first piece of advice that I have for every woman building everywhere is build your network.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
the boys club isn't bad, right? And so find the right supporters, find the right allies. And so I had the most incredible, I had two male co-founders, my brother and my other brother. And so we built alongside and I had the most amazing mentors, male mentors that had been there, done that. And so I do think that you have to find the right Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Yeah.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It's definitely very rare. And I've seen it with my own friends firsthand of what you're saying is so true because you go into it with that level of trust, that excitement. With my brother, when he came into the business a year after, almost a year after, he was supporting me. on a backend. And then when things really started taking, like taking off, I needed help. I needed to grow.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And he was an expert in different things. And I think advice number one is don't just partner up for the sake of partnering up. We definitely had so much trust. I mean, we have the same DNA, right? Like there's like same value system. Every like, there's nobody in my life that has gone through almost every life experience with me than my brother.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Jay, thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so excited to just carry this amazing conversation that we've already been having. We're like, turn the cameras on. It's time.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Like, that's such a cool bond as siblings that you get to have, right? They really understand all of the craziness, the family stuff. They're really your, you know, the other half of you in a different way in the primary part of your growing up. So we had so much trust. Everything that made me great made him great.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Everything that, you know, would be things that maybe messed us up messed him up, right? So we had this true bond. But he was different in his skill set. I had really strong strength in people and brand and marketing and just the ability to inspire and get talent and drive. He was so great at sales and operations and that was a skill set that I needed. And so I think advice number one is
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
stay in your lanes. So I think where, what happens is like when you're, you know, in each other's lanes, that's where it becomes tough. So having clear roles and responsibilities, and then that's where the trust component comes in. Because if you really trust each other, then you have to let them run it the way that they would run it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And they have to trust you in running that lane the way that I would like that you're going to run it. And so I think that that's number one is to divide and conquer. Number two, you brought up money. Money is, it's tough, right? And so in it, that is truly what has, I've seen broken families and relationships. And one thing that, you
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I could have maybe offered a different equity stake or when we were trying to figure out how we're going to do this. And it was 50-50. It wasn't even a question. And even though I started the company first, whatever it was, but I knew that I never wanted money to be our relationship is the most important thing. And so I never wanted to build, like, what if the business is going to fail?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We're going to have success. We're going to fail. I didn't know what was going to be the outcome. But family is forever. I didn't want to ruin that. And so to avoid not letting money come in the way. And I know this isn't practical for many people. But that was the reason why it was 50-50. I got 2% more because I'm two years older. So older sister, like that. I love that. That was the deal.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And actually, this company now, we're building again together. And this time, he has 2% more to make life fair. Yeah. So, but we came from a place and what that allowed, it wasn't about me feeling great or him feeling great. We both came from a sense of partnership.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so every decision that you make, and whether that's with your friend or with your spouse or whoever you're doing, a business partner that you're doing business with, if you guys are coming at it from this same equitable perspective, lens, then you know that like there's that extra level of trust because there isn't any other gain or benefit for Sal or for myself.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We're always coming at it for the same outcome. And I know that's not perfect for all kinds of businesses, but it's all about value, right? Where there's not that disconnect is when someone doesn't feel their value. And so really sitting down and understanding the value component of it, it's super critical. And then just advice that it is important to talk about what happens if it doesn't
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
go well, right? So to have that conversation and to have things in place to say, if it doesn't go well, here's how we're going to solve through it. But I think it's not just having the end in mind. We actually never signed a contract. So that's actually, I'm giving the advice. I never took the advice.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I will say, what did get us through it is any business partnership, business is personal, like period. It's a relationship. I mean, you are the guru of relationship advice. Like it is, you have to nurture this relationship. You have to spend time in this relationship. It's a relation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
You have to ensure that the other person is feeling seen, heard, valued, and you've got to ensure that there's strong communication in the relationship. So Sal and I, we're siblings. We fight more than any, like it is nonstop. Like I disagree with him a hundred times a day, a hundred times a day.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Yeah.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But we also make up very quickly because the way that I talk to my brothers, there's probably nobody in the world I could ever talk to. That is like, it's just how siblings work. but we have great level of communication and we got an incredible coach to support us. We had almost like a therapist, a business therapist, because that's what this is. It's a relationship.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so I think it's never too early. So if you do have a partnership, to have a third party that you can communicate, just like couples therapy, right? That you can go to and you're like, we're both committed to making this work, but it's so annoying when she does this, or it's so annoying when he does that. And so it's not coming from a lens of,
