From Corporate Lawyer to Social Impact Entrepreneur: Sanjay Lobo's Journey with OnHand

Desi (00:00) Sanjay, you're the founder and CEO of Onhand, the leading volunteering platform for employee engagement. Before starting Onhand, you held senior roles at lastminute .com and Vistaprint. And what's even more interesting is that you were a lawyer before all of this. So before we dive deep into your career journey, can you take us back to your childhood? What did you want to become when you were little? What was your childhood like?

Sanjay (00:25) Yeah, great question. I love asking that question. I often ask it in interviews actually. It's really interesting hearing people's backgrounds because I do think some of the things you go through in that period form who you are in life and in work. So I grew up in a place called Tooting in South London. Tooting has risen in its gentrification over the last few years, actually the last couple of decades I think. It is a trendy place. I guess 40 something years ago it was less trendy.

Desi (00:45) It's a trendy place nowadays.

Sanjay (00:53) And I guess it was a bit of a harsh place. It was, you know, it was poor. We didn't have much cash. I grew up with my mum. My dad left when I was fairly young. As a single mum, she worked full time. I guess the expectations for kids that I went to school with weren't great. We didn't expect much. Folks went off to be, you know...

bus drivers, brickies and you know, bin men and no disrespect to those careers, they're great careers. But that was the expectation level really for lots of the kids I went to school with. And I got lucky, I did really well academically, leaned into that, did okay at GCCs but then was desperate to leave home and leave Tooting for, you know, after A levels and sort of a route to go to university and...

because I was so desperate to leave, I did really well at A levels and that took me on a completely different path to a law degree at UCL which, you know, was an unheard of path to break out that well.

Desi (01:54) Excellent. So why did you choose Lowell from everything else that you could be doing?

Sanjay (01:57) Yeah, it's a great question that as well. I don't really know. I had an older brother and he had no idea what he wants to do. He's four years older. So I guess I watched him having no idea what to do and, you know, mum and other family members always having a go at him, having no idea what to do. And at the time, this is back in the 80s, there was a program called LA Law.

lawyers who were just cool and so I just started saying I'll be a lawyer and you know of course everyone's reactions to that was wow that's amazing you know no idea what it was about and so that's that's why I chose law it was called on TV.

Desi (02:32) Did you like it? Did you like it? So you started working at a law firm. Did you like it then?

Sanjay (02:40) It really mixed bag. I think if I look back it was incredibly hard work which is again formative on your first jobs like first day at law firm, I was there till five in the morning right, it's completely different spectrum of work level and we were a smaller law firm but getting really big deals against the big guys so we'd often be battling against the biggest law firms out there so you got wonderful experience, incredibly hard work.

And I guess if I'm really honest and look back, it was somewhat of a bullying culture, right? And I don't think that's unusual in those kinds of professional firms. I hope it's different these days, but you know, you weren't ever comfortable about leaving the office if it was seven o 'clock or you had to watch for who was leaving before you could leave kind of kind of scenario. So it was, it was, I don't think I enjoyed working in the law firm and I jumped from the law firm.

to work in -house and that was loads better. It was a completely different experience working in a company where people really need your help and so we're very grateful for it and that led me on to a completely different experience and I eventually moved to lastminute .com and I really enjoyed the role there.

Desi (03:47) Tell us about your time at lastminute .com. You later moved to Vistaprint. You started in legal roles there, but then transitioned to marketing and partnerships. I find this quite interesting because most lawyers I know, no disrespect. I love lawyers, but they would be disaster marketers. So how did this come about?

Sanjay (04:05) Yeah, it's a great question. Actually, there's a few examples that I can think of who've made the transition and another one, Alex from Beam has made that transition. So a lawyer who's now founding one of the most impactful tech for good startups. But we are unusual. So when I was at lastminute .com as a lawyer, we had to take some giant risks. And I think that really changed my mindset as a lawyer. I'd always been, you know, risk. You know, I'd been the typical lawyer.

At lastminute .com, there was a certain point when we realized we didn't have permission, we didn't have the records that were quite correct on data protection, particularly for whether we could market to our existing base of customers. And of course, you know, if any e -commerce business retention marketing is like almost the biggest part of your revenue. And so the correct like legal call at that point was, well, you can't, you've got to stop marketing to all of your existing base. That would have destroyed the business. So we kind of took the decision to say, well,

We can't do that. We're going to assume we've got consent and we're going to keep marketing in there for the revenue. I expected to get massive backlash from that, from customers. And of course we got hardly any, like almost zero. And so having taken what is one of the largest risks, essentially with data at lastminute .com and having no repercussion, I think then formed my view on, well, okay, if that was one of the largest risks I can take.

