We got the chance to interview Dr. Mohan Ananda, the founder of Stamps.com, SPAC, JAB Holdings Limited, and Envestnet. He also leads charitable organizations such as Ananda Foundation, Achuthan Nair and Easwari Amma Charitable Trust, and Paanini Foundation.
Rashad Thirlkill
All right. So today, listeners, we have Dr. Mohan Ananda, who is the founding chairman, CEO, and President of Stamps.com.
Stamps.com is the leading provider of internet-based mailing and shipping solutions and utilizes technology developed by Doctor Ananda. Doctor Mohan Ananda was instrumental in raising in excess of $450,000,000 of capital for the company through private and public offerings.
Mr. Mohan Ananda also has been instrumental in entering into a definitive agreement for Stamps.com to be acquired by Thoma Bravo in an all-cash transaction that values stamps.com at approximately $6.6 billion.
Mohan is also the chairman and CEO of the new SPAC entity, Innovative International Acquisition Corporation. It’s a registered entity in the Cayman Islands and has filed an S-1 with the SEC and has successfully completed an IPO on the Nasdaq with the symbol of IOAC, and has raised about $230,000,000. Not to mention, he is also the author of “Autobiography of an Immigrant”.
Good morning, Mr. Ananda.
Mohan Ananda
Good morning to you. Thanks for talking to me.
Rashad Thirlkill
Oh, no problem at all. We look forward to this interview. You have a lot that you could share with our listeners, and as far as that is concerned, we would like to jump right into it. If you could, could you give us a little background about yourself?
Mohan Ananda
Yes. And when I started working on DoD, I was kind of instrumental in designing and developing GPS (global positioning system), which I consider one of the most successful programs in my life. That’s my technology phase, Phase One.
Then in the second phase, I became a lawyer. So, I started working with startup companies, mid to big companies, primarily in the area of raising capital, corporate governance, and also intellectual property area. That’s my second phase.
In the third phase, I became more of an entrepreneur and started companies. One of the companies you mentioned is stamps.com. Also, I founded another financial services company called Investment, which is a public company in the New York Stock Exchange with the simple ENB.
I took another company public in London Stock Exchange, which is a venture in which I’m not currently involved. But we invested in various ventures through that company. So, that’s my kind of the third phase.
I’m still involved in the third phase. Meaning I’m working on this new SPAC, which I took public. But we are in the process of combining it with a target company, and it’s in the digital technology area. So, that’s a very brief summary of my background.
Rashad Thirlkill
Oh, wow. That is very impressive. A lot of what I do and try to do is motivate people to follow their dreams and be able to have an idea, to carry that idea out until fulfillment.
Can you tell me a little bit about what motivates you and inspires you to continue to do. Starting from one project, working through it, seeing it through, and then beginning another one, and just continuing along that path.
Mohan Ananda
Thanks a lot. In fact, to some extent, I have discussed this in my book. The book is right here. This is the “Autobiography of an Immigrant”.
The real three reasons why I wrote the book are, one to create a legacy for my children, my grandchildren, and others to come. That’s more like for them to appreciate my roots or where I come from, how I grew up as a young person, and what are the things I did.
The second reason is really to your question, young people like to see how people have done, and it’s not like a cookbook, not a recipe, but at least something with what the struggles are, what the difficult points are. How you overcome them, how you have to be persistent, and how you go and get what you want.
That’s primarily for young people. The third objective was mostly for businessmen and entrepreneurs. Because entrepreneurs, of course, you have to have self-motivated and how you do things. There are certain kinds of requirements to be successful. Of course, success is not definite, but there are pathways to accomplish that. And my experience or my various journeys may give some insight into how to do things as well as how not to do things. So both are there.
I want to give you that background. The real thing in my mind, because if you start a journey, you need to have a destination where you want to go. Then you have to come up with a roadmap on how to reach there. That process may sometimes look easy, but it is really difficult.
I have encountered many obstacles and many things, and you try to overcome and reach there, and it’s more about interest. You want to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Also, you look at it because I was a scientist. I was doing many abstract things, but then I knew there are much more smart people to do what I was doing.
So, I transitioned into something more. I think it’s easy to be a business person than a real scientist. But even though the reward for a business person is probably much more than being a scientist. I made a transition because of why I felt I’m not that good as a young and coming innovative scientist.
So, I transferred to a business person. There could be a success, or there may not be, but I wanted to pursue that. In many cases, I’ve been fairly lucky and I had many failures too. But I’ve been lucky enough to be successful in some areas.
Rashad Thirlkill
That’s awesome. It’s a saying that luck is basically just being prepared for the situation at hand.