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Oh, I've gotten so much more calm in the last several years, but I'm definitely highly caffeinated. That's for sure. I think productivity is something I've naturally just had to get better at as a CEO and especially as a working mother. I have an eight-year-old daughter and a five-year-old daughter working. I've been building companies since I was 25 years old and had kids along the way.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
me against him, and that there's like a third party there that's been super helpful in just building upon that communication. So trust is super important. And that communication, where it goes wrong is when you start brushing it under the rug, right? When you're like, that's where resentment forms. Where relationships fail, business relationships, personal relationships, it's resentment.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We don't talk about it. We're not addressing it. We're not finding a solution for it. And then the next time it happens, you're like, oh, remember that last time that that happened? So like all of this triangulation, that negative conversation, I'm a huge believer. I'm like always hard on my sleeve, always. And so that's what's worked, just be honest and have those conversations.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And if you need help, then get that third person involved. But that's been what's worked really well for us.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It's not sexy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It's done so much good, but it's ruined us, right? Like it's ruined us in so many ways. We have to stop doing things for the gram. It is our mentality of building companies, products, services, that if it's not this, then it's not that. And I also think that it's important for us to have a social presence and to utilize all these tools that we have.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so honestly, time is our most precious commodity. And especially when you're a busy mom running business, you have to be really mindful of that. And so I feel like I've found every which way to time hack. And I do think that I'm a productivity expert for sure.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So there's so much good that can come from it, but it doesn't have to be all of it. And so I do think it's important. There's so much opportunity out there. Most entrepreneurs that I know of personally that have been really successful came from a corporate position that like saw something and then they wanted to go tackle this one unique problem.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And these unsexy businesses are solving the most complex problems for us. So we did $40 billion in payments through this ecosystem that I almost didn't start. If I didn't build it, we solved huge problems in this. It was so unsexy, card present versus card not present. So Stripe was focused on digital transactions. Square was focused on in-person transactions. Guess what?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
There was nobody bridging the gap for like dentist offices that needed both in-person and online transactions. Boom, there was the opportunity that nobody saw in building that tech. And it's not about, I didn't have the background. I wasn't a coder. I wasn't an engineer, but I could see where the world was going. And I think that's what entrepreneurship is. It's the spirit of solving for problems.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It's not for show. Success will come if you just like, Let go of that. And you can also have a social following and build a great band and have the podcast and do the things to go reach more people. But you can solve if you just focus on solving the problem and seeing it uniquely. And if it's one of you, you're really like it's resonating with you because you're like, I am that person.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I'm always finding like you're in the shower and you're like, this should be better. This could be better. Right. You're you're always finding the next thing. But ideas don't make you an entrepreneur. Execution does, right? Everybody has ideas. It's really about execution. And that's the thing.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I feel like that's the thing that I saw maybe in like Sal and I growing up was like, you've got to put in the work. Even after everything that I have, I show up every single day and I work. I put my head down at night and I ask myself, did I like give my hundred and ten? I work so hard still. And it's just part of, and yes, I work smart too.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So it's not that I'm not just grinding my way and being intentional, but hard work is a huge part of it because there's no such thing as a billion dollar idea. It's a billion dollar execution. And to execute, it's every single day. You just got to keep showing up. And like that mountain, the mountain's going to be there and then you're going to climb it. And guess what?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
You're going to get to the top and you're going to climb this thing. The next day, there's another mountain and there's another mountain. So you've got to love that challenge. That's what entrepreneurship is. I didn't build a billion dollars. It took me 12 years to build that business, 10 years to exit that business. It didn't happen overnight. It happened because I just kept showing up.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It wasn't this magic formula. People ask, what was the secret to the billion dollar success? I didn't give up. I just somehow kept showing up. I can name every founders, like every journey where we almost didn't make payroll. I had to put my mortgage on the line. We had to do, we didn't get the investors. We lost the customers, but you just keep going.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so you have to find that why to really power you through. And for me, it was, I just love to solve really big problems. And that's why even after exit, right? It's like here I'm back again and building again. It's because I see the problem and I know we can solve it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Freedom of dollar is what we all start to chase, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting financial success for yourself, for your family. And so freedom of dollar is something that when I started my journey, that was one component of building the business. But Really, it became about freedom of time.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