What about some of these other things that come up all the time much much lower risk? Well, why don't we why don't we balance that risk with the likelihood of the I guess the pain coming and that then changed how I view legal stuff when I moved to Vista prints Very much. I was pushing the business to do things that were different and taking greater risk on how they could use law and that led to like revenue creation in a really big way and so at some point very early on

I was just asked to take on more things outside of law and VistaPrint was just growing like a, you know, it was one of those rocket ship growth scenarios. So anyone with half a brain who'd had some management experience before would just be asked to do more stuff anyway. And very naturally, I think within six months, I was doing more outside of legal than actually in legal.

Desi (06:15) excellent. So actually using your legal background and knowledge to look for opportunities rather than impose limitations. No, we can't do this. We can't do that because sometimes that's how lawyers even in -house are seen, the ones who actually create restrictions rather than looking for opportunities.

Sanjay (06:33) It was absolutely the mindset the lawyers brought up in is risk and risk aversion. But right at that cutting edge where some of the law isn't clear, and back then in the 90s and the noughties for e -commerce, lots of the law was really new.

You could watch what some of the leading players were like, what was Amazon doing with getting consent to send you marketing? Well, it took away the consent, took it away completely. So 100 % of customers were into retention marketing, but no one really noticed. And so if you were following what some of the, I guess, edgier law plays were doing, you could really enhance the commercial aspects of the business.

Desi (06:52) Right, yeah.

Interesting. So what were some of the other key lessons you took away from your time at lastminute .com and Vistaprint?

Sanjay (07:17) Yeah, there was a lot of commercial rights. So at lastminute .com, back then, I guess it was the Airbnb of its time in the UK. And I guess I had exposure to so many incredibly talented people at the top of their game. And so presenting wise, I just learned so much from that group. And back then when I presented, I used to stutter, stammer. I was absolutely awful, but I did learn a hell of a lot from just watching them. Brand was also massive at lastminute .com.

One thing that was lacking there was actually how much we looked at profitability in commercial. And then the flip from going to Vistaprint was almost every meeting was about the money and exactly what margin would make and what conversion rate there was. And the metric driven nature of Vistaprint was absolutely incredible for someone like me that's come from that brand's perspective at lastminute .com. And then almost every conversation was about the money to the extent where I think the first management meeting I went to, it was looking at our...

management accounts for the month and you know the rising cost for me joining was very clear, very clear on the on the metrics it was like wow okay we're that transparent on metrics and that was hugely influential on what I did later.

Desi (08:28) That's amazing. So building this kind of really full picture of what it is to run like a commercially focused organization. So Last Minute being the more kind of traditional startup focused on high growth and Vista Print more sort of conservative and focused on optimizing code. So it sounds like an incredible experience.

Sanjay (08:35) Yeah, commercially focused. Perfect. Perfect.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Desi (08:47) What I find interesting, by the way, is, you know, a founder who started your entrepreneurial journey in your 40s, you gain this experience only if you work in organizations like that and only if you learn with somebody else's money. And what I find really interesting with kind of we...

glamorize the college dropout and starting a company in your 20s, but in reality you can learn so much in your 20s and 30s before you take the leap to start your own company. Do you think you would have the same success if you had started being a marketeer or entrepreneur earlier in your life?

Sanjay (09:27) Yeah, that's a great question. I guess we'll never know. But I think early on, I probably had signs of wanting to be or having some entrepreneurial bug. And actually, I went back to my old school just last week to give a talk to kids doing their GCSEs about starting businesses. And what I talked about was when I was at school, I'd be selling scratch cards in the playground for McDonald's getting a free burger and whatever. Or I'd be organizing music nights and selling tickets for it. And so some of those...

things that kids do do. And I think as a site, we don't typically recognise them. I think the US is very good at recognising that that is probably an entrepreneur mindset and they should do something about it. I think in the UK, we're much less focused on that. But what I tried to speak to the kids about was, hey, I'm guessing there's a group of kids already doing that kind of stuff, probably online at this point.

and they should be aware of it and lead into that entrepreneurial skill. I of course went on an academic route and there's...

lots of reward that comes from that, including mine, right? So working as a lawyer, you're well paid. I had my first kid in my twenties and so the choice of doing something completely different probably wouldn't have worked for me on lifestyle. At that point in my twenties having a family, it was like, okay, keep the good salary. And it was only later that I could step back and say, okay, I probably feel stable enough to try something myself.