Mohan Ananda
When the luck comes and knocks, you have to open it up.
Rashad Thirlkill
Right, exactly. So if you could walk me through as far as Stamps.com and the GPS. Can you walk me through the steps of how you basically came up with those ideas? Is it just based on looking at something and saying, okay, I see where this can be improved?
Mohan Ananda
Okay. Let me first address GPS.
GPS is not really my idea because GPS actually is a force enhancement. It’s a weapon system. It’s a DoD. The GPS came into being from the Department of Defense analysis. How do you save the number of weapons to defend America or us?
You need to have multiple decides, multiple aircraft, multiple submarines, or whatever. But if you know how to attack an enemy precisely. If it takes ten weapon systems to attack one target, if you can reduce it to one, you’re in a much better shape.
So, the whole concept of GPS is to be able to reduce the number of weapons to get the same performance. That’s how GPS came into being. And I was instrumental in discussing the design of it. But I was not the cause of it.
When you have a weapon system, the most important thing is if every weapon system depends on GPS, you have to make GPS survivable. If GPS is eliminated, then you’re in a very bad shape. So my responsibility became how to make it survive any threat.
In fact, in the Department of Defense, there is intelligence. People come up with what we call a threat assessment. What are the potential threats and how do you survive those threats? That’s the problem, how it is solved.
My responsibility was that. There are several threats and we overcome everything. I don’t want to go into such detail. Not because some of them, of course, many of them are classified, but there is open literature also. If there is more time, I can explain. But it is very interesting and it is one of the most survivable systems as it stands today.
Okay, that’s GPS there. Now let me come to Stamps.com.
Originally, in 1992, I was very much involved in the early stages of the internet. Internet was very embryonic. It’s just happening. We started even prior to that when there was a network called DARPA. This is mostly institutions of universities. They communicate between and do some internet.
Then as it progressed, it started becoming available to the public in a very limited form. The worldwide web came into being and there is some communication between people. But the data rate is so small. It is not really that useful. But people like me and I particularly knew this is going to be the least.
Today, the internet is the baseline for digital technology. Without it, nothing happens and it is available to everybody. I kind of foresaw the future. Thus, in 1992, I applied for a patent which is the foundation for today’s e-commerce. Ecommerce, meaning you and I can communicate in such a way. I can sell something to you or you can buy something from me.
But the key component is security, the security between us. Nobody can intervene. That’s the technology I came up with. In fact, in today’s e-commerce, there are thousands of patterns and every one of them refers back to my original patent. It’s almost like a foundational patent that I had.
So, I got this in 1996 and the first thing I did was, I thought there are many applications. One application I thought maybe instead of people going and buying stamps from the post office, why can’t you just print stamps yourself?
Of course, printing stamps is like printing money. Because you have to make sure that you can’t print anything without the knowledge of the United States Postal Service. So you have to go and contact the USPS. This is the right thing to do. How they can save money because every stamp they print and sell costs them 30% for the printing, securing, and distributing. And if you as a consumer or you and I start printing, they get 100% of it.
So, they understood the value. You can’t get anything from the United States Postal Service that easily. But eventually, they agreed and came up and that’s how the company was founded. I just made it a brief summary.
Rashad Thirlkill
Very brief!
Okay, so there was an extra step within that. Not only did you have to sell them on the idea, you had to sell them on basically the idea of legality and principality, what people are used to doing as opposed to being how am I trying to say a federal institution, kind of like printing money.
Mohan Ananda
Exactly. But most federal institutions like the FDA agency – drug agency, they approve drugs. So, if you apply, ten people apply for drugs, maybe at least two of them or three of them get approved.
Whereas USPS has not approved anything for 100 years. They are not into technology. This is a very conservative, extremely bureaucratic institution. So, in order to penetrate and have them really say, okay, this sounds like a good idea. That was a great step.
When we tried to raise money prior to getting approval, we went and talked to the Silicon Valley big venture capital people and they liked the idea because it looks extremely interesting.
But they said that you have a binary thing. Either you get approval from the USPS or no approval and the probability is you will not get approved. So, we don’t want to put money into it because it won’t work. That was the really difficult thing.
But I would say we were lucky enough to convince the smart people at the USPS and they said, okay, it is really important for you. It is so valuable to you. They came along. I mean that was an interesting development. It was not that easy at all.
Rashad Thirlkill
I can bet.
This is a question about I guess basic mindset. You seem like a forthcoming, joyous, cup is already half full and not half empty kind of positive guy. So, when you’re faced against something like this, do you accept it as a challenge as opposed to maybe not even work at that time, but like a challenge and it’s kind of fun to overcome these options.