You're brilliant because everything has to change. It's completely different. Going from your zero to six figures, getting that validation of your, it's a completely different journey from zero to six. From six to seven, it's a completely different journey and everything breaks. And it's supposed to break. Going from seven to eight figures in revenue, it's going to break again.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Your systems are going to break. People are going to break. It's going to break because it's supposed to. Once you get things right, or you think you get these things right, if you're doing what you've set out to do, which is go get more customers, go get more revenue, there's pressure on that system. And then you've got to recalibrate. You've got to recalibrate the tools. You've got to recalibrate
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
the next level of scale. And so it is supposed to break. But the one thing that's not different, if I look back, so we had to change our mentality on growth, we had to get new technology. Scale is, it's not simple, but if I were to boil it down, it comes to three things. It's people, process, and profit.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
You've got to scale your people, you've got to scale your process, and you've got to scale your profit. Most companies that go beyond that market validation of million in revenue and you're trying to get to the 100 million in value, they have multiple lines of revenue. And so you're thinking outside of the box. So once we were acquiring small businesses, we've shifted to an enterprise strategy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Now I'm building again. We're selling directly to the banks. We're going directly to enterprise first because that was the one to many that it took me seven years to unlock that next. And then I'm going to go to small businesses. So you have to be able to tap into that scale of people, process, and profit.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But the one thing that I would say stayed exactly the same, and it was so important for me, I wanted to be the one to see the company through to exit. And I worked so hard being overprepared over all the things so that I could be the best CEO that I could be. I put so much intentionality behind working really hard to be the best leader that I could.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And the thing that carried me through that was exactly the same was our values in the company. I think we hired the right people. We fired the right people. And those decisions are hard. And our culture was really built on the value system. I mean, I have one team tattooed here on my arm. It comes from that meets me and my brother. We're one team. We're one team, one dream.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
That's how it's been since we grew up. That's what I wanted our team environment to be like. And so building that culture, the DNA value system, and those core values Those don't change. Those evolve, but that needs to stay grounded and the same as your scaling. Then you just shift into, those are just like, it's just the next playbook.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It's a different heart at the next level, but you can solve it. And you can find people to solve it. And then at that next stage, we had amazing leaders at the $100 million mark. And when I started the company, the name of the company was Fat Merchant, by the way, because I was 25. It was...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Even if you have that level of success with freedom of dollar, we still all have the same amount of time. And so it really is about that freedom of time and being able to enjoy the journey along the way. I want to be able to do what I call the thousand dollar tasks. not the $10 task. And for me, a $1,000 task is when I get home, I want to cook with my family. Can I outsource that? Absolutely.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It was fun and we were disrupting the industry, but I knew that Fat Merchant was a hundred million dollar company. Stacks was a billion dollar company. And I had to get comfortable, even though it was my, to make those pivots, to make those changes.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so you've got to see where it's going and you've got to be willing to just throw it away and to start again at that, you know, to bring in, we had to bring in new leaders. That's hard. Change is hard for organizations. And so you've got to go build and to be willing to willing to change. It's supposed to break. So get comfortable with it breaking and you just get better.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It doesn't get easier, but you get better. But as long as everybody that's coming in through that door has that same that that value principle. And that's something that I think it's the most important thing. I was so tired of hearing my entire career scenario. You take things too personally.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I do because it is personal. It's the most personal thing I spend. I had this company before I even had my children. It's my first baby, right? Like I give that much energy and love even for work, right? Those that are in the workforce, like you spend more time at work than you do anywhere else. It is personal.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
You don't leave yourself at the door before you show up on Zoom or you shouldn't be expected to. And I think that we can create, and I have this vision of a world in, you know, a working world where we do bring the human first. And we've, we had the most tremendous leadership and people, and it's been so amazing to be able to build again with that same value principle.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And it's just come, it's the first component of it. And who, like you are the company you keep, literally you are the company you keep. And so that DNA is the most important. So don't change that has to be reflective of your value system. And then the rest is just a playbook. Yeah.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Surprisingly, my toughest days were actually after I achieved the billion dollar value. I sold the company twice, which is also very of an interesting journey. And I did the things that I wanted to do for my team. So I carried that my team with me. We made record breaking success for our investors. for our team, all the things. And then the next year, I got distracted.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
As I mentioned, I was chasing something that I didn't know that I wanted. And so it was like, boom, we did. It was $220 million, I think was the 2020 valuation and exit, where we cashed 70% out of the company. So whoever owns shares, everybody made money. And it wasn't just about the financial. It was meaningful in a sense of...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But that to me is not a $1,000 task. That's a $10 task for some others. But for me, spending time with my family is like the number one most important place where I'm trying to keep my time freedom. It's really, really important that I think about tasks in that way. It's something I really encourage. I mentor so many women in business and we have a lot of responsibility. Like there is...