I'm not sure I would have had the confidence to do it in my 20s.

Desi (10:59) Interesting. But then it's got the flip side, right? So living a secure, well -paid senior job to start a new venture is quite a leap, especially when you have a family already, you're in your 40s. So tell us a bit about this period in your life. When, so what encouraged you to take this step? And when were you sure that on hand was what you wanted to dedicate 100 % of your time to?

Sanjay (11:24) Yes, it was about 2017, was my last big role at Vistaprint and that was coming to an end. The growth was definitely tailing off at Vistaprint and you could see lots of people were leaving and so I left in 2017 and there's probably a little career journey where before that was lastminute .com.

I joined lastme .com probably at the end of its heyday and so most of my time at lastme .com people would talk about the good old days and the amazing growth period they had and there was a bit of that start -up bug that I'd missed but I kind of caught the end of it lastme .com. Vistaprint was smaller, growing a lot faster and so I was there seven years through like a really hyper growth period.

When I left, I joined an even smaller company. So this story of joining smaller and smaller companies, getting closer and closer to that start -up moment. At the start -up I joined after Vistabrince, I was only there six months. I massively clashed with the founder from day one, which I think is common. It's common for a new senior hire to clash with a founder.

We clashed really badly and so I quit after six months and then I really wasn't sure what to do. So what should I do next? I was in my 40s and again I think this is a really common story. If you're in your 40s and you're looking for what next you probably get offers to do the same things you've done before and there were plenty of people I left this to print that were looking at doing something new and you know it's possible I could have joined them. But I wanted to do something that was probably different and different.

different in a way of giving back and it's that point in your life where you're like, okay, I'm in my 40s, I've probably got one or two big jobs left. What is it I really want to do? And another commercial entity just didn't seem like the thing, just making money, growing, that's all fun, but is it enough at this point in life? And so it was real, what do I want to do moments? And I wasn't sure when Onhand came around, it wasn't my idea, it was a bunch of charities that had started it up, had the idea, hadn't quite launched it.

But the idea was kind of out there and they were looking for someone to take it on. And when I found out about it, I was struggling a bit with my dad getting his shopping and I lived in Brighton, he lived in London and he was getting to the age where he couldn't quite carry it. So I was looking for a solution for him. We were lucky that he had carers in the facility he lived in and they were going to get his shopping. Which is great, other than they charge £20 an hour plus VAT and his shop was going from £10 to £12.

up to 30, 40 pounds when you include the carer cost. And so this idea that you could use tech to connect someone in need, like my dad, to get your shopping with a local volunteer, I thought it was brilliant. I thought it was brilliant and it solved my issue. And from the background I was at, I guess I thought, well, if it solves my issue, it could probably solve tens of thousands of people's issue or hundreds of thousands, who knows, millions of people may need this service. And that was it. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

So it wasn't a case of me saying, hey, I'm all in on this on -hand thing. It was almost instantly on finding out about it. I was seven days a week thinking about how I could grow it.

Desi (14:31) Amazing. So it first functioned as a traditional marketplace, matching volunteers with those in need within local communities. But later it transitioned into a B2B model focused in employment engagement and helping companies achieve their social responsibility and community involvement targets. So what was the main motivation behind this strategic shift? Was it the business model challenge or was there something more to it? Because at the moment as an individual, I can't just go on the app.

and look for somebody who is in need locally.

Sanjay (15:05) Yeah, you can't anymore. So you're right, we started off as B2C. And again, it was the charity's idea to set this thing up and very much focused on the elderly care sector. And the way they set it up was B2C, we charge the person in need, so someone like my dad or me as the relative organizing the help. We charge me 10 pounds to get the help.

Eight pounds of that went to the charities and two pounds was like a platform commission, you know, as Deliveroo or Uber works with a platform commission type thing. To make that work, you've got to reach, you know, Uber or Delivery scale. You've got to be giant to make the platform commission model work. And when I came on board, I kind of looked at the model and thought, okay, you've got to be giant to make it work. If that route doesn't work.