Mohan Ananda
Of course, you said it. I am a half-full guy. Meaning I have to convince myself first and I have to know this is the right path, this has merit. And if I believe in it, then I think I can accomplish it.
First I have to have that self-confidence that I’m doing the right thing and I have to be convinced. That’s the tough part. Once it is done, the challenges are there, but you can find a way to overcome them.
Sometimes, you have just a few things, but you need to have that – I use the word persistence. You need to be confident and persistent and drive towards that. Then I think many challenges can be overcome. Not everything, but most of it.
There are ways you kind of adjust as it’s required and move forward. I mean that’s my life experience. Like coming back to the GPS. I just want to give you one of the threats the GPS had. It is that if there is a nuclear blast in the upper atmosphere that somebody can do.
We were at the time between the United States and the Soviet Union. And Soviet Union was a potential major threat. If they know that we are enhancing our system, they could just put a nuclear bomb in the atmosphere that will create what is known as an electromagnetic pulse. It will create what is also called the scintillation of the frequency.
GPS basically sends a signal to the user. The user’s instrument gets a signal and processes it and locates where you are. That’s the basic principle. But if you can’t get the signal, if the signal is completely scintillated and there is nothing that comes to you, then the receiver has no value to it, nothing. You will have no information. That is a threat that was extremely important and which we could do.
So, our threat people came and said okay, this is going to happen potentially. How will we survive? How will we overcome that? So that was very, very challenging. So, we came up with some idea that I cannot disclose.
We came up with the method, but then not only you implement it, then you have to test it. And the way you test it, you can’t go put a nuclear bomb in the upper atmosphere. They did come up with a simulated environment. So we get Barium.
You take it to the upper atmosphere in a balloon, put barium and you discharge it. And the barium gimmicks is scintillation. So, it’s almost like an electromagnetic pulse. This frequency gets completely scattered.
Now, if you did the right thing, see whether we went to a place called Tromso, which is in Norway. Tromso is a beautiful city. If anybody wants to go, I would recommend it. It is 70, 71 degrees latitude, upper. In fact, it’s north of Helsinki in Finland
Because it’s close to the North Pole, you can see many signals simultaneously. We also went south in Adelaide in Australia, which is not that south, but it is closer to the south than many other places.
So, we did some testing and came out to be successful. The system works, at least under the simulated conditions. We haven’t had a nuclear blast yet, but you never know. It could happen. But we have proven.
As an example, I’m saying that if there are things, you have to come up with a strategy, implement it, test it, validate it, and move forward. So, that’s the problem. I just want to give you an example of how problems are solved.
Rashad Thirlkill
That’s great. That’s great because you kind of put it into perspective. When you begin planning these things, is there a particular time span that you set? Like either this is going to work within that time span and I’m just going to give it all together and trash it.
Or within that time span, I need to have this particular milestone set. And if I do, then I can continue.
Mohan Ananda
Exactly. That has to be the rule. You have to have that thought process. I mean, I’ve failed a number of companies or startups because of this reason. It’s a function, not just one finite time. You cannot have one. It has to happen in one year or two years. That may not be the right approach. It could vary depending upon the circumstances.
But to give you a summary of that, for example, there are three things you need when you start a new venture or a startup: the team, the people – that’s the most important, and the concept. A product or service or product as a service, whatever you are going to do, that’s the second.
Then you need capital, reasonable capital, sufficient capital to do the work. And you come up with a business plan. There are two parts of a business plan, the short-term and the long-term.
The short-term is something very focused, clear milestones, clear accomplishments, and all those things are identified. The long-term is more visionary, how we can really get there. So, that’s more of guidance that you have everything to do without which you can’t start.
I mean, if you start, you’re not really doing the right thing. So, if you plan that as a process. Now, you go and see how to achieve near-term milestones. You may not get the capital until you come up with an actual viable product. It’s what we call, a minimum viable product or MVP. Once you have that, then you can approach investors.
Initial investors maybe you, your family and friends, and people you know. They may not know anything about your product, but they may know about you and they will say, okay, I like him. So, I provide some capital and things like that.
Once that goes to a certain level, you start getting traction. Meaning people are using it and the feedback is good, then you can go to professional investors.
Professional investors are venture seed capital or venture funds. I mean, there are many types of people who would look at it, but they look at it not just the people they see the viability with their experience.
I’ve been on the venture side; I took the company public in London and I was investing in other companies. So, I know from the other side that they’re very professional. They look at it, they make sure it’s not a charity or anything and whether it works.
Sometimes you get the investment from the so-called professionals that may not make it, so they do have a risk. There is a risk associated. But they’re knowledgeable. Anytime, a good venture firm funds it, then your success rate is much better.