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
When you get to exit something, when you get to like take it to completion, it feels so good. Like it was just incredible. And then got heads down because it was now what's next. Let's keep growing. Let's get it to the billion. Let's IPO. Let's go, you know, do what's next. And I got heads down again in 18 months, just building and grinding and building and grinding.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
The only things in my life were my company and my family. That was all it was. My health was deteriorating. I was at the worst, worst health. And I actually had never gone to a doctor because I think women can relate to this. My OB was my doctor because I was having babies in between. And Faisal and I were planning a family. And that was it. So for five years, my only doctor was my OB.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I had to go to the doctor because... It's like not the most prideful thing I can say, but we had to get like key man life insurance before our series. You have to like do these insurance, which means that like I had to be tested if I was healthy and what my insurance policy as a CEO was.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I went to the doctor because I was required to for work and I got my report card back, which was my health report. And I was quite literally like a 57 year old man. Like I actually became the pale male stale CEO. Like I literally became him. And my health was my cholesterol, my cortisol, everything was like, I didn't even know. Like I had no clue.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I had lost my father the year before and it was just hard. It was like, what am I doing this for? And we had our Series D coming up and it's brutal. Going through some of these fundraising with big bankers and investment bankers, I was on the road.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I had to do 40 plus fireside chats with the most incredible large private equities that in finance, you're from a central, you dream of being in front of the Black BlackRocks and the KKRs. And it was so fun and exhilarating in a different way, but it was hard. I was on the road and we accomplished what we set out to do was to go close the Series E, bring in other minority investors.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We were a hundred plus million in revenue. And so it wasn't even a fictitious value. It wasn't a value based on like, oh, here's this tech value multiple. We had a hundred plus million in revenue. And We closed around 1.1 billion, everything I'd ever dreamed of. We're an Orlando-based company, which is a huge deal. We're the first unicorn out of Orlando, out of Florida, like so many big moments.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We had the community, it was a big milestone to celebrate. So we had this huge, the mayors, like everything's there, all of this excitement around this milestone, around this series, either on this valuation and around this exit. And when the party was over, it happened so fast. Like it was like two weeks of all of this,
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I was back to work and I went to my next board meeting and I was like, here, here's the next, now it's 2 billion. And it was the first time that I was like, do I actually want to go do it again? Like, and I felt the most emptiest I had ever, the loneliest I had ever felt. And it's because what happens when you aim for the moon, but you actually land? I have no goal.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I did everything that I wanted to do. And so I did what most typical tech founders do is I took a sabbatical, took my family to Europe. And it was really just to spend time with myself and to really ask myself the hard questions of what is it that I want to do next? And then we had this big plan laid out for the next transaction or maybe going to IPO. We had three acquisitions at that time.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
This extra layer of responsibility, I'm not saying, I mean, I have such an incredible partner, such an incredible husband, and we co-parent, we do all the things. But as a working mom, there's just that extra layer of a million things that have to get done. As a CEO, everyone wants a piece of your time. How you spend your time is important. It's everything.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And as a student of learning, I get really excited about just learning. I'm like, I want to do something that I haven't done. And going public was something that was just on the checklist. But I came back and decided that I was going to leave my job. I was like, I have to, this is not for me anymore. And that I was, and also the organization was quite large.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
You know, as you can tell I'm a people person, my love language is quality time. And so it was just time for me to hand over to another team that was going to take it from that billion to two or to the next milestone and to the next level. That was when the transition really began. And I've spent my entire adulthood building this. My work was my worth. It was my only identity.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And it was so hard to shed what was next. And so that was it. That was the toughest moment. It was the hardest decision. I had many people think that that was like the craziest thing to leave at that time. I left a lot of equity on the team. I'm still a huge... I love this company. I'm a big shareholder. It's always going to be part of my story. I'm always going to be the founder of Stacks.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But I had more I wanted to do. And impact was an important part of it. And taking care of myself and getting to know myself. And I lost a decade. And I wouldn't change it like we talked about. I wouldn't go back and change it. It's literally given us the most incredible life. It's given me all of these opportunities. I would do it over again every single day.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But now I just want to be a lot more intentional. And I get to come from a place of where I get to build again. And it's not about freedom of dollar anymore. It's about freedom of impact. And I get to use my time and my resources and my connections and the network and to go build something incredible. And I thought maybe I'd retire right after, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So I was like, okay, maybe I'm going to come off. I've got the podcast. I love meeting amazing women and supporting female founders. But if I turn that into work, It would lose its magic. And so after a couple months, and this is where serial entrepreneurship kicks in, and now I get it, you get the next idea. And then you can't eat, breathe, sleep, think about it in the shower.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And that's how it happened. And we got the team back together. And we're going to go do it again because I'm 37 years old. And what else am I going to do with my life? And so I'm going to go build. But this time I think I get to build with more confidence. I get to build with a different network. I get to build without having the dollar in mind or having that pressure.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I get to take a different kind of risk. And I'm really excited about the Scenera 2.0.