There's a couple of things I don't quite like about the model. One is we're charging, we're still charging an elderly person. So I get why we're doing it, but it doesn't quite feel quite right. But the bit that really jarred for me was we're also kind of charging out the volunteer, right? So it's a volunteer, but somehow we're making money from you. And that bit just felt a bit too, that's not right. And that probably will stop us really, really going for it. And in the first year, we were growing nicely, but not at the delivery Uber site type scale.

and that we did raise some money during that period because we beat targets we were looking at. But what really enforced the change was COVID. So launched in 2019, 2020 is when COVID hits. Overnight, we're literally charging the wrong person. We're charging the elderly person, the most vulnerable person on the planet at that point. They're all self -isolating. And of course, we stopped charging straight away. We'd done a funding round just a few months before, so we were pretty stable on cash. So I thought we've got time to figure out what our new revenue model is going to be.

Is it working with councils or local authorities or NHS or whatever? And we tried some of that and that was showing some signs of working, but we kind of all know local authorities and NHS aren't exactly cash growth machines. But we had a stroke of luck and the luck was businesses started coming to us. And so the first business was a building society based in the northeast. They came to us to say, hey, we've just sent all our folks home. They were all working remotely.

We're desperate for a way to engage them in their local communities. We think your app can help, right? You can connect people with our local communities. Can you help us? And as soon as that call came in, it was like light bulb moment for, okay, that model is where we charge the business to get help for their employees in engagement and wellbeing. The employees help those folks we've been helping for who no longer have to pay. So the people...

the end recipient of help, they're happy, the employees are happy because they're doing good stuff, and the corporate is really happy to pay for it because they've got all these wonderful ESG stats. So in that year, we signed up 10 customers, 10 corporate customers. The year after, we signed up 100, and then started flying.

Desi (17:54) Amazing. What's the size of the business that currently engages on hunt?

Sanjay (17:59) So there's massive variation. So we have, I think the smallest business that works with us is literally under 10 people, so really, really small. The largest is into the tens of thousands. So we have giant variation. We started off very much focused on SMBs and mid -markets. So 50 people companies to a thousand or so companies, very much thinking about how will we prove that this can work? Where can we sell to with a sales cycle of the quickest? And of course, that's going to be SMB.

And then the longer we've gone on, the more larger companies have come to us and started to be, starting approaching us. So we're starting to make that shift to go a bit more upmarket at this point.

Desi (18:38) So once you onboard the company, what motivates employees to participate in the volunteer programs? Do most people kind of naturally want to volunteer or does the platform need to create some sort of demand and engagement through specific strategies?

Sanjay (18:54) Yeah, that's a great question. So I think really baseline, everyone typically wants to do something good and give back, but there are massive barriers to doing it. And that's why volunteering programs have traditionally had really low uptake. So, you know, there's some stats out there. 70 % of the FTSE 100 has volunteering policies, so paid time off for employees to give back.

But the uptake is typically less than 10%. So it's, you know, the policies are out there, the paid time off for volunteers is out there, employees is out there, but the uptake's tiny. And that's because traditionally it's been, you know, half a day out of the office, full day out of the office, let's go and do something as a group on a set day, set time, set location. And of course, that just doesn't work for 90 % of the organisation just can't take a morning off to go and do this thing, they're too busy. So we thought about that a lot differently. It's, we can do that, sure.

But we kind of know that model doesn't work brilliantly to engage your whole workforce. So what if we can make volunteering as easy as stuff you already do? I don't know. Let's say you're going shopping and you buy an extra bag of pasta and you're able to leave it in a donation bin in the supermarket. Well, literally that's taking you like no time. That's the same time you're doing your own shopping. But you've actually done a good deed. You donate some food. So how do we think about volunteering in a really different way? Think about it.

in terms of behaviour change, in terms of incorporating into your daily life. And because of that, we stretched into lots of different areas. Your question was about, do we still need to have ways to make a very good employee? And absolutely we do. We think about it. I guess the way we organise our app is we've thought about it a lot like Deliveroo. How do you have scrolling lists that make it easy to find the thing you want that are searchable. But we also think about it in terms of something like Duolingo. You've got to entice...

and excites the employee to want to do their activity and then come back and do more. And that's taken us a while, right? So when we first started off, it was a list of stuff. People would come in once a month, once every six months or whatever. And that was great, but it wasn't quite, you know, duo linker, I want to come back every day and do my module. At this point, we've got 90%, so 90 % of employees come back and do more once they've done one thing. And on average, they're doing over 20 actions on the app every month. So...

to your question, you still have to engage the employee and motivate them in just the same way as a Duolingo would try and engage you to come back onto the app and do more activities. The desire is absolutely there and it's how you break in to make it easy enough and exciting enough that they want to come back.