That’s another test. Also, they bring experience, a number of connections, contacts, potential partners, and strategic partners. So, it’s very valuable. Of course, you have to give up your ownership before that, but that’s okay. It’s better to have a full pie with no value or a small piece with big value. So, it’s always better to do that.
But if you can march through and things are really happening, you pursue. It may take two years, three years, or it can continue. Then you will know if things can work out.
Like suddenly, for example, take this step. If we went through everything and one fine day USPS comes and says, you’re closing this stuff at the end of the road, you close the shop. Similarly, if something really bad happens, you close the shop. There is nothing you can do and I don’t want to go beyond.
But if you didn’t initially get a viable product, you don’t have the right type of people or even the people you have. It’s very important. The team has to be the best. One of the key ingredients I recommend is the integrity of the people you work with.
If there is some dishonesty, somebody is kind of trying to do something under the table and things like that, you should immediately walk away from it. You need to have the right team because people are the most valuable. It’s like people say if in a big basket you have a bad Apple, the whole basket Apple becomes bad. So, we don’t want people you don’t trust. If there’s dishonesty, then you should cut that cord and move forward.
This is not something you can really put in a strict like cookbook type. This is what you do. You have to have that understanding and do the right thing. You can close the shop right at the beginning or maybe in five years.
I started a company called Micro Substrates which lasted for almost 20 years. Then I had to close it down. It was successful in many ways. We were doing chips and the chip technology. Our customers were like Intel and other big customers. But what happened to us, the things that we were doing are based on metallic chips.
Then suddenly somebody came and started doing similar things in plastic. So, we didn’t see it through. I mean, we should have thought through and we would, but we knew that this is not an area we could continue. Instead of wasting time, we closed the shop.
So, that did happen. It’s not like six months or a year or two years. Many years later we had to close it down. But we learned a lot in that process. We employed a lot of people. They had a good time. But eventually, it has to be done. I mean, that could happen.
I like to take the example of Xerox or Kodak. These are companies with billions of dollars. They are reorienting and doing new things. But this happens in huge companies as well as small companies. But you have to stop at the right time if it is not functioning the way you want.
I started another company, which I mentioned in the book, called Amazing Hits. What it is today’s, actually iTunes or Netflix, that type of company. But we were a few years ahead of the time.
I went and talked to all the Studios. We had a very good reception. It’s purely what it is. It is a digital technology that distributes or sells music and videos. At that time, there wasn’t enough bandwidth for videos, but music could be done.
We went and talked to the Studios and they were very interested. But they were selling albums. Record albums will have about 14 songs and only two are good. Twelve are probably junk. But they will have people, those who want the two songs, they will buy. So, you get money for 14, which is bad.
We were proposing to sell one song at a time. So, they thought we will be a threat. I mean, even though it is a digital selling, it’s good but that means their record selling will come down. We had a good relationship talking. But they were not ready to give the real content.
We had about 200,000 songs and art, but those were not that good. We were looking for content that people actually want, but we couldn’t get access to that. But slowly, of course, we decided this cannot go. And as soon as we close it down, Steve Jobs came and started iTunes two years later and he obviously couldn’t convince me because by the time the bandwidth started going and they knew this is inevitable and the studio started working with iTunes.
Then video came with Netflix. But the reason I’m saying this is that with Amazing Hits, we were a little ahead of time, but we foresaw saw the future. My actual mission was that everything was to be digitally provided – music, videos. But we didn’t and couldn’t do it because we didn’t get the content at the time because we were a little early.
But Steve came and took over a little bit and then, of course, now everything is digitally transferred. I mean, Studios all started doing it. It lasted for two or three years, but without content, we couldn’t take it forward. So, we closed it.
I mean, several failures like that, or you can call it failures or a learning process. I put it in my book and there is another company called Utopia, which is a little different, but that also had a good start and we did quite a bit, but then we had to close it down.
So, you have to close when you know that the growth possibilities are not there. Once you recognize it, you walk away and do something else.
Rashad Thirlkill
I call it a learning experience, more so than failure learning.
Mohan Ananda
I mean, everything you do is an opportunity to learn. As long as the knowledge you acquire is used properly in the subsequent events. That’s important then only it’s valuable.
Rashad Thirlkill
Wow. So, I’ve seen you in other interviews where you stress simplicity. Keeping things simple. That amazes me because a lot of the people I follow, a lot of the interviews I’ve done, they say the exact same thing.