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so really thinking about what are your thousand dollar tasks and just focusing on those and everything else, finding a way to either delegate it or delete it. Do we even like actually have to do it? I have this process of like do delegate, delete. So every couple of weeks I'll do a time audit process.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I mean, it's been such an amazing journey of just getting to know myself and finding time to really think about what's important. And I was telling you that mantra in the beginning of I have all the time in the world. And I'm so busy. It's back again. I've got all the million things, but I really do believe I have all the time in the world now. Because I get to choose it with all the things.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I get to fill it with all the things that I love. I took on my health head on. I'm proud to report that my health is incredible. Like I'm like, everything is like, I'm the healthiest I've literally been since like before I had kids. And it feels amazing. And I feel so great inside and have this amazing energy in a different way. And I you know, prioritize myself and my workouts.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And it used to feel like a chore. And now it's like, I never thought I would be that, that girl that like loves to work out. And I mean, and I have different, like, I love to walk and I love being in nature. I've found I've always been a spiritual person, but I lost that part of me because it's hard to make the time, right? It's hard to add all the things.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I've really given that like a big part, a big bucket in my life. I've really filled that bucket and found ways to just go deep and be in peace. I'm so much more calmer now. If you ask any of my friends, my energy is just in a different energy. I'm so grateful. I was talking to Faisal on the way here, and it's like, we think that everything's happening to us, right? It's so hard. It's so hard.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But when hard things happen, you have to trust that it's happening for us. And I really do understand that now. I think a lot of spiritual teachers will share that, that you have to trust. You have to trust in that there is a better plan. And I finally get it.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Yeah, I do a time audit because your seasons are changing. Like what you're doing right now travels insane. Whatever else it is, do a time audit. So we do a time audit and I take a look at how am I actually spending my time? Is it and I'm intentional about my time? How do I want to spend my time?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And now when I pray or when I look deep and I ask and I'm like, I want this or I want to think about that or allow me these opportunities or something better. So when things don't happen exactly, it's because the timing isn't right because there's something better and you just have to trust in the power of the universe.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I really do believe that when you're in that frequency and it sounds like so woo, but I get it. And I feel really grateful that I was able to take the time to put in the work and you've got to put in the work. And it's hard to look deep and check your ego. Check, you know, how you're actually living your life in action. And is that really aligning?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I can look back and I also, because I had so many mistakes, so many things I want to do over on that I don't, I won't change. But I think growth is a big part of the journey. And I don't know what my destination is going to be. I think this time around, I'm not going to just build a billion dollar business. I'm probably going to build, I don't know, something even greater.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But I'm not capping it. I just uncap it. And I'm really excited about that.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And so if I see, you know, certain habits and certain things and I'm like, OK, no, this has to come off our plate. This can be delegated off. Am I spending too much time in one area? This can apply to anyone at any point is to do a time audit and to take control back of it. And it's also important, I think, when you ask the question of like, how do I view time now?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I used to have this mantra that I used to say every day because things are so crazy busy and running two companies, the podcast, the kids, all the stuff. Every morning I'd wake up, Jay and I'd say, I have all the time in the world. I have all the time in the world. I have all the time in the world. But I didn't. And I didn't believe it inside because I didn't have all the time in the world.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And now a lot has shifted where I actually do believe I have all the time in the world. And that just comes with presence. That just means that wherever I'm going to be—and I learned how to be really present in everything that I was in. I was in with such intention. that I did have all the time in the world. I think that those are some ways that have really shifted my perspective about time.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
But I do think it's the most important commodity that we have. It's the biggest gift that you can give yourself to everyone around you. And I think the world is changing so fast. We're such an on-demand everything. Everything is so speedy. Everything coming at us from social media to life to work. everyone's life. It's not a CEO's life that's busy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Every single person that's probably listening feels exactly that feeling. It's so busy, but is it busy or is it full, right? And that's the shift. I was busy before and I learned how to make my life going from busy to intentionally full with purpose.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
it's one understanding where you want to go. So I think it starts with, don't just do, know where you want to go. So if you know where you want to go, and this can be for your company, this can be for your personal goals, this can be for a hobby or an athletic goal, you have whatever it is, you have to define what that end goal looks like so that you can work backwards.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And I think that is an important part of even in business, especially as startups, you want to do all the things, but you just can't. So it's really deciding what are the three things? And I'm a huge believer in this, in the rule of three for everything. I can't remember more than three things. Like everything is about threes for me. And so it's three goals.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
for let's say it's for the quarter, for the year, how do we work backwards, that that's the goal. And then everything else is a delete, it's a no. And every day I look and I plan my needle movers is like in business is a very common term, but it's not just about getting everything done.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
It's what are the three most important things that I'm going to get done that are going to be towards the goals that are going to get me there. And so you have to start getting really comfortable with saying no. You have to start getting comfortable with you not being the one to do it. And even if you don't have a team, even if you don't have the resources, it starts with you, right?