Desi (21:31) And it sounds so more natural, like it's much more natural, like micro -volunteering as a concept to give back rather than having this set day, set time, pre -plan. Isn't it like much more closer to who we are as people to do, you know, the little deeds every day rather than to kind of plan and almost like tick a box. Do you see like micro -volunteering as the way going forward?

Sanjay (22:00) Totally. So I think there's a place for both. I think the group volunteering piece is incredibly popular for HR teams and other teams want to organise that stuff. But it's, you know, there's a large element of team bonding that gets involved in those team activities. I think less impactful, to be honest. I think they're great team bonding activities and you can do some good. That's great. But as we know, again, that that model is broken. It won't engage your entire workforce. I think what we've seen is...

Microvolunteering is a way to engage the mass employee workforce and for them to do things frequently. And it may well be it's stuff they already do. That's fine. Get them recording it. And you as a corporate start getting wonderful stats on impact. But we also know because people come back, so they get again that nine out of 10 of people that do one action come back and do more, you can then take people on a journey. And if it's as simple as the donating.

an extra bag of pasta while you're doing your own shopping, literally no time, is step one. Well, what's step two? What's step three? And how do I take you to step seven, which is would you do a befriending call to an elderly person somewhere in the UK who hasn't had anyone speak to them for the last week or so, and you may be the only person they speak to that week, which is uncomfortable for a lot of people to do that call, but how about we help you with guidance on how to do that call? How about we give you a talk from a leading expert on loneliness and...

give you guidance on how to even introduce yourself and perhaps even walk through a call with you. So how do we take people on a journey where they're doing something simple, maybe they're already doing that good deed anyway, how do we take them from there to doing something really impactful on a really regular basis?

Desi (23:43) You think experienced quite an impressive growth over the past few years. Other than the business model switch, what were some of the most critical strategic decisions you've taken that impacted your growth?

Sanjay (23:56) Yeah, the model switch was definitely one. The second one was we started in the elderly help space, right? That's how we started off. It was the whole idea was connecting a local volunteer to someone who was elderly and isolated and just getting them help. And we did that as the sole thing we did through 2019 and into 2020. And as we launched with businesses, we kind of saw, well, employees care about that, but they also care about homelessness and they care about youth mentoring and they care about climate crisis.

and all the other social issues that are out there. And so in 2020 and through 2021, we just started spreading the activity we did from elderly care into pretty much all social impact areas. And then we started doing environmental stuff as well. And so giving the employee choice was a big thing for us. Environmental also became a big thing for us. So we let you take environmental actions and they vary in their level of...

difficulty, but some of the easy ones are hey just use a reusable cup when you get your coffee, not a disposal one. How about you pick up some litter on the way home today or how about you turn off your tap or brush your teeth. Very simple actions that anyone can do, but again what we know is if we can get people engaging on the app in a very simple way, we can also take them on a journey that builds on what's kind of impact and effort level they'll put in and they'll trust us to do that. So...

broadening what we offer the volunteer to do and then moving into environmental was I think two of the big things we've done.

Desi (25:33) Interesting. And what have been some of the challenges and like the biggest down moments that you've faced so far in growing the business?

Sanjay (25:42) Yeah, so I think this is the same for any startup. So we're five years into our fifth year now, and we finally have control on, like we're in control of our destiny at this point. We've got enough cash. Our last raise was actually two years ago. We're generating enough cash that we're gonna be break even pretty soon. And so we're in control of our own destiny, and probably for one of the first times in that five year period. And that gives you massive choice, right? It's do we raise again to go faster or?

add some expansion product -wise or geography -wise or whatever or not. Once you hit that profitability level, you've got a great choice. Earlier periods in our history, it wasn't that. It was very much survival. So I think the greatest difficulties are the early years of you kind of very constant when you're running out of money. You have those, you go to bed moments where you're thinking, well, how do I get to, how do I extend that runway? And for a company like us that the...