Even if it’s breaking it down to one-page business plans, if it’s just a one-page marketing plan, it’s somewhere that you can get just a real quick visual and continue on the path before it begins to get too complex. Can you give a little insight on that? On ways to keep it simple without making it complex to begin with?
Mohan Ananda
Yes, I do it in two steps. Think big, keep simple.
You have to think big in the sense you have to have that vision for the ultimate goal. Whichever path you go and whichever business model you choose, you have to have that big vision so you know where to reach.
But everything you do to reach there has to be extremely simple. Like we talk about the elevator page. That means you should be able to communicate to somebody going from the ground floor to maybe the fifth floor or in the elevator. That 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds. You should be able to communicate it.
Before you communicate it to somebody else, you have to appreciate it. Sometimes, simplicity may be easy to kind of say if you don’t appreciate that simplicity, you can’t communicate it to somebody else. So, you have to start putting things together in a very simple way and make sure that you are in it. Then you can transfer into it.
Simplicity not only took a potential customer, you have to have among the workers, strategic partners. Everybody should feel this is simple.
The Amazing Hits I was trying to sell to the Studio Executive, I went and talked to Warner Brothers CEO. What I told them was, look, you have discounted, you have to put all these things and sell them here. We will sell it for you digitally. Touch and click, that’s it. Nothing else. They immediately got it. But then they said if I sell through you the best song, then nobody is going to buy the bad song. Then how am I going to make money on the bad song?
They immediately figured it out. So, that’s why we didn’t get it. But they understood. You have to make it almost like a 10 seconds presentation. You can have a good pitch deck and various things but when you talk to people to gain their interest and make them a part of it, then you have to keep it simple.
When we were talking about solving GPS problems, this is very complex but the real thing is the threat that the technology needs to survive. That’s how simple. If there is a threat identified, if it doesn’t survive, we can’t rely on it.
That’s simplicity. But when you go and do it then it may be complex.
Everything has to be presented in a simple way. And the way you do that, you have to feel that. You have to feel the simplicity. Then you can communicate and draft it. Like you said in one page, half a page, even in one sentence, that message has to be there and that’s very important.
Also, your employees have to be clear about the idea. When you interview and hire people, this is your job. It has to be so simple for them. Then they take it and make it whatever needs to be done.
Rashad Thirlkill
Right. That’s awesome information, man. Anybody can take that and utilize it because creativity and innovation are most important. Right?
If you keep it in your head because it’s too complex, it may never come out. So, just go ahead and start. Get it on paper.
For someone, a new tech person, or a person with a new idea trying to build a company. I understand step one is to get investment from family and friends and whatnot. But how do they get the phone call with, say, a Microsoft or a VC, someone who can take them to the next level? How do they get that phone call and set up, that meeting?
Mohan Ananda
That is the toughest part, to reach the right people. Because the network you mean a young person starting a company, depending upon their contacts, it’s very small generally.
However, that should not stop you from seeking. Somebody said you need a better network than a better net worth. The network is important. You don’t know who would be helping you. So, you should not shy away.
As for a young person, their network may be small. So, they should take advantage of everybody. Because there may be one or two people who have much better contacts.
Like if you are a graduate student at UCLA or some University, your network should be some of the faculty members. Those faculty members know more people. And if they understand, like you’ll go to a professor and say, I have this idea, I want your help, or you can suggest to me whom I should talk to or who you think I should talk to. If you go and do a cold call, very few people return.
There are sometimes they do. But if Joe Smith, the professor, called somebody at one of the venture firms, and said, I know, John. Why don’t you listen to him? It may have some possibility. If you can get that now, you have the ear. You can talk to him and then it’s up to you.
The only help you will get is somebody to listen to you, then you have to convince them that, yes, I have something to offer. But you have to develop that network through your immediate or close network.
It’s like cold calls. Some people have benefited from it. It’s extremely difficult. But you don’t know. Even you might have met somebody in a flight. You’re flying from here to New York and you met somebody and wrote their number. And you can just call them and say, hey I met you, but I’m doing this something maybe you have a lot of friends, I understand. Can you recommend somebody?
You have connections and they don’t. In all probability, you will say, yes, I think I have somebody. I’m not saying in every case. That means you should not shy away from anybody. You have connections as a potential network. But I’m talking about people, those who have relationships in universities.
Or you may be a member of a club where you go and exercise and you meet people. You may not be friends, but you know them. You can say, you see I’m doing something. Do you know anybody? And often, you don’t know where the help comes from.
It’s an undone process, but you should not shy away from it and you should seek out and try to get until the right person gets disconnected. That’s the approach I recommend.
In my case, I came to one of the best schools in the world. So, I get a good connection and I worked with the smartest people I can think of. That all helped me out.