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
You are the core nucleus of your company, of your life, of the things. And that DNA then breeds into the next, your first hire that you're going to do and the next hire that you're going to do. And the job of a CEO is helping everyone prioritize. Like that's my job every day. My job is not to do the rowing.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
So I think about, you know, in rowing club or like the coxswain that's at the front of the boat, his or her job is not actually to row. It's to give direction, to cheer everyone on, to make sure that we're going in the right direction. He or she's not actually the one rowing. And so your job is just to keep everyone rowing in the same direction and prioritizing.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And that's probably the hardest job as well is what is priority, what you asked. But if you don't know it and if you're not in line with it, then your team's not going to be in line with it. Your life is not going to be in line with it. And this is something that I've realized that falls into like the CEO part and the life part. Always both. It's the same.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I didn't know I could go build a million dollar business, let alone a billion dollar one.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I had no idea. I was 26 years old, no money in my bank account. I was working for a financial services company. I was the first person in my family to graduate college. I grew up in the most incredible, incredible household. I was getting my MBA without even knowing it. My parents were... immigrants. They came from Karachi, Pakistan. I was born in Chicago, so I was first generation here.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
We moved to Texas. I went to 10 different schools in 12 years, which is an insane part of my story. But it was the pursuit of the American dream. And for my parents, it was about allowing us an opportunity to be anything we wanted to be, to get an education. That is 100% every Indian, Pakistani culture. Education is so important. So I was a really great student.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
I'm the firstborn, eldest daughter, all the things. And I loved my childhood. I loved seeing my parents work really hard. Everything wasn't perfect, but we had the best family values. I was surrounded by so much family. confidence around me. My dad would wake me and my brother up every morning and he was this like loud energy, like four in the morning, wake up kind of guy.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
Every morning he'd wake us up and he'd say, Sonny, that's my nickname. He'd say, you have it. Like that is what I grew up around. Every single day, somebody telling you that you have it. And it was the most annoying thing. They're just our biggest champions. My brother's and I's biggest champions. And And so you carry that level of, like, responsibility. You want to succeed. You want to do well.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And growing up in also a Muslim household, like, I didn't feel at all, like, my gender. Like, I was just the eldest kid. And so that meant that I got to do everything first. Like, I never felt my gender until I went into the workforce.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
not even in college. In college, like, you know, I went to, I went to University of Florida. We had like three championships in my four years of college. I studied abroad. I did all of these amazing, cool things. And then I get into the workforce and I saw that there were no women in any of the companies that I worked for. I worked for three different companies.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And the only women that I saw working in the organizations were in either customer support or an admin roles. There was nobody in technology. There was nobody in anything else besides supporting roles. And that was the first time that I was like, I'm different. For the first time, I noticed my difference. And I think it was that confidence. I never had that negative self-talk.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Suneera Madhani: Why Most Founders Fail—7 Things You Must Do to Succeed
And the self-talk actually started to get created at that point in my early 20s. But I never had that going into it. And so I feel super grateful. And I think that's how I try to parent as well. is you can't over love a kid. That's where the confidence comes from, especially for young girls. Because in a world like today, no one is telling them.