The biggest cost is headcount. And so in the early years, you always had a running list of how you would stretch runway by having the cuts start off. And that's awful. That's an awful founder experience. I'm sure all founders probably go through it. But those are probably the toughest bits that we've gone through in the very early years. It's the kind of stuff that starts giving you stress symptoms. I used to break out in hives a lot. Thankfully, I haven't done that for a while. Huge amounts of stress that go with that early period of just surviving.

Desi (27:10) And it sounds also like a quite lonely journey as a soul founder. I get the stress is extra difficult. Have you ever had like these moments where you're laying down in bed and you think, why am I doing this? This idea is probably just good in my head. I'd better quit now and just find a proper job.

Sanjay (27:23) I'm sorry.

Of course, yeah. I think I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that at least once a month. Even now, right? We're getting to that point where we've got control and we should be profitable and it's a great choice, but it's still hard. Everything we do is hard. We show off all the wonderful things on LinkedIn and that's great. Behind that, of course, is furious activity where you've got to be really on it and you've got to be on it every day, week, month.

for things to work out as they do. So yeah, absolutely have that. Why am I doing this? Shouldn't I go and get a normal job? I don't know if I can, five years in, I'm not sure I could have a normal job anymore. Probably had an employable because of it. But yeah, certainly have had those thoughts.

Desi (28:13) You know, I'm a huge believer that every successful entrepreneur brings a distinct set of skills and experiences that give them this unique age. And your background is quite unique. We don't often see lawyers become tech founders. How has your previous experience as a lawyer shaped the way you lead and make decisions as a CEO? Is there kind of any particular examples or like anecdotes that you would share with us that helped you navigate a challenge?

you saw an opportunity that where somebody else wouldn't see.

Sanjay (28:47) Yeah, it's kind of interesting that. So on the strict legal basis, I still do the legal stuff, right? So if there's contract variations that are needed for any deal, I look at the contracts. When we do investment rounds, we do have lawyers at this point that say, external lawyers that help us with investment rounds, but I input on all that kind of stuff. So strictly legal stuff.

I guess I still get involved. Hopefully one day we'll have an in -house lawyer, but at the moment it's me. But I think the learnings over career that I take into what we do now, it's probably back to that example at lastminute .com where we took that huge risk and it changed the way I was as a lawyer. And the way it changed me as a lawyer was from that point, I just started laying out risk to the commercial person and saying, here's what you're asking us to do. Here's the risk of what could go wrong. Here's what you're saying is the upside.

Desi (29:10) Yeah

Sanjay (29:37) what do you think is the best course? And you'd be really transparent about what the legal position was. And then give the business the choice, unless it was something really dramatic where you knew you couldn't do it because it was IP or data. And that transparency, I guess radical transparency is what I brought into Onhand. So we're transparent about almost everything to the extent where we talk about why folks need to leave the business because not everyone makes it. And we talk really, really openly about...

why it is and why it's occurred, how quickly it occurs and for what reasons. And we also talk about what kind of metrics we need to hit on a monthly basis. But it's incredibly transparent to the extent we have 30 odd team members. Lots of them are from start up worlds and they often, whenever we go for a big shift, they'll often comment on the transparency levels being completely different from anywhere they've worked before. But I think that's what I've been from prior career.

Desi (30:32) And how has founding and leading content changed you as an individual? Do you see a transformation in yourself since you started the company?

Sanjay (30:41) Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm probably less, but the same kind of founder issues that others have. The being in the moment when you're outside of work is difficult and you kind of have to remind yourself of that kind of stuff a lot. I've got three kids, so that's a challenge, right? When you're a founder and things are still busy, I'm working, at the moment we're going through some changes and I'm working long hours and being like...

in the moment with kids when you're outside of work, that's a struggle. So has on -hand changed me in that regard? Yeah, I mean I think I've had big jobs before and I think I've worked hard before. Founding is a completely different level of where your brain is and how easy you're able to switch off or not. I've worked long hours before, sure, but I was able to switch off fairly easily. Founding, something different. So yeah, I think it's changed me in that regards. On the flip side, I think it's probably grown my confidence in...

what's possible and certainly I present a lot more these days and hopefully getting slightly better at that kind of stuff too. So yeah, confidence wise it's changed me in that regard as well.