I tell you this Stamps thing. After I got this patent, one of the people I went and talked to is in Las Vegas. There was some digital conference and I happened to be there. I went there intentionally and talked to one of the very senior officers at Microsoft. He actually works and directly reports to Bill Gates.
I thought I have this precious pattern. So, I will talk to Microsoft, the most successful company these days. I went and said, I have this great pattern. Could you think we can do something together? He looked at it, he kind of viewed I think it’s very interesting. It’s very valuable. Then he said, this is what I don’t want to put a name or anything, but this is what he said.
I think we don’t need your response. We can do the same thing. We can get around any of these patent protection. So, I don’t think we are currently in trouble. This is what he told me, that I felt very uncomfortable. But I can’t challenge him or anything. You will hear that many times.
But that gave me the motivation to I didn’t want to say, screw you. No. I said, okay, I’m going to do something. This gives me more confidence in doing something independently. Eventually, when we became Stamps company, we became very successful. We had a tremendous partnership with Microsoft. We became close and started doing things together.
But one of the first people I talked to after getting the patent was that gentleman. He didn’t say bad things. He said I don’t need you. I can do more things because of course they can do anything. They have money.
That is one problem. When you go and talk to some of these things, you will hear that many times. But you should not shy away or should not get depressed based on that and walk away. Instead, be strong. You can’t fight with somebody like Microsoft. It’s impossible. But we can do things.
Anyway, I wanted to give you the example that I went through.
Rashad Thirlkill
I believe that happens all the time to everyone who’s going to make it to a certain threshold. That’s the story that’s going to be in everyone’s autobiography by the time they write it.
I have a question. I’m on Twitter a lot. I read business journals and things like that. My podcast is based on what I call seven different pillars. Some of those pillars are motivation, meditation, movement, which is working out, and things like that. So, maybe you can speak on this somewhat.
What I have noticed and what a lot of my friends have noticed, a lot of my Twitter friends, like my web developer, are Indian. And so I speak to a lot of Indians. And what we’ve noticed is there are a lot of Indians that are now moving into high-profile CEO positions.
Mohan Ananda
Right now. The newest one is FedEx.
Rashad Thirlkill
FedEx. Yes.
Mohan Ananda
His name is Raj. I forgot his last name. But he’s the newest CEO of Indian origin. He’s the newest Twitter.
Rashad Thirlkill
Can you speak on just like like the mindset of what makes that happen? Because evidently there’s something there. There’s a lot of intelligence, of course, but there’s also a mindset, discipline, and strategy since you’re a CEO yourself.
Mohan Ananda
Yes, I’ll give you my version of that process. When I came here in 1967, there were about 40,000 people of Indian origin in America, very small. So I would meet in LA, Los Angeles, a handful of people.
Now, today there are about 4 million people. It’s 100 times, but it’s still small. 4 million out of 330,000,000. But one thing I know, or at least I have recognized, the people, those who migrate from India to the US are some of the best.
When I came, not that many people go to England. Indian people go to England because of proprietor relationships. English British used to rule India for many, many years. But very few came to America.
First of all, it’s too far. They didn’t think. Also, it’s a strange country. That’s something I wrote in my book when I came here. Everything is different. Communication between here and India is very difficult. The telephone service is not that good. The letter takes 2-3 weeks to get, and the reply takes that much.
You need to have that adventurous mentality for people to come. So, I would say the best of the best came here in the time frame of the 60s. Then there was always a ceiling nobody can break. Like when I was working in various places, they look at the merit. It’s not who you know it is how well you do.
In my experience and the experience of people I know, they all succeeded because of their individual ability, not because somebody said, oh, this is my somebody. So you give it to him? No, he’s capable.
I kind of felt my friends, my age friends because all these new CEOs are there coming on the shoulders of us. We worked hard, we created that name. That means you can trust these guys and they will deliver what they’re talking about. They’re capable. So, we created that image and these people are really benefiting by it.
I think about it. But there is some truth to it that is at that time or in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, there were no CEOs. But in the 2000s and now you’re going to see an interesting thing. The next generation at the second level of management, there is a much larger percentage of Indian origin people in it.
I started with the Bright King. Now their children are born here like any American. But the cultural aspect, like my children, I have two boys. One is a very successful neurosurgeon and the other one is a successful lawyer. Any of those that type, they go to the best schools you can think of and they compete with each other to get admission.
Because if you go to Harvard or Stanford, there are more Indian applicants. So, everybody cannot give. I mean, even though there is a quota system, there is a negative quota. You don’t want so many of them to come. So they actually exclude.
