Adit: Our vision is to develop tools for the mind to help advance humankind, focusing on knowledge workers, the billions of them. There are no great project management tools out there for people who think for a living. There’s nothing to help them turn their thoughts into action. Knowledge worker’s roles are constantly shifting, and their feeling overwhelmed. More times than not, their to-do list is ever-expanding. And when they finish their days, they end up with more things to do than they started with.
And, unfortunately, project management tools that exist today are built for team in mind, first and center, and individuals often wedged into the process. We work to solve for this at Kaizera.
Ale: What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Adit: I haven't felt like this in ages. I think for me, it's knowing we’re building something which is actually worthwhile and helps people become a better leaders and people. Kaizera helps people feel accomplished in their process. CEOs and founders are such an underserved market, and I know if we can nail this product, we can genuinely make this world a better place by helping people become better thinkers. And helping them in their careers and jobs. So yeah, that's what brings me out of bed in the morning!
Ale: It's so great that you're helping communities of people because I recognize, on this journey, there are very small communities of other people who are experiencing exactly what we're experiencing. And it’s really challenging and having a support system to connect with someone who's knows exactly how you're feeling is super helpful.
Adit: It's funny because we often live in a bubble, and this is such an exciting thing to do, but 95% of people in this world don't do the things we do. And so, I think it's blessed and it's okay to feel overwhelmed because we get to work on cool shit with like gravy for every day. So yeah, it's fascinating.
Ale: Definitely. What's one piece of advice that you might offer someone who's looking to embark on starting their own company?
Adit: Fail fast, but be hell bent on your mission and purpose. And focus on what makes you think differently from others. For me, because I wasn't smart at school, I failed a lot of my subjects and I got kicked off a lot of my classes for just doing dumb shit. I found my way of learning and managed to get into a good university and hack my way into good situations. So, I think discovering my brilliance made me feel comfortable in my shoes. It's taken 20 years to get there. But now I want to help others discover their brilliance and all these weird and wacky ways about themselves, just like I did. And so, that's why I like the mission of Kaizera. It’s mega powerful to me, and I feel the business is aligned with my purpose, so working feels fun.
Ale: Awesome. So how big is your team, currently and are you hybrid, fully remote or in person?
Adit: I don't like the word hybrid. At the beginning, we were in the office Monday and Wednesday. I think, as a new team, having face-to-face connection just adds to building trust. If you can do that. But for now, we're four people spread across London. I have a feeling we’ll go fully remote once we've iterated and built the MVP. People should have a choice in where they want to work.
Ale: Yeah, I think that's something that we've noticed, with this pandemic, and the shift to remote. So many people are valuing the flexibility that they have in their schedules. And I think some people do love going into the office and I, I'd say, I do love that human interaction that you get, especially when building something new. But having the flexibility to live in Santa Barbara, California, and also have awesome colleagues and co-founders who are globally based.
Adit: It's fascinating. You know, I think it's good - the way the world is heading because you could literally be 21 and work for a company and be on a beach in Thailand, or in San Francisco or you could be located anywhere, really. So, I think it's a blessing in disguise. I think tools will make it easier to foster trust and psychological safety. So yeah, it's exciting times.
Ale: Nice. Five years from now, what impact do you want to have made?
Adit: To be honest, this year, by the end of the year. For me, it's having a successful product launch. Five is the impact I've made when we have 10s of 1000s of people who, through Kaizera, are discovering their brilliance and what makes them tick. When we’re helping them become better thinkers and make ethical decisions – that’s the five years.
Ale: Awesome. Awesome. Now, that's great. Any questions or final thoughts for me?
Adit: Yeah, where do you want to go with Katch?
Ale: It’s interesting that you say that. I saw on Tik Tok earlier this person who's super addicted to work. And they're just like, the one thing you need to make sure that you're not doing is making sure that every work achievement defines what success is, or every work failure is defining what your failures are because then you'll be emotionally drained and pretty much have a really tough time getting through life. I thought that was such a great point. I'd love to think being a black female founder in the space is creating avenues for other women and other minorities to recognize that they can have a space and voice to be at the table.
If I'm looking back, I think creating opportunities and being able to give back is important. That means, hiring people who are interested in working at startups. I think it's an incredible opportunity to be given. This is a space that I love working in and being able to wear many hats all the time and grow in ways. Some corporate companies may not give you that type of opportunity.
Adit: It's fascinating. I think if we can continue creating better thinkers and better humans, then that’s all I can ask for.
Ale: I think better humans and I think it’s about creating these humane tools for people to really be able to live symbiotically to be able to have balance both.
Adit: It's funny you say that because we live in a world now where it's better to take a step back breathe, think, have enough sleep, feel refreshed, do meditation for your mental and physical health, and live a balanced, good life. The whole facade is going away that you've got to work 14 hours a day. Of course, sometimes, you’ve got to pull it out of the bag, but if you're doing that every day, then you’re bound to fuck up.
Ale: Exactly. I read a Medium post the other day about ways to become productive or have more effective days. And one thing that they mentioned was to have daily reviews. I was doing weekly reviews, assessing how the week went, but I started incorporating them daily. And so, at the end of the day, it’s few questions that I asked myself.
· What did you learn?
· What like went really well?
· What didn't go well?
· And what you took away from that?
· How will you change it?
And I thought some of these questions were really great in pushing me to recognize the best part of my day. And if something didn't go as planned or as I would have liked, addressing how I could learn from that and reshape it to make it, so moving forward, I could essentially have an extremely happy day. Hopefully, that's like the best-case scenario. Because it's frustrating and so easy to get caught in the weeds. But thinking of the bigger picture, like something that could bother you last month, it was not on my radar.
Adit: Being founders, fuck, man, it's not easy. You have things thrown at you from so many different directions. Context switching is so draining. But it’s exciting.
Ale: It's really exciting. And I mean, I think we kind of got a small taste of that when we were at Sifted Summit. There were so many interesting founders who were creating and developing these brilliant ideas.
Adit: It’s weird because, as a founder, if you don't know many other founders, it can be a very lonely place. You often feel because there's not community you can just join. There's not really something for founders to be part of and just be vulnerable with one another.
Ale: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. This was a great conversation. It was great catching up with you again at it and looking forward to staying in touch and talking through our founder and product updates and feedback!
Adit: 100%. We will both help each other get there!
Ale: Definitely, cool.