Desi (31:49) Do you have any like habits or like mindsets that you have developed over the years that you believe contribute to kind of being at peace with yourself?

Sanjay (31:58) Yeah, habits that I, so it's taking the action. So we often think about things that we should be doing or isn't quite right or you notice, is that the way it should be working or is there an error there? And so, and it's very easy just to ask a question or put it on someone else. So the habit I think I've really got into is where I spot something, we just take the action. It's like immediate, I'm trying to think of an example for you now, but I can't, it's typically.

you're spotting something not quite working right and you could just say to someone in the customer service team, well this is not quite right but actually you know I've got access to the backend system I can go and check it out and correct something so taking the action is the big habit just just get on with it versus pointing out something and letting someone else take responsibility not knowing when they'll do that kind of thing. Taking the action is massively impactful.

Desi (32:49) No, absolutely. And creating this culture bias for action amongst everyone at the company. So it's very different from a corporate world, isn't it?

Sanjay (32:57) Yeah, eyes of action, yes.

Yeah, I agree, yeah. I'm not just passing it on.

Desi (33:04) Right, so you're part of Dragons Den, we've all seen the show, and you managed to secure investment from Ford Dragons, which is amazing, congratulations on that. So tell us about this experience, was it beneficial for the company, what happened there?

Sanjay (33:15) Thank you.

Yeah, it was a great experience. So Dragon's Den, they approached us, which I didn't know. They've got a whole team of researchers that look for startups and approach startups to be on the show. What they said to us is, and I think I've seen this on the show, they're looking for more impact led businesses, which is great. And I think I've seen a few of those over the last few series. And so got the invite. First of all, it was a joke. When I realised it wasn't a joke.

Desi (33:45) Was it on 1st of April?

Sanjay (33:48) Yeah, right, so Dragon's Den, you can't be serious. And I thought we were a bit too late stage for them and all that kind of stuff, but once I realized it wasn't a joke, you immediately go through the process of, well, this is seven million viewers, so the PR outreach here is, there's nothing else like it that a business our size can go and get without a cost. The downside, of course, is, well, if you mess up Dragon's Den, it's potential national TV, you tank your business.

But you kind of go for that rationale of, well, I've watched Dragon's Den, I kind of know what the questions are. You also know where people mess it up, they haven't got their numbers or whatever. So it's really easy to be reasonably comfortable, you'd be able to be okay. And then, you know, bounce out against seven million viewers, that's huge. So you've got this piece of gold over here if you can answer the questions. And so did the, I guess the initial rounds for screening.

You have to do a video to off your pitch. And so I did the video, sent it off and we got through. So we got through to recording. We got up to Manchester, went up the night before, got to the studio at 7 a and at 9 a met the producers who said, can you do your pitch? And so of course I just did the pitch that I'd recorded on the video rounds and the producers said, well, that's not going to work for TV. That's not going to work for TV. And you rewrite your pitch.

Desi (35:09) What was wrong with it?

Sanjay (35:12) And so this is nine in the morning. Can you rewrite your pitch? And by the way, you're on in an hour. So for me, that was fantastic because if I over prepare, I start overthinking and worrying about what I forgot to say. And so didn't have time to worry about any of that, which reduced for me reduces my nerves. And so yeah, it was on. I wrote the pitch and straight onto recording. I think the edit is very good.

Desi (35:18) Woo! Crazy!

Sanjay (35:40) I wasn't as smooth as the edit. The edit comes across really, really well. And then the session itself is like 90 minutes. So we're on TV for about 15 minutes, but the actual session itself, it's really long. And it's a lot of fun. It is all the questions you see on TV, but then there's behind the scenes stuff where the dragons negotiate between themselves for quite a while. I think there was an offer on the table, and then Peter came in and said, hey, I want 12 % and it'll reduce if you give your money back.

And they don't show this on TV, but I immediately said, there's no way we're giving you money back. We're a growth business. We invest it in the business. It's all about growth. It's not about paying you back 20K whilst we're still growing at 200%. That's the wrong call. And then there was a total discussion. It's like 15, 20 minute discussion between the dragons about which was the right way to do it or not. So it was like they were negotiating between themselves. Lot of lot of fun. So yeah, really recommend the dragon experience for anyone that's starting off the business.

Desi (36:40) Are they part of the business at the moment?

Sanjay (36:43) So that's also interesting. So we've got four offers. Having done the research before, I kind of knew you can negotiate afterwards, so half the deals don't happen. They don't happen because either the founder thinks they've done a bad deal, which I did, really want to be on TV, so, yes. Or the dragons do due diligence and they don't like what they see. And so straight after the den, we were doing a larger funding round. It was part of the larger funding rounds. We had a couple of ECs. One was putting in a million pounds plus.

And of course I had to make them happy. So immediately went back to Dragons to say, hey look, to justify the better deal for you, really need to see what you commit to. And Deborah, Stephen, they turned up for calls themselves, which was brilliant. Tuca and Peter sent their teams, which is also cool, but also very quickly dropped out once I said, hey, we're gonna negotiate. Deborah and Stephen very much tried to get their committing to various introductions, committing to things that...

their team would get involved with, which was fun. But I was doing a lot of back and forth between them and the VCs coming in with a lot of money. And at some point, I just didn't think we'd get there. And so I called a halt to the negotiation, saying, I don't think we'll be able to bridge the gap between what you, Deborah and Steve, are able to commit to. That's going to make such a difference to the million pound check that they'll be happy with giving you a better deal. So we didn't go ahead.

but they are really wonderful, Deborah, every so often. We exchange notes, the startups are put away every so often, and getting occasional WhatsApps from Stephen Barlet is also fairly mental.

Desi (38:20) But I guess the publicity of the show was quite beneficial for the company, wasn't it? Even like that's how I heard about it.

Sanjay (38:26) Yeah, huge growth spurt for us. I think we had about 2 ,000 inbound leads in the following weeks. People, I mean, still, right, this is a year later, and you just mentioned it there, it comes up almost every meeting I have, certainly every launch we have of a company, someone in the audience will put their hand up and ask about Dragon's Den, and it's a year later. So I guess the goodwill and benefit you get from that exposure, it probably lasts for years.

Desi (38:34) Wow.

Sanjay (38:54) Again, massive force.

Desi (38:57) Steven Bartlett gave you some tough feedback on the app's design and branding during your pitch. Did you notice a significant change in the business and overall growth after the rebrand? I mean, I absolutely love your look and feel at the moment.

Sanjay (39:14) Thank you, yeah. So it was kind of fun when he kind of roasted us on national TV. He said something like, the app is really, really ugly. And then we have, we've used that on socials quite a bit. It's yeah, the app is really, really ugly. It's like, it was like, wow, okay, national TV, that hurt. But we had a brand rework in the works, which has come off and it is, it's lovely. It's really lovely, lovely look and feel we have now. But also go back to that moment, I do think.

Desi (39:23) Yeah, he used to neglect you.

Thank you.

Sanjay (39:43) Some of the advice I had when I was very early in tech was if you're happy with your product when you launch, you've launched too late. I think that was a Reid Hoffman quote. The whole idea is you just need to get out there, see the reaction and build from there. And so I guess if I could go back, I'd probably answer the question differently. It's like, look, yeah, you're right. But look at the growth and the revenue we've created with that. You want to make it better, absolutely. And it'll be 10x. But you need to get out there whilst you're kind of embarrassed of your product.

Desi (40:06) Yeah.

Perfect, right. It was an absolute pleasure meeting with Sanjay. Before I let you go, if you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Sanjay (40:27) Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's belief in yourself. And so yeah, if I go back over what we've talked about today, I don't think I have the confidence to do something myself until I went into my 40s. You had that question much earlier. Could you have been successful if you'd done this in your 20s? And I probably couldn't have been because I wasn't as confident about doing it. So belief in yourself, I think, is the greatest advice I could...

probably give to a younger self and anyone else out there who's listening, it's belief in yourself. If you want to do something like this, you can do it. It's a lot of work, sure, but anyone could do what we've achieved on it.

Desi (41:03) Well, you still need the talent and the dedication and the hard work. I wouldn't say anyone, but it's a great piece of advice. Where can people find you online?

Sanjay (41:13) We're on, I'm on LinkedIn, so look me up on LinkedIn, please do connect. Onhand is beonhands .co .uk. Look forward to hearing from them, thanks.