But if you apply to ten schools, you will at least get in one of them because that’s statistically okay. What I’m trying to say is because these people are motivated, their parents are generally highly successful, even parents who are not highly educated. There are a lot of Indian parents who migrated and came here and started owning Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I know one person, he came to America. A good friend of mine came to America. He was doing this, driving cars. Then he started working in a Kentucky Fried Chicken place. But now he owns 300 Kentucky Fried Chicken.
This is not an exaggeration. That’s the truth. And there are people like that. So, the reason is they are extremely motivated also their network of Indians, they are successful. So, you want to keep up with the Jones.
I’m sure the statistics show that one ethnic group which has the largest yearly income is people of Indian origin. The reason is it used to be mostly Jews some years back. Now the Indians have done the Jewish community, the Jews are much larger. So, whenever a community is very large, there will be less people too. But Indians are still 4 million.
Many of them are students. They’re still in college and then when they come out. I think that’s the reason. It’s not really I mean the motivation, the discipline, cultural background, and the desire to be successful, that helps in every step.
But of course, if you look at the top CEO, these are a small number. I mean, there are maybe 50 CEOs out of 500 but still percentage-wise, we are 1% but we are almost 10%.
So, there is that. I think it is purely because of the people who migrated and their internal group that helps to succeed. But if you go to India, if you take the random average person, certainly they’re not going to happen.
In addition to that, the students who come from India went to the best schools in India, and the best schools to get admission into India is really, really hard. In India, there are some ways if you are wealthy you can get admission. Which I mean here also. If you are somebody you can get into Harvard, there are exceptions. But a majority of the people, 90% of those who get into admission purely on merit. Those are the ones who come here.
So, I think that the talent is internal to it. It is not that all Indians are that capable. No, that’s not true. You got the best come here and the best of the best becomes very successful.
Rashad Thirlkill
Okay. I never heard it like that. At some point, it becomes keeping up with the Jones’s deal.
Mohan Ananda
They do have that competition because they don’t want to impress anybody else. They want to impress their own people.
There’s another very interesting point I have noticed. They buy the best car to show off with other people. It can be Mercedes Benz or BMW or whatever. They kind of are good. They last long. So, they look at the economic benefit of that. Then another thing they do, they also buy the best house or relatively in the best neighborhood.
When you buy it in the right neighborhood, the better type of house because it’s another savings, the value goes up. So they look at everything from an economic window standpoint, at least people. I’m sharing with you what I have noticed and that has paid off. It has helped.
It’s very strategic in nature and they don’t really waste money. That’s another. But they save more. Among all the people I know, Indian families save more because they don’t waste unnecessarily. I mean unnecessary is relative. It’s all relative. But they don’t indulge in going to the opera and do everything economically or prudent.
That’s another help for many Indian people. Those who want to start a company generally don’t need to go and borrow from their parents because there are some savings. This is not true in many cases.
If you look at most of the successful companies or people who have created come from some west already. It’s unfortunate the poor have no resources. So they are much less capable of doing something themselves. Whereas if your parents are okay, they can at least underwrite for a few years saying that I can support go and try these things, it’s much easier.
There is that part that also helps. This is all my theory. I have not proven whether this is all true. I think I’m right. I’m on the right track. That’s my point.
Rashad Thirlkill
Right. And you all want to speak on it. You are in the middle of it. So, you know a lot about your race and ethnicity.
Mohan Ananda
Exactly. That’s why when you ask the question, I want to share my thoughts and my learning. I’ve witnessed it. I study this because it’s something interesting to me because interest to my kind of people I know.
Rashad Thirlkill
That’s awesome, man. I love it, man. To see the American dream being fulfilled, I guess I should say.
Mohan Ananda
That’s what it is. My book is about the American dream because I came as a student. You know, when I came, we could only take $8 out of India. That’s it. That’s a stupid rule. You cannot take any money out of India. More than $8. So, you need to have somebody providing.
The only provision I had, I had a scholarship from my College. I didn’t have anything other than the scholarship because I didn’t know anybody. I had no connections, nothing. And I had only $8. But of course, when you come on the plane, they give you food free anyway, so you don’t need any. I had $8 when I came.
That was true. Anybody coming out of India those days, they’ve changed it, of course, after some time. And now it’s not that bad now. People can take a lot of money.
It takes tremendous motivation and ambition and dedication to accomplish or to try to do that. When you come here to a strange country, strange in the sense that everything is different. Sometimes it’s very depressing.
For me, I came to a school which has all the students are better than anybody can think of – the best students. I thought I was also a good student. I knew the first day I figured it out I am nobody compared to the rest of the students.
So, I realized the truth and then I was sweating. I was almost ready to say that you’re ready to go back. That kind of. But I struggled and I became somewhat average. I did well, but it was extremely difficult because when you think you are the best you come in now, everybody’s 100 times better than you, then you are going to be in a shock.
Rashad Thirlkill
Yeah, I can see that happening. Definitely.
This book sounds very interesting. Where can it be found?
Mohan Ananda
It’s on Amazon. And they have three types. One is the hard copy, that is this one. And there is a soft cover, which is a little cheaper. Then there is a Kindle digital version.
I’m going to have an audiobook pretty soon, but it is not out yet. It will be out hopefully in a few weeks. I hope so. Then audiobook is like your podcast that people can listen to. So, that is coming. It’s almost ready, but it’s not out yet.
Rashad Thirlkill
Okay. All right. So as far as your newest company, is that a fund? Will it be working to invest in other businesses?
Mohan Ananda
Okay, this one is the new company, meaning the one in the SPAC. I didn’t talk about SPAC at all here.
SPAC stands for Special Purpose Acquisition Company. That’s the type of company you take public without really any company. There’s no product, nothing. It’s what we call a blank check company. The investors write a check, believing in me or my team saying that I will find the right company to merge with.
It’s a two-stage process. Generally, companies go public when they have the business and they have top-line revenue, they have bottom-line revenue, and things like that. Then they go to investors and say, we need to raise money to do things.
That’s how I took Stamps investment and all those companies publicly in a typical IPO (Initial Public Offering). That’s what most companies do. SPAC is a newer way. Instead of that, you go and raise money. Investors trust me because I have some background.
I find the right company to demerge. Once we get the company combined, then you have to go and get the approval of investors and shareholders. They have to say this company is good. So, once that is done, then it’s emerged.
I am in that process right now. We have not announced, but we are in the process of finding. Our company has found one, but I can’t disclose it. We are in the process of combining it, and then we will announce it and integrate it.
Rashad Thirlkill
As a company attempting to acquire other companies, are you working pretty much as still, I would say in minimal terms, a salesperson? Like you actually have to go out and find a company.
Mohan Ananda
It’s not a salesperson. It’s more like a merger and acquisition. You have to find the company. That’s a good point. But once you look at many companies and find one, take one and you sign an exclusive relationship called the letter of intent (LOI). Then you can’t go and talk to anybody else.
Same thing with the company. They can’t talk to anybody else. Then once that is done, then in that process, we do due diligence and everything else. Then we come up with a Business Combination Agreement (BCA). Once you execute that, you can announce it to the public.
I took XYZ Company and this is the company. Before that final demerge happens, there are certain statutory requirements such as you have to file with SCE. There’s a lot of procedural stuff. But all those things will happen after the filing, execution, and filing of BCA. That hasn’t happened yet.
Rashad Thirlkill
Okay. So I’m going to let you go. This is going to be a very interesting interview. I mean, you sold Stamps.com for a lot of shares. But the last question I have, as far as the Acquisition Corporation or anything that you would invest in, what type of company would you look for?
Mohan Ananda
We have identified a company and have to file a registration document with SEC called S-1. The process is to state what our goals are, what type of companies, and the companies we were looking for. We started with digital technology, it could be e-commerce, it could be cloud, it could be internet, it could be any digital technology company.
In the sense, it’s artificial intelligence or anything, which is, in my opinion, makes the quality of life better and takes advantage of the existing technology. That’s where the growth is. You see my rule of thumb. Whatever the value of the company is, in five years, it should become five times.
Suppose it’s the 1 billion current value. It should become 5 billion in five years and 10 billion in ten years. That’s the rule of thumb. That’s the type of company I’m trying to get.
Rashad Thirlkill
Rule of thumb. Okay. All right.
Is there a certain number? I love the way that billions like that word is thrown around because millions is almost a new middle class. So, everyone is looking into Dave Forbes magazine, new magazine just came out with all the new billionaires and there’s new people in it that’s never been in it.
There are people that went up that list, down that list. However, there’s more people becoming billionaires. More so than when you say millionaire nowadays. People are like, okay. It’s coming now, but yeah.
I’m going to let you go. I really appreciate this conversation. And hopefully, I can circle back after I read the book and we can dive into it a little bit more.
Mohan Ananda
Certainly, I would love to talk to you. You are such a sweet person. And you come across you ask the right questions. I enjoy meeting you. And if time permits or the opportunity comes, we can meet in person. If you come to Los Angeles sometime, you can have lunch with me. And I would love to talk to you more.
Rashad Thirlkill
Thanks for that invite. And I will take that invite personally and start looking for